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Slow News Weeks Are Awesome!

BlahCade Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 12m·analyzed·Oct 31, 2018
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.031

TL;DR

BlahCade covers slow pinball news: Farsight monetization backlash, Beatles pinball leak criticism, and hypothetical Harry Potter licensing.

Summary

Chris Friebus and Jared Morgan host a light news episode of the BlahCade A A Pinball Podcast during a slow news cycle. They discuss Farsight's controversial Smurfberries monetization model in their digital pinball app, provide detailed critical commentary on the newly leaked Beatles pinball (a Seawitch reskin by Kapow/Jersey Jack Pinball limited to 1964 units with pastel 1960s aesthetics), and extensively digress into classic films and filmography canon, with tangential discussion of Harry Potter as a missed pinball licensing opportunity.

Key Claims

  • Farsight's Smurfberries monetization requires escalating token costs based on player level, reaching absurd numbers at higher levels

    high confidence · Chris Friebus describing player feedback on the Smurfberries controversy; stated as observed pattern from audience responses

  • Beatles pinball is a Seawitch reskin with a 1964-unit production limit

    high confidence · Chris and Jared discussing the leaked Beatles pinball video; confirmed detail about production cap tied to 1964 (Beatles formation year)

  • The Beatles pinball video was leaked unintentionally and received overwhelmingly negative YouTube comments

    high confidence · Chris: 'the video wasn't supposed to drop. It got, oops, leaked.' Jared confirms negative reception from YouTube comments

  • Joe Kaminkow (Kapow owner) was heavily promoting the Beatles license on Head-to-Head2Head Pinball, claiming it took 10 years to secure

    medium confidence · Chris recounting Kamikow's pitch: 'we've been trying and trying and all of a sudden they said, yeah, sure, let's do it. It's been in the works for 10 years'

  • Beatles pinball adds only two new mechanical features: a spinning disc magnet and two extra stand-up targets plus a ball lock

    high confidence · Chris and Jared analyzing the leaked video and comparing it to base Seawitch mechanics

  • Zen digital pinball has been very tight with NDA compliance and rarely leaks information, unlike Farsight

    medium confidence · Chris: 'Zen has been very lockbox tight on leaking information. Yeah, they're essentially pretty good with their NDAs' versus Farsight where casual conversations yield hints

  • Harry Potter has never been licensed for pinball despite being an obvious fit for digital tables

    high confidence · Chris and Jared discussing missed licensing opportunity; speculation that licensing costs or timing (post-peak franchise popularity) may be barriers

  • Zen has never licensed any Warner Brothers properties despite their significant negotiating experience

Notable Quotes

  • “Yeah, it will trigger me constantly. I'll just go and play Zen.”

    Jared Morgan @ ~15:30 — Illustrates how monetization friction can drive players away from a digital pinball title entirely

  • “It's not an action-packed film, but I didn't realize how that it was actually so limited in story until probably my fifth or sixth viewing. And I realized the visuals are so astounding in the world building. It's so astounding that that filled in everything else for me.”

    Chris Friebus @ ~55:00 — Discussion about Blade Runner's appeal despite thin narrative; demonstrates hosts' film analysis depth during non-pinball digression

  • “If you're laying it on that thick when you're trying to get people interested in it, there's a reason why you are.”

    Chris Friebus @ ~28:00 — Skeptical analysis of Joe Kamikow's overly enthusiastic Beatles license promotion, suggesting weak underlying game quality

  • “It's just a snooze fest... There's no excitement going on right now... There's no ramps there's a flat layout.”

    Jared Morgan @ ~25:00 — Critical assessment of Beatles pinball gameplay based on leaked video, citing monotonous flat layout design

  • “Why in the world is there no Harry Potter pinball? I have no idea. It is such a gross oversight.”

    Chris Friebus @ ~80:00 — Frustration about missed licensing opportunity; launches extensive discussion of Harry Potter's natural fit for digital pinball

  • “A table exclusively dealing with playing Quidditch is such a natural for pinball. It's ridiculous.”

    Chris Friebus @ ~85:00 — Specific pinball game design concept; illustrates depth of unrealized Harry Potter potential

  • “Zen has been very lockbox tight on leaking information. Yeah, they're essentially pretty good with their NDAs. Whereas I can have a casual conversation with somebody from Farsight and they drop me hints about stuff.”

    Chris Friebus @ ~115:00 — Industry insight into manufacturer communication practices and NDA discipline differences

Entities

Chris FriebuspersonJared MorganpersonSteve KirkpersonJoe KaminkowpersonZen StudioscompanyFarsight StudioscompanyKapow PinballcompanyZacharia Pinballcompany

Signals

  • ?

    product_concern: Farsight's Smurfberries progressive cost model creates escalating purchase barriers that frustrate players and overshadow actual game quality

    high · Chris and Jared discuss player feedback showing the monetization model dominates perception; 'it becomes about the model that you've implemented for pricing. Right. So it's actually a pricing game, not an actual pinball game.'

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Beatles pinball revealed through leak to overwhelmingly negative community response on YouTube comments; pastel aesthetic and minimal mechanical additions rejected by audience

    high · Chris: 'Well, yeah, I've heard that basically it was a whole lot of thumbs down from everyone watching it.' Jared confirms YouTube comment sentiment matches their own critical concerns

  • ?

    leak_detection: Beatles pinball promotional video released prematurely without authorization, surfacing machine details before official announcement

    high · Chris: 'Apparently, the video wasn't supposed to drop. It got, oops, leaked.' Details about game mechanics and aesthetics derived from unauthorized video

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Beatles pinball uses early 1960s pastel color palette that hosts argue is visually weak compared to source material and base Sea Witch design; discussion of black-and-white alternative aesthetic inspired by Centaur and Twilight Zone precedents

    medium · Jared: 'It's got that early 60s color palette. It's very pastel, isn't it? Oh, just kind of gross.' Chris proposes: 'you could do black and white Beatles... It would look very tasteful, and it would be a very big point of difference'

  • ?

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.218

0:00
this is the blockade podcast with your hosts chris and jared you are listening to the blockade pinball podcast i am your host chris freebiss aka shut your trap joining me as always halfway across the world jared morgan good day how do oh yeah life is life at the moment life is life trudging through it at the moment how about you know pretty much the same it's nothing exciting to shout out about that's for sure just the regular life just regular which is sometimes not bad but certainly boring in a lot of other people's minds so folks as you can tell it's a bit light on the old penny news this week we're in one of those calms before the storm if you will so we're going to be spinning our wheels quite a bit on things that are not pinball related we'll get some pinball in there eventually but I'll just give you the heads up right now we are scheduling to have another chat with Mel Kirk from Zen that'll be coming up in I believe two weeks or so that'll be one of those also that we pre-record because there'll be stuff that we'll have to edit out no doubt but yeah that'll be one of those and I mean pretty much you can guess it's going to be about the announcement of what the next batch of tables are going to be I believe he's got some other stuff brewing that he wants to talk to us about so that'll be coming up but until then, yeah, pinball news is going to be... We've really only got one news stream that's sort of active at the moment. That's really Zen. So, I mean, Farsight's there, but they're not really doing a lot of pinball at the moment, and Zacharia is there as well, but again, they're not a high-volume producer. Speaking of Farsight, let's touch upon some things. Last week, we discussed the terrible case of Smurfberries. Yes. Well, it turns out that the Smurfberries are even worse.
2:27
Because whereas we were saying that you had to earn 1,000 tokens before you can buy one gold bar, apparently that was also based on what level you were at within playing. So the better you play, now you come up to a higher level, and now you have to earn even more tokens. Like 2,000 tokens for gold. And eventually it gets to an absurd number. So, yeah, the Smurf fairies even get worse.
2:59

medium confidence · Chris and Jared noting Zen's lack of WB licenses; speculation that Warner Bros. licensing is prohibitively expensive based on Farsight's historical experience

  • “It's probably very expensive... By the time Pinball kind of got its feet back underneath it, Harry Potter was pretty much on its tail legs.”

    Jared Morgan @ ~95:00 — Hypothesis about why Harry Potter wasn't licensed despite obvious fit; timing and franchise momentum theory

    • Beatles
    game
    Seawitchgame
    Medieval Madnessgame
    Star's Phoenixgame
    BlahCade Pinball Podcastevent
    Head to Head Pinball Podcastevent
    Harry Pottergame
    Twilight Zonegame
    Centaurgame
    Theatre of Magicgame
    Fantastic Beastsgame
    Warner Brotherscompany
    Smurfberriesproduct

    licensing_signal: Harry Potter remains unlicensed for pinball despite being identified as natural fit for digital tables; hosts speculate licensing costs and timing (post-peak franchise popularity) as barriers; no Warner Brothers properties in Zen portfolio

    medium · Chris: 'Why in the world is there no Harry Potter pinball? I have no idea. It is such a gross oversight.' Jared theorizes: 'By the time Pinball kind of got its feet back underneath it, Harry Potter was pretty much on its tail legs'

  • ?

    design_innovation: Hosts propose detailed Harry Potter pinball concepts including Quidditch-themed table with oversized bludger pinballs, rewind mechanic for time-turner sequences, moving staircases and trap doors for Hogwarts table

    low · Extensive design discussion: 'A table exclusively dealing with playing Quidditch is such a natural for pinball... hoops at the back of a play field that you would launch the ball through is just a no-brainer'

  • ?

    product_strategy: Beatles pinball production capped at 1964 units, using historically significant year as artificial scarcity marker; hosts skeptical about whether full run will sell despite heavy FOMO marketing

    high · Chris: 'They're limiting the production run to 1964... I don't know if they're going to be selling 1964 of them I bet they will I bet they fully will there's so many Beatles nuts out there'

  • ?

    content_signal: Chris Frebus recorded call-out voice-over work for Stars Phoenix (Zacharia game), encountering technical production challenges with file organization and audio variation expectations

    high · Chris describes recording process: 'I did record all of my call-outs for Stars Phoenix in Zachary of Pinball... did it from home and just used Audacity to record.' Details about production request for individual files versus combined variation batches

  • ?

    industry_signal: Zen Studios maintains strict information control with tight NDA compliance; contrasts sharply with Farsight's more permissive casual information sharing with media personalities

    medium · Chris: 'Zen has been very lockbox tight on leaking information... Whereas I can have a casual conversation with somebody from Farsight and they drop me hints about stuff and I'd be like, oh, interesting, okay. We're not getting that at all'

  • ?

    business_signal: Current pinball news cycle characterized as slow with minimal active announcements; only Zen Studios providing consistent content stream; hosts note this is typical 'calm before the storm' pattern

    medium · Chris: 'folks as you can tell it's a bit light on the old penny news this week we're in one of those calms before the storm if you will... pinball news is going to be... We've really only got one news stream that's sort of active at the moment. That's really Zen.'

  • ?

    rumor_hype: Zen Studios has upcoming announcement about next batch of digital pinball tables; Mel Kirk (Zen representative) pre-recorded interview scheduled for ~2 weeks out with potential additional unspecified announcements

    high · Chris: 'we're scheduling to have another chat with Mel Kirk from Zen that'll be coming up in I believe two weeks or so... it's going to be about the announcement of what the next batch of tables are going to be... he's got some other stuff brewing that he wants to talk to us about'

    • Oh, dear. Terrible. People have actually, some players have actually told you, responded to the call that we sent out saying, what's it actually like playing this thing with the Smurf fairies? Oh, dear. Wow. That's a terrible, terrible thing. Somebody brought it up that they were going to review the game, and they actually had positive things to say about the game. And it's like, oh yeah, there's a game.
    3:30
    Oh yeah, that's right. But that's the problem, is when you get focused on the controversies that are within it, sometimes that can taint everything else that's going on about it. All the time. If you have something that gets in the way of you enjoying the game, this is what we were talking about last week, if you don't enjoy the game, you focus not on the actual game itself and the mechanics of unlocking things so you can play. And it doesn't become about the game anymore. It becomes about the model that you've implemented for pricing. Right. So it's actually a pricing game, not an actual pinball game. And that's really stupid.
    4:08
    Even though you can technically avoid it, yeah. You just don't play it. That's how you technically avoid it. You see it, you get offended by it, you know. Yeah. It will trigger me constantly. I'll just go and play Zen. and well and that's the same thing though Zen is kind of having to deal with right now I don't think it was really affecting that many people but the whole censorship thing it kind of overtook the story yeah for the die hard fans for everyone else they could not care less about it honestly everyone else is going hey cool look at these digital pinball tables that I've never seen before because I've only been playing Zen with people these are great let's keep these coming and that's literally where the interest in it stops it's only folks like you and I and the rest of the real diehard fans that are really worrying too much about censorship I did see a funny comment regarding medieval madness in tournament mode somebody was like hey guys I'm having a really hard time hitting the catapult in tournament mode what's up with that and so I had a go at it and sure enough I was having a hard time but then I all of a sudden realized yeah I can't hit the catapult in real life either so it's actually not really a tournament's fault it's just that's a really hard shot well you wind up hitting the post a lot yeah you do and depending on the sensitivity of that rubber it'll kick that ball right back at you as opposed to if it's a dead rubber then the ball will kind of ricochet in you know I've actually played the original medieval and the remake medieval and on that catapult entry they've actually got on the bottom side of the catapult entry, they've got this metal sort of a guide on there now. So I think it used to just be like a gate and a rubber, but now it seems like they've got this metal form piece instead, and I think that's making it slightly easier to get in there. So it's just a bit interesting to see how they've modified that. They obviously modified it because it was probably getting slammed a lot by balls, and they wanted to strengthen it. But yeah, it seems to be different from my memory at least. So I'd like to see an original medieval and a remake medieval side by side and see what the differences are. You have to look those up maybe. You have to have a look on the internets.
    6:30
    Because finding an original medieval is a little bit tough. Yeah, we've got some around here now. They're mostly remakes on site now. Yeah. I mean, why wouldn't you? If you're going to put one on site, you would put a remake on there because they're going to be more reliable. Oh, yeah. Boy, boy.
    6:49
    Let's see. What other pinball-ish news can we go for? Ah, I did record all of my call-outs for Stars Phoenix in Zachary of Pinball that's coming up.
    7:02
    So how'd you do it? Did you just do it from your home with your equipment? Yep. Did it from home and just used Audacity to record. and the one thing that I apparently didn't do right was...
    7:17
    So when I'm on set and people do what we call wild lines, which are audio that is not filmed. It's just purely for the sound guys. So this is the kind of thing that you would hear, you know, the other end of a phone conversation or somebody doing an off-screen call out of, you know, they just want different and they always want variations of the line reading. And so the actor will sit there and they'll say the same line over and over again, maybe four or five different variations of it. And it gives the editors what they want, something to choose what they want to go for. So with each of the call outs, I did just that. I did them in about three or four different variations. And then I moved on. So it would be like, you know, if I had to say bonus two times, I'd be like, bonus two times. Bonus two times. bonus two times! Because I don't know what they want. Right, so I was just rolling them off.
    8:18
    So I clumped, like, there was five different bonus things to go through. So I clumped all those into one, called that a file, and then moved on to open up a new file. Well, apparently what they really wanted was each and every one to have its own file. Really? Because now they're going to have to go through and break them up. But my point is, yeah, but I don't know what I'm going to do with different voice variation for each call out. Yeah. Within that block of five, you know, I'm going to have 30 files or something like that. You know, if I'm not getting in a little direction, then I'd rather just hear you sort it out. You know, pick the one you want. You can isolate it, cut it and rip it, rip it and then take it. Yeah, exactly. Be on your merry way. but it was one of those things where it was a little bit odd doing them out loud. And I told my wife, I was like, just don't laugh at me while I'm doing these. Because it's like, it's going to sound dumb. Yeah. It's going to sound completely out of context for anything that's going on. Yeah. It sounds odd, but they all shouldn't be like jackpot. Yeah.
    9:33
    Yes. and actually wanting to get excited enough to say jackpot correctly. Right. Yeah. It would be hard to do. It was pretty fun, though. I enjoyed doing that.
    9:45
    If I get the opportunity again, I'd love to do it again. It's a different voice, but yeah, that was cool. It would be fun. What else? Ah, did you see the Beatles pinball? The video dropped. Apparently, the video wasn't supposed to drop. It got, oops, leaked. Oh, did it? Yeah. Well, yeah, I've heard that basically it was a whole lot of thumbs down from everyone watching it. Well, if you've had a look at it, it's got that early 60s color palette. It's very pastel, isn't it? Oh, just kind of gross. It doesn't look great to me. And then, especially when you compare, again, it's a reskin of Sea Witch. and then you look at Sea Witch and you go yeah I'd rather have that yeah just give me Sea Witch yeah think of it I actually think the list price of Sea Witches will be going up now because of this or you know what people are going to do they're going to basically get it and just put a Sea Witch skin over the top of it they get rid of all the Beatles but you wouldn't because it's going to cost you $30,000 so yeah upon further reading they said that they well they're limiting the production run to 1964 so 1964 that's when this is all set the song list too is like really that's okay and I mean they added a couple of features to the table that's different from Sea Witch but wow they got a spinning disc and a magnet at the top wow There's two extra stand-up targets, and I think there's a ball lock behind the drop target bank. Right. That's about the sum of it. But even the video. It was a single ball, wasn't it? Yeah, I found out mistaken. But even you watch the video, and it's just a snooze fest. It is. Wow. There's no excitement going on right now.
    11:56
    No. It's pretty flat. and as I say that because it is pretty flat there's no ramps there's a flat layout boy yeah I tell you what I don't know if they're going to be selling 1964 of them I bet they will I bet they fully will there's so many Beatles nuts out there that yeah they probably will sell unfortunately which sets a precedent I know that the guy who was I think the guy that was on head-to-head pinball, the owner of Kapow,
    12:32
    Joe Kamikow, I think his name is, and he was selling it hard. We couldn't tell anyone what it was. He goes, you won't believe that this license is possible, but we managed to get it. It's been in the works for 10 years. We've been trying and trying and all of a sudden they said, yeah, sure, let's do it. And it's like, oh, it's amazing. I think you'll really like it. There's a lot to like about the game. It was like really, really lay it on thick, eh?
    12:57
    And I was going, hmm, if you're laying it on that thick when you're trying to get people interested in it, there's a reason why you are. Just go through the YouTube comments and you'll see what people's opinions are of it. Now, I mean, granted, it's YouTube. You can't trust every comment that's on there, but you can certainly get a taste of it. It's a barometer of what people are thinking, yeah. And it was certainly most of the stuff that was being commented on was exactly the things I was thinking of when I was watching the video of it.
    13:27
    There's not enough on there to like an extra... Sure, having a two-ball multi-ball, it's nice, but why stop at two? You could have gone with three pretty easily, I would think. If you're redesigning mechanisms in the playfield, why just have a two-ball? So, I don't know. I also, just with the color scheme too, it's like to me, that's black and white era Beatles. So let's have black and white Beatles. Have you ever seen shots of the black and white Twilight Zone? Right. Yeah, because they've done one. Someone has actually rethemed it for black and white. It looks pretty incredible. All you have to do is think of Centaur. That's virtually all black and white.
    14:09
    And it works. They've just got accents of red on there, and that's what really makes it an effective-looking play field. But, yeah, you could do the same thing with this pretty easily, actually. It would look very tasteful, and it would be a very big point of difference out there in the market. This is just like, yeah, I don't know. It's not translating very well on video. Maybe it looks better in person. Yeah. What they really should have done was a Sgt. Pepper era, and then it would just look like a Zachariah table. Yeah. In a whack.
    14:42
    It would have looked like Farfella then, wouldn't it? Right, exactly. Yeah. Oh. Okay, we're going to – I've got a little bit of pinball talk that we'll talk about a little bit later, but we're going to move into a different category. Okay. So this is the non pinball version of things, folks. Um, this past week, talking with two different people, both of who, one is in his early thirties. One is in his, uh, late thirties, I believe, but mentioning of movies and I'm going, no, never seen it. And my jaw hitting the floor because they fancy themselves, science fiction people. They like pop culture.
    15:26
    They like mainstream movies. Yet, somehow, one of the guys had never seen Blade Runner. Because of that, he didn't see the newer Blade Runner.
    15:42
    Again, this is somebody who really likes hard science fiction. I'm just like how I have to realize oh yeah you know by the time you were old enough to probably be even aware of the movie was already 20 years old so okay fine whatever but then another friend of mine first off a couple of weeks ago I discovered he'd never seen Terminator or Terminator 2 which is And he loves time travel movies. I'm like, how do you avoid that? I don't understand.
    16:23
    The funny part is he goes, oh, those are about time travel? Yeah, mate. But then I found out that he'd never seen Aliens.
    16:37
    And then you went, ah, I got to question my friendship with you. You need to just drop what you're doing and go take care of that right now. To which credit to him, he did exactly that. But it made me think about what are movies that you just like from the now you're going to you're going to be a little bit younger than me. So you're going to be a slightly different skewing of this. But I was thinking movies from the 80s and early 90s that if you heard somebody hadn't seen today that you just that you consider a friend or that you've had conversations with that seemed normal, that they seem like they would be up on the same kind of pop culture that you are, that you would just go, what? How? I don't. How? Why? What are you doing? I think probably for me.
    17:30
    Oh, it might be diehard, actually. You have to have seen Die Hard. That's a man of... Absolutely. Yeah, Die Hard is like, really. And Jurassic Park as well. Like, in the cinemas, Jurassic Park.
    17:46
    Well, like, Die Hard is one of those that created its own genre. It did, yeah. And so many movies came out because of that genre. um you know i i look similarly at i look at lethal weapon oh yeah lethal weapon was another one too that the epitome of the buddy cop movie now obviously back 24 hours was the first of that you know the the the true antagonists uh, but I got my head, you know, heads against each other, but lethal weapon perfected it and spawned countless other buddy cop movies. Yes. Of that. Um, so that's certainly on my list. You know, when you go, when you think about, uh, other science fiction that is, uh, Robocop.
    18:39
    Yeah, Robocop is a big one. Yeah, that was like... And that's because it's that melding of... Police drama and science fiction. Drama, books, science fiction. Yeah, you know, it's over the top kind of stuff.
    18:57
    Oh, the other one would have to be, for me, Last Action Hero. Like, that is just... Really? You liked that movie? I think it was hilarious. It was great. Oh, my gosh, I hate that movie. Oh, really? I hate it so much.
    19:10
    Why do you hate it so much? I hate it because I recognize the potential of it. I love meta movies. That's why Deadpool I love because it's pointing out all the things that I would recognize anyways. What I hated about Last Action Hero was A, the kid annoyed the crap out of me. it was Arnold like Arnold in True Lies that's the perfect Arnold amalgamation you know it's rock solid action but he's also dropping one liners left and right but you're not cringing at him whereas in Last Magic Hero I was cringing at him it was like too polished too you know alright oh the gallery over here on the YouTube comments is starting to come alive. Far up.
    20:05
    Yes, we were getting that Blade Runner boring. You know what? I'll give you. It's not an action-packed film, but I didn't realize how that it was actually so limited in story until probably my fifth or sixth viewing. And I realized the visuals are so astounding in the world building. It's so astounding that that filled in everything else for me before I finally went, hey, there's not much really here.
    20:34
    But it's pretty as hell. Yeah. Another comment here. Fifth Element. That's world building right on top of Blade Runner. That's my second favorite. Yeah, I love Fifth Element. That's a great choice. Great choice. Yeah, and then they put in Starship Troopers, which... I love it for its just taking the piss out of itself so well. I love it. Here's where I go. I would rather watch Robocop. I mean, you know, they're both Verheaven movies, and they're both gleefully violent. I would lean more towards the Robocop mentality.
    21:08
    What, you've never seen it? Starship Troopers a lot of people I can forget for not having seen. It got a really bad rap when it was released and there's probably a good reason for it. I love it. It's so terrible it's good for me. That's what I love about it. You think about this and again, because of how old it is, there's plenty of people that are full grown adults that have never seen Raiders of the Lost Ark. Yeah. Even if it's been on reruns, like on TV. Yeah. Which I would just have to smack him in the face and be like, go take care of that. I'm not talking to you until you go take care of that. It's just unacceptable.
    21:47
    If you went the comedy route, you have to have seen Animal House. That movie influenced so much and to this day is still influencing movies. Yeah, see, I've not seen that one.
    22:00
    I need to go and do it. Of course, you've got little ones in the house, so you've got to save it for late night. Or just headphones and my laptop in my room, having a private session. Right.
    22:12
    Same thing goes with Caddyshack, that movie. Oh, yeah, I've seen Caddyshack. There's been a fair few variations of Caddyshack 2, hasn't there? It's like a couple of them, isn't there? No, there was Caddyshack 2. Yes. And thankfully, that was the end of it. the funny thing is that with Caddyshack 2, it actually has elements in it that I love, but they're like maybe 10 minutes worth of the movie, and the rest of the movie is utter garbage.
    22:40
    Yeah. Oh, oh, oh, wait a second. This is a good one that just popped up. Somebody says that Porky's is better than Animal House, to which I say I didn't laugh once watching Porky's, not once. And if I watched it today, it doesn't hold up In the least. And the weird thing is that that came out directed by the same guy. Porky's came out the exact same year that A Christmas Story came out. So the same director directed Porky's and A Christmas Story, which is just – I don't know what A Christmas Story is either. Oh, see, you're not in America where it airs 24 hours a day during Christmas. Oh, right. Okay. Your Christmases are not filled with snow and cold weather.
    23:23
    So completely different vibe. It doesn't surprise me that you in Australia, that wouldn't even be a touchstone in the least.
    23:30
    There was one, it's a rom-com that is set in Christmas, and it's got a whole lot of famous people in it.
    23:39
    Love Actually? Yes, Love Actually, yeah. That always, always comes out at Christmas over here. Like with, yeah, every single time. You can guarantee that that will be on rerun again. now have you seen Christmas Vacation no wow see there's another that to me I think that's just before my era that one I think yeah so those are my that's my two Christmas movies right there is Christmas Story and Christmas Vacation it's like and Die Hard watch the YouTube comments light up with that one um uh what else uh ferris bueller oh yeah ferris bueller is great if somebody hasn't seen that it's like it still holds up today as far as i'm concerned other than the fact that the complete lack of cell phones would if there were cell phones today it would completely change that movie like everything that happens in that movie would be completely different because of cell phones yeah well it wouldn't it wouldn't really be that way no it wouldn't be a movie I question whether I would consider Conan the Barbarian one that is a you have to have seen that because I don't know it's one of those that is kind of a deep dive as to whether I would be amazed if somebody hadn't and then if you go deeper into the 90s it's Heat that's kind of like one of my last ones that it's like what? You haven't seen Heat?
    25:16
    I haven't seen Heat What's it about? Heat is about a group of thieves headed up by Robert De Niro, and they're going after a rather large score. And Al Pacino is the cop that is basically trying to crack what's going on in the city of L.A. It features, hands down, the best gun battle you've ever seen. All right. It is, I think, an eight-minute long battle. Wow. And there is no music. It's just the sound and echoes, because it takes place in downtown LA. Yeah. Just the sound of automatic gunfire. It's one of those that if you ever want to impress somebody with your home theater setup. That's the one. You throw that scene on, you crank it up as loud as possible because the bass thumps, you just pound in your chest. Oh, wow. I remember when I saw it in the theater and people broke out in applause after that scene was over. People just stood up and clapped. It was absolutely incredible. I just watched the movie three weeks ago, three or four weeks ago, and still, to me, it's a flawless movie. It's absolutely perfect. and that's about the final in terms of this timeline that I'm saying 80s to early mid 90s because beyond that a person in this age bracket that I'm talking about has probably seen everything else that's kind of shuttled through after probably yeah but oh my wife just popped in and goes wait has Jared seen Harry Potter yet oh yeah well yes actually because they're actually doing I have seen most of the Harry Potters up to about, I think, the third one, and then I tailed off. But now they're actually doing reruns of them all in sequence on TV at the moment. So I'm filling a lot of the gaps. I think they're playing Order of the Phoenix tonight.
    27:26
    So, yeah, I'm getting a lot of the gaps filled in. I watched the one the other night, which, strangely enough, it stayed in my memory for a while. it was one where they have the time Turner and they get back in time to solve things. Thanks. The, uh, use of, of time. Well, not time travel, but like time. Yeah. It was wonderful. Like to watch it again. It's like, yeah, this is a great story. Like there's, there's nothing you can say. That's really well put together. Yeah. So yeah, I really enjoyed rewatching that again, which brings up again. Why in the world is there no Harry Potter pinball? I have no idea. It is such a gross oversight. I don't know. JK Rowling charging too much. Boy, they could do some things. Imagine if they got that license in Zen. We've said it before. Would run wild with it. There's, they could make a whole like sub genre, like pack of Harry Potter. I mean, right off the bat, not only do you have the, just the pins about the movies, you know, personally, you could, you could do six right there. Well, there's eight. No, there's a total of eight. story-wise with the books, but split them up into three in terms of what the tables are covering. Boom. There's three tables right there. A table exclusively dealing with playing Quidditch is such a natural for pinball. It's ridiculous.
    28:53
    I can even think about having oversized pinballs that would be released to block your ball as a bludger or something like that.
    29:01
    Hoops at the back of a play field that you would launch the ball through is just a no-brainer to me. Oh, geez. It would be so good.
    29:12
    Then you think about the very idea of, say, turning back time. What does Zen have? They have the rewind button. Can you imagine rewinding events that you've been playing? Imagine doing that exact scene where you're actually retracing your steps for the time term and you weren't able to actually like there'd be a ball on the play field, but you couldn't get near the ball because then it would break the, you know, you can't be seen rule. That would just be amazing. Yeah. You know, you could have a whole thing where the, uh, one table is nothing but Hogwarts with moving staircases, moving ramps, um, you know, going into different areas. You could have, uh, you know, my wife is now shouting kind of things. She'll trap doors, trap doors. Yeah. Think about the theater of magic table. Yeah. It's a table about magic. Now just Harry Potter themed the whole thing and bam, you know, instant beauty. I just, yeah, it's astounding to me that there hasn't been. And now you've got a whole new batch of movies that are coming out with the fantastic beast. You already had one. You've got another one that's about to open in a couple of weeks. They've already said they're going to make five of them. Five. Wow. No pinball. I just, I don't get it in the least. And I really think Zen should be hopping on this. Oh man. It's such natural for digital pinball. It's ridiculous. It is just begging to be done. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Because the thing is that, you know, they don't have the problem of like going into a franchise that maybe is in the first like couple of things, the first couple of movies. They've got so much material to work with here. It's all... God, this is awesome. Yeah. Like there's no problem with trying to work ahead of the movie release or anything like that. It's all laid out for you. and you can pick and choose exactly what you want is just like the best. It had to be the best scenario for a studio wanting to do this. And there's so many, just like Star Wars, there's all these offshoot side stories. Oh, geez. Some of these books that have been, and they're all written by the actual author, so it's not even like, you know, it's... No fanfic. No, they're actually genuine. Yeah, so it's one of those titles that to me is just such an easy, natural fit.
    31:33
    There must be a reason why it hasn't been done. I'd say it's probably very expensive. Well, I think it's... The first movie came out at the same time as Lord of the Rings.
    31:45
    And obviously they did a Lord of the Rings table and that was the end of it. But that was also when Pinball was really struggling. And I think by the time Pinball kind of got its feet back underneath it,
    31:58
    Harry Potter was pretty much on its tail legs. They might have been like, it's not worth, it's not a hot property if you will.
    32:08
    Yeah, but potentially. Maybe that's the problem. They go back and they do the Hobbit tables. You got those.
    32:16
    I don't know. It's just one of those titles that it boggles my mind that it hasn't been done, especially by his head. That's the one that I'm just amazed of all the properties that they get offered to do. now they haven't done a single Warner Brothers property yet. It is a Warner Brothers table. That's right. It's a Warner Brothers franchise. And they have it.
    32:38
    Because Warner Brothers is like the Jaws and all that, right? No, Jaws was Universal. Universal, that's right. Future E.T., Jaws.
    32:48
    Have they actually done any Warner Brothers properties at all? No. Maybe they'd actually done a lot of things. Farsight didn't do any Warner Brothers tables, which would have been Dirty Harry, Flintstones.
    33:01
    What else was Warner Brothers that was Bugs Bunny's birthday bash? Please don't do that. Don't do that.
    33:09
    You know, but I think that Farsight, in their negotiating ability, said that Warner Brothers was prohibitively expensive.
    33:18
    Oh, Batman would be Warner Brothers. Yes, that's probably the reason why there's a lot of very interesting, very expensive properties in there.
    33:27
    But, you know, then have the chops to do it. That's not their first radio with negotiations. So, no. And it's one of those. That's where I look. They're not going to stick with just doing Williams Valley tables. They already know that. I think their plate has been cleared of.
    33:45
    Licenses that they agreed to do. but we've, we'd asked them about how they were choosing properties and they said, it's not even us approaching the licenses anymore. The licenses are approaching us and saying, Hey, we want to, you know, have a pinball machine. And they're like, so we're calling through this, this pile. So yeah, maybe Potter never has even come up, but probably not. And the problem is, is we could ask Mel about it and he's not going to drop a hint. No way. He's not going to tell us. Unfortunately, Zen has been very lockbox tight on leaking information.
    34:23
    Yeah, they're essentially pretty good with their NDAs. Whereas I can have a casual conversation with somebody from Farsight and they drop me hints about stuff and I'd be like, oh, interesting, okay. We're not getting that at all.
    34:37
    I think it's because of just the fact that with Farsight they were really only dealing with one licensor which was scientific or whoever the other licensor was before then but you know there's so many different brands involved in the tables that zen do that you know they they can't just drop it they just can't do it so it's uh i don't know i keep on going back to that one though where it's just like ah when they announce that that'll you know if they ever announce it that'll be awesome because i think that it would be absolutely they would go nuts with the elements on the table they can just absolutely go nuts yeah the pinball designers over in Budapest would just be going nuts with all the things they could do I can only begin to imagine what they'd do with it I think we'd see the return of a lot of virtual ramps put it that way and it's just like just in the five or so minutes that we've been spitballing we can come up with a myriad of ideas now imagine sitting in a designer's room and being like okay folks we're going to brainstorm for the next two hours yeah or like two weeks two hour sessions or whatever and you keep on revisiting it revisiting it revisiting it oh my god the amount of the whiteboard would be filled oh yeah it's yeah they've had two whiteboards full of stuff not just one it would just be incredible yeah I really hope it eventuates I'm sure that Zinn probably would too because I mean they have to be thinking of this as like something I'd like to do I still say that the hint was dropped and it's not going to be mentioned again because it probably won't happen now that when Mel said that he wished that they could do Stranger Things as a license I putting on my skeptical or my prospector hat here I'm pretty sure that they were in talk with Telltale. You reckon? And then it got canned. I do. Because Telltale was working on a Stranger Things game. Yeah, right. And they already have a relationship with Telltale. With doing Walking Dead. And it was going to be that exact same type of game. I'd put money down on saying that that was on the cards and now it ain't gonna happen yeah you're probably right it certainly would add up if they were having a discussion about it yeah which it would have been interesting too because there again you've got a game that has or a show that has fantasy elements that could be so quickly done in the pinball world especially now that we see what you think about when they go into the upside down, it would be just like what we see currently with the Williams tables, where with the push of a button, the whole play field changes its look. And that's exactly what would happen.
    37:29
    It would be just boom, done, you know, can't do this in a real table. Can you exactly, it's, you know, and, and you would imagine that the physics would be also a little bit different too, just because of the very nature of, the show with what happens there. Yep, absolutely.
    37:48
    You know, things that we can dream about. Yeah, that are really probably just going to remain as dreams. Yeah.
    37:59
    I've gotten all my parts in for the microcab. Hooray! However, I now realize I did two boneheaded things.
    38:11
    The first boneheaded thing was that I ordered my flipper buttons, and I got those in, and then I realized that they didn't come with the backs to secure them to the actual pinball machine. Oh, the nuts. Yeah, right. So for our YouTube friends, it's this little nut, the little flat. They make it either out of nylon or steel. Yep. That's what holds the flipper body into the cabinet. Right. because all the arcade buttons that I bought came with the backs. I just assumed that the flipper button would come with the back. I didn't bother clicking onto the other page on the Pinball website.
    38:58
    So this little nut that costs $0.35 a nut, sure, I could order them, but then I'm going to have to pay $10 in shipping.
    39:07
    Yeah, right. Hopefully the hardware store has what I need. I can't imagine that they're not going to have something as basic as this. And then my friend even said, he goes, if it's as simple as what you're saying, I could probably 3D print you one. And I was like, yeah, well. Yeah, true. The other boneheaded thing was there's two different lengths of flipper buttons.
    39:27
    Based off of all the arcade buttons that I got, I went and kind of matched their length with the shorter version of the flipper button. And then today I went outside because I was curious. I was like, wait, how do these flipper buttons go into the cabinet? Is it a partially drilled out hole and then another hole completely drilled through for where the screw portion, the thread portion goes through? And that's what captures and traps. So I want to see. So I went out. Well, I've got my Bally table, which is 8-Ball Deluxe, and I've got my Williams table, which is Firepower.
    40:02
    Firepower is a mess on top. I haven't been cracking it open to take a look at it. The play field's not even in there. I've got that pulled. So I never was looking at it. I was just looking at my bally table.
    40:12
    The bally table does not use this kind of flipper button or nut. It uses a whole housing that it goes into. Yeah, it uses the Gottlieb style. Right. Yeah. So that was kind of what I kept on seeing and what I kept on looking at. So today I decided, okay, fine. I cleared off the top of the firepower, opened it up, looked because I just wanted to see what this nut looked like. I pull out the flipper button. I go, hey, this is longer than the one I ordered.
    40:45
    So I go and I look, and sure enough, it's about a quarter of an inch longer. So I take the one that I ordered and I put it into the machine, and it just barely clears the three-quarter-inch plywood. Yeah, right. There's no room for the nut to actually secure onto, and it's not going to be able to push the switches. Yep, actuator. Yeah. so now I'm thinking instead of three quarter inch MDF that we're going to build this out can we do it in half inch and my thought process because of that is because of the arcade buttons are shorter also which means they're not going to have much tooth to grab onto now they don't have to worry about the actual you know the switch the pinball leaf that's right but I'm like crap did I just totally bone myself with not having cleared off that table and looked or do i need to order up those you might just have to suck it up and order the right length buttons and the um and the nuts while you're there i really don't know i really don't know or is it a situation where we make the side panels where the flipper buttons go uh because again my the one button the one button that i'm using that's the arcade button that goes underneath the two flipper buttons it's just as short as the ones I ordered. So maybe it's I need half inch there and I can do three quarter inch everywhere else or does that even make sense? Why is the three quarter inch completely arbitrary or can we do it out of half inch? I don't know. I got to call my buddy up and find out if that throws a giant monkey wrench into the hole. For the application that you're using, you probably could get away with half inch. I would think. The three quarter was because you're dealing with all that weight. You need a rigid box whereas you don't need that rigid box for what it is. Nothing going except a couple of very light circuit boards and just well the other option the other thing too is oh you know you don't even have to worry about your mounting for your legs being a consistent size because you're just going to use bolts and and nuts through them so you don't need to worry about any sort of place or any of that sort of stuff that's standard pimple hardware so that's not even a consideration well um that uh i did go ahead and uh order the mounting brackets for the legs it's still okay because they're you're still going to have a right angle which is they're going to go on the right angle and they're going to be fine so that's not going to be a problem um but i don't think you need to go with with three quarter inch ply i think or mdf it's half inch to be perfectly fine yeah um i mean you have a look at what they were building the prototypes out of they're using foam core which is like i mean like that's like a quarter of an inch the the foam core it's really thin yeah i don't know what do you want to probably but you know structurally that would have actually probably been all right like it would still be strong enough to actually do what you want to do with it it would just be light so and you think about three quarter inch ply versus half inch ply and the amount of ply and wood that you're actually going to have on the controller is not exactly it's not going to be like a full cabinet anyhow so you you wouldn't notice a difference really yeah so anyway that was that was one of those save on costs as well it would actually keep the materials down as well because it'd be cheaper right so that's actually probably not a bad thing um he also uh my friend texted me the other day he had a picture of the coin door that he 3d printed. As I said, he had to print it in quarter panels and then glue them together. He goes four hours into filling and sanding. I'm starting to hate you. Oh, geez. And so I went, cause I don't know anything about, I went, that's why I called him up and I go, why did you have to sand and do all this fill? He goes, because that's when you butt them up and your liquid and expands and you got to sand it back down. and there's gaps and you've got to fill in the gaps and all this. I'm like, oh man, I'm sorry. He goes, yeah, if you do any more of these, we're going to have to find a different way of doing this. Yeah, we're going to have to injection mold them, surely. Like, you would. Well, it's either do injection mold or buy... A big plan. Or excuse, but buy a larger 3D printer that can do it.
    45:08
    I think it'd probably be cheaper if you're going to do them, just like injection mold them and just do 50 of them. Yeah. Yeah, he says that all the parts or the materials to do an injection mold would be about $60 to do that. So it only makes sense if you're making at least 10. I'd make 15 and put it up on eBay.
    45:33
    Well, yeah, I mean, at that point, you might as well just bang it up. Here, I'll show you for our YouTube viewer. This is the small arcade button. so it's about the height. This is the flipper button that I bought. You bought them right together. They're the exact same height. Yeah. And these are both what is going to go into the side cabinet.
    45:56
    So if you hold those two buttons up side by side again like you've got you know, the flipper button if you have a look at it, it's got that top thing on it and it's just about the same amount of meat on the bottom of it to actually put the screw on. If I roll this down truthfully, that maybe is the quarter inch necessary on the small arcade. It's this little bezel here. That's the part that you wind up having to... You have to route that out. Yeah, you have to route that out, and then the thread part is what actually goes all the way through. It's a weird button.
    46:41
    Yeah, it is. And that, you know, I also for the two-stage switches. All right, yeah. So that's the other thing is figuring out how hard it's going to have to push in order to hit both. Yeah, there's a fair bit of travel there. Although once you actually get that all, like, locked in, I've had those switch bodies as well when I've been doing up the Star Race. and it's surprising how little movement you need, particularly if you bend the contacts quite close together because you'll be fine then.
    47:22
    The other option is... But that's the very issue is if this one's barely sticking through, it's not going to have enough. It'll have enough to maybe make contact with one, but it won't have enough to make contact with the other. so it has to come in enough that it can actually be quite hard up against it to do all of them the other thing I didn't realize was what I bought and this is probably what's standard with all flipper buttons now is Lang has a spring in it the one that's in my firepower ain't got no spring, the spring is entirely based off of the spring of this sending it back you might find that it's just missing the spring Someone might have actually changed over the button because they do get a new cover. You can buy them with spring or without spring. Okay.
    48:12
    Yeah. So that's definitely an option. Hmm. Interesting. Anyway, the good news about this all, though, is that now that I have all the parts, it's just a matter of scheduling time and going and putting the thing together. Putting the thing together. I went and I got paint swatch for the color blue that I'm thinking of and then I looked up what actual whirlwind blue is like what people have put together up on pin side which might be a little darker than what I was wanting but the funny thing is going into the paint store and you're looking at all the paint chips and yeah they don't make vibrant colors because people don't want that on their walls no they really don't Looted, washed out. Yeah.
    49:01
    This is the... See, I got my colors of blue that I'm thinking about. I was thinking about using the lighter blue. Whirlwind Blue is more this with a little more purple in it. Okay. It's a vibrant... And this was the only card in the entire store that had that vibrant blue. Everything else was just kind of... Yeah, washed out, sedate. You know what you should do? can you go and take a piece and get it spectrally analyzed at your paint shop? Oh, what piece from what? Well, like, well, you know, sometimes only what I did is I actually took my, what did I do? I took my playfield arch with me to, to Bunnings, which is a hardware store over here. and I used that to actually determine the type of paint that I needed, the rattle can I needed, and I literally got it bang on with sight, like a sight match. But I recently, like, there's a hole in the roof that I had to fix, and I knew that I would have had to repaint it. So what I did is when I was fixing the hole, I took a bit of the plasterboard paper off with the original paint on it, and then I took it down to Bunnings, and they put it under this machine that analyzes the paint swatch.
    50:23
    So, you know, would you be able to find a transportable enough bit of pinball bit that you could go and actually get the exact match done? I don't know anybody that has a whirlwind. Well, no, well, yeah, okay, that's true. They've already posted what the numbers are that other people have taken their decals in and done exactly that. Okay, well, that's fine. The blue on the decal is the exact same blue needed.
    50:50
    What I've realized, though, seeing what those look like, is all the whirlwinds that I've seen have probably been faded. Faded, yes. That's a problem. But I think I like that faded blue more than the darker purplish blue. So my buddy keeps saying, well, you want that exact? I go, no, no, no, no, no. I want the feel. I don't need it to be precisely whirlwind blue. I just wanted that kind of blue. That was the ballpark that I'm aiming for.
    51:23
    Look, I know that when I was trying to match up the colors for the outside of the Star Race cabinet, I got it wrong. Absolutely got it wrong. Like the blue that I chose was not a space blue. It was like quite a light blue compared to what was actually on the inside. but the the paint match i got on the arch is very very close to to what it actually is and what it looks like in the cabin so like the outside of the cabin is going to have a different color on it than a different blue than the inside but it's not actually a bad thing it actually looks fine yeah um the thing is the most important thing is that it's consistent so you know that's what you've got to worry about if you choose a color the good thing is you're not going over old paint It's brand new. Yeah. So it's going to look great. Whatever color you choose. Really? Yeah. Hmm.
    52:14
    So, but that's, uh, yeah, that's the deal. So hopefully we'll start getting this thing assembled, uh,
    52:21
    or, or actually start working on it. I should say, um, in the next two weeks, that'll be pretty good. You have to get your soldering iron out and wire all the components into your board. That's right. I'm going to finally learn how to do some proper soldering. I've only ever unsoldered something, and I tried soldering onto a board, and I had to have my neighbor come and fix my mistake. So you might want to actually just get a really cheap bit of breadboard and do some practicing with some dodgy wire before you actually start doing it on your very shiny pins. It's – my buddy knows how to do all this. so if I have somebody watching me you know over my shoulder telling me what to do or can show me right then and there and then I can immediately hop in and do it you should be right then I'm fine it's this is what I deal with in camera where I'll go onto a set and it'll be some new digital camera that I've never touched before and all the accessories that go onto it are different and all the plugs and I don't have a clue what anything is right well give me two hours of working with this thing and somebody that does know what they're doing plugging it all in or if I got to do the prep of it and I had a whole day of prepping by the end of the prep day I'm good to go so long as I have so long as I'm not having to sit there with an instruction manual and try and interpret words into action I'm fine you're very much a visual learner very much so but like I said it'll be a whole new I gotta deal with woodworking which I don't deal with painting which I hate electronics which I know nothing about so all these things you don't like doing you're gonna do I'm gonna do and then maybe I'll be able to apply that to my firepower well yeah maybe you'll certainly be able to do a lot more soldering work on your firepower. It was the same with me. I hadn done soldering for well gee a long long time So when I started to resolder components on Star Race you know they were pretty rough Like there was a lot of cold joints and stuff like that when I was soldering And it was also difficult because I was dealing with really old wire And old wire tends to not want to tin very well. Yeah. So, you know, you've got to actually, in some cases, I had to actually get sandpaper out and rough up the wire so it would actually take a tin. but on the new wire because what I did is I started to join a lot of the new switch bodies and stuff up with brand new wire and it was just a joy because new switch body so you had new contacts without any existing solder on, you had brand new fresh wire so what you did is basically stripped the wire, twisted it looped it through the eyelet on the switch and then you just heated the switch body the actual little tank that the wire goes in you just flow the solder on it just goes and just goes into the wire it was such a satisfying experience oh it's just wonderful like just doing doing work with new wire versus like old 40 year wires just like chalk and cheese yeah so you'll it'll be very easy for you like putting wire through through the board and soldering it on like it will just if you have to solder and you haven't done it for a while using new components is is a godsend and that's all we're going to be using is new yeah so i don't I don't think you're going to have any trouble. You do a couple of them and you'll be like, done. Yeah. So, like I said, it's a matter of scheduling time between my friend and me and when we can get together.
    56:05
    But he was like, I'm going to put you to work. You're going to be doing all this. That's good, though. Like, you want that. No, I'm not afraid of doing that. I just hate doing it on my own without prior knowledge. And someone's saying, oh, look, you could do it that way, but if you did it this way, you'd save yourself three hours work. Well, let's just do it that way, shall we?
    56:28
    That's the hardest part, right? Yeah, big time the hardest part. So anyway, there'll be a future post, obviously, over on our website about that once that ball starts rolling. Speaking of our website, have you visited blockadepinball.com slash episodes? If not, why? What's your problem? You're listening to the show right now. Shouldn't you want to get the full experience? If you go over there, you will see all these wonderful show notes that Jared likes to post along with pictures and web links to anything that we happen to be mentioning.
    56:59
    Fortunately for Jared, there's not going to be much to link to today. There's not a lot to link to. It's just basically a straight post. The last one was interesting. I did a lot of linking out to apps and stuff and a lot of background information about what Smurfberries are. The post that I shared was the exact post that defines Smurfberries for me, the one from Review Lagoon. It's a guy called Shane Munro, and when I was really into Android, I followed him a lot on Twitter and Google Plus back then. And, yeah, this article was like the one that was committed to memory for Smurfberries because it explains it so eloquently.
    57:38
    So definitely go and check that out if you haven't already about what Smurfberries are. also be sure and check out redbubble.com and type in blockade or do a search for blockade that's where we got merch folks if you want to throw some support our way easy way of doing that and you get something in return so we get something you get something everybody's happy all sorts of t-shirts hoodies and phone cases and stickers and mugs all that sort of jazz with the wonderful blockade logo slapped on it you know we want your friends to go hey what's that that's right so make sure you visit redbubble.com and type in or search for blockade and once that pops up just click on anything and you'll start seeing all the various products and you can start going down the rabbit hole of our merch doing all the color variations that you want and yeah there's going to be a lot of unique looking good looking roosters out there wearing the blockade gear if they want to do it so you mentioned last time the beautiful thing is that it's printed uh more and more wherever your destination is so you're going to get it quick and you're not going to be uh over a barrel for shipping costs no it's it's pretty quick i was quite surprised when i ordered mine i went wow done already geez yeah yeah it's pretty good if you uh don't feel like uh uh having merch and you still want to support us well we have paypal for that so uh feel free to again on our website if There's all the information about how you can do that. And we appreciate it as I applied the donation that we got that was specifically earmarked towards the micro cab straight into micro cab parts. So that's how that's why I got this last batch of parts from. Yeah, that's great.
    59:24
    Beyond that, make sure you follow the show on Twitter at Blockade is where you want to do that. you'll always find out when we're recording the podcast as well as when we post our weekly Zen tournament table that we play as well as other information like for instance right now Zen is running a sale on Humble Bundle for the Marvel 1 and Star Wars 1 packs I think and they're like 10% off currently and you get sport charities so even better yep so that we just retweeted yesterday or today. I can't remember which, but anyway. So whenever we hear news about digital pinball, we tend to also forward that on the Twitter handles. Or you could go ahead and just follow myself. I am at ShotYourTraps. Jared is at JaredMorgue. And then you'll get other things like all of the stuff Jared does with his Star Race machine and all the stuff that I do with this movie related.
    60:24
    That's right. So you get a whole lot of information if you subscribe to the socials. Precisely. And as always, if there's anything that you want to comment about that you want to keep semi-private, or information that you want from us regarding the show, or things you want us to talk about, you can always email us. That is blahblahblockade at gmail.com.
    60:50
    All right. With that, I think next week, Jared is unavailable. Yes, I am going over to an island called Tangalooma Island, and there is a diabetes conference over there. So the whole family is going over. We're staying over there a couple of nights, and the kids go off and do activities with a team of diabetes educators monitoring their levels while my wife and I go and learn about how to manage diabetes better. So it's a bit like a holiday, a bit like a seminar, but it should be a lot of fun. We get to feed dolphins as well. So there will be no show next week. The following week, I'm just looking at the calendar. We'll be back with the show. Don't know what that one's going to be about. Hopefully some things have taken place in the meantime.
    61:39
    And then the following week, probably midweek, we'll be posting the interview with Mel. Yeah. So there may not even be a show on the... The normal time next on that following week, it might just roll straight into that. It's pre-recorded, yeah. Depends on how long Mel decides to talk to me. Yeah, otherwise it could be like a 50-minute show. Right. Which would be... Jared are going to have to do some more chatting. If it's a full hour like it was last time, then no need. No need. If it was a 15-minute show, that would take the record as the shortest show in history of Blarcade. Anything in particular that you want us to ask of Mel that we didn't get the last time that we talked to him why don't you go ahead and drop us a question of that sort via email that'd be really good and then I can try and put some of those into this and then we'll see what he like I said he's got some other things apart from just mentioning what's going on with the next table pack that he wanted to touch upon. So we'll find out what those are too. It's all a big mystery. He's keeping us in the dark, which is kind of fun. We don't even know. We haven't got any hints or anything from him. So he's being super secret. Super secret.
    62:59
    Which makes it fun for us too because it gives us the surprise as well because we don't get advanced warning of it. We actually get to find out when you guys get to find out. So it's cool. It's very good. It certainly makes it a lot less of that, oh god, I really want to tell factor.
    63:14
    yes that's right alright enough is enough thank you all for listening and we'll see you next week or no we'll see you two weeks from now two weeks from now bye everyone bye wizardamusement.com the site to visit for custom pinball shooter odds easy to install totally unique mention blockade podcast for 10% off your order wizardamusement.com sales restoration customization
    63:44
    don't forget to leave a review on itunes or your favorite podcast hosting service that blockade is delivered to we can't improve unless you tell us how now stop listening and play some pinball so the job i do where i'm never at the same location twice the hours are constantly shifting there's you know even if you're on stage for three days in a row you're doing something different all three days.
    64:10
    And I then look at somebody like you who goes into the office at the same time every day to the same location every day. And I don't understand how that works.
    64:21
    Yeah, I'm doing work from home a couple of days a week. So, you know, that breaks it up a little bit as well. But yeah, you're right. I'll go to work. I sit in the same spot. I do the mostly the same type of thing with some different flavors added to the top of it. Yeah. But it's, I guess the difference, we've had this discussion before. I remember it, but it's sort of like one of those things that my type of work is different because of the different things I need to look at and do. It's not so much the location that changes. It's the type of digital work that I need to do each day. And I guess that's a variation for me. And that's what keeps it fresh.
    65:02
    I never can imagine, you know, like my dad. He went to work every day at the same office building at the same time every day for 30-plus years. 30 years, yeah. And it's just like, whoa, you know. Yeah. My wife said that her dad, the way when he was driving into work every day, he would wave to the same cars every day.
    65:28
    Really? Well, because I don't know how bad traffic is for you in Australia, but in California, it's just a part of life.
    65:37
    And so you're stuck in the same traffic jam with everybody, and if everybody's getting on the freeway at the same time that they normally do from their normal spot, you're going to tend to run into the same people.
    65:47
    You should just have CB radios in your car and just have a big morning chat. Can you imagine? I know something that I was going to mention to you. What's that? So I am not a baseball fan in the least.
    66:05
    Find it completely boring. But last night I'm flipping through channels and our local baseball team, the Dodgers, is in the World Series against the other side of the country's Boston Red Sox. And so I was flipping in just to see what the score is. Yeah. And next thing I know in my flipping, it's now up to the 12th inning. Baseball only goes to nine innings.
    66:31
    And now I realize that you in Australia, who I imagine follow cricket, yes? Well, some people do. Well, some people do, but cricket is very much a big national pastime here. Yes, and cricket is known for having extraordinarily long matches, correct? Certainly the test matches do, yeah, but the shorter format ones like 2020 and stuff are a lot. They're basically like the social media crack of cricket. That's how people do them. So last night, this game... The game started at 5 o'clock in the afternoon.
    67:08
    At 11.30 at night, I decided I was done with the TV and flipping channels, and I turned off the TV, and the game was still going on. And that was in the 15th inning. Wow. And I was sitting at my computer at about 12.30 at night, and I heard some neighbors cheer, and I went, Oh, the game must be over. And sure enough, it was over at 18 innings. So they basically played two complete games.
    67:34
    Why did they do that? Was it just one of those games? Tied game. Oh, wow. Tied game, and you've got to play until the tie is over. It wound up being the longest and most innings of any playoff baseball in history.
    67:51
    Wow. That's insane. So here's the thing that I'm thinking about, though, right? First off, those people that are sitting in the stands, they've been in the stands for, what is it, almost six hours? Yeah. That's a long slog. Yeah. And then I'm thinking, what about the people that were on the East Coast that are diehard Red Sox fans following this, right? Yeah. It's four in the morning for them by the time the game ends. Yeah, that's ridiculous. I would love, I'm going to have to look up and see what the ratings numbers, just like if they fall off a cliff at a certain point. but how do you how do you find that out like how do you know when ratings drop off or come back up do you have like some sort of public service over there you know all i have to do is type in game three world series 2018 ratings and i'm trying to find no yeah i can oh right hey internet is great for all sorts of things it is now because i remember you know back in the days of analog tv the only way you could get access to that was actually have you know the black box in your house and if you were selected as a ratings influencer.
    68:58
    Right, the old Nielsen box. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, but that didn't tell you what the ratings were. That just counted you as the ratings. But you would have to wait about a week, and then all of a sudden the Nielsen ratings would come out and they would tell you. But now you can find out what the ratings were every hour at half-hour breaks. You can really just track where the stuff tumbles and falls. yeah oh it's just wonder how they work it out like do is it like i would have thought that perhaps in the past it might have been um what is the signal strength being received at or transmitted at so that you can actually maintain signal or something like that in analog days because you know i'm thinking that might be a measure i don't even know how they would here's the funny thing it used to be that yeah you had to fill out your nielsen diary right yeah and of course when people were in nielsen family for the week or whatever suddenly they watched a lot of public access TV. Yeah. Like shows that they wouldn't be caught dead, whether they're trying to sound like they know I watch that. Right. And with the advent of satellite TV and with your DVRs now and everything, they can track this stuff real time.
    70:08
    They still do a lot of estimates of what people are actually watching because not everybody has these boxes, but Oh, these boxes are sending data left and right. You kidding me? So when you're watching a show, it'll be telling the studio about something. It'll be telling the pay-to-you-eat provider. I was always curious about even car radio. I'm like, how the heck do they get ratings for that stuff? But apparently they're able to track listenership somehow. I don't know. That's really bizarre. I reckon it's signal strength because we're still operating on analog radio over here. We have digital channels, but we're still sharing. Well, not sharing. We've still got the analog signals there. Oh, yeah, we do. I don't think there's any plan to actually deprecate the analog bandwidths, which it will happen eventually because when they do, they usually make it available for mobile telephony. So they'll have – that's what they did with all the analog TV over here. Like, as soon as they got rid of the analog bands over here, they resold them, the Spectrums, and then we got 4G, basically. So, yeah. But they've got to be careful because my car has HD radio in it. And if it can't lock into the HD signal, then it switches to analog. And it's really weird. You'll be listening, and I can tell also because the heads-up display for my radio, all of a sudden I'll lose all the data and it'll just say the station name, right? So I'm like, okay, I'm in analog right now. And you're listening, you're listening, and all of a sudden the fidelity gets way better. And you're like, oh, the HD just kicked in. Right, right. But then if I switch over to a purely HD station, because all the stations that are in HD, they then offer HD1, HD2, HD3. Yeah, they're multicast, yeah. They're multicasting. So if you're listening to just an HD station, all of a sudden it'll just cut out. You'll lose it. It'll go off the grid, yeah. Amazing how often that happens. and so I think right there is until they get that poking into every nook and cranny you're still going to have terrestrial analog radio. Yeah because it is like the further the thing, the further you are away from the metropolitan areas too, you have to actually have repeaters everywhere, the digital transmission, like I don't think at the moment we can drive up the coast to the Sunshine Coast and we can still get Brisbane radio stations on the new car, not so much on the Mazda that I drive now, but on the Kia, we can definitely get all the Brisbane radio stations still pretty clearly. But you guarantee that if that was a digital station, nah, you'd have no chance. Right. You know. Hmm.