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Episode 58 – Premature Delivery

Slam Tilt Podcast·podcast_episode·held·Aug 31, 2017
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.032

TL;DR

Slam Tilt covers Trudeau arrest fallout and Northwest Pinball Championships with Raymond Davidson.

Summary

Slam Tilt Podcast Episode 58 covers the arrest of John Trudeau, a Stern Pinball designer, on child pornography charges, with hosts Ron Hallett and Bruce Nightingale discussing the legal situation, impact on Iron Maiden game, and community implications. The episode also features an extensive interview with Raymond Davidson about the Northwest Pinball Championships, including tournament format, game selection, venue logistics, and competitive results, followed by discussion of flipper mechanics issues in Attack from Mars remakes.

Key Claims

  • John Trudeau was arrested on Thursday afternoon on two counts of child pornography according to police report

    high confidence · Ron Hallett reporting on arrest as confirmed news; also verified by mention of Coast to Coast Pinball covering the story

  • John Trudeau was released on bail on Sunday

    high confidence · Ron Hallett stating 'He has been released on bail now. Yeah, he was released Sunday.'

  • John Trudeau was designing Iron Maiden for Stern Pinball at the time of arrest

    high confidence · Ron Hallett: 'Plus the fact that he was in the midst of making a game for Stern, which, let's face it, most people know. Iron Maiden. And it was actually normal flipper gap. Iron Maiden with what's on the art, and the play field's done.'

  • A prescient 2013 comment warned about Trudeau's past with children

    medium confidence · Hosts cite a 2013 post from Pinball Performance saying 'do people know who Mr. Trudeau really is what kind of person he was with children that were in his care' and 'His demons will come back to haunt his life, I promise'

  • Attack from Mars remake has different flipper play feel compared to original

    medium confidence · Ron Hallett: 'Did you know that some people say that the new Attack from Mars remake, the flippers just don't play like the original? Yeah, I heard this. Tim Balls has been leading the crusader... Keith Elwin was in agreement.'

  • Flipper mech timing delay in Attack from Mars is caused by board routing through multiple layers rather than direct CPU control

    medium confidence · Bruce Nightingale's technical analysis: board in backbox goes to main board under playfield with solenoid drivers, creating timing delay vs. original WPC direct control

  • Northwest Pinball Championships had record attendance of 84-85 players, exceeding previous attendance including when held at a show

    high confidence · Raymond Davidson: 'I think for both Classics and Main, there was like 84, 85, somewhere in the 80s of people... It was actually the best turnout we've ever had, including when it was at the show'

Notable Quotes

  • “His demons will come back to haunt his life, I promise. Stay tuned. This will get good.”

    [name withheld pending review]@ 5:27 — Prescient 2013 comment warning about Trudeau's past that resurfaced after arrest; demonstrates prior knowledge in community

  • “It's a bad situation for everyone. Stern is probably going to just be, he's gone. Oh, of course. Yeah, he's gone. I don't think whether it turns out he's innocent or not, they're not going to deal with it.”

    Ron Hallett@ 8:12 — Assessment of Stern's likely response to the situation; implies employment termination regardless of legal outcome

  • “Even if he is innocent. We don't know. Nobody will know until the charges all come out and everything like that.”

    Bruce Nightingale@ 8:22 — Reinforces innocent until proven guilty standard while acknowledging uncertainty

  • “I qualified on my second ticket just kind of like, you know, futzing around, trying to feel out the games, and I'm just like, whoa, I have scores that are not total crap.”

    Raymond Davidson@ 18:21 — Describes his tournament qualification approach and mindset

  • “It was the Papa format of old. I guess Papa 19 and earlier. And it was only a four-game ticket with seven games to choose from.”

    Raymond Davidson@ 17:55 — Explains the tournament format used at Northwest Pinball Championships

  • “That Tron was set up pretty mean. It wasn't quite how I had played it at home.”

    Raymond Davidson@ 33:00 — Notes differences between tournament setup and personal machine setup

  • “He has to drain one. That is what Josh said. Yep, he has to drain one. Yeah, he has to drain one automatically. That's a definite.”

    [name withheld pending review] — Describes a tournament ruling on beneficial malfunction with two balls in single-ball play

Entities

John TrudeaupersonRon HallettpersonBruce NightingalepersonRaymond DavidsonpersonKeith Elwinperson[name withheld pending review]personJosh SharppersonTerryperson

Signals

  • ?

    regulatory_signal: John Trudeau, Stern Pinball designer, arrested on two counts of child pornography with warrant-based search of computer. Released on bail Sunday. Raises questions about game legacy, liability, and community impact.

    high · Ron Hallett: 'John Truvatudo was arrested on Thursday afternoon of two counts of child pornography. According to the police report, one of those deals was an ongoing investigation... And when they checked his computer, they found what they thought they were going to find.'

  • ?

    design_innovation: Attack from Mars remake exhibits measurably different flipper response timing compared to original due to emulation board architecture routing through multiple layers vs. direct WPC control.

    medium · Bruce's technical analysis identifies main board under playfield with solenoid driver routing creating latency vs. original direct control; multiple community members including Keith Elwin acknowledge the difference

  • ?

    product_concern: Aftermarket flipper plunger sourcing error: supplier used Pinball 2000 specs (longer plungers) for all Williams generations despite part number not changing. Issue eventually corrected but many incorrect units remain in circulation.

    high · Ron Hallett from discussion with Terry at Pinball Life: 'when Pinball 2000 came out, they slightly lengthened the plunger length. They did not change the part number... they were using the Pinball 2000 specs to make plungers so they were too long'

  • ?

    venue_signal: Northwest Pinball Championships successfully relocated from Lucky Strike bowling alley (bumped for UFC event) to Linwood bowling facility; secured dual-room tournament setup with improved logistics and streaming capability.

    high · Raymond Davidson: 'their corporate overlords demanded that we clear the room for the UFC or some fight thing. It was the Mayweather-McGregor fight... we found this bowling skate, Linwood bowling skate, and it worked out beautifully.'

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.327

0:00
Hey Beaver, you know what rules about hospitals? All the free ice cream? No. You don't have to get out of bed to take a whiz.
0:14
Oh yeah. I took a dump in mine. Coming to you from beautiful upstate New York, this is the Slam Tilt Podcast, the show about all things pinball. I'm your host, Ron Hallett, here with my co-host, Bruce Nightingale. Hi-ho, this is Kermit the Frog with another Muppet News Flash. We're not doing Muppet movies. We're doing News Flashes, though. Yes, we are. But this is episode 58, Pink Panther.
1:00
The Pink Panther. Da-na, da-na, da-na, da-na. And everyone knows the song. Da-na, da-na, da-na, da-na. But when most people think Pink Panther, they think Inspector Clouseau. But in this one, he is, I wouldn't say a bit part, but he's the secondary role, who does somewhat steal the movie, hence the reason it became all about him afterwards. It was with, Nevin was in it also, wasn't he? Well, no, David Niven was in it. Niven. You got something against that poor guy. Yes, David Niven. there was the woman who I can't remember. Who else was in it? I think, what's his name, from heart to heart was in it, I thought. The one who was married to Natalie Wood. He was in Austin Powers, too. Yes. Oh, God. They're going to make me look for this while we're doing something else. Yep, we've got to look for that. We've got to find out who that was. Robert something? Robert Wagner. I'm pretty sure he's in it. Robert Wagner. Oh, really? Okay, so I was right on that. All right. Yep. A lot of French guys. Yeah. The jewel gets stolen eventually. Yes. And it's called the Pink Panther because it's like this big, what is this, big diamond. And if you look at it, if you look at it in a certain way, you can see a panther, a pink panther. Yes.
2:21
Good movie. Recommend it. I think it's like 1963. Yeah. Yes. Damn. Two stars. Out of 10. So not bad.

  • Northwest Pinball Championships had to relocate from Lucky Strike bowling alley due to Mayweather-McGregor UFC fight requirement

    high confidence · Raymond Davidson: 'they bailed on us because their corporate overlords demanded that we clear the room for the UFC or some fight thing. It was the Mayweather-McGregor fight.'

    • @ 24:58

  • “I know if you get it from Pinball Life you will get the right ones and he has every different Williams generation every Williams generation he has so if you really want things exactly the same as original he has them”

    Ron Hallett@ 12:18 — Discusses flipper plunger sourcing and consistency from Pinball Life vendor

    • Robert Gagneau
    person
    Zach Sharpeperson
    Dave Stewartperson
    Bowenperson
    Chuck Websterperson
    Stern Pinballcompany
    Coast to Coast Pinballorganization
    Pinball Players Podcastorganization
    Pinball Profileorganization
    Pinball Lifeorganization
    Northwest Pinball Championshipsevent
    Attack from Marsgame
    Iron Maidengame
    Trongame
  • ?

    event_signal: Northwest Pinball Championships achieved record attendance of 84-85 players in both Classics and Main divisions, exceeding previous highs including show-based tournament attendance.

    high · Raymond Davidson: 'It was actually the best turnout we've ever had, including when it was at the show, which, you know, when you had all the onlookers passing by and whatnot, it was actually, it eclipsed even that attendance.'

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Northwest Pinball Championships used modified PAPA format: four-game ticket from seven-game pool (vs. traditional five-of-ten), creating unusual game selection dynamics.

    high · Raymond Davidson: 'It was the Papa format of old. I guess Papa 19 and earlier. And it was only a four-game ticket with seven games to choose from. So it was interesting because the ratio was a little different than most people were used to at Papa'

  • ?

    community_signal: Ongoing New York vs. New England tournament rivalry documented; hosts enlisted Raymond Davidson to 'move to New York' as ringer for Trash Talker Invitational; rivalry centered on player representation and selection bias.

    medium · Ron/Bruce discussing Pinball Players Podcast featuring New England organizer Chuck Webster; coordination of Raymond Davidson as East Coast player to represent New York interests

  • ?

    content_signal: Pinball Players Podcast reused Slam Tilt audio clip without permission (discussing New York/New England player dynamics) during episode featuring Chuck Webster.

    medium · Ron Hallett: 'Pinball Players podcast... they took a snippet from one of our podcasts... They took our, remember when we were talking about how the chowder heads they were?... Did they get permission for that? No, but I don't give a crap.'

  • ?

    industry_signal: John Trudeau arrest raises industry questions about game legacy, secondary market value, theme licensing approval (Iron Maiden management), and designer attribution on future releases.

    medium · Ron Hallett: 'people asking, like, you know, should they... Sell their games... Are his games going to be worth less, worth more? I don't know how I feel... there was questions like, should they redo it, which I can't see that happening.'

  • ?

    product_strategy: Expectation that Iron Maiden will be attributed to 'Stern Pinball' or 'Stern Pinball employees' rather than John Trudeau individually, regardless of design credit history.

    medium · Ron Hallett: 'I'm sure when the game comes out, it's going to say, designed by Stern Pinball. Yeah. Stern Pinball employees. Yep.'

  • ?

    operational_signal: Northwest Pinball Championships experienced equipment reliability challenges: Meteor EM rebooted repeatedly during setup and Friday, requiring replacement with Vulcan; Sea Witch setup required removal of both outlane posts for difficulty tuning.

    high · Raymond Davidson: 'Meteor took a dump where it would just reboot all the time... we just were like, all right, that's it. We got to pull it out... we put it on the side for people to play... never, never rebooted once again.'

    • 2:32
    So. What's new? What's new, Pussycat? Whoa, whoa, whoa. That's not in it, but Tom Jones, 60s. Yeah, I'd go for that. We have news. Yeah. Unfortunate news. Yeah. And we debated even mentioning this, but when I saw Coast to Coast Pinball did a 30-minute thing on it. Yeah. I said, I guess we can mention it. And I highly recommend listening to Coast to Coast Pinball and Nate's podcast on this. It'll be far better than anything we will say. Yeah, because we suck. Well, yeah, we cover that. We suck. We do suck. But, fortunately, John Truvatudo was arrested on Thursday afternoon of two counts of child pornography. According to the police report, one of those deals was an ongoing investigation, probably going after, you know, kiddie porn people, staying. And wherever they have their hooks in, they saw a request come in for some porn and traced it to John's computer, got a warrant. And when they checked his computer, they found what they thought they were going to find. Yep. Which, that's it, doesn't look good. No, not at all. Unfortunately. So, I mean, you can do the, it's innocent until proven guilty, but, man, it doesn't look good. No, it never looks good, but, you know, don't forget, it is innocent until proven guilty. Now, look, OJ got off. Well, that's different. Oh, shit. So, I mean, this is more like, there's only two possible scenarios. Either, well, he didn't realize what he was downloading, which is not likely. Yes. Someone else in the house was using the computer and did it, not him. Mm-hmm. or someone hacked into his computer and got foreign through it. Yeah. Which, it doesn't look like any of that's the case. No, no. And there's also another weird part of this, and if you listen to the Coast to Coast podcast, you would hear what I hear, that there was some premonition of something like this may occur. Yes, and somebody sent it to me. Oh, it's still out there? Oh, it's out there. from 2013 where it was an article from pinball performance Stern Pinball hires legendary pinball designer John Trudeau per Stern Pinball Facebook page Stern has hired legendary pinball John Trudeau back in 5-9 2013 and from 9-8 2013 do people really, this is from the person that posted a ghost from pinball's past do people know who Mr. Trudeau really is what kind of person he was with children that were in his care. That's exactly what was written. I think not. His demons will come back to haunt his life, I promise. Stay tuned. This will get good. That was the comment that Nate was looking for. Nate was, yeah, Nate was looking for on his podcast that he remembered seeing. And it is kind of creepy. It is creepy, yes. It's very creepy. Don't forget, this was four years ago. Nobody thought about it. Nobody knew about it. Somebody just could have been fishing, you know, like we always see on the Internet. Yeah, you mean trolling? Fishing. You know, fishing for hooks. You know, trying to get somebody to say, what do you mean? You know, and then keep the argument going and that kind of stuff also. Trolling. Fishing. No, it's trolling. Fishing is a different term. I don't even want to give trolls their... Oh, God.
    6:11
    We're arguing about different terminology. Yes, we are, of course. We don't want to get off the subject. Okay, in Bruce's terms, it's fishing. Trolling is now fishing. Yes. It's a completely different thing. Except for the band Fish, then they're different. The band Fish. So, on the pinball end of it, there's, you know, people asking, like, you know, should they... Sell their game. Yeah, sell their games, like if Papa or whatever has a tournament, should they not use John Trudeau-made games in there? Are his games going to be worth less, worth more? I don't know how I feel. Do I still want Alien Star now? I don't know. It's just kind of a weird situation. Plus the fact that he was in the midst of making a game for Stern,
    6:57
    which, let's face it, most people know. It's Iron Maiden. And it was actually normal flipper gap. Iron Maiden with what's on the art, and the play field's done.
    7:09
    I mean, John Trudeau was a notoriously fast worker, too. So I'm sure it's probably been done for a while.
    7:15
    So I've heard suggestions like they should redo it, which I can't see that happening. No, I don't think so. It's frugal, Sam being nice here, as stern as I can't see them redoing that. No. It's just going to be too expensive. Then I was talking to Bruce before that we went on the air here. The only situation I could see where they would redo it is if Iron Maiden's management said, like, we want it redone. Yeah. we will not support it if you let somebody do that. Yep. And I'm sure they have final approval anyway, so they could just say, like, yeah. And I'm sure when the game comes out, it's going to say, designed by Stern Pinball. Yeah. Stern Pinball employees. Yep. Yeah.
    8:00
    And then there was questions like, should Stern say anything? The way you have to look at it is this, it's a bad situation for everyone. Stern is probably going to just be, he's gone. Oh, of course. Yeah, he's gone. I don't think whether it turns out he's innocent or not, they're not. Of course not. They're not even going to deal with it. He's gone. His life's ruined. That too. Even if he is innocent. We don't know. Nobody will know until the charges all come out and everything like that. He has been released on bail now. Yeah, he was released Sunday. Yes. And I had an interesting situation where I used to live. The guy next door to me, he ran a cardio for kids karate place. and one of his students said that they had sexual relations with her. And it made news all over the place. They sent the paper, all that. He went to jail. Well, as it turns out, she was lying.
    8:55
    And I found out because like a month later he was back, like next door. And even though he was innocent, there was nothing in the press or anything like that. Like, the guy we totally destroyed before, screwed over, was actually innocent. I mean, he obviously had to, his school was done. Yeah. So, but, I mean, it's just the old innocent until proven guilty. Yeah, you have to go by that. That's what everyone's freedom is.
    9:25
    Since we're kind of in a downturn, let's pile it on. I don't know. No, just send our best wishes out to people in Texas. Yes, very much so. Hurricane Harvey is 40 inches of rain. Yes. If you can donate anything, that'd be very nice. Poor people out there. Pinball's not important when it comes to life. Life is more important. These people are suffering. Six people have already died so far as of Monday, 9 o'clock.
    9:54
    It's not a good thing. It really isn't. Now that we're doing... Hey, Bruce! Yeah? Did you know that some people say that the new Attack from Mars remake, the flippers just don't play like the original? Yeah, I heard this. Tim Balls has been leading the crusader. Yeah, Tim Balls has been just leading the charge on this. It's got to be the system. Or the flippers. And Keith Elwin was in agreement.
    10:21
    With me? Well, no, that they play differently. Oh, yeah, totally right. Yeah. So, hi, Keith. Did you give a Roller Games 2000 idea to Steve? What's that happen? Roller Games. Oh, sorry. Because they're pretty much made from the same parts. I mean, they're Williams parts. But the thing to remember... In the past, they weren't. What do you mean, in the past, they weren't? So your medieval men, remake, you have. You lift up that play field. They're not WPC Flipper Mechs in there? Well, we don't know that because, don't forget, five or six years ago, there was a big controversy where other companies were making the mechs wrong and pinball life was. Was it?
    11:01
    Was it? Yeah. Here's the deal. About, and it was probably more than seven or ten years ago. Probably ten or twelve. Yeah, well, what happened was, as the pinball parts suppliers like Marco were running out of their stock of original WPC Flipper Macs, when they started to make new ones, the plunger lengths were too long. And why was this happening, you may ask? Well, I had a discussion with Terry at Pinball Life.
    11:29
    You know you're a pinball geek when you're talking about, you know, plungers. Oh, my. The deal was, when Pinball 2000 came out, they slightly lengthened the plunger length. They did not change the part number.
    11:46
    So when the same company makes, like, the plungers for, like, all your, when you buy a lot of these parts, the same company's making them, whether you're buying them for Pinball Life or whoever. It was a company in Chicago who makes these. they were using the Pinball 2000 specs to make plungers so they were too long and that's what everyone was getting so that was eventually fixed but there's a lot of ones out there that are still too long but I believe most of the vendors have that under control I know if you get it from Pinball Life you will get the right ones and he has every different Williams generation every Williams generation he has so if you really want things exactly the same as original he has them But that was the first thing that the flipper travel was different. But they did post some pictures, like original and the remakes, at least from Attack from Mars. And it looked the same. It looked the same. But the thing you've got to remember is it's a different system.
    12:47
    It's not WPC. It's whatever they're using. I don't even know what you'd call it. It's emulating the original system, but it's not the original system. So I think it's delayed. Yeah. That's what I've heard. Like a delay. It comes off different parts of the flipper to hit different shots than an original does, et cetera, et cetera. Well, don't forget, it's a Dione MMR. What it does, actually, it goes from the main board is in the back box, which is like a, what do they call it, I forget what they call it, the little board.
    13:21
    But they call it a pinball emulator. And it goes down to the big board underneath the play field, So it actually has the graphics, the CPU drive. Underneath the play field. Insane. Yes. Then, wait, then there's three solenoid drivers that go into that play field. Big board. And all your coils, flippers go through that. So not going directly to the emulator itself. It's going through and then through something else.
    13:54
    That's where I think our time delay is happening. That sounds good. Sounds good to me. Bruce has figured it out. This is the problem. So how do we fix this, Bruce?
    14:05
    We should have put WPC boards in there from day one for the remake. I mean, yes, of course. Yeah, that's what I would have done. That's what I would have done when they first talked about this and they didn't want to do this. Yeah, and then they mount everything to the play field because we know mounting boards to the play field is a great idea. Nothing has ever happened Opto's going bad Nothing has ever happened Ball trough issues By putting stuff on the play field Spike too Nothing bad has ever happened Atari Actually the bottom of the cabinet isn't good either No Don't do that Move them to the head Move all boards to the head And be done with it Away from the vibration So, we were on two podcasts this week besides the room. Two? We were? Two. Two of them? What was the other one? Interesting. Yes.
    15:08
    Pinball Profile we were on. Yes, we were. Episode 69. That was pretty funny about him. Or as he called it, 57.5, which is the in-between. Yeah. Which we're now on 58. What was the other one we were on? Oh, that was the Pinball Players Podcast.
    15:32
    So how were we on that? I don't recall being interviewed for that. We were not interviewed. Oh. They had Chuck Webster on. Oh, that guy. Yeah. The guy who hates New York. The guy who plots against all New York players to get New England guys into the glory of the trash can while we sit outside.
    15:54
    They announced somebody new for that tournament today. It was Mr. some guy, world champion. Former world champion. Yeah. What's his name?
    16:06
    Bowen. Yes. Oh, yes. He was invited. I like how we invited him saying that. Even though you lost to a kid, we still forgive you. Yes. But going back to the Pinball Players podcast, I actually enjoyed it. It was a very good show, and they had Chuck on. and about halfway through, they took a snippet from one of our podcasts. But wait a minute. They actually had a clip of one of our podcasts? They did. Did they get permission for that? No, but I don't give a crap. Oh.
    16:36
    You sure? You sure we don't need to get George Takei on this? No, no, no, no, no. Okay. Because it showed us in our true blue New England accents. What? They took our, remember when we were talking about how the chowder heads they were? Yeah. Well, they took that. And they said, you know, how we were making fun of them, saying that we could take them down, of course, and that they're picking on poor, you know, Stephanie, pinball princess, and that they should be adding more New York players. And then, of course, they piled on us afterwards after taking that clip. Well, the one thing the New England guys don't realize, when you screw up New Yorkers, you know, we go all out. We find an angle. So we got on the phone right now, just called in. We have a ringer. And he's going to move to New York just for this. He's moving to New York just for this event. We have Raymond Davidson. Yes. We're going to win. Hi, guys. Hey, Raymond.
    17:40
    Congratulations on your two wins this weekend. Yeah, yeah, just got off Northwest Pinball Championships. That was exciting. Congratulations. very much. Tell us about this weekend's championship tournament, please.
    17:55
    Well, it was the Papa format of old. I guess Papa 19 and earlier. And it was only a four-game ticket with seven games to choose from. So it was interesting because the ratio was a little different than most people were used to at Papa, where it was like five out of ten. So once you had one run, you can't play the other half of the games. one game will overlap, which is kind of interesting.
    18:21
    But I end up qualifying on my second ticket just kind of like, you know, futzing around, trying to feel out the games, and I'm just like, whoa, I have scores that are not total crap. Like, I guess that's good. And if you look at my ticket, like, there's nothing. I didn't blow anything up. I just got kind of average Joe scores. And then later when I was trying to blow things up to try to pass Dave Stewart, I just couldn't do anything at all. So sometimes just going in cold and putting in your run is the best way to go.
    18:53
    Very impressive. So how many people showed up and actually played in, first, the Classics, if you know, and also the Main, since I know you were helping running it too a little bit, weren't you? Yeah. So I think for both Classics and Main, there was like 84, 85, somewhere in the 80s of people. I think all of them played at least the four games or whatever is required. It was actually the best turnout we've ever had, including when it was at the show, which, you know, when you had all the onlookers passing by and whatnot, it was actually, it eclipsed even that attendance. Which is impressive because you had to move. Yeah, we've had to move a couple times. You know, at one point it was up in Marysville, which is like 45 minutes north of Seattle, kind of just out in the boonies. And then one year, the last couple of years, it's been in Bellevue at this fancy bowling alley called Lucky Strike. But they bailed on us because their corporate overlords demanded that we clear the room for the UFC or some fight thing. It was the Mayweather-McGregor fight. McDonald or whatever, yeah. McDonald. We can see Raymond really follows that.
    20:08
    Yeah, so we had to find someplace, and we were kind of panicking because it was really hard to find Lucky Strike. Like, we have a certain budget. You know, we need it all day, Thursday through Sunday. And, you know, eventually we found, we called up different places, you know, hotels. It was funny. I call up a hotel, like a Holiday Inn or something, and they're like, they're super nice. They, like, send me emails, get me all hooked up, tell me all the info. And then slowly she starts sending emails one by one being like, wait a minute, is this going to be loud? Wait, how many people? How many machines? What times? And eventually I just reply. I was like, yeah, we found somewhere else. It's okay. You don't have to worry about us. We're not going to ruin your weekend. Yeah, but you could just see, like, she's like, I've got to ask my manager something. It was funny. But, yeah, so we found this bowling skate, Linwood bowling skate, and it worked out beautifully. There was two rooms, a classics room and a main room, and the machines fit perfectly against the wall, and there was some space for the stream even and some practice games too. So I was really happy. Do you remember the list of games that you were for main and for classics? Yeah, the game list. I always pride ourselves on having a sweet list, but maybe I'm biased because I just, I don't know. It was like Johnny Mnemonic, which you don't see in tournaments very much, for good reason. We are never going to use that game ever again.
    21:43
    It just kept breaking. Indiana Jones, Williams, set up very mean, but not completely bogus mean. You could still put up some good scores on it. the left flipper was strong enough so you could nail that jackpot ramp. It was pretty sweet. Nice.
    22:03
    There was Roadshow, which was the meanest Roadshow ever. I think in my final game, spoiler alert, the final round of four, I got third place with $15 million. Woo!
    22:18
    Yeah. Yikes. That's about how mean that thing was set up. Yeah. Then there was Terminator 2 Which you don't see in tournaments very much Because it's on the like Band list But I don't know I love that game That's like one of my favorite games I used to play it growing up At the race car place A go-karting place near me And it It kind of helped me get into pinball And I just have a soft spot for that game Cool Then there's also Sorry I'm blanking here Let's see Go down the list Your game Tron. There you go. I love me some Tron. Yes, you do. And it came through for me, although it almost didn't. That was an exciting... Everyone should watch that final game. That was really intense.
    23:09
    So Tron, and then... Let's see, how many is that? So Terminator 2, Roadshow, Indiana Jones, Johnny Mnemonic, Tron, Walking Dead, and Whirlwind. those video too yep that'll be Walking Dead Premium yes with the buttons yep and if you wanted to watch all this because we keep saying watch it well where can I watch it was on Twitch just look for I believe it's Kevin DDR yeah we're using Kevin Burrell's stream channel Kevin DDR and you can see the final match where they had to make a call to Josh Sharp to get a ruling were you guys watching that I was watching that. That actually happened. They had to interrupt Josh's viewing of the Game of Thrones finale to get a ruling.
    24:00
    So did you see it, Bruce, at all? I did not see it. I was actually watching Game of Thrones myself. Okay, so here you go. Put your tournament director hat on, Bruce. Okay, I screwed up once last week, so here we go. Well, I'll tell you what happened, and then I'll tell you what Josh decided. No, first let me guess. Let me say what I would do. That's the point, Bruce, yes. Here we go.
    24:27
    Okay, they're playing Tron. Okay. Well, Robert Gagneau is playing Tron. And the ball saver is on. Okay. He drains, but it's like a drain Lazarus. So it fires another ball out, but his original ball is back in play. He then traps up. So you have one ball on each flipper. so it's like it should be single ball play, but he has two balls in play.
    24:56
    What's the ruling? He has to drain one. That is what Josh said. Yep, he has to drain one. That was a much quicker decision than the five minutes. Yeah, he has to drain one automatically. That's a definite. I've gotten burned by that rule a couple times, too, where sometimes a stern will kick out two balls in multi-ball or something like that, and I'm like, oh, crap, you actually have to plunge one and drain it, And hopefully the CERN software is smart enough to pick up which it should have been. Yeah. I think the hang-up was the fact that it wasn't technically a malfunction.
    25:30
    I believe that was the main – that's what I – yeah, that's what I kept hearing. It's a beneficial malfunction, so you have to drain one. It is a gray area, and I can definitely see it going both ways.
    25:44
    But – and it's not written in the rules. There's no blanket rule that says you can't play two-ball and single-ball play, because that wouldn't be accurate either, because, like, Stern Trek and some earlier games with multi-ball, like, there was no difference between single-ball and multi-ball, right? So that was the hang-up, yeah. Yeah, but, hey, I guessed right, right? I didn't guess right. I knew right, right off the bat, yes. Good job, good job. You'll make a great tournament director someday. I'm so proud of you. One of these years. So what were the classic games you had? The classic games, we started out with Meteor, but it took a dump where it would just reboot all the time. Well, it started out like it rebooted maybe once Thursday when we were setting it up, and we were like, oh, well, let's hope that doesn't happen again. We looked at it. we kind of jiggled some connectors that were kind of loose and, you know, and it seemed fine. But then, like, late afternoon Friday it rebooted again, and we're like, oh, that's not good. And so we kept going back in, trying to reseat connectors and stuff, and then it rebooted again and again, and it just started more frequently rebooting. And so we just were like, all right, that's it. We got to pull it out. And we swapped in Vulcan Gottlieb Vulcan EM I sure Bruce is a fan of that Oh God no Yeah I would have pulled a rectifier board out of something just to get Meteor back up and running Yeah, it was tough, too, because after we pulled Meteor, we put it on the side for people to play. Practice, never, never rebooted once again. So it must have been a power situation or something. Yeah.
    27:33
    Yeah, so got with Vulcan 2001. one of my favorites but not in tournament play I like playing that at a show when it's on free play and I can play it over and over but in a tournament god no that thing is brutal oh my god and it took me I spent a good like two minutes trying to get the tilt like when I was setting it up on Thursday trying to get the tilt so that it wasn't bogus and it wasn't untiltable there was like a very fine line because if you tilt a tilt ends game people are gonna hate you. There will be riots. But if you have it too loose where you can just shove it around, people will just be rolling it over and over again. Yeah, me too. So that was a tricky one in that aspect. And then after Vulcan, we had Quick, not Quicksilver, Sea Witch. Nice. Quick was the first word that came to mind because it was ridiculously quick. It had both outland posts removed, so the games were not very long.
    28:39
    I think the high score the whole weekend was like 1.7 million. That's pretty brutal. I like it. I don't know if I would have went that far. That's a little too brutal. In hindsight, it might have been maybe just taking the rubbers off. What you can do and what they did at the one I played in Texas, the posts are like the full star posts. He took them out and replaced them with, like, the skinny plastic posts, like you'd see on a Williams game, or what Ed Stern uses for all their slingshot posts, like the skinny type. He used that, and it made it much harder, but not, like, insanely hard. Okay. Cool. Just a suggestion. And you can get the blue ones, too, that will match the color motif. Ooh. Nice. Yes. All right. So, yeah, it was Vulcan, 2001, Sea Witch, Blackjack. Love Blackjack. Love you, Blackjack. I had a crucial game in a classics final where I had 7,500 points going into ball three and then rolled it. Nice. Yes. Did you have the tournament rounds on the thing? No, we couldn't. It wasn't our Blackjack, so we couldn't mess with that. So there was some BS in that regard, but it was still a fun game. It's kind of... Love Blackjack. Yeah. And then the last game was Golly Pioneer, the two-player version of Spirit of 76, which if people haven't played it, Tim Balls will tell you all about it. He had never seen it, and after the weekend, he's a fan. And it's pretty cool. It's got, like, this double bonus light that the rule card actually says, lights double bonus occasionally. Like, that verbatim. Occasionally.
    30:38
    And you have to, like, advance bonus to change it, and so it's like this constant dance of trying to get the whole lit for your double bonus, but it's actually, like, skillful. It's not like Hang Glider where every five switches or whatever. Stupid Hang Glider.
    30:55
    Yeah, anyway. So, those are the games. Classics. Very cool. And you won Classics also. Yes, you did. Yeah, that was an early morning, 9, 15 a.m., and somehow managed to stay awake and pull it out. Who did you play against? We think we broadcasted the Final Four.
    31:15
    Oh, I played against, I'm trying to remember now. I mean, I think I might have played against Zach Sharp. I know he was in the finals. I think I played against Jermaine probably. I honestly don't remember. I know. I love it. It, like, literally happened yesterday. I don't remember. I don't remember anything. Well, when you put me on the spot like that, you know, these questions. Yes. Oh, yeah. Stop grilling me. We're just arguing girl assists.
    31:49
    Oh, boy. But that's cool. Congratulations on both of your wins. And we'll be welcoming you to New York soon when you move up and enjoy the hospitality of New York. and take out... Raymond Davis is coming. He's coming to represent New York. Yes. We kick all your asses. For a couple days and... A couple days.
    32:12
    But can I talk trash? Oh, you can talk trash anytime you want. I know you can. I know it. And you took the Ron Hallett route to victory. You won on your own game. Yeah, I really didn't want to. I kept avoiding it throughout the finals, but it came down to game three, and I knew if I didn't pick Tron, Robert was going to pick Indiana Jones, and I had not had much time on that Indiana Jones.
    32:40
    So it was either pick Tron or Walking Dead. And Walking Dead I also would have been okay with because I own a Walking Dead, but that was the problem. This wasn't my Walking Dead, right? So it could have been a curse. So I was hoping. I'd rather play a Tron that's my Tron than a Walking Dead that's not. I want that. That Tron was set up pretty mean. It wasn't quite how I had played it at home.
    33:07
    Yeah, I was going to ask, is it a pro or an LE? The Tron is a pro. It's a pro with the EL wire. Okay. Yeah. That's what I thought, because doesn't the LE have the moving recognizer thingy? I don't. Yeah. Yes, it does. Yeah. Bruce will confirm. Yes. Now, when you come to the Trash Talker Invitational, Raymond, and we fly you out here first class. Of course, first class. First class. First class all the way. There's only one person you have to worry about, and he's a New England guy. He's won Papa a couple times. He's that Bowen guy, you know. Don't worry about him. He's a former world champion, not current IFBA world champion. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I think some kid beat him last. Yeah, some kid beat him. Some kid beat him. What the heck? You know, it's so easy. So, I mean, you're not even in your prime yet. He's far past his prime at this point. Yeah, God. And he had to get an allergy test today, so he's got all hives all over him from all the allergy tests. I saw his little post there, yeah. Yeah. So he's done. He's done. He's just old now. He's just going to fall apart on you. Yeah.
    34:15
    Oh, I wish you were on the East Coast, Raymond. I really do. Yeah, I mean, it's good to know that, you know, because one of my biggest fears of ever leaving Seattle is if where I go doesn't have, you know, a big pinball scene. I don't have that fear on the East Coast. It seems like from north to south, all along the coast, there's pinball, like everywhere.
    34:37
    So come on out. Get out of the normal time zone. So we'll be emailing you your travel itinerary later on. Yes, we will. We have everything prepared. Yes, we cannot wait. I can't wait. It's going to be awesome.
    34:57
    So what else has been new with you, Raymond? Have you been enjoying your new game? Ghostbusters? Yes. Yeah, I mean, it's fun sometimes, but it's...
    35:09
    I just... They need to... It could be an okay game if they just did a little more balancing and had less bugs. But between the bugs and the balancing issues, it's just not a game I can say that I like. I do, it is fun going on marshmallow runs. Like, a 15 billion marshmallow man is pretty fun. Like, when you crank it up to X, and then you get to 6X, and you do the thing. But you feel like you kind of luck into it a little bit. You know, it's like, you can try to set it up, but usually that just leads to frustration. and, you know, you get hosed left and right. It's like, I wish they would have, instead of the skill shot lighting your Xs, if they just made it, like, a normal way to light Xs that was, you know, not super deadly or time-consuming. I think you have to, like, hit the three targets and then hit the captive ball, like, five times. And then sometimes you hit the captive ball five times and it doesn't even give you anything, and nobody knows why. And the left ramp will randomly divert your ball into the scoop, when you don't have lock, lit, or mode, and it just throws you off, and you're like, why did it divert? I don't know. I don't know, because it's buggy software. Oh, yeah. And then the Galeri brothers. Actually, skill-type res are kind of funny because they punish you for missing shots because they'll only ever come up if you hit that captive ball that you never want to hit. So I'm okay with that. I wish they would be off in multi-ball, though. Then I'd be okay with that. I agree. No, I think they should just be removed entirely. They're a pain in the ass. You're supposed to hate that.
    36:51
    Literally, they put them in because we don't have anything from the second movie. We'll put Sclery Brothers targets in. I mean, that's the only reason they're in there. Ah, that makes sense. Yeah. The second movie, which I didn't see. Me either. Yeah. My friend tells me that the Sclery Brothers are from the second movie, and I'm like, oh, okay, well. You're like, there was a second movie? What? Huh? What? So what do you think of Star Wars?
    37:18
    Star Wars. I played it a little bit at Pinberg, and I enjoyed it. It flowed pretty well. I actually kind of liked the idea of, like, oh, my X is up, and I have these shots lit, and if I hit these shots, like, right now, I get, like, these pretty good value. Like, I get rewarded for hitting lit shots, and I feel like that's been missing a lot from games where you hit a lit shot, and it may or may not do anything for you. Like, you don't really know. But in Star Wars, if you have X's and there's a shot that's lit, you probably should hit it. Because you're probably going to get, like, an absurd amount of points.
    37:55
    So, at a fundamental level, I think that's fun. But they need to, you know, obviously tweak it a little bit and, you know, not have the game Johnny mnemonic power down during finals.
    38:08
    That was funny. I think that was my analogy when it died at Rock Fantasy. Yeah, that's the joke. I forgot. You're a listener. I love listeners. Listeners rule.
    38:19
    So what do you think of the IFPA heads-up pinball thing that they posted on the IFPA website? Did you see that? I don't know what it is. I just saw, like, a picture and then coming soon or something. Yeah, that's all they did. Oh. Is it, like, the thing Jack Danger was doing with the weird time challenges side to side on a different game? You know, it might be. Well, it's heads up. Heads up challenge. I think it's something like that. It's some new way of presenting pinball on camera. And it is in October. And it is not at Expo. How do you know it's not at Expo? That's what Josh said. Oh. Because somebody asked him. All right. Well, they better start releasing some details. Those flights are, you know. I know. I agree. But we shall see. Hmm. I would just want to know. Yeah, I want to know more. I mean, the heads up is kind of a cool novelty, but I don't know how serious I could take it because it's kind of like there's just so many variables, like the different games and how one's set up over the other. And I guess I'm just scared because I've never approached a game other than tournament strategy, so I wouldn't know what to do for speed or number of flips or whatever. I don't even know what the limit would be or two minutes you only have. go knock the knocks off. I know. I would like that, actually. I actually would like that idea. You know, hey, you have two minutes on this game. You don't see what the other guy plays. Play this. Then it wouldn't be head-to-head. I know. Remember when they did the speed run thing? Yeah. I thought that was pretty good. You had to, like, run to each game. You had to get a certain, like, score as quickly as possible. Then run to the next game, run to the next game. Oh, my gosh. They did that at Papa one year. And me and my friend Bobby, who's an op here in the Seattle area, it went to like 4 in the morning, but we continued it. Like we stuck around until the bitter end, and there was like us and two other teams who were still there. So we like basically won by default. But it was still – it was actually pretty fun. There was like an end-of-line challenge where they put the ball trapped and your right flipper, and you'd have one chance to get an end-of-line jackpot split flipper. And that was it.
    40:40
    That's pretty neat. Yeah, there were some cool things like that. I like that idea. That's actually really neat. Except for the four-in-the-morning thing. That would just be dead to the world. Well, yeah, that was back when the after-parties would literally go until 7 a.m. at Papa. Yep. Yeah. We would have started booting people out, like, yeah, this is too long. It was funny because I think the year after that we intentionally didn't get a hotel that night we booked like a 5 or 6 a.m. flight and we were like, oh we'll just stay at the Bob's facility and then it was out at 1.30 and we were just like oh I guess we're going to the airport now Yikes, that sucks So, Ron Yes, yes sir I think you got a package today Oh, I got a package, alright You wait until you hear this one, Raymond This is good This is good. Yeah. Okay. So, as listeners know, I'm getting it dialed in. Woo! And I think last episode I even... Had the tracking number. But, yeah, I said, oh, look, a tracking number. Hey. So, it was shipped on Monday. Let's see. Let me get my little calendar up here. So, it would have been the 21st. And I get the tracking number, and I see it's sitting in Trenton, New Jersey. And then, you know, the next day, the next day, the next day. We get up to Thursday. It's still sitting in Trenton, New Jersey. at least according to the tracking number. So what the hell's going on? So I call the local office. It was New Penn, the company, trucking company that's delivering it. I call them, and it's like, yeah, I got this delivery coming, and I was just wondering, since it's still in New Jersey, I was just wondering what's going on. I give them the tracking number. Is this the Castleton? Like, yeah. He's there, yeah, it's here. You want it tomorrow? Like, yeah, sure. so they say they're going to deliver between 4 and 8 great, okay so I kind of change my work schedule around so I get out early or actually not, I just went to work earlier got out get home and wait for the next 4 hours and it doesn't show up like well this sucks so I call them, it's like 8 at night I figure no one's going to answer right it's 8 o'clock at night to my surprise, someone answers and they're like it was hilarious conversation I'm like yeah I was just wondering what's going on with my shipment supposed to be here and the guys are oh I wonder if you're the guy that he blew off literally that's what he said and it's like are you Ron Hallett like oh yes I am it's like oh the driver got he got like locked in somewhere where he couldn't get out so he had to cancel or whatever and it's like he didn't call you no no one called me so we set it up to be like, we can deliver first thing Monday morning. He's like, no, I'll be at work. It's like, well, and we basically arrange it so it's supposed to come between 530 and 8 at night, so I can be there for it. Great, fine, awesome, okay. Now, how much did you pay for this machine, Ron? Oh, it's $9,000. Okay, that's right. Keep on going. Okay, so I get home at like 520. And guess what's sitting on my front door?
    44:00
    Wait, what was the window you agreed on? 530 to 8. Now, I've had, this is like number five games. I've never had a situation where I didn't have to sign for the game, ever. So I don't know. Maybe some of our listeners who have gotten Jersey Jack games from New Penn can tell me if I'm missing something here. But I literally, I got home, and the game is sitting there in front of my front door, just sitting there. Like, oh, okay. See, Raymond, we could have got a free game. Yeah, literally. If you were driving by my house, it's like, oh, look at that. Free game. You could have just taken it. It was on the pallet. You could have just, boom, had it. Could have been yours. That's hilarious. I can't believe that. Yeah, I couldn't believe it either. And I'm like. I mean, maybe they were just trying to make it up to you. They were like, oh, man, imagine how happy and surprised he'll be when he gets home from work today. Yeah. It was probably the same idiot driver that didn't call me. Yeah. In my mind, I'm just going to say it's that same guy. He's my sworn enemy now, whoever he is.
    45:07
    But it was, thank God, it didn't have any puncture holes or anything like that in it. I got it in the house. I opened up the top. Got that wonderful new game smell. Mmm. and it looks okay. It survived.
    45:26
    So it's sitting in the living room in a box. So now that Ron has his game, I now admit I lost. You lost our bet. Yes, I did. So now I have to tell you the goodness about barbed wire. Tell us why barbed wire is a great game, Bruce. First, I don't own one. That makes it a great game? How is that the game's quality?
    45:49
    Well, it's good for me that I don't own one. the shots are actually not that bad. I don't mind it. And you'll never burn a GI out on a barbed wire system 3 because GIs don't burn out on system 3 goblins.
    46:04
    Oh, I thought you were just going to say because it had no GI. I've never seen the game, but I said it. It's a bad game. It's a really bad game.
    46:16
    So that's all you can say about it? That's all. So Pamela Anderson's okay and the GI doesn't burn out and you don't mind the shots that much? Don't mind the shots that much. The rules are terrible, of course, you know, but. No, you said a negative thing. Okay. So I gave you four positives. Okay. There you go. And, you know, got it on a one. But that's not a. That's a positive. That was the only bet you guys had was you had to say good things about a Gottlieb System 3 game? Yeah. Or if I won, if I got my game first, I was going to be the host and Ron was going to be the co-host.
    46:52
    Which I think the only difference would be when we did the intro. You would have done the intro. Yes. That would have been interesting. Oh, wow. That would have been interesting. Actually, do we have any of our podcasts that might come out April Fool's Day?
    47:09
    I don't know. When is April Fool's Day next year? It is Sunday. Damn it. So I'm just thinking that would be a cool thing.
    47:17
    Well, yeah, but now you've spoiled it. Well, yeah. No one will remember it by then. No one will remember that. That's true. I don't remember what we said in the last episode half the time. Do you remember ordering dialed in?
    47:29
    Yes. Yes, I remember ordering dialed in. I'm trying to think today. I did that over email. Yeah, I didn't do that in person.
    47:35
    So, yeah, I vaguely remember that. How's it playing? I haven't played it yet. What? It's sitting in my living room.
    47:45
    I said, it's not in my living room. It's not set up yet. Probably won't be set up for, well, first I want to see, I guess the newer ones come with the sim hole protector installed. Oh. Because I guess it just wears. But I also, I have other protectors on the way that probably won't be here for, like, three weeks. So it's going to be a while before I play. That'll do.
    48:09
    People are like, what? What? How can you just set it to sit there? Yeah, whenever I get a game, I open it up and I set it up that night. And you just start going. Yeah. You see, this is where my OCD and things like that really hurt me. Like, I hate, like, the whole box opening party. I could never do that. I have to open it at my own pace. I have to meticulously go through the game before it's ever played. I had my Black Spider-Man in the box for three months without even touching it. yeah but you also had unboxing parties yeah I couldn't do that it has to be all prepared it has to be all ready then I have to tweak everything before I even have anyone else play it sorry it's just like I want you to play my dialed in hold on Raymond do you see what I have to put up with now I'm usually the one that's the fucked up one this, you know, in our podcast relationship, you see how I'm, you know, now you see what I have to deal with.
    49:15
    Well, I need an extra day, right, to make sure the podcast is perfect, so. Exactly, because I fuck it all up. Because of all the editing I have to do, thanks to this guy.
    49:25
    You make a good machine. You should, you know, I really should have a, the censored collection. The blooper reel. Where we just have every inappropriate comment he says. It's like, oh my God. Oh, I'd be banned. It'd be banning. Yes. It's bad now, actually. Raymond, it's actually so bad, I'm actually starting to go afterwards, like, maybe you should cut this part out. Oh, wow. When Bruce was calling me, like, you know, I was kind of a dick in this part. I was wondering if you could cut that out. It's like, I already did Bruce. Like, oh, okay. Okay. Okay, there you go.
    49:59
    That's bad. Oh, God. Sometimes it's just a little too open with the mouth. Yeah. So, the Trash Tucker 3 Invitational, we put out $50. Me and Ron did. A piece. But the people don't have to bid over it. They just have to bid over our $50 bid. We're going to give $50 automatically. Yep. You could bid $51. That's fine. Yes. We're looking for people. We're looking for donations. Donations to actually take on the New England boys. But if we have somebody flying in, we might not need a donation anymore. Yes. Oh, sorry. No, no, we still need the donations.
    50:39
    They do a really good job at a... Project Pinball. Charity. They really do. What we're trying to say here is, hey, listeners, come on. Open your wallet. Step up. Step up and just whoop some New England ass. Come on. I mean, you can get to meet Bowen, former world champion. You can get his autograph.
    51:02
    You get to play in the great place of Chuck Webster. His place rocks. You can play a Nugent with actual Ted Nugent music. Wait, what? See, Raymond's coming now. That's what he needed to hear. Does it go like, beep, beep, beep, beep? No.
    51:22
    Beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep. Oh, God. That would be classic. Did they say I actually like to play Nugent, but the sound is so bad in that game. Stern's MPU-100 sound. It's just, oh, it's awful. I'd rather have chimes. That's why S.T.A.R.S. is awesome, because it just has the chimes. It doesn't have that. They recovered, though, with Meteor.
    51:48
    MPU-200, baby, they recovered. They recovered and excelled. Well, especially if it was a space-themed game.
    51:56
    Some of the sound effects don't really fit some of the other ones, like the Circus one, the Alley one, where it sounds like all space sound effects. It does have a bell It does have the thing that kind of sounds like a bell So I'll give it that But other than that The sounds, I mean Let's be honest All the games sound alike All the Wayne's games sound alike All the Godlings definitely sound alike Oh, well, the Godlings just sound terrible They sound terrible Think when you're playing Firepower And you're like, yeah, this is a pretty cool sound Just think of the sounds that Godlings were making Do-do-do-do-do-do That was their state of the art What about TX Factor? That's like late 80s. That's late 80s. That doesn't count. We're talking System 1 goodness. We're talking System 1 with the Buck Rogers.
    52:46
    Vulcan was 80 or was it? Vulcan's an EM. Yeah, Vulcan's an EM, Bruce. That's right. You're talking like Solar Ride. Yeah, Solar Ride. That sucks too.
    53:01
    So, Bruce, you were saying something. You were segueing into something when I interrupted you. What was I segueing? Oh, repairs. Repairs. Repairs, Ron and Raymond, if you have any repairs. Did you fix anything at the show? Or were your own personal games? Well, you broke Meteor, but did you fix anything? No, I did not really fix anything. We tried to fix Johnny Mnemonic to no avail. What was wrong with Johnny Mnemonic? It was the weirdest thing. The hand would work in test mode perfectly, and the popper worked, the switches worked, it passed flying colors, and then when you're in a game, when you shoot it in the lock, it would say ball locked, and then it would just do nothing. And it would just sit there, and you couldn't get out of it. It would never ball search, it would never kick, it wouldn't do anything. if you turned the game off and turned it back on again you couldn't start a new game with the ball in the popper and it just I don't know, it refused to send the ball into the hand for some reason that's so weird because it's in the saucer, it obviously knows it's in there because it says ball locked but then it doesn't do anything right, it just sat there weird, and it works in test mode it pops it up moves over to the hand, drops it down everything fine in test mode but it something in the game We think it either software glitch or maybe there some switch that flaky but in a weird related way that would cause it to do that We have no idea. So we had to disable the hand, but then that caused other issues where if you start video mode and don't flip at the beginning of it, the game will go into ball search and kick out your ball with your flippers disabled and you drain. So that was also an issue.
    54:52
    Hmm. Yeah. Oh, we had a lamp matrix issue on Roadshow that we fixed. It was just a bad transistor where pairs of lights would go on. Like one column would always go on for the corresponding row on a light, and it was very, very bizarre.
    55:10
    All right. That is weird. So, Mr. Ron, what did you do repairs this week? Finish up the stop repair, Steve. Stop recovery, I would say. stars, the sticky flippers fixed, sticky flippers and stargazer fixed. There was another issue that I don't think I even brought up when one of the Eric Russells was over at my house after the Saratoga show. He was staying overnight because he was going to Rock Fancy the next day. He was like, let's play some World Cup soccer. Turn it on and no display. Oh, fuck. Yeah. No display. So I fixed that ribbon cable.
    55:54
    Okay. More ribbon cable goodness. That's why I said I've got to replace some ribbon cables, because I believe those are the ribbon cables that had issues in No Fear, and I moved them over to World Cup Soccer and swapped them, and then both games were working. But I still think that there's an underlying issue with the ribbon cables in that game. Let's see, what else did I fix? No Fear. No Fear was really fucked. No Fear at the show, at the show, at the tournament, It just kept rebooting. Reboot, reboot, reboot. It wouldn't even fully reboot. It would actually go, the watchdog would kick on, it would start blinking, and then two seconds later, Raymond, it would just lock.
    56:34
    Whoa. So you think it's like, oh, it's the low-five-volts issue. No, it wasn't. It was not the low-five-volts issue. I tested that. It never went below, like, 501 the whole time. I'm testing it on the actual CPU board, not the test point. Watchdog was never involved. And it just kept booting, booting. And when it would boot, it would look like garbage. Like it would display, like the text was on, like the letters were there, but they were in weird spots.
    57:03
    Yeah. And occasionally, like it actually would boot to a point where I could get into the menu, but it just was all screwed up. So I reseated the ROM, the EEPROM on U6, the actual game code. And lo and behold, it boots. It stops rebooting. Like, yeah. So I go in the menu. But I'm in the menu, and it does weird things. Like, I select something, and it gives me the, you know, press start button to do this now. So I have to press the start button like three or four times before it registers.
    57:34
    Another weirdness. Then when I get out of the menu, it just starts firing balls all over the place. It's like, yeah, wait a minute. I still think it's something with the EEPROM, just because when I receded it, all of a sudden it would boot. So, I actually, I have a ROM burner now. I have the facilities. So, I just burned a new ROM, put it in there, booted right up, and everything worked 100%. All the weirdness disappeared.
    57:59
    Huh. Yeah. I wonder if that's, like, what happened with Johnny. Like, just the weird thing after weird thing. Yeah, the thing is, this was a corrupt ROM, too, because when I erased the ROM, I don't think I told Bruce this part. When you erase a ROM, when you read the ROM, it'll show all Fs, the letter F for everything. That means it's blanked out. So this ROM, it shows intermittent E's in the Fs. So you see FFFE, FFFE, even after I totally blanked it. So I think the actual chip is there's something wrong there. Oh, the actual. The actual E ROM chip. Yeah, something is foobarred in that guy. Sure. So I think that was the last of the repairs. I got everything else working. So how about you, Bruce? I replaced 30 light sockets and big game and hot dogging again. Wait a minute, 30? 30. 30? Even if they were getting flaky, I just replaced them.
    59:00
    Wait a minute, hot dogging? That was an NOS plate, then, weren't they, all new sockets? No, of course not. Oh, fail. Fail. Thank you. Thank you very much. And then I fixed with, when we had that apart, I was actually using the, next to it, the Harlem Globetrotters. I was using that as a light board test fixture, and we actually tested and repaired five light boards for Bally Williams Stearns. And by we, I'm sure you mean you and Zach. Yes, we did. Hi, Zach. We were doing tag team. That was pretty cool. We got that done. As long as you weren't playing tag team. Nope, not at all. Actually, I don't mind tag team. Not bad. Not bad at all. Actually, I don't mind at all. I remember playing that at a Never Dreams in Southern California tournament. Yeah, that has to be a Jim Belcedo special. He loves those Scott Leafs, so, yeah. And then what else did I do?
    59:55
    Oh, yeah, that's about it, I think. Sockets, light boards, and, oh, I had to set up the Sea Witch. Which one? Number one. Sea witch number one. Yeah, because not even Raymond knows.
    60:12
    I bought two sea witches within 30 minutes of each other. What? Yes. Bruce does things like this. See, I don't do things like this. He brought two big games within, what, a week? A week.
    60:26
    There's a local one that was in Pinside for a long time, and I finally got to the guy out in Buffalo, and I'm buying it. And at the same time, I was busting a guy I know in Baltimore saying, hey, you know, I know you got a sea witch you picked up cheap. I want to buy it when you can. So I'm actually handing the money to the person buying the first sea witch. He calls me up and says, hey, you want to buy the sea witch? I said, send me some pics. 20 minutes later, he sent me some pics. I'm like, how much do you want? Okay. Sold. Done. So I bought two within 30 minutes.
    60:58
    You need help, dude. Yeah, I do. But, you know, these things happen. They do. I just like buying games. Yes, you do. You do. You need help. So you know what time it is, Bruce? Well, not yet. I still got more shit to go on. You got more shit to go on? I do. We had league night this week. Oh, that's right. You guys have leagues. Raymond probably has stuff like that, too. Raymond has a ton of stuff out there on the West Coast. Oh, yeah. Everybody can play pinball somewhere. Let's put it this way. In my league, I play Roadshow. That's our one game. And the league I go to. Well, this year we're going to have a second one, I've been told. Adam's family. So I'm actually looking forward to that.
    61:44
    You give me the failure music or something. Yeah, come on. Come on, we're up to two games. We had a show in Saratoga. This is going to be a pinball hotbed in no time. I'm telling you. You got it. Yep. Well, luckily in Western New York pinball, We now have four cities representing Western New York pinball.
    62:05
    Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, and even Binghamton. A Binghamton gentleman? Did you say Evan Bingham? No, no, Binghamton. Oh, you said Binghamton. So we have four cities. Now, Binghamton is two hours away from Rochester. He's driving up once a month to Rochester to play in our league.
    62:31
    Now, Ron, who is only three hours away. Three hours and 20 minutes away, Bruce. Okay. 20 minutes. Nothing means nothing. Could have made it to Fifth City, represented in Western Europe handball. But no.
    62:46
    Sure, I'll represent Western New York if people want to come to my house to play games. You can do one night. We can definitely do one night at your place. I mean, I'm not driving three and a half hours somewhere else for a weeknight.
    62:59
    There's no way. That's dumb. So, yours truly hosting the first night, tied for first place, so there's a playoff for the best score. We give a plaque to every person who wins the monthly league of, you know, we have eight nights, so it's eight plaques we give away. Sometimes we only give away three or four if we have many winners. So, random.org picked the game I had to play against, Star Trek, the new one, Stern. the guy came out of the shoot got 90 million out the bat. I was like, oh boy, here we go. What's the Star Trek mode where if you get the away team, the warp ramps lit? Do you think I would know that? Wait a minute. We have the IFPA World Champion on. He doesn't know that.
    63:47
    Oh my God. And we have two owners of the game that don't know that. This is embarrassing. Call Tim Balls. He'll know. He knows everything. Yeah. Or call Steve Bowden. He'll know. I had double scoring on. I just got Warped 9.1. I then went to a way team. Got that. I was getting the Warp, and then I hit seven Warp Shots in a row. My first Warp Shot was 7.5 million. Oh, my God. It was just crushing. I got 392 million on the Grand Champion on my own game. I was very happy. I took the League Night win. Woo-hoo! But I just never did that before. where I actually got the double scoring and got the Warframe shots for the away team and hit seven in a row. Star Trek is such a unique game where you can grind out for oblivion and not really get very far or very much, but then if you get the right setup of things, your score just... Loads up. Yeah. It goes to warp speed. That was bad, sorry. They've gone to plaid. That's one thing Bruce, I think, could compete with any world-class player when it comes to loops or any kind of repeatable shot. A repeatable shot. God. Doctor Who? Doctor Who I do really well on. Yeah. I don't think I – yeah, I don't lose games of Doctor Who very often. That game is like he does loop and loop and loop and loop. Loop. Tap. Loop. Tap. Loop. Tap. You should see Bruce on Getaway. Oh, my God. What was that? That wasn't in Buffalo this year. It was last year. Yeah. Supercharger mode, which most intelligent people time out. Not true. Not Bruce. You can get $100 million if you play it well. Yeah, when you hit like 15 ramps or loops or whatever the hell you hit. I was actually doing the outer loop right now. Rear, rear, rear, rear, rear, rear, rear. Wow. The game was broken.
    65:44
    You would think it was. Yeah. Man, the score does go up in a hurry when you hit a bunch of shots in a row like that. I'll tell you that. Yep. I'm a sick bastard when it comes to that game, too. But that was a good thing.
    65:57
    So, I know Raymond's not ready for us, but we're going to get through him anyway. Game you like, game you hate.
    66:07
    We're definitely going to go last on this. I've got to think. Oh, good. We'll give you a few seconds to think about it. I'll give you a few more seconds because I'll just bring this up very quickly because your getaway thing just reminded me of something. our buddy Soren the Williams software modification guy posted on Tilt Forums, he had links to several games that he has updated, mostly fixes, make them more tournament worthy one of some of the ones we mentioned previously like the Demoman one that makes the claw actually worth enabling again he also has There was the Star Trek one That gets rid of the video mode There's a getaway one Which gets rid of a lot of the getaway bugs Like it loses track of how many locks there are And things like that Nice Yeah A lot of bug fixes There's one for taxi Which does the set jackpot total Which you can control to what you want it to be So check that out It's on Tilt Forums You posted it out there So Bruce, game you like, game you hate game gridiron from Gottlieb never heard of it of course terrible center kick out shot out of the middle when you hit the flipper there's two spinners which is the only fun part of the game you hit the spinners to increase your yardage which is actually like your bonus terrible game and guess what terrible game I was going to check it out on IPDP and I realized they're actually down because of Hurricane Harvey. Oh. They even announced that. You can get to the front page, but if you, like, search for games and stuff, it doesn't work. Oh, I thought my internet was just getting used up on its Skype. No.
    67:57
    No. It's bizarre because they announced, like, they were going to be going down, but it's weird that you would expect the pages to totally not load, but, like, it loads normally, and then you search for a game, and it just hangs forever. It's like their back end or something. Yeah. And the game I like? Fire. So you like Fire? I love System 11. That is one of the most fun System 11. It's got good shots. Love the bell. Can't go wrong with the bell.
    68:29
    You know, I watch the better players like Keith and Raymond and everything like that. You guys can just crank on that game for so long. I'm like, holy crap. Really? When have you seen them crank on Fire? at a pinberg waiting on a group and it was it wasn't Raymond because it was 4 or 5 years ago but it was Keith Trent because it was a top 4 guys and they got stuck on this bank it was Keith Trent I forget who else there was 2 more one was Josh and there were like 10 million, 7 million, 6 million and the rest were like 4 million And I was like, oh, and we were all waiting for this round to end, and it was one of the longest Pemberg rounds for the old days. They must have not had the plug disabled. No, they didn't. Yeah, that was the problem.
    69:22
    Disable the plug, and that problem would be remedied. Oh, yeah, I know. So those are my two games. All right. Game I hate. See, I think I said this already. I might have said Solar Ride on a previous episode. I picked multiple ones from Pinberg that I hated. But I'll say Solaride. Or if I said that one, Asteroid Annie. I'll say that one. I hate both of them. I might have said Asteroid Annie. So I'm saying Solaride.
    69:53
    You're welcome. Yeah. It's just like, that caused me great pain. That was a horrible bank for me. Because I think that and Asteroid Annie, that might have been in the same bank. Oh, God, that is bad. That's a terrible bank. Game I like. Here you go, Bruce. I'm going to double you up here. Fire.
    70:15
    Champagne edition. Oh, champagne. Yeah. You like those extra lights. The only edition I would want. The champagne edition has the fire animation in the back box, which is cool as hell if you ever actually see one that's working. What game? Fire. Fire champagne edition. There's two different versions of fire. So if you're familiar with fire, the burning animation thing it does on the play field, which is just like a little roll that spins inside, there was a Champagne Edition which had gold trim, I think an oak cabinet, and most importantly, two more of those things that roll, two more motors in the back box. So the back box itself looks like it's on fire. It looks like your board just caught fire. It is burning inside the game. Oh, I think I've seen that, yeah. Love it. Love that. It has all the goodness to fire with that extra little touch. And I know of one that's like 20 minutes from me. Fire one of the rare games with zero pop-upers. Yes. Yeah, that's such a good point. That and, like, no fear. No fear. Shadow. Shadow? Oh, yeah, that's right. Shannon doesn't have any.
    71:33
    So that's what we need. We need to bring back no pop-upers. You think, I thought, I thought Stern would be everyone with no pop-upers. It's cheaper.
    71:42
    Star Wars, just take him out. It hardly ever goes there. It only goes there because the diverter makes it go there. Yes. I actually can't even think, I don't remember where the pop-upers are in Star Wars right now. Upper right. Upper right behind the little display. Behind shit. Huh. So you hardly see them. Oh, right. Behind the X target. Yep. And they only, The ball really only goes there if the little gate or whatever comes up to stop the ball, so it goes in the lanes. Otherwise, it would just orbit around it every time. Right. Kind of like Star Trek. Star Trek, actually. Yeah, I guess, yeah, if you orbit all the way around. The problem with Star Trek is it has the one pop-up where the ball gets stuck on all the time. Yeah. The design flaw where their solution was to put a screw in the play field.
    72:27
    Was that a service bulletin? Still doesn't work. It still doesn't work, especially if you have it cranked up pretty steep. It actually makes it worse. That's why it seems to happen with mine a lot, because I have it pretty steep.
    72:42
    So is it my turn? It's your turn. All right. Well, I'm going to go with Roadshow for Game I Like. I got to play it this weekend. I just love the music, the sounds, the banter. It's just the fun and the jackpot. The do-do-do-do-do-woo!
    72:59
    Nice. Yeah. And then the game I hate, just the first one that popped in my mind for some reason, Phantom of the Opera. Just sucks to play. Maybe I just haven't played a good one, but every time I play that game, it's just super dead. The rubbers don't bounce. The ball just drains.
    73:23
    It just feels like every shot is unsatisfying. There aren't even any shots. There's, like, the organ and the ramp, and, like, that's it. Like, it's just clunk fest.
    73:34
    Yeah, I know. I agree with you. I concur. Good back glass, though. Yeah, I mean, the sounds are great, and, yeah, the back glass is beautiful, and, you know, but when you actually play it, I don't know. I think one of Paul Ferris' maybe last games, or it's definitely near the end. Yeah, it is definitely near the end. Paul Ferris, the Paragon guy. The same guy who did Paragon did that back glass. So let's see what we got on the... Mail ball bag? Jacket here. The mail ball bag.
    74:05
    It never gets old. I feel like a Beavis the Bunny. Does it ever get old? Are you going to laugh every time someone says mail ball bag?
    74:14
    Never. Mail ball bag. Okay, I'll get the one side. I'll get the one side of the ball bag. You get the other. Oh. Well, we got one from Ryan. Ryan C. Yes, he do. Ryan C. of the Head to Head Pinball Podcast. Highly recommended.
    74:33
    Did you redo? Did you? Oh, God. You're trying to hedge? G'day, lads. Sri Lankan Storm is the most annoying call out ever. What's that from? It's X-Men. He's calling Storm from X-Men. Oh, okay. And it says also Sheila equals female. Yes. But what is that in reference to? Sheila down there is female. because they called her Sheila at one point. Oh, okay.
    75:01
    And then we had an email from Soren letting us know that he put all these mods out there on Tilt Forums. Which was very nice to do. Very nice of him. And then I have one from Jason.
    75:15
    Hi, Ron and Bruce. Listening to your last podcast, I felt the need to share my Stern experience with Gary Stern. Uh-oh. This isn't going to be good, is it? I bought a brand new Kiss when it came out As soon as I took it out of the box The coin door decal Was really bad with bubbles and creases Contacted my distributor And Stern sent me a new decal And I changed it myself A month passes And both side cabinet decals start bubbling Around the head pivot And around the flipper buttons on both sides Again contacted Stern and my distributor This time Stern's solution to my bad decals was to give me lollipop rails to cover them up.
    76:02
    Actually, that's pretty nice. I like the lollipop rails. I'm going to condense the story. In the end, Stern gave me the option of lollipop rails or nothing. I wrote a nice letter to Gary Stern, including pictures, and how I was treated by customer service with the take the rails or nothing offer over a machine that was only two months old. Yeah, two months old. That's pretty early we're having issues. That was over a year ago, and I never got any response from Gary Stern or anyone else from Stern. They lost me as a customer. I will always buy you, Sterns. I love their games, but I refuse to support a company that did not care about me in the end. I felt the need to balance out the email you read praising Stern from a fellow listener on your last episode. I was at Jersey Jack Open House last summer, and Jack apologized to everyone there that had experienced any delays or issues with The Hobbit and Wizard of Oz personally. He's a salesman, I know, but it seemed very sincere, and he was very nice to speak to. My wife and I bought a Hobbit because of that experience talking to him. You do not need to read this email to your listeners, but you can if you want to. Keep it up. Oh, should I not have read that? I wanted to. I read it. I wanted you to read it. That's why I had no problem with that at all. You see how much I prepare reads? That literally was the first time I read it. And then on Facebook, we're going to do that right now. Well, I was multitasking in the background while you were talking so eloquently. Oh, while you're looking for that, do you know, Raymond, we're on another podcast? Yes, we were. We're on Pinball Profile, hosted by Jeff DeOless. Yes. Oh, is that out? Yes, it is. It's out. Today. I have to listen to that. So have you listened to it yet, Bruce? Yes, I did. Okay, you'll have to let me know how it was. It was really good. I actually did a great job, of course, as always. Okay. Okay, was I any good? Oh, you were great. Okay.
    77:51
    I kind of have the Steph Pinball princess-itis when it comes to listening to stuff with myself in it. Yeah. I usually don't. I used to be so eager to watch myself play or listen to myself in an interview or, like, any of that. But now as I've gotten older, I kind of, I just kind of, like, oh, it happened. All right, that's out there somewhere. or somebody wants it, but I don't really need to go back and watch it right now or look into it right now. It's like the Buffalo pinball open there. They're setting up cameras for classics. Oh, cool, I'll be on video. I can watch myself later, and then I don't really watch myself later.
    78:30
    Okay, Bruce. We got one message from Aaron Nichols. He just asked what our thoughts are on Wizard of Oz.
    78:37
    Oh. I like it. Okay, Raymond likes it. What do you like about it? there's things I like about it and there's things I don't like about it, but overall, I think it was a decent first effort from Jersey Jack. It's got the Keith Johnson, you know, rules. It's got the crazy wizard mode. It's got a lot to do, like different things, different levels of achievement, too. Like just starting Rescue Multiball is like something you can go for, or the Crystal Ball Multiball, the Rainbow, the little spinning house. There's a lot going on, so I like that about it. I don't like how clunky it can be sometimes, and I don't like the scoring, like the low scoring thing that they did. I know it's arbitrary and weird, but I don't feel as satisfied getting tens and hundreds of points. It just doesn't feel right.
    79:28
    Let's see. I have to agree. I will go, I agree with the clunky part, and I'm more of a shock guy. I don't care. I mean, it might have the greatest software, the most intricate, greatest, deepest rule set ever conceived. If I don't like the shots, I'm not going to like the game. I'm guessing you're not a fan of Simpsons Pinball Party, the greatest game ever made. Nope. And that's exactly what I told him. I said, I like it, I don't love it, but I can play it, and I call it a TSPP on Widebody. It really is. Yep. That's basically what it is. Yep. Simpsons. I love it. It's like, hit the garage. Get up to the couch. Hit the garage. Get up to the game. Yeah. No, you've got to start. But it's also right loop. Right outer loop. Get up to the garage and do it that way. Well, unless you're on certain tournament settings where the garage also lights your TV mode, which is annoying, actually. I hate that. I hate that, too. Totally risky on that one, Raymond. It kills me because I love the Snipsets. I love the call-outs. I just never like playing that game. just no. Chess just don't do it for me. Same thing with Hobbit. If we're going about the Jersey Jack games. Yeah, Hobbit doesn't do anything at all for me. Maybe if you sat me down and told me every single thing about the game and I started memorizing the modes and know what exactly to do, where, when maybe it might be interesting but I don't know if it would be fun. I don't know if it would cross that line. Yeah. I just don't like the way it shoots. Yeah. Didn't the same guy design all three games we just mentioned?
    81:14
    Balser? Yeah, isn't it all Joe Balser games? Yeah. But the thing is, he also did Houdini, and I actually like the way that shoots. Really? Yeah. Tight. Really tight. Yeah, that's the exact word I described for it.
    81:28
    We're all in agreement. That's a good thing. And there's some, like, dual-stage, like, shots. Meaning like the one lock shot like you hit a shot it fires the ball to another location where then it then fired into a trunk I like that I want to see more where you see the ball moving around doing stuff you know like that mechanical action whatever you want to call it Just seeing the ball do stuff I think is pretty cool. You like Stern NBA? It does a lot of stuff.
    81:59
    No. I'm thinking more like here's – Here's the fail. I brought last week, Roller Games 2000. Yes. Roller Games 2000. Dual stage kickback. What? Dual stage kickback. That's what Roller Games has. It's about the only game I can think of that has it.
    82:17
    When the kickback fires, it goes up a little ramp up into another kickback, which fires it and it comes all the way around the loop where you can hit the side ramp. Beautiful. When it works, right? Yeah. That's what it's supposed to do. Mine does that. Sometimes they don't make it all the way around depending on how they got it situated. But I love that. I mean, it's like dual-stage kickback. I've never seen one since then. I thought it was, I didn't know it did that. I thought it was like Corvette, where it just kind of drops it on the left orbit for you. No. It literally, it'll fire, when it fires, the first kickback, the normal kickback location, actually goes up a little mini ramp, then stops. It settles onto another coil that fires it like you were launching it. and it goes all the way around the loop to the upper flipper. Cool. It is cool. Hear that, Steve? Bring it back. Come on. Whatever your next game is, use it. Dual stage kickback. I don't care if it puts you over budget. What is there from? Well, remove one of the pop bumpers. There you go. That's all. Exactly. That's all you got. Exactly. Do a single pop bumper. There's a concept.
    83:28
    There's so many games, good games with a single pop bumper. Meteor, you had one of them that broke down. Meteor, Nineball, Pop Bumper, Stars. Yeah, it has one Pop Bumper. It has one Pop Bumper and two Dead Bumpers at the top. Okay, yeah, you're right. Oh, I know my Sterns.
    83:47
    I know my old Sterns. That's a Steve Kirk thing. The Nineball has the single Pop Bumper and Stars has the single Pop Bumper. Yep.
    83:56
    Guess who's coming out on tour this next month? Coming on tour? Oh, okay. Yes. As part of the Trash Talker Invitational, Chuck Webster alerted us to the fact that Steel Panther, the legendary Steel Panther, will be playing in the area. In New Hampshire. Has Raymond ever heard of Steel Panther? Never heard of him. Okay, you'll have to just look him up on YouTube. Yes, highly recommended. Especially their videos. They're hilarious. And just remember when you're watching it, it's a gimmick. It's fun. It's a gimmick. It's a joke. It's like if you've ever seen Spinal Tap or anything like that. Like GWAR style? No, no, no. No, he's right. It's an 80s metal band. Yes, but it is GWAR in that it is a gimmick. Okay. Yes. They're not, yes. Now, October 5th, that is, they're going to be in New Hampshire. October 4th, they're going to be in Buffalo. You think I'm convinced on my wedding anniversary to go to Steel Panther? No.
    84:59
    I don't think so. I don't think so either. Let's put it this way, Raymond. Some of their song titles are titles like It Won't Suck Itself.
    85:11
    Is it kind of like Tenacious D? Yeah, something like that, yeah. But it's done like an 80s metal band. Poison. Yeah, like Poison. Poison, okay. They're an 80s metal band that's just singing the most insane lyrics. but you're listening to it and it's like, damn, the music's actually good. It's actually really good. Because they're all actual musicians who have been on the scene for like 20, 30 years. They're not young guys. I have to book myself on the Kiss Cruise 7. The what? Kiss Cruise. Wait a minute, they have Kiss Cruises? Yeah, they're on number 7. Oh, that's so bad. Wait, Steel Panther's going to be on there. Oh, wait a minute, Kiss and Steel Panther? Yes. But Steel Panther is infinitely more talented than Kiss. Not according to Kiss.
    86:07
    Okay. Not according to Gene Simmons. Come on. I would say Steel Panther's guitarist is better. I would say their lead singer is better.
    86:18
    No? No. Okay. All right. But we have one more bit we got to do. We have one more bit. Okay. What's the bit we got to do? Would you? Or would you not buy that? We have to do that when we have Raymond here after the last episode. Are we going to have anything as good as the butthole crane? No, no. The butthole crane is hard to top. That was, yeah. It made it difficult to share the podcast with family members.
    86:51
    Look at me, Ma. We're talking about the butthole crane. Oh, we'll skip the Steel Panther podcast. Yes. Okay, are we ready? I'm ready.
    87:02
    Ticket number 122-653-118-329. This is right up Ron's alley. Oh. Oh, pinball machine, Black Knight. You had one of these, didn't you? Yeah. Wow, what a deal. A thousand bucks for a Black Knight? Yeah. Unfortunately, it's an effing toy. Two weapon toys Oh man What do you think that retailed for originally? No this is Stern's new model It's the mini model No it's the pin It's the pin Yes This is the micro edition I gotta read the description Is there any description? Pinball machine Black Knight 2000 Oh this is the same one you have And a handheld Black Knight 2000 LCD video game Both are in used working condition. Really? $95 or make an offer. I'll give you $20. I actually had the box for mine, remember? That's true. How much do you think that retailed for originally?
    88:10
    Probably $29.95. Yeah. Maybe $39.95. Yeah. We would not buy that, folks. But there's three watching. Of course, one of them is you. One of them is me. But I sold mine with the box for $275.
    88:24
    Okay. What's that? That's, all right. You'd have to ask someone that really likes Pinball 2000. I agree. I mean, Black Knight 2000, sorry. All right, all right. Don't buy that. What's the next one? Okay, coming up to it. Ticket number 202-021-995-687.
    88:50
    This is close to Ron. Laser cue. Yeah. Let's see. Where is it? Is it close to me? Oh, shut the hell up. Oh, Niana. Okay. You're right for once. Let's see. 1,100. Mint condition. No peeling paint. Completely reworked action.
    89:13
    Completely reworked action. What does that mean? Excellent condition laser cue pinball machine. Reworked for your playing pleasure. The high scores are all the default. Did he ever play it, or is it? Not everyone's as good as you, Raymond. You know, they might not be able to beat the score. But the play field actually is not smoked in the middle like all of them usually are. Back glass looks good. It looks nice. The rubbers look nice. Yeah. For $1,100?
    89:43
    I'd buy that. I'd buy that, too. And I'd tell him to take the glass off when he takes the picture next time. Bum, bum, ba-dum. Another fail. Yeah, I mean. And it's Alien Poker 2. It is. It's basically what it is. And if you want to popify it, you can remove the wire form. Yes. Because Raymond's probably not actually used to seeing that wire form there.
    90:09
    If you look at the picture of the play field, between the two flippers, there's a wire form so you don't get flipper bitched. That's the default configuration. Oh, even if you hold it up and you can't? Yeah.
    90:20
    Papa is the one who pulled that. Yes. It made it popular. Like, I've noticed other ones at shows have that pulled down. You know what you should never pull is the gate on the Beast Slayer in Paragon. Oh, you can put a one-way gate. You can put a one-way gate there. Well, there's normally a gate that stops it from going back into the Beast Slayer. But I've seen games where they pull that, and so you can hold up the left flipper and kill yourself.
    90:45
    So I'd buy that one. Yeah, we might buy that one. Yeah. I think Ron should. So we're ready for the last one. Last one. 3-0-2-4-2-4-5-7-3-8-3-7.
    91:02
    Oh, boy. Why would you want three? Why? Three is Valley Pinball Machines. Gene Simmons, Ace Frehley, Peter Criss, Paul Stanley. Wait a minute. Shouldn't there be four of them then? One for each member? No, three machines. Yeah.
    91:19
    20. So how much is that a piece? That's like $700-something. $775. So that's not bad. They're all kind of blown. Well, one of them actually, it's funny. Two of them are completely blown out in the middle, and then one of them, the middle is fine, but then the sides are blown out. I know. Maybe you can cut the playfield up and use different sections to create the perfect playfield. There you go. If you transposed all these on top of each other, you would have one, like, really nice game. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And the weird thing is, it actually has a German back glass in one of them. I was just noticing that. It has the fat S's. Yeah. But each, all three of the playfields don't have the insert for... Oh, really? Oh, yeah. Yeah. That's bizarre. So this is like a hobnob of four different machines. So you did get your four machines, Ron. A hobnob or a hodgepodge?
    92:20
    Hobnob. Hobnob? That's when you hobnob with people. I love the pop bumpers. You mean the one that has the Liberty flag on it? Yes, the Freedom one. And I don't know what the bottom one is on that one. I have never seen that pop bumper before in my life. Really? Wait a minute. You've never seen... Oh, I've got to look at this then if you've never seen it. It looks like an asterisk with a mustache.
    92:44
    Yeah. Is literally what it looks like. I have no idea what that is. I've never seen it before. That's because someone must have painted something with marker on it.
    92:53
    I don't know. It looks pretty... That asterisk looks really good. All right, folks. If you see this auction, look this up. Number one, we would not buy that. Number two, please let us know what that pop bumper is, that pop bumper cap. I have no idea what that is. Which image? The second one. Oh, wait. That looks like a flag, like from Freedom. No, that's the one. But the one where next close to the center of the play field.
    93:22
    Oh. Yeah, no idea. No idea either. Very bizarre. So, you get the peeling German back glass. One of the games has like a hacked up transformer board in it. Let's see what the description. comes with one back glass. It has flaking. Playfields have wear. He spelled wear right. I'll give him kudos just for that. See photos. Boards are there. Has legs being sold as is untested. I'm not a tech, so I never tried messing with the wires, plugging them in. Will ship. That's nice. Buyer makes all arrangements and pays shipping company. This is a great opportunity to get three KISS pinballs in one auction. Restore. They sell for $4,000 to $5,000.
    94:12
    Wow. It's like, it's perfect. I can just make $4,000 to $5,000 spending only $2,300. It's great. All three have the heads, have the boards. One head has come apart in rough shape, but the boards are there. The wood could be repaired if you are a wood worker. All have original coin doors and wiring. I would not buy this. We would not buy this. because you're going to have trouble making anything good from this. Maybe the boards, but the boards ain't worth $2,400. $2,400, no.
    94:45
    Yeah, it seems like a trap to me. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. It's a trap. I found a number. You guys should put this one in. Okay, hold on. We're ready. Go for it. All right. 3-2-2-6-7-1-5-2-8-4-6-6. Silver Ball Mania wow nice I love as soon as I see the wow and nice in there I immediately like fail wow nice it's wow nice that means it's awesome I know the guy who's selling it you know the guy who's selling it I know the seller okay nothing like bad or good I don't know he's a flipper He's a flipper. Okay. Well, we have Major Ware in the center. Yep. And a lot of kickers. Yep. Major Ware in the center.
    95:43
    It's silver ball mania, so it's another strike against it. He just hit the U over and over. There is a game that can use the rule set update. $1,600.
    95:56
    Forms. Three pictures. Glass is off in the one picture, I think. Yeah, it's got to be because there's no glare from the lights. So at least he took the glass off in one picture. But, yeah, I mean, the wear in the center is pretty. The back glass, though? Pretty good. That's pretty good. Of course, he doesn't have a, you know, he'd like to have a picture of the other side of the back glass. That's where you can really tell if it's good or not. But for your consideration, is this Bally Silverball Mania made back in the 80s? Great looking and working machine. Backglass near flawless. Okay. Playfield recently cleaned and new rubber bumpers added. Cleaned? Cleaned. Yeah, it's clean. It has wear. That doesn't mean it's not clean. New upgraded Ultimate MPU. Free delivery to the Cleveland show in September.
    96:53
    Don't miss out on this collectible machine. Yeah, I will. Yeah, we'll miss out. and if the person selling it is one of our listeners remember Raymond picked it blame him I don't have to think about that whoever made it did a good job because it was just in the like explorer options thing and I saw all the exclamation marks and I had to click on it and they have 100% positive feedback with 232 sales maybe I would buy this I don't know It's not. I wouldn't buy it at that price. It's wow. I did mention the guy selling the Three Valley Kisses, his username, his eBay name is HollywoodHunk24. Whoa. Yeah. He's a Hollywood hunk, man.
    97:46
    Okay, last gripe from me. Oh, gripe. You always have a gripe. Stern, old, spinners, fucking suck. Oh, they went out of adjustment, I hear. All five. of them. I'm sorry, Bruce. Which game?
    98:00
    Was it Stargazer and Quicksilver? Stargazer and Quicksilver. All five went the fuck out. You know what I think? I think you gotta get the heat gun and actually heat up the metal and then bend it. You want to burn the machine? Well, no. Take the spinners out first, dumbass. Damn it. I was gonna burn. Heat gun them at the low setting, Bruce. Don't overheat the thing like you did and ruin the insert. That was fun. Yeah, that was fun. because they could be just fully bending back to their original state, so they may have to heat them up. So they suck. No. Well, I have one more not quite, but we talked about Stern cabinets falling apart. Fixing them. Stern is now putting what I would call the Williams plates, the Williams leg plates inside. On LEs. Wait a minute, only on LEs? The pros still don't have them. What? Well, here's what. The pros that were shipped already did not have them. They had the original plates because I looked at Pocketeers. When I found out that the LE, they changed it. Look, in their LE, the Pocketeer has a Star Wars LE. That has the Williams style. So we have to see if the next round of pros have them or premiums have them or don't. And if they do, kudos to Stern. Yes, if they don't and they didn't put on the LEs, boo. Boo. So you're saying the only way you get a cabinet that will not fall apart is if you get an LE. Yeah. That's what you're not at $8,000.
    99:34
    They did change the way they do the cabinets. When I had the Ghostbusters, I could physically see and feel it in the corners that it was done differently than all my other Stern games. So they changed something. Yes, I agree.
    99:49
    So, Raymond. Yes. Where are you going to be going to your next tournament? Well, yeah, it'll be a Vancouver flip out in the end of September. Okay. With a pinball profile. Yep. Jeff Teolis will be there. Yes. Hi, Jeff. And who does that tournament? That is a.
    100:10
    It's part of the Vancouver flip out or Vancouver Expo. I think, yeah, it's called the Vancouver Expo. Tommy Floyd. Dave Stewart is the tournament director for the tournament. It was good to see Tommy again when I was at Pimberg last time. Him and his wife I know very well. Yeah, he's a pretty cool dude. He's very cool.
    100:32
    And then, of course, Raymond will be coming to the Trash Talk Irmitational. Chuck Webster, you're going down. We got our ringer. We do have our ringer. Going to take you all down in Trash Talk while doing it. He'll live in New York for at least a day. A day. Then he might have to move. Just saying. But. Okay. We are evil. I can't wait. Time to pay some bills. Before we do, I just want to say, Steve Bowden, final bonus, because I don't think I said that. Yes, Steve Bowden, final bonus. And hi, Zach. The other Zach. We said that. Yes, Zach.
    101:05
    www.pinballlifter.com. Check out my website for lifting, moving your machines with ease, with tilters, helpers, lifters, wheel kits, and occasional modder, too. I will be using the tilter to set up the dialed in at some point. Maybe you'll have to videotape this. I don't know. I think it's freaking heavy. Yeah, that's what I hear. I'm kind of scared. God, I think it was heavy when I put it in the back of my Subaru.
    101:35
    Dialed in? It's got to be lighter than Hobbit or Wizard of Oz. No. Wow. So I moved both, and oh, my God, it's right up there with him. But you think it would be lighter. Maybe you're just getting weaker because you're old. Well, that's why I have an elevator. It might help to move games up and down the stairs, up and down the... Dumbwaiter.
    101:54
    Dumbwaiter. You can't have an elevator. It's a dumbwaiter. You can't have an elevator to stay in New York, but I can have a dumbwaiter. Yep. Don't forget Pinball Star, who just shipped Ron's beautiful dialed in. Now I'm waiting for mine.
    102:07
    And Joe, he's a really good guy. He sold us both of our machines. Check him out at pinballstar.com. That's Joe Newhart. And then also check out Mike Pupo at FlipperFidelity.com. He sells Stern pinball machines. He sells Stern authorized mods. He also sells the best sound system speakers for your pinball machine ever made. Don't forget, we don't take any money from our advertisers. We just do it free because we're nice guys. Pinball podcast that we approve. We're going to start going over this now. I'm going to go over a list. Oh, we're going to have a list of the plugging of other podcasts. Yep, yeah, because I like them. All right. Nate, Coast to Coast.
    102:53
    The Hallmark. The one we're all striving to reach the levels of. Yes, of course. Jeff Deolas, Pinball Profile. Excellent.
    103:06
    He does a lot of stuff for this hobby and promotes a lot of things and good things. Like today, he promoted the suffering that, unfortunately, people are having now in Texas and trying to get people to donate money. That was a really nice one to do. So, good job, Jeff. Two new ones. Head to Head Pinball. We've talked about them. They're our Australian friends, Ryan, C, and Martin. Check out their podcast at Head, the number two Head Pinball. And then also one more I listened to. That was one we were on this week, which was the Pinball Players podcast. These only get two episodes up. Very professionally done, just like Jeff Teolas, not like us, because we're just freaking hacks. Hey, speak for yourself. I use the finest headsets. So do I. Yeah. The best 1995 money you can buy. Logitech headset you can buy, yep. But those guys, I really like their podcasts. I really enjoy them. Don't forget, I like the Flippin' podcast with Taylor and Tommy. Very good, too. anything you'd like to add, Raymond?
    104:08
    to podcasts? anything, any podcasts you like anything you'd like to comment on you have open stage I want to thank everybody who came out to Northwest Champs again that was a really amazing turnout I definitely enjoyed it but it was great seeing everybody there and there was tons of volunteers everyone in Seattle pitched in And it was amazing how quickly we were able to move the games afterward with so many helpers. It was really, really cool. Excellent. That's cool. Very cool. Raymond, as always, thank you for coming on.
    104:46
    Thank you for having me. You're always welcome on the show. And it was funny, six hours ago, I emailed him or five hours ago saying, you want to be on? And he's like, yeah, what the hell? And boom. Yeah, yeah, why not? Well, at first I had to check what day of the week it was. And then I was like, oh, it's Monday.
    105:03
    Then he got on the podcast and said, oh, God, why did I do this? What am I doing here? What am I doing here again?
    105:10
    All right. Yes, we are the Slamtail Podcast. This has been Episode 58, Pink Panther. The Pink Panther.
    105:23
    Steven Raymond knows that. That movie's older than me. I mean, that movie's older than Bruce. That's how old that is. Oh, I just know it from the Steve Martin movie. There you go. Oh, God.
    105:37
    Wait a minute. Movies? He did more than one? He did two. There's two of them? Two of them. Oh, well, we'll get to those in I don't know how many episodes. I didn't know he did two of those. Wow. I know. Are they any good?
    105:52
    No. No? Okay. All right. I mean, I guess they're okay. The first one's okay. The second one's really bad. Yeah. Yep. this has been the slam till podcast we can be found on facebook just search for slam till podcast youtube and twitch just search for slam till podcast correspondence can be sent to us at slam till podcast at gmail dot com thanks again to Raymond for joining us today thanks for staying up late for me guys no no problem don't forget to like us on facebook and don't forget to post positive things on iTunes And don't forget, Trash Talker Invitational. Come on, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania residents. Somebody step up. It's for a good cause, and you can shut those New Englanders up because, man, they need to be shut up. We're donating $100 of our own money. Not even going to be in it. Donate some monies for a good cause and get a chance to play the New England players. And kick their ass. I mean, I've got to bring that up. That's very important. They're going down. We've got Raymond Davidson. and he's coming in, he's going to be a New York resident for at least a day. Yep. It's kind of like that Simpsons episode when Burns got all the ringers in to win the softball game. If anyone remembers that one, that's one of the all-time great Simpsons episodes. That's where the victory spot's from. Exactly. I have another idea. Oh, God. What's your other idea? Plan B. Okay. This is Plan B. If Raymond cannot fly out and doesn't take the first class accommodations, who's a friend of our show right now who works at CERN? Oh, yeah, I'm sure he would come down for us. Wait, wait, wait. His girlfriend lives where? New York. That's true. Thank you very much. But I thought she was moving. But she's not moving yet. Oh, okay. So we have a second ringer. Hi, Keith.
    107:45
    No, she could come in and just say, well, I have my boyfriend here. Can he play? Sure. That would be great. That would be classic. Speaking of classic, it's been another classic episode. Once again, thank you, everybody. Say goodbye, Bruce. Goodbye, DJ Duquette.
    108:04
    Oh, my, my. Can you move it? Can you fly? Oh, my, my. You can move it if you try. Oh, my, my. I guarantee to keep you alive.
    108:34
    Oh my.