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054: Exclusive Audio Only Episode - Tourney for the Hardcore

Punk Rock Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·47m 26s·analyzed·Jul 1, 2026
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.031

TL;DR

Hosts recap Silverball major tournament: structure, difficulty setup, and casual-vs-hardcore player dynamics.

Summary

Stephanie and Mike from Punk Rock Pinball Podcast discuss their experience at Silverball, a major 131-player Stern Pro Circuit tournament at Pinball Capital in Stone Park, Illinois. They compare major tournaments to local monthly leagues, covering tournament structure, machine setup difficulty, competitive dynamics, and player experiences. The episode includes discussion of games played, player performances, and recommendations for players considering entering major tournaments.

Key Claims

  • Silverball had 131-132 pinball players competing across approximately 24 rounds over two days (Friday 4pm-11pm, Saturday 9:30am-11pm)

    high confidence · Stephanie and Mike discussing the tournament structure and round count

  • Tournament director Andy Bagwell set machines steeper than typical play (most at 7.5+ degrees vs. their standard 7 degrees) and removed in-lane rubbers to make saves harder

    high confidence · Detailed machine setup discussion by both hosts

  • Modern games at the tournament had no default ball saves enabled, requiring players to earn them through skill shots or multiball modes

    high confidence · Stephanie and Mike discussing tournament rule modifications

  • Uncanny X-Men and John Wick had unusually tight tilt settings that were 'borderline unfair' or 'absurdly tight'

    high confidence · Hosts discussing individual game setups and their playing experiences

  • The tournament used tiered Swiss pairing that starts mixed (top/middle/bottom players) and becomes stricter Swiss as rounds progress

    medium confidence · Stephanie explaining tournament pairing methodology

  • Pinball Capital in Stone Park has over 130 well-maintained machines

    high confidence · Hosts describing the venue

  • Sonic pinball machine demos were rumored to be at Silverball but Scooby Doo was released instead; all Sonic units were already due to distributors at that time

    medium confidence · Hosts speculating about Sonic availability

  • Punk Rock Pinball Podcast in Bloomington, Illinois has 38 pinball machines with a mix of modern and classic games

    high confidence · Mike promoting their own venue location

  • Mike Vinikour (MXV) had lunch with the hosts on Friday before the tournament at Buttermilk Cafe

    high confidence · Hosts discussing their Friday schedule and meal with a known industry figure

Notable Quotes

  • “Be not afraid. And nobody will care. And I would say even at this major tournament we just played, also nobody there is going to care if you're not good.”

    Stephanie @ ~14:00 — Encouragement for casual players considering tournaments; addresses skill anxiety

  • “If you haven't played a game, like, 20 to 50 times, like, you don't even know it. No. You don't even know the game.”

    Mike @ ~1:03:00 — Critical commentary on how internet discourse judges games without sufficient play experience

  • “I went from 27th place down to 104th place... an eight to nine hour period happened. Where I didn't get better than third place.”

    Stephanie @ ~45:00 — Describes dramatic tournament performance collapse due to fatigue and mental focus loss

  • “If you've never done a tournament, don't start there. Don't start at like where there's one that's like a big deal or like the Pinball Expo tournament.”

    Mike @ ~51:00 — Explicit recommendation for tournament progression path for new players

  • “You didn't even know. Oh my gosh. Because she's just in the zone. She's a very good pinball player.”

    Mike @ ~35:00 — Anecdote about Shelly Sharp rolling over score on Hang Glider without realizing it (83k display = 183k actual)

  • “I think we all need to be wearing compression socks... Our new friend Isabella from Kansas City, she had some nice compression socks and she was like, yeah, you need these.”

    Stephanie @ ~48:00 — Physical endurance considerations for multi-day tournaments; networking with players from other regions

  • “Godzilla... after I'd lock the third ball and wait like 20 seconds. Oh my God, 20 seconds. That's an eternity in pinball.”

    Stephanie @ ~1:05:00 — Criticism of Godzilla's multiball animation timing during tournament play

  • “If you're picky, ask Mike. Mike likes it. You're going to like it. Yeah. Yeah, you are.”

Entities

SilverballeventPinball CapitalvenueAndy BagwellpersonPunk Rock Pinball PodcastorganizationPunk Rock Pinball PodcastvenueStephaniepersonMikepersonShelly Sharpperson

Signals

  • ?

    event_signal: Silverball implemented tiered Swiss pairing and segregated modern/classic rounds to manage downtime and keep all 131 players engaged simultaneously, addressing common tournament scheduling problems

    high · Andy Bagwell set up two modern rounds followed by one classic round per cycle, with tiered Swiss pairing that tightens as competition progresses

  • ?

    operational_signal: Tournament machines intentionally configured harder than casual settings (7.5°+ angles, removed in-lane rubbers, disabled ball saves, tight tilts) to equalize skill variance and prevent extended play

    high · Hosts detail specific setup choices and their gameplay impact; some machines (Uncanny X-Men, John Wick) had controversial tilt settings

  • ?

    community_signal: Silverball drew competitive players from Northeast, North Carolina, Kansas City, Wisconsin, and Ohio, indicating strong multi-region tournament infrastructure and travel culture

    high · Hosts note players flew in from multiple states; met new people like Isabella from Kansas City; contrasts with local monthly tournaments

  • ?

    gameplay_signal: Multi-day tournament play exposed animation/cutscene fatigue: Godzilla's 20-second multiball startup becomes tedious when played 30+ times daily; players prefer quick resumption over spectacle

    high · Mike describes wanting to skip Godzilla's transformation sequence during tournament; Stephanie notes it's fine in tournaments as a breather but problematic with repeated plays

  • ?

    content_signal: Hosts critique internet discourse around games (Transformers Optimus Prime transformation criticism) as uninformed; argue 50+ plays needed before valid judgment; reflects community standards for review legitimacy

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.142

0:00
Hello. Marshall didn't run away. Hello. Hello. This is the Punk Rock Pinball Podcast Episode 54. 54. I'm Stephanie. I'm Mike. We're the hosts of the show. This is our Pinball Podcast. We talk about pinball, sometimes music, a lot of competitive pinball talk if you like that kind of thing. Sometimes we talk about our dog. Sometimes we talk about Marshall who may or may not appear here. He had his own spot on the show but then he snubbed us. Yeah, he once had a chair right there and then he wouldn't stay in it. No. So he was removed. It was cut from the... He got canned.
1:03
What was that? Is that the dog getting something? No. The dog's in the bedroom. That's probably fine.
1:12
That was weird. I think I know what it was. There was a funny sound coming from our laundry room over there. Oh, it was the laundry, wasn't it? I was just rifling through some things. So one of those things probably just fell down. That makes sense. I was looking for this shirt. If you're listening on the Apple and the Spotify, it's a Sincere Engineer shirt, camouflage shirt with the corn dog on it. Yep. Because we just went and saw Deanna play at a record store. The Sincere Engineer. In Bloomington, Illinois. Waiting Room? Waiting Room Records. Yeah, she did a little in-store promoting her brand new album. Mm-hmm. Probable Claws. Yes. Claws. Claws, like the cat claws. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Just came out. It's pretty great. It's a very good album.
2:11
And so she sang some songs. She asked for some questions. Does anyone have any questions? Only one person did. One person did. So then after that, she would say, does anyone have any other questions? I laugh every time she says it. I laugh too. Yeah, we saw her there and she signed some records, took some pics, and she said that we could give away a Sincere Engineer t-shirt and signed LP album. So if you like Sincere Engineer, and if you don't know Sincere Engineer, you can look back through some 10 or 15 videos ago on this channel.

Stephanie @ ~41:00 — Endorsement of Mike Vinikour's restaurant recommendations; establishes his credibility on non-pinball topics

Mark
person
Mike Vinikourperson
Sincere Engineerperson
Sonicgame
Scooby Doogame
Transformersgame
Godzillagame
Jungle Lordgame
Hang Glidergame
Hotdoggin'game
Galaxy Play 2game
Electric Batvenue
Mark Seidenperson
Aaron Seidenperson
Isabellaperson
Waiting Room Recordsvenue

high · Extended discussion about Transformers criticism from players who haven't played it; Mike and Stephanie's experience improved opinion after multiple plays

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Andy Bagwell successfully managed 131-player tournament while competing at elite level; praised for operational excellence and machine setup expertise

    high · Hosts describe him as 'elite player' who 'makes it look so easy' and did 'excellent job' with tournament coordination across two days

  • ?

    venue_signal: Pinball Capital's 130+ machine inventory enabled sophisticated tournament structure (segregated modern/classic rounds); venue quality and maintenance impressed hosts

    high · Hosts note most locations can't accommodate this format with only 6-9 machines; Pinball Capital's scale enabled 24-round structure

  • ?

    product_concern: Godzilla multiball animation (20 seconds) creates gameplay friction during tournament/extended play scenarios despite being 'cool' initially

    high · Stephanie discusses wanting to skip animation; describes 20 seconds as 'an eternity' in pinball context

  • ?

    rumor_hype: Sonic pinball machine was rumored for Silverball debut but did not materialize; Stern released Scooby Doo instead; all Sonic units pre-allocated to distributors

    medium · Hosts speculate: 'I think they were really trying to get Sonic... but all of the Sonics that had been made at that point were already like due to ship to distributors'

  • ?

    competitive_signal: 19+ hours of tournament play over two days caused significant mental fatigue; Mike's ranking collapsed from 27th to 109th over 8-9 hours of play; hosts identify lack of sleep (socializing until 2am both nights) as major factor

    high · Mike: 'My mental focus vanished by about 3pm on Saturday'; hosts discuss staying up late both Friday and Saturday in hotel lobby

  • ?

    operational_signal: Hosts recommend graduated tournament experience: start with local monthly leagues, progress to major events; major tournaments require physical endurance (compression socks suggested), mental preparation, and sleep management

    high · Extended discussion about tournament progression; recommendation against major tournaments as first event; discussion of physical demands (wall sits, squats, compression socks)

  • ?

    venue_signal: Multiple venues (Electric Bat in Arizona, potentially Punk Rock Pinball HQ, Pinball Capital) adopting segregated modern/classic round structure to manage game length variance and downtime

    medium · Hosts note Electric Bat runs similar structure; discuss implementing at Punk Rock Pinball HQ; cite it as lesson learned from Silverball

    • 2:53
    You can see her singing a couple songs. We did a couple videos of her right here in front of these very pinball machines. Well, not these. Pokemon wasn't here, I don't think. So pinball machines such as these. Similar to these. She was singing right here in this room and we filmed that and there's two videos on the channel. Yeah. So if you don't know since the engineer scrolled back in our feed, find those or listen to the new album, Probable Claws. You should probably do both. Do both of those. Fall in love with her. Mm-hmm. And in order to, so we're going to do a giveaway. Yeah. And during this episode, Mike, I challenge you to think of a question that people have to answer. Okay. And I entered in for a chance to win. Yeah, we're going to say the question later in the show. Yeah, think about it. So you have to keep listening. And for those of you who have responded in the past, don't worry, Deanna said she's going to send this out. Do we owe people stuff? Yes, I need stamps. We owe people some stuff. So this is being sent from Deanna. She is going on tour next week. So you have until, what did we say?
    4:13
    July 4th at midnight. Yes. So technically like 12.01 a.m. July the 5th. How do they enter? You're going to email the answer to the question. All right. Think about the question. You're going to email the answer to the question to mike at livefromtherockroom.com or you have two choices. You go to punkrockpinball.com and submit a contact us form. I think it's right on the main navigation in our website. Contact us. Hit that. Fill out the form.
    5:03
    If you win, then we'll put the names into the wheel. Yeah, yeah. And we'll do that on social. We're not going to do that live. Steph can do it on social. I don't know how, but we'll figure it out. We have a wheel thing we use for prizes in pinball tournaments. Anybody that answers, we'll put it in that wheel, spin it. And then if you win, I will email you and get your address. Or you could just include your address in the initial answer to the question if you so choose. You don't have to. You choose. Okay. I like that. Yeah. Okay. So we'll think about what that question is going to be. Stay tuned later in the episode for that because… It's going to be a trivia question. Oh. Yeah. Related to Sincere Engineer. Okay. I like this. I like this. This past week we did some hardcore pinball because we talked about it last week that we're getting ready for Silverball. We said we were going up there. And we did. Yeah. And this is what you call like a major tournament. It was part of the Stern Pro Circuit. It was a Stern Pro Circuit event. What we were doing there, I'm not quite sure. 132 pinball players. Well, we didn't finish last place. No, we didn't. So, but it led me to start thinking about kind of the difference between like a major tournament, Such as the one we just played versus a regular kind of monthly tournament or weekly league like we do. Because I feel like a lot of people, there's perfect examples. We just talked to a young man at the Sincere Engineer performance who was supposed to come to the band versus fans. We had Tornado hit his house. So he had to cancel that. But he lives just in Champaign, Illinois, so I said you should come to one of our tournaments and play. And he seemed interested, but then he was apprehensive because he's like, well, I worry about the skill issue. Don't worry about it. And what I would say for the tournaments such as our monthly tournaments and most likely the regular kind of standing monthly tournament that might be happening near you, wherever you live, The skill level is not going to matter. Be not afraid. And nobody will care. And I would say even at this major tournament we just played, also nobody there is going to care if you're not good. No.
    7:43
    But I would not recommend the major tournament to like a casual player. No, this is so one year ago is the first time we went to this specific event. And I think last year there were 80 players. 80 or 90 some. And it was so it was the first time we went to like a big, a big one that draws people from different areas beyond Chicago, like people flew in from the Northeast and, and North Carolina and Kansas City, Wisconsin. J.K. Nice folks from Kansas City, some of our friends from Ohio, some of our friends from Madison, Wisconsin. J.K. Yeah, it draws people from all over and it's really fun, but the way specifically for these bigger events, especially the tournament director, Andy Bagwell, who coordinated this one and did a fine job, like just an excellent job, not only playing, and he's an elite player, I would say, but also just like doing, He did a great job. It was impressive. That's a mega tournament, 132 players or 131. That's just a crazy amount. Yeah, he just makes it look so easy. But he also sets up the machines more difficult than most people have ever played before. Especially like your casual player or even a lot of the people around here that are more than a casual player. Like they play in our league and they play in the monthly so they're active competitive players. We don't set our machines up like these and it wasn't like they didn't do anything insane to the machines. No, no, but it's just not how you may casually play pinball. And what I mean by that is they set them a little bit steeper. And we set ours steeper, but these I feel like were maybe a little bit steeper. Most were steeper. We set them at seven. I think most of these were at least seven and a half. Yeah. So the ball moves fast. The nice thing about a steep machine, though, is that the balls aren't floaty. It's not floaty. No, you're not going to get a floaty machine over at this tournament. And then he also took off some of the rubbers by the outlanes. Yeah, the in-lane rubbers. In-lane. Which is a pretty, they did that on the modern ones. Yes. Because the modern ones typically play longer if you put some of these great players on them. They can play forever. But you take those rubbers off and it makes it so it's very difficult to nudge and save it from going into the outlane. But it also makes your feed into the in-lane three times faster than what you're used to because the ball usually kind of hits that rubber and it slows down a touch.
    10:41
    So like I damn near like drained on shots that like feed the in-lane sometimes because I wasn't fast enough to like, whoa. Whoa, so fast. And the tilts were typically much tighter than we set ours. I think the majority of the tilts were firm but fair. Yeah, I totally agree. But a couple of games I think were borderline unfair. Well. But, that's my opinion. But overwhelmingly, the majority of them, especially on the classics, I didn't really tilt ever on the classics. Oh, I did. Maybe once. I thought there were two machines in particular that I thought were punitive with the tilts. Well. Where Uncanny X-Men I tilted just playing normally. I wasn't even nudging. Just playing. And then I thought the John Wick was like absurdly tight. Well, I did okay on it. You did okay on it? I won on it with nine million points. Well the other thing on these machines that is not a normal setup is they turned off all of the ball saves Oh yeah no ball saves on the modern games Like not even at the beginning No you could get the skill shot Or if you earned a ball save that was different Yeah, and within the multi-balls those were on. Or, you know, certain skill shots like plus five ball save seconds, you could earn it that way. But the default ball save... Not there. There isn't one. You plunge, no ball save. Mm-hmm. So pretty intense. Yeah. But really fun still. Yeah. I mean, it's, you know, it's, everybody's kind of, you know, playing the same machine, so they're, everyone's in the same boat. But it was, it was way more fun than it was last year for me. Yes. I think the location to me was superior. Yeah. It was at the Pinball Capital, the new place in Stone Park. Yeah. Just west of the city. Yeah. Great place. Really great. Over 130 machines, all very well maintained. And watching 131 players play them all weekend, I was just thinking about how much stuff must be breaking inside those machines. Well, when things were breaking, they had a few texts there, including our friend Mark. Yep. Good job, Mark. Mark just, he is so badass. He just hops in there, flips the lid on those things, pulls up the playfield and just like goes to town. Gets it working. Yeah, he doesn't fuck around. No. But yeah, so the difference between a tournament like that versus your local monthly, for one, a huge difference is the time investment. Oh gosh, yeah. So this one, doors were at 2.30, tournament started at 4.00. On Friday. Went till 10.00 p.m. And the last round probably finished close to 11.00, because you start a new round up until 10.00. Yeah. And we started a round right at 9.57, which ended at almost 11.00 p.m. Yeah. So you're playing from 4 p.m. to 11 p.m. on Friday and then... You gotta get up early in the morning because doors are at 9 and we start at 9.30 and go till 10 p.m. Which then went to almost 11 p.m. again. Yeah, there was a lunch break and a dinner break. 45 minutes each. It was, other than that, Andy kept that thing going. Yeah. He did, he... Were there 24 rounds? We could look it up. I think there were 24 rounds. It was... 23 to 24. I'm going to look it up. Bonkers. So, why I wouldn't recommend this to a casual player, not because it's not fun, but you better really love pinball... Well, I'll tell you what, like... ...to play for this long. You gotta love pinball.
    14:52
    Because it was like 19 hours or so of playing pinball? I mean, not straight. Like you would play your round and then go hang out. There were 24 rounds. Yeah, because for a new round to start, you have to wait for the round to finish. For everyone to finish their games. For everyone. And you have a couple games that have the very best guys on them. So there's some rounds like your game is over in 10 minutes, but the round is going to go 45 minutes. So there is a lot of downtime. There's a lot of downtime, which we talked about on the last video, maybe a few videos ago. I had to kind of prepare for it. It was a couple of videos back. Like there was downtime. There was downtime, which you could go and play other machines during that time. I also like this, the way he did this tournament. And I don't feel like it was like this last year, but he set this up. So the way the rounds worked is it was two rounds on modern machines and one round on classic. So everybody would do that together. Yeah. So, which we don't do on our tournaments, but it's kind of nice that way that everyone's playing. The classics typically are much shorter. And so it was a shorter round than the modern. And they just have so many games at the Pinball Capital that they were able to do that. I think a lot of locations probably can't do that. Yeah, a lot of locations have six games or nine. So you're going to play them all every round. Yeah. But I know a location that does have enough games to do that. Where is that? It's in Bloomington, Illinois. Oh, yeah? Yeah. Hmm. Is this like an interstitial commercial? Yeah. It's called Punk Rock Pinball HQ in Bloomington, Illinois, where they have 38 pinball machines and a nice mix of moderns and classic games. And maybe for the July monthly tournament, we'll do like two rounds of modern and one round of classics. That'd be fun. How about that? I like that idea. How do they find out about it? You can go to punkrockpinball.com, click on the link in the navigation. There's one that says like Punk Rock Pinball HQ right up in the main nav. You can click that. It tells you all about it. Oh, cool. And our events will be listed there, too. That's cool. That's how you can find it. But yeah, we're going to start doing that, I think. I think that would be really fun. I know that the Electric Bat in Arizona, they run theirs that way. Oh. They might flip-flop every other round. Mm-hmm. But they definitely have it set up in banks of modern and older. You could even not specify the era, but set up like these are long playing games, these are quick playing games. And then you could have a couple rounds on the longer playing games and then a round on the quick playing. Because it is weird to have a game like Firepower. Let's say you have 30 people playing matches and four of them happen to be on firepower. But then there's also four people on James Bond. Yeah. So the firepower match is probably over in 10 minutes. If somebody shreds, it's 12 minutes. And then the James Bond match, if somebody does really good, it's like 35 to 45 minute match. So those people that were on firepower, they got a lot of time to wait. So that is a great idea. It's cool that Andy set it up that way where like everyone's playing moderns or everyone's playing classics all at the same time. Yeah, I like that. I like that. Me too. And I've seen on the on the Batcast, like Electric Bat, they do their tournaments the same way. I don't know if it's too modern and then a classic or if it's if it's every other. But that is a thing that we learned. He also did, so if you're unfamiliar with tournaments, you can set them up.
    18:48
    It's called a match play tournament where it's like four players, matches three or four players depending on the number of players.
    18:56
    And there's ways you can do the pairing. One is called Swiss pairing that's going to automatically pair the people with the most points against each other. And then there's a balanced pairing, which is just randomly puts people, I think, tries to put people with people they have not played. And then there's the tiered Swiss, which somehow, I don't, that's how this tournament was. I think initially it takes some mixes like a top and two middle and a bottom person. Mm-hmm. But then as the rounds progress, it gets tighter to Swiss pairing. Yes. So as you get deeper into the tournament, if you're near the top of the leaderboard, everyone you're playing is also. That's why we went down. And that's why we went down. Especially me, because you did not have the descent that I did. So I'm looking at on match play right now because I forgot what the results were, but there were 128 players, 61 different arenas or games in this. And I would say on Saturday, I was like hanging in that top part where people were qualifying for the A finals. I knew I wasn't going to last, but it felt really good for a long time. I ended up in what they call, well, I'm tied for- You were in the C Finals tiebreaker. I was. I ended up in 77th place with 64 points. Well, you were tied for 73rd. Well- So I don't know what the final standings were, but you were in the top 80, because there were a whole bunch of people tied. How many, because you were in a playoff for a C and there were a whole whole bunch of people in there. Yeah. Yeah, I had a just an epic fall from Grace. You did. Because you ended up essentially tied for like 72. Yeah. Is basically. 73. Yeah, we're, yes, I guess you were essentially in 73rd position. And you peaked where? Probably in the 30s? Maybe. So that's not a huge fall because all the scoring was so tight you could win a match and jump 25 spots and lose a match and drop 25 spots. So you did pretty steadily pretty good. Yeah, I think I did. I feel good about it. I didn't really have really high expectations. There were just a few people I just personally wanted to beat and I did that. Very good. So I feel good about that. I on the other hand had a... Fall from grace. I had a hell of a start. I played great on Friday and I won three or four matches on Friday. A couple of them had like some elite players in them and I won these matches.
    22:06
    And I even started pretty good Saturday morning. Until about whatever time I played John Wick, which I think was around 14, 13 or 14. Won that game, feeling good. After my win on John Wick, I'm number 27 out of 131. That's awesome. Way up there, way in the middle of the A finals, which I also did not expect to make. But then an eight to nine hour period happened. Where I didn't get better than third place. It didn't happen fast. Took about nine hours of getting my ass kicked. And so I went from 27th place down to 104th place. I'm pretty sure. And me and Shelly were tied. 109. Sorry. 109th place from 27th to 109. The crazy thing is, I was in 27th after 14 rounds, which is a lot of rounds. You know, like most of our tournaments, we play five rounds. You tied with some really great people, though. You tied with Mark Seiden and Aaron Seiden. Good players. Great players. Shelly Sharp. Great player. Shelly just ripped up. I played her on Hang Glider or Hang Gliding. Mm-hmm. She tore that thing up. She a fantastic pinball player She tore that thing up This is one of those old games where the score goes to 99 And... It rolls. So you can roll that over, so now you have 100,000 plus whatever. And she did this on ball two, just killing this ball two. And after that ball had like 160,000, whatever. And after her last ball, the score says like around about 83,000. And she's going to enter, which would have won. Okay. If she had 83,000, she won the match, the four-player match. So she's entering that into match, and she's typing like 83,000. I said, you had 183,000. She didn't even know. Oh my gosh. That's awesome. Because she's just in the zone. She's a very good pinball player. Uh-huh. She doesn't screw around. No. She's serious. So, yeah, that's... But this is for the hardcore, these major tournaments. If you're thinking about dipping your toes in and if you see, like, a big major three-day tournament, that's... I wouldn't say you should start there. What do you mean? As a new player. Oh, if you've never done a tournament, don't start there. Don't start at like where there's one that's like a big deal or like the Pinball Expo tournament. Like very fun to play. Shouldn't be your first one. No, don't make that your first one. Like go enjoy Expo. Go enjoy Expo. Find a monthly tournament, a regular one near you. Join that. And I think you want to graduate to this because it's like an endurance fest. Yeah, we talked about how we want to do some training for the PAPA event in September. I mean, for real. Like doing wall sits? Do some wall sits, do some squats. I think we all need to be wearing compression socks. Some compression socks. Man, your feet and your legs get tired. Yeah. Our new friend Isabella from Kansas City, she had some nice compression socks and she was like, yeah, you need these. I think that would be quite helpful. Mm-hmm. The biggest thing that happened to me was my mental focus vanished by about like 3 p.m. on Saturday. I was gone. Well, it didn't help that we, after the, on Friday night, we just like hung out at the hotel and just laughed a lot in the lobby. Yeah, until like 2 in the morning. Yes, with CJ and Chris O'Brien and Joe and Shelley. We did that Saturday night. It was the night we sat outside. I know, but we also did it on Friday night. We did that both nights. So I guess if you want to stay mentally sharp, it's a really long tournament. Get some sleep. That ends at like 11 o'clock at night. Don't go back to the hotel and have fun with your friends until 2 in the morning. Yeah, you got to get your shit together. Yeah, if you want to do good, maybe get sleep. Get a little sleep. I guess sleep would be helpful. So, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I guess we didn't sleep a lot. We didn't sleep a lot. And we also, on Friday, we had to get up abnormally early to take Marshall, who you saw earlier, had to take him to Downers Grove, so we had to leave our house at like 7 a.m. I usually don't get up till 8.45. Yeah, and then we had to kill some time up there before we could get to the Pinball Capital, so we hit up Costco to fill up our cooler. Yeah, and we had lunch with MXV. Yeah, we did. Brunch. The Buttermilk Bar, Buttermilk Cafe. Buttermilk Cafe, something like good food. Excellent food. Mm-hmm. If Mike Vinacore ever gives you a restaurant suggestion... Yeah, just take it. Take it. It's going to be solid. It may not be fancy. It may not, like, blow your mind. It won't be fancy. Well, I'm just... It won't be fancy. It's not going to be fancy. But it's going to be solid. Because Mike eats like I eat. Yeah, but he likes a clean restaurant. Yeah. He likes good food. Yeah. Delivered. No gimmicks. You can trust, you can put your trust in Mike to recommend your restaurant. Yeah. Especially if you're kind of a, he and I are both kind of picky. If you're picky, ask Mike. Mike likes it. You're going to like it. Yeah. Yeah, you are. So yeah, we got to see him before that and then we went over to the Pinball Capitol. Friday was a very long day. And then I usually am in bed by 10 p.m. And we didn't even leave that pinball capital until after, well, like you said, around 11. Yeah. And then we fucked around for a while, laughing with our friends. Yep. Giggling in the lobby. Mm-hmm. It was so fun.
    28:32
    What was, uh, so we played a lot of games we didn't have never played before. Mm-hmm. What was your favorite one? Jaws, Jaws, Jaws, Jaws. Jungle Lord. Did I play that? Yeah, it's the one that's like Firepower and Black Knight Had a Baby. Is this the one that Joe wanted to get? No, he wants to get the one with the snake. Yeah, what's that one called? I forgot. But that one was cool, too. Jungle Lord is Black Knight and Firepower Had a Baby. Yeah, the sounds sound like Firepower. Okay. But it's got the upper playfield in that little... Oh, yes. Yeah, the thing on the upper left. It feels like it's trying to be the original Black Knight. Ish. It probably came out around the same time, but the sound, if I were to guess it came out before Black Knight because there is no sound in the sound, I mean like talking. Right. But the sounds are firepower. It's a classic solid state pinball machine. 1981. Oh, it's a Barry O game. It's great. Barry O is good. I would like that one. That's on my list. And The Black Knight, 1980. So I was right. Oh, I was wrong. Yeah, The Black Knight came up before it. Yeah, Jungle Lord's good. Oh, also, it was one of the last ones I played. It was a weird, like, Spanish or Italian game. I'm gonna have to look up what it was called. It was so fun. I'm gonna look it up. What was your fave? I thought it was cute. The game called Hot Doggin. Yeah, that's fun. It's a big wide body. The funny thing is I don't like the modern wide bodies, but these old wide bodies are bigger. You know, it's even wider. I think that's wider than like the modern wide body, like the hot doggin is wider than Judge Dredd, right? Isn't it? Or am I wrong? Am I wrong? It feels bigger. It feels like an extra wide body. I got my ass kicked on Hot Dog and I thought it was cute and kind of fun. So that was one of my favorites that I've never played. And then I also kind of got the feel for Transformers. Yeah, that was fun to play. And I have I like Transformers better now than I did. After initially playing it at the launch thing, I was hoping they were going to have Sonic. Yeah, I really, really want to play the Sonic. And there was a rumor that like they were going to have it. Well, they were teasing it, but it was really Scooby Doo that came. I think they were really trying to get Sonic. For sure. I think it was possibly in the cards for them to get it, but all of the Sonics that had been made at that point were already like due to ship to distributors. Yeah.
    31:33
    So we'll have to wait to play Sonic. I'm very much looking forward to it. Maybe I smell a trip to Pinball and Perry in our future. Maybe Pinball and Perry, maybe the back store in Peoria. Yeah, probably. I think he's supposed to have a demo game in a week or two. So we'll report back to you on the Sonic Pinball machine once we play it. Yeah, because otherwise, like, we don't know. I don't want to talk about a game really that I haven't played. Yeah, who cares what we think? And a lot of people on the internet do a lot of judging of machines they've never played or a machine they've played once or twice.
    32:09
    And, like, if you haven't played a game, like, 20 to 50 times, like, you don't even know it. No. You don't even know the game. Unless you're one of the best pinball players I've ever seen in the world. That's not us. Then you need 50 plays before you even know everything it can do. Gotta get in there. You gotta get a feel. You gotta get a flow. And otherwise, you can judge what it looks like and what you think it is, but you don't know how it plays. You've not even hardly played it. No. Yeah. I know. That's how I felt about Transformers. I had fun playing it when we went to Stern.
    32:50
    Well, I played it a number of times this week, and I had fun playing it. I started to figure out Find the Shots, and then it's way more fun. But there's so many people on the Internet that are, oh, what a fail that Optimus doesn't transform. Such a fail. This is off my list. You haven't played it, man.
    33:09
    It's awesome. It's really, really fun. It's really, really fun. And let's say Optimus transformed, right? They'll find something else to brag about. That would be a cool gimmick for how long? Like, if you're talking about owning the game, it's cool to see Optimus transform exactly how many times? Like, after time number 10, doesn't it, like, if it shoots cool, isn't that more important than whether or not? Because the 15th time you see them transform, you'd be like, okay, I might just want to skip that so I can keep playing. Kind of like you get through the cut scenes, like, all right, let's go, let's go. That's like when starting the multiball in Godzilla, which is a cool moment the first five or eight times. But now it's like, especially when I'm playing it in a tournament, I don't mind it because it gives me a second to breathe. But when we had that game here and I'd lock the third ball and wait like 20 seconds. Oh my God, 20 seconds. That's a long time in pinball. That's an eternity in pinball. I know, I'm just teasing you. Every time, if you're going to play it 30 times in a day, that's like... It gives you a moment to take a breath. I would like to just skip that and just shoot me the balls, please. What are you going to do when you shoot the balls? What's your move?
    34:34
    It depends on what mode I have, which mode I got before I started the multiball. You've got to have a plan. That gives you a moment to think about it. It's Gag and I'm going to shoot the ramps. But that was one thing that kind of annoyed me about Godzilla and why I didn't want to get it. So you have all these people, dozens I've seen, like, well, it's a fail, Optimus doesn't transform. But like, then are you like a pinball player? Are you just like a person who likes funky mechs and games? Because I think if you played it enough, you might just get sick of that and it probably takes time.
    35:07
    And if you're a player, you'd probably rather just keep playing. Yeah. Yeah, that's all I'm saying. No, I know. I'm just teasing you. The other game that I really enjoyed that I'd never played before was that one that I think is from Italy. It's called Galaxy Play 2. You played it. Did I play it? Yeah, you played it in that round.
    35:28
    Galaxy Play 2 It really fun where like when you launch the ball goes into this Oh yeah that was like kind of a one of one type deal Oh really Yeah it very very rare I think there only one or two in the United States Yeah, it's like a, I think a European, maybe, I don't know where, it was not from America. I don't even know who the manufacturer was, but really fun. You shoot, you launch the ball and it goes into a little play field in the upper left where you. Two flippers up there. The bottom flippers don't even work until you get out of that spot, which is cool. But I had so much fun on that game. It was a fun one. I got my butt kicked. Yeah. We'll never have that one, but it was fun. Young kid Miles and Dory both beat me at that. And Lily. Lily got an X on that one. Lily got a strike. But I was in. We both got a strike. We did a little unofficial strikes tournament at the end. For the D plays. Because like 20 hours of pinball wasn't enough, so we did a thing on Sunday. Because it's for the hardcore. So third and fourth get a strike, but I was fourth, I remember. So that was fun. Not that anybody needs to know. Also, shout out to our new friends that we met over the weekend who listen or watch the podcast. And I know this because I wasn't in the pinball capital, but for like five minutes when Kyler came up to me and asked me about my nervous diarrhea, which was awesome. And a handful of other people also asked me how my nervous diarrhea was going.
    36:58
    And I have to tell everyone that I did not say it on every round. I think I said I was going to do that, but I waited to do that. And when I was in the playoff, like the tiebreaker round to try to get into the C finals, there were six or seven of us. And there was one person there who I don't I don't even know how it happened. But I just said, I've got nervous diarrhea. And I just want you guys to know there's no soap in the bathroom. And this fellow said, oh, well, there's another bathroom. There's another bathroom in the front. I'm like, I know all of the bathrooms are out of soap right now. Which wasn't true. It wasn't true. But then Chris O'Brien and Joe started laughing, and I don't know. I don't know if this guy caught on, and I kind of feel bad. I kind of feel bad. But he also didn't make it into the final. Maybe it's because of what you said. I really feel like... Maybe he's a germaphobe like me, and I was like, oh my god, there's no soap in any of the bathrooms. I'm touching these flippers. Well, karma's a bitch because then when it was my turn to go up to play and it was on a live stream, and I haven't looked to watch it, but as I recall, it's a five ball game on Big Ben, old EM, single player, and we played single player. And it was my turn. And just before my fourth ball, I turned around and Mike and Joe Sharp were standing in the back behind me. And I turned around and I looked at Mike and I said, this one's for you. And I plunged the ball and it was a house ball. It went. Didn't even get to flip it. I didn't even get to flip it. Nope. Didn't even get to flip it. So the karma's a bitch. It came back to me. That was a pinball guy saying you shouldn't have said that to that other competitor. And we're going to do you. Everyone in the pinball community is going to see you shit. I'm going to get the bet on this. Like you cost them their finals and now we're going to do it to you. So maybe don't do the nervous diarrhea story. No. Because it's funny. It's so funny. Until it's real.
    39:13
    You know? It's funny until it happens to you. Yeah, then you need a modium. Or then you like really have nervous diarrhea. And what a funny joke that is. And then no one's going to believe you until they smell it. It's just the girl who cried diarrhea.
    39:31
    Someone did say, I think you should make a t-shirt that says, like, be nice to me, I've got nervous diarrhea. Be a funny t-shirt.
    39:41
    But no, the bathrooms at the Pinball Capital were not out of soap. They all had ample soap. And they were very nice. Nice bathrooms there, yeah. Very nice bathrooms. They kept them clean. Uh huh. And stocked with soap, stocked with paper towels, stocked with toilet paper. They were clean. They did not get gross. And this is saying something because like 95% of the people there are guys. Sorry, Mike. Usually guys are kind of gross. Yeah. And it's all like gender neutral bathrooms because they're like the one hitters or one person goes and you lock it. There's three of them. Uh, they did have really nice locks on them though. Oh, those locks were awesome. We need some of these. Yeah. If you're in the bathroom and you lock the door on the exterior, it tells the people waiting, like, you know, green, you can come on in or red, it's occupied. So no one's jiggling the handle, like... No one's knocking or jiggling the handle to check. No, everyone knows. So yeah, I feel like I want to upgrade the HQ door handles at some point to those. Yeah, that was very nice. It's an excellent feature for a public bathroom. Mm-hmm. Because there are times when we have a tournament at the HQ and I can see one of the bathroom doors is closed with the light on and it's like, is there someone in there or did somebody just close the door? Yeah, did someone poop in there and shut the door? So then you do the jiggle and then if you're in there, it's uncomfortable. Yeah, it makes you nervous. It's an uncomfortable moment. Somebody's jiggling the handle. You're like, does lock work? I hope so. Now you know. Occupied vacant. Yeah. We also were practicing good hygiene together in the bathroom and Tom Graff walked in on us. We did that because we didn't lock the door. We just went in there to wash our hands. Tom Graff popped in. He was shocked. Because we were just washing our hands. Uh-huh. He's like, oh, sorry. No, we're just practicing hygiene. It's okay. It's cool. Come join us. He didn't. Come on in. No, he waited.
    41:39
    Yeah. So that was fun. Yeah, so I think we sort of summarized the topic. Oh, one other shout out I have to give. Yeah. MVP of the weekend, Shelly Sharp. Yeah, everyone needs Shelly on their team or the equivalent of a Shelly. Shelly is the absolute greatest friend and she just makes everything better. Yeah. Doesn't she? Yeah. Everything. Her presence. Yep. She just makes the world a better place. She really does. What Shelly did was she brought a snack bag, which makes my snack bag look like nothing. If we had some snacks, and I would come in with like, does everybody want like one little mini candy bar each? Yeah. Not Shelly. No, she had a lot of items. She had a lot of items. She brought in club-sized bags of trail mix and little cup containers and poured out single servings for everybody out at the picnic table. People she knew, people she didn't know. She was just like the ultimate snack lady. She gave you a little plastic cup full of chocolate-covered pretzels. Yeah. Trail mix. She had a Band-Aid. Yeah, she did. Because I had like chopped up my finger on Thursday night trying to monkey with our cart, our pinball cart. And then as I was playing, that was like starting to bleed. Of course, Shelly had a Band-Aid.
    43:14
    I did bring the digestive aids. Yeah, you did. As we talked about a few episodes back of how to prepare for a pinball tournament, you're going to want those digestive aids. Yeah. If you have guts like mine.
    43:28
    But she's got random various medications, snacks. She took everyone's food orders. Yeah. And like, I think, did you guys both go pick the food up the one time, the barbecue? I think she wrestled together all the orders. Oh, that was delivered. We picked, she picked up the hot dogs. But just wrangling everybody, like someone's got to like take everyone's order if you're doing a group thing and that's a pain in the ass. Like I've done it. I think we still owe her for the hot dogs. We'll get you back for those hot dogs, Shelly. But that's all like pain in the ass kind of stuff. She made the event better. She did it. Yeah. And then was dealing with like their car had gotten a flat tire because there's a big screw in it. She got that taken care of. Just like effortlessly. Yeah. Shelly's the MVP. Yeah. I think there needs to be a major tournament. We need to, for the PAPA tournament, we need to have somebody take over some of those duties so that she can play pinball. Like what if we bring someone just- I know someone who I might invite- Oh, really? To take on this job. Okay. Think of who might be good. Your mom? No. My mom was wonderful at that, but no. Someone that lives up there? They live up that way. Hmm. Friend of ours. Okay. Well, I'll think about that. We don't have to take up time. Okay. Do you think I'll guess this person? I thought you would guess it immediately. There is a Shelly type. Oh my God. I know exactly who it is. Nobody knows, so this doesn't really matter. This is just between us. I know exactly who it is. We're just taking up podcast time. She is cut from the same cloth. Yeah. She's the merch mom. Amanda. Yeah. She did the same thing for the Smoking Pops on tour. So maybe we can collectively hire Amanda. She would love it. We could all chip in and pay her and then Shelly can give her order and then get the food brought to her. There's a light, so that's our cue to wrap this up. All right. What do you got to do to... Oh, yeah. For the sincere engineer to win the prizes, email mikeatlifefromtherockroom.com or go to punkrockpinball.com. Click Contact Us. Answer this question.
    46:04
    There is some narration on one of the songs on the new Sincere Engineer album, Probable Clause. All right. Name the person that did the narration on the Sincere Engineered new album Probable Clause. Oh, the name of the song is LOL. Is it the song is LOL? I think so. The album is Probable Clause. Yeah, yeah. One of the songs on there has narration. I believe it's LOL. I forget the name of the song. It might be LOL. It might not be. There's a narrator on the album. You have to listen to the little thing. Well. Name the actor. It's an actor. It's an actor and she took a picture and it's on her Instagram too. She has a picture of them on her Instagram. Email me that name. And your address. If you choose or if you win, I'll email you back. And then we'll do the thing. You'll win like a shirt and a record. That will be sent by Deanna. Will be sent by Deanna, not us, so you'll get it. Yeah. Okay. Well, uh, Marshall's sleeping. It's 813. That's a wrap. Toodaloo. Goodbye.