you're listening to the head-to-head people podcast find us on facebook email us at Welcome everybody to the Head to Head Pinball Podcast. This is episode 91 and my name's Martin and with me for the third time, which couldn't make this the most appeared person on our podcast, Dave Pauls. I've got my name buddy. David Peck from Auckland, New Zealand. It is David Peck. How are you Dave? Good buddy. Good to talk again. It's really good to have you on. And this is actually going to be quite an interesting episode because we've got a lot to cover. But one of the things that we want to talk through is the Stern Battle Royale that we put together last week. And we actually had over 10,000 votes. It was crazy. Crazy participation from the listeners. It was crazy. And I guess it's because, I don't know, people are passionate about that. of stuff and they wanted to have their say so yeah we're all pinball guys are crazy passionate and probably too passionate at times but um now we all get into it and it was that was really interesting to follow along on pin side and watch everyone getting into it especially with the no ripley's believe it or not scandal i know and look it was i think it was i don't know maybe the day after where ryan sent me a note confessing saying oh my god i can't believe i i missed ripley's um and my response and his was similar which was it wasn't really going to get far if we're honest but we may make do after this week to give Ripley's its moment in the spotlight so stay tuned for a special round did you know Ryan's already done it tonight? yes it was very hard if everyone goes back to Pinside again Ryan So I've created a new poll, which is Ripley's versus everything. And I've got to be honest, my wrist actually got sore ticking all the top boxes and eliminating Ripley's straight away. Sorry, Ripley's fans. You know, it was, yeah, it wasn't really going to go far, but we'll see how it goes. So it's up there. We will link it in the show notes. So if people want to go and vote for Ripley's, you're more than welcome. Go for gold. Knock yourself out. It'll be lots of fun. So there you go So shall we go through the results then? Yes we should As he quickly brings up the file on his computer And looks at this Yeah I'm doing exactly the same thing I haven't been really all that well prepared today Well Marty you got a new car didn't you? I did get a new car I picked it up tonight So it's why I'm just a little bit late to record but you know so listen we just make everything up on the fly here so just give us a little bit of grace and we'll hack into it yeah absolutely but look again I want to say thanks everybody for your participation it was great to see so many votes come through yeah you know there was there was a lot of obvious but then there was a couple of close calls and then there were a couple of upsets They were. They were. And Avengers did really well with 27 votes, so that was blocked at this point. Avengers isn't a bad game, but not the best game either. Probably better than Ripley's, though. I'm saying it. No, exactly. So for round one, I'll really only call out a couple of the close ones. Really, it was probably Ghostbusters and Beatles. That was the first one that was a bit of a surprise, with Ghostbusters getting 54% of the vote and Beatles obviously getting 46%. And I must admit that I surprised myself when I voted for Ghostbusters ahead of Beatles because Beatles is cool, you know. It is a cool pin, but it doesn't, to me, offer anything new that anything hasn't done before, whereas Ghostbusters is sort of 70% there. Sorry about the other 30%, but it is actually... It's okay to play if you don't mind banging your head against the glass every now and again. It has its moments, but... It does, yeah. I also think that I don't think a lot of people have played Beatles. That's true. It is true. And I also think the problem with Beatles, we say it all the time, it's the price. There's a stigma with the price. It's a good game, but the price. Yeah, and that's true with a lot of games. It's just so expensive. And there's not a lot of them out there. I mean, it looks like they've only made 1,000 of them, so 1,000 Beatles around the world isn't really a heck of a lot of them. So probably Beatles got 179 votes and Ghostbusters got 207. So those 207 people probably haven't played Beatles before. Yeah, possibly. But that's still a good showing. I don't think so, yeah. That wasn't a completely convincing win. The only other one that was relatively close was Aerosmith versus X-Men, where Aerosmith got 59% of the vote at 229 votes. That's not bad. And, you know, that's just unfortunate for X-Men, I think, just coming up against Aerosmith. Well, they're both two really good games and two of my favourite games. In fact, Aerosmith last night, after we were talking a little bit about it on Pinsider, I went and played it and I got to beat the final wizard mode for the first time ever, so there's Dave's claim to fame last night. But X-Men's always been one of my favourite games. So many modes and deep code, so many things to do in it. Tight shots, so not everyone probably suffers a little bit from the Houdini syndrome. The shots are a little bit too tight, so some people don't like it. And of course a couple of people don't like the voices as well, we've got to mention that. A couple of voices, they always throw their toys out of the cot about. But X-Men's a great game and I don't think I'll ever sell my X-Men, so that was the only one that I really had to think about when I was going through and voting because I like both those games. I can't remember what I voted for actually. I think I did vote for X-Men but it went down the toilet. Yeah. And then probably the third one that really only got a showing was Guardians of the Galaxy versus Star Wars. Hmm. What won? Oh, Guardians. Oh, it did, yeah. Star Wars. Yeah, Star Wars got a low. 64% of the vote. That's right. Star Wars out straight away, that's right. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, that's an interesting result because, you know, I think Star Wars is a great game. I think Guardians is a great game. And I sort of said, you know, probably just edge it out, but slightly edged it out, I guess. Well, controversy corner, I voted for Guardians because I think Star Wars sucks. Yeah, so did I. Sorry. So did I. But then in round two, that's where we had, well, we had a couple of very, very close calls. and one of those close calls, I'm counting as an upset, and that was Batman 66 versus Star Trek with only two votes separating them. So Batman 66 got 50.3% of the vote and Star Trek 49.7%. I think that was really only a surprise to you and Ryan, but Star Trek's a good game, but it isn't quite Batman 66, to be honest. Batman 66 is pretty awesome. Yeah, and that's, so Ryan and I, because obviously whenever these results came out every 24 hours, Ryan and I would just be talking to each other going, oh my God, can you believe him? And I was trying to work it out. And I think that really is that Batman 66 has just come around. The code has really transformed it. A lot of people have got to play it. And I just think, you know, absolutely rules wise, hands down, it's better than Star Trek. As a Batman 66 owner, and I didn't get mine right at the start, I got one a little, probably six months down the track when the code had developed a little bit, but nowhere near what it is today. But like I said, when I first played it, I really liked it. I really like, I'm not a theme guy, but I do like that theme. I used to watch the reruns when I was a little fella. And it's really come along, and it is sorry George Gomez, but it is a little bit of a clunky layout, same as Batman Dark Knight was, but Lyman's code work on that game is just continues of great stuff from Walking Dead and Metallica. He's just, he's the next level above everyone else, I'm afraid. He's just the best out there, and that's what takes that game to the next level. Clunky game and all. It's just awesome to play. It's good fun, and that's what pinball's about. It sure is. The other one that was really close, now I know you've got something to say about this, because you messaged me during the week, and that was Deadpool versus Spider-Man, which again was also two points. Very, very close. The difference, two votes, so 50.3% to 49.7%. Deadpool won against Spider-Man. Yes, but Deadpool's a good game. When we first played Deadpool, we played it on location here. It was a Deadpool Pro, and the code was pretty fresh. And we went and looked at it and played it, and after an hour we played it, and we walked away from it. And I thought, well, that's just rubbish, really. But I played it again. My buddy Nibblepin, shout out to Nibblepin in Fullerton in Los Angeles. He's got an Iron Maiden Premium and a Deadpool LE. And we went over there and stayed at his house at Christmas time, and I was expecting to play a lot of Iron Maiden and no Deadpool. and I've got to say, I played all Deadpool and no Iron Maiden. The codes really, really turned that game around because when it first came out, to be honest, it was almost like a lipstick on a pig situation. I think that's what I called it. There's actually not a lot to that game. If you take away the awesome artwork, there's actually not a lot there, but that code has really taken it to the next level. So congratulations to those guys. As far as the battle, I think Spider-Man, And the problem with this format, a little bit of a... Spider-Man, I think, is one of the best Stern games ever made. It's so good and so much better than Star Trek, by the way. But that's another discussion. No, but it's not. The only thing wrong with Spider-Man is Kirsten Dumps. That's it. That's basically it. And then when they remade it, they used that stupid skinny Spider-Man, which looks awful. But the actual gameplay of Spider-Man and the rules and everything, it really is a player's favourite. And you'll see, usually when I have competitive players come to my place from around the world, the top guys, there's two games they always go to. One's always getaway. You always, whenever Richard Rhodes comes to my place, Frank Boner, first game they ever walk up to is getaway, and then Spider-Man's not far behind. They all like it. So it's a little bit, maybe a little bit tougher than Star Trek because the shots are so much tighter. But the rules and everything, yeah, I'm a Spider-Man guy, and I don't not like Star Trek. I've got a Star Trek pro, and we play it all the time. But Spider-Man, despite being 10 years old now, is still an awesome game. Yeah, sure. Well, again, I streamed Deadpool last night, and it was the first time I got to play the 1.0 code, and we've talked about it so many times, how code can transform a game. It sure does. That's what it's done with Deadpool. It is just out and out an absolute hoot to play. Well, when Deadpool came out, like I said, whenever it was, six months ago, maybe a little bit longer ago, and we played that pro up here in Auckland, and someone bought a premium down the line in Christchurch and I actually laughed at them and said, why did you buy one of those? It's just a piece of shit. And then it's turned around so much that I want to buy one. So it's completely, it turned me a 180 and got me on 10 Deadpool. Okay. And that's what people are sort of hoping that that's what's going to happen with Munsters, but that's for another story. Probably the only other one that, you know, well, there was a couple that got a relative showing in, You know, Tron and Walking Dead Tron got a few votes but was never going to beat Walking Dead You know, Ghostbusters again, Simpsons and Puma Party Simpsons and Party was always going to win that I know Simpsons does have its fans It's got its massive fans, yeah It has, yeah And I'm not 100% sure why I mean, I think you're on the same boat with me as me It's just a bit of an odd game, Simpsons It's got such a family theme and yet not a family gameplay If you know what I mean No, but it is the theme. It is. It is, yeah. It is. Super cool theme. So the Simpsons, you know, it has funny call-outs. And I know it's got, you know, there's some great rules there. Obviously, I don't like the clunkiness of the play field. But, and as I think I said last week when we were talking about it before we put it out to the public vote, I appreciate that it's a good game and everybody likes it. It's just not for me. Yeah, yeah, and that's the case. and that's very much what this competition, or what this poll was. You're going to get people voting for the games that they own, maybe the games that they like, not necessarily the games which might actually be the better ones of the two, you know? That's exactly right. So then when we go to round three, again, a couple of close calls here. Well, I did Lord of the Rings versus Walking Dead. Lord of the Rings won with 54% of the votes, so there's 164 votes to 137. A little bit surprising. A little bit surprising Again it was one of those where Ryan and I Back and forth started talking about it And you know what he said Was well you've got to understand Lord of the Rings Was the number one seed you know As far as Pinside goes it's the number One stone machine so it's going to have It's fans and I really Do like Lord of the Rings And I probably would agree With this well obviously I have to agree With it that's what people have said but I kind of get that overall It's probably more enjoyable than Walking Dead, but Walking Dead is such a good shooter's game, but I could also understand that a lot of people wouldn't like it because it's quite difficult. It is, and obviously I voted the other way around, Walking Dead over Lord of the Rings. I had a Lord of the Rings limited edition and I had it for a long time, but the gameplay was so long that I used to play it for 45 minutes and I used to have to stop for 10 minutes and let the coils cool down and then come back and play it again. So I knew someone made me a good offer, so out the door it went. But I don't think I'd ever sell my Walking Dead. But that's the sort of game that appeals more to me. I like a 10- or 15-minute game rather than an hour- and 15-minute-long game. But I think that's why people like Lord of the Rings and maybe Simpsons Pinball Party, because you can. They are long-playing games, and moderate players can play them for a long, long time and feel rewarded and get quite far into the game, where a moderate player walks up to Walking Dead, it's going to end pretty badly because it's going to kick your ass. That's exactly right. And, you know, me personally, I'm in the circle of competitive players, but we are a very small percentage of the overall pinball community. So that's why a lot of things get ahead. And also on pin side too, you know, the competitive players are probably 5% or 10% of the guys on pin side. Most of them are home hobbyists and, you know, they come home from a day at work and they want to play a game and feel rewarded, not feel a game and play a game and then get kicked in the nuts. Exactly. So then we had ACDC versus Batman 66, and ACDC won with 57% of the vote. Yeah, great game. I would agree with that. Metallica versus Deadpool. Metallica was always going to win that, and it did comfortably at 66% of the vote. And Iron Maiden was always going to beat Pimple Party, which it did convincingly at 65% of the vote, so that's good. It does. That's right. So then we got to the top four, which was Lord of the Rings versus ACDC, and Metallica versus Iron Maiden. This was interesting. It was. Because, well, I mean, I'd say Lord of the Rings, fairly comfortable with 61% of the vote, beat out ACDC. Metallica and Iron Maiden had three votes the difference, and Metallica just got up with 51% of the vote. It's amazing how many total votes there are. I mean, 950 votes for Metallica and 912 for Iron Maiden, so certainly everyone's getting behind the poll, unless people have voted multiple times. No, that was a good result. It's surprising how well... I mean, Iron Maiden's a cool game, but it's how quickly it's got accepted by people and it's got the Iron Maiden theme, which isn't everybody's cup of tea. Iron Maiden a little bit left to centre band Compared to even ACDC and Metallica A lot more mainstream than Iron Maiden So that's got to be a Kudos to Keith For making such a great game that people will even look past The Iron Maiden theme if they don't like it Because the game is so cool Exactly So then we got to the final round which was Lord of the Rings vs Metallica And the one point I wanted to just make here If you don't mind Is that Ryan's game that he was going for was The Walking Dead. I just wanted to make a note that it got out in round three. Just wanted to make that. And my game, which was Metallica, got into the final round. Just wanted to make that point just so I could rub that right in his face. And especially even more when we talk about who won. Well, both those, if you'd asked me beforehand out of all those games, I would have thought The Lord of the Rings and Metallica pretty much went through as I would have thought. maybe I thought maybe Walking Dead would have got through a little bit further but the way it's feeded it's come up against Lord of the Rings and Lord of the Rings is an extremely popular game so there's no major surprises here I think. Metallica's awesome game and so is Lord of the Rings you know not my personal cup of tea but certainly it's not rated number one on Pinside or whatever it is for nothing you know. It's very highly rated. But let's also not forget this was 52% to 48% Metallica versus so that's really really close Sure is. They're both winners. Right? Surely we can... Everyone's the winner on the day. They are. So really what we're saying is, everybody, you're saying that you agree with me that Metallica is the best Stern game. And you disagree with Ryan. Correct. Sorry, buddy. In round three. He's not even here to defend himself, so... No, exactly. It's a perfect opportunity for us to slag him off. There you go. So thanks, everybody, for participating. Now go and vote in the Ripley's Believe It or Not versus Everything poll and see how far that goes. That would be awesome. I'm looking forward to it. Awesome. So, Dave, there's a lot going on in your life. There's a lot that's happened since we last spoke. Talk to me. I think, didn't you have like Pincade happen in that time or something? We did, yeah. That was back in March. And as per usual, none of the head-to-head pinball podcast people showed up. Correct. Maybe next year. There's always next year. No, I'm not going to have that attitude. Oh. I even said you could stay at my house for nothing. What's that all about? It's true. But yeah, Pincaid, just Kiwi Pincaid. We've been doing it now for 10 years. I think that might have been the 11th year one. It's just getting crazy out of control, so many people showing up. On Friday night, first of all, this year we started down in Christchurch. I didn't make it down to Christchurch this year because I had some work commitments. So the first year I haven't travelled for Pincaid for a long time. but I think there was about 60 people in the competition down there on Thursday night at Arcadia and Christchurch. Friday night, Friday day, everyone travelled up to Auckland on aeroplanes. Christchurch is about 1,000 kilometres from Auckland so it's probably the furthest reaching pinball event in the world. It's sort of slightly mental the way we do it to be honest but everyone arrives in Auckland and they all came to my apartment at 6 o'clock at night. My apartment where I'm sitting now is right in the middle of central Auckland and I had 120 people that show up to my apartment. I've got 12 pinball machines in the apartment and we had 85 people playing in a three-strikes competition at my apartment. So, of course, one of the planes got delayed because the Carl Weathers was a bit crappy so they didn't show up till five o'clock out at the airport. Then they had to battle rush our traffic to get to the apartment so we kicked it off a little bit late, about 6.45 I think, and by the time we finished, it was 4.45 in the morning. So we were going. So at Pincade this year we had 30 Aussies come over. Normally 30 is pretty much the average. Two people came all the way from America. And old Frank Bonner from France likes to come down to Pincade and get all his free Whopper points. So Frank ended up winning most of the events. We also had the big System 11 competition out at my house on Sunday. And we had 103 people in that. And everyone gets to play 10 System 11 machines. And then we have a top 32 playoff. And Frank ended up winning that from two Aussies and a Kiwi. And we had the Pincaid Classics as well, which had 102 people in it, I think, which we run concurrently. So we've got two competitions with over 100 people in them running on the same day. And Frank didn't win that one, surprisingly. Oh, Frank. I can't remember who won. I know I didn't win it. I think I came fifth. I came fifth much to my own. That I can remember. Oh, yeah, Nathan won it, eh? Yeah, my wife is telling me, my lovely wife, Rhoda Fiona, is telling me that Nathan from Sydney ended up winning that and Nathan also came second in the System 11 so he did very very well for himself so good on you Nathan what a champ so next year if anyone wants to come along it's only 70 bucks or something for the whole weekend it's all slightly crazy 70 dollars plus you know it's no different from me and you going to to Pinburger. No, that's exactly right. It's like a crack, you know? No, it's exactly right. But hey, you can come to New Zealand, drink some New Zealand beer and go to about 10 different places and come and play a whole lot of System 11s. I mean, life doesn't get any better than that. What's your gin like over in New Zealand? My gin? Gin. Actually, I remember I sent you a link a few weeks ago that there was a big gin festival here and I thought you'd fly over for that. Now we've got a whole lot, you know, the whole boutique booze industry is going, you know, we've got the 42 Below Vodka, and they do some special gin, and I don't know, just cheap and cheerful does it for me. You know, I'm just a Bombay Sapphire sort of guy. I'm not quite as upmarket as you, Marty. You just crawled, as you said that. I did some Gordons the other day. Oh, even worse. Two bottles for 50 bucks. I thought that'll keep me going for months. Hey, now, you, we did speak about this last time, but you are doing a re-theme to a lead Zeppelin machine. How's that going? It's good. Yeah, so that's right. So, yeah, last time we were on, we were talking about it and I put the word out there for it to see if there was anyone out there who was an artist who was willing enough to come and give me a hand and a couple of days later, I got contacted by a lovely head-to-head listener from Texas called Brad Brad Albright. Oh, hi, Brad. He did the 3D posters for the Stimble Festival. You got it, yes. and so I was talking to him yesterday and he said, remind Marty and Ryan that they bought the 3D posters off me. Yes. And they are freaking amazing. I think we may have spoken about this because I handed it to Ryan and Ryan goes, oh, that's actually a really good-looking poster. And I'm like, oh, you've got to do the 3D thing. And he's like, oh, it's going to look shit. And he put the glasses on and he went, that actually looks amazing. So Brad Brad Albright is freaking incredibly talented. Ryan's a real cool dude. When I first saw his website, he contacted me and I saw all his stuff, and he's got a lot of 3D stuff in there. Like you say, you have to wear the glasses. And a lot of his stuff's a little bit left of centre. And what we were trying to do was really make like a continuation, like a genuine 1976 Led Zeppelin pinball. So I thought, well, hey, I see your style, Brad. It's pretty cool. But can you do this stuff? Can you do a Captain Fantastic? Or can you do a Wizard? And he said, yep, I'm going to give it a go. And I said, good on you, bud. I gave him a rough, you know, rough like, because I'm not an artist. I know what I like, but I can't do it. So I sort of gave him a rough format of what I wanted to do and just let him run with it. And then what he did came back pretty damn cool. So I literally, he did the back glass art probably a month or two ago, and that's all been up on Pinside under the Led Zeppelin Rethink thread and up on my Facebook thing. We will link that in the show notes, people. So you go to that link and see the progress there. That's the one. And I just got the back glass back today. It took a little while to get printed, but I've had the genuine back glass printed up and it just looks unreal. It just jumps off the glass. That's so cool. So the cabinet's all done, the back glass is done. The machine itself was a 1976 Valley Freedom and I'm modifying the playfield to be a little bit more aggressive to play. And now the playfield's also ended down. I did that over the weekend. And now Brad's just working. Brad's been a busy boy with all his art shows and everything but he's working now on, we're going to keep roughly the same playfield art as the Freedom used to have, but turn it into a Led Zeppelin, work on that, riff on that, and turn it into a Led Zeppelin theme. So hopefully in the next few weeks we should have some playfield artwork to show, and as soon as I can get that I'll get it all back together again, and hopefully within the next couple of months it'll all be finished. Pretty cool. Okay, this is interesting, right, because, I mean, putting aside my ability when it comes to machines and touching them. Like, the thought of having to strip a playfield down and, you know, replace it even with, like, a new, you know, like CPR playfield or whatever it is, Mirco, all those kinds of things, that just sends, you know, shivers down my spine. I just could never do that. But if you can, how... I don't know, how easy or such difficult is it for you to go, OK, here's a new playfield with all new art, put everything back in and bang, there you go. Well, the other thing I'm working on now is the Evil Knievel, which is, that's basically exactly the same as the Lead Zeppelin, except it's an Evil Knievel complete restore rather than a rethink. And so that's got a new CPR playfield. And to do a playfield swap, I mean, admittedly I've been working on pinballs now for probably 20 plus years, and it's rich. They obviously pick up a lot of tips. But for me to swap the playfield over and to do it all nicely So it probably takes, I'm guessing, five to ten hours, something like that. The single-level ones, like the Evel Knievels and that, aren't so bad. They haven't got all the ramps and that swap over, so a lot bit easier than the more modern pins. But when you get into cabinet strip-downs and you've got to strip all the paint off, then you've got to either repaint it yourself or these last two I've sent off to a car painter to do because he makes a nicer job than I do in stencils and everything. I think the Led Zeppelin and the Evel Knievel probably have 30 or 40 hours into them by the time they finished I say And I sort of know what I doing so if you don know what you doing the main thing with any of those projects is once you get into them you got to keep at it all the time otherwise you go around to people's houses and there's 10 pinball machines in the corner and they're all in various states of disrepair. It's best just to do one thing at a time and then finish it to completion before you start the next one. That's the advice I always give everyone, because otherwise it all ends up in tears. But that's actually kind of good to be able to get an indicative amount of time. So let's say, you know, obviously you've done a lot. So let's say if it was a single level old solid state, let's say there's 10 hours to do a playfield swap for a modern stern. Well, the modern stern is probably quicker because it's probably got less stuff on it, to be honest. Yeah, probably. It's something like a twilight zone or something with a bit of fruit on there or, say, God forbid, a Wizard of Oz. You know, that's going to take a fair bit longer because there's a fair bit of fruit on those things. Yeah, it's actually not even the top that concerns me that much. It's more the wiring underneath. That would scare the hell out of me. I wouldn't know where anything would go back in and what order to put it back in. Well, the beauty is with something like, when you do them like Evel Knievel, you basically take everything all off, strip everything, undo all the bolts, everything, and then the missus goes on one end of the wires and I go on the other end of the wires and we lift the whole lot over to the new playfield, all in one piece, then stick it all back in again, had to rewire up all the light braid and everything which is a bit of a mission but most of the stuff just goes straight across so it depends what condition they're in like the last one I did was a skateboard and the old playfield had been stored in a barn for like 20 years so everything was rusty so we lifted the whole lot over and then I went around and changed every single light fitting basically all the underside is all new but all the wiring loom and everything all went over in one piece so it's probably not as fast it's one of those things which when you start it you think, oh, shit, this is going to be a bit daunting. But when you actually get into it, it's not that bad. Okay. Yeah, if you've got some basic skills. I wouldn't recommend you do it just now. Concentrate on that golem switch first. Get to your golem switch, buddy, and once you've fixed that, we'll get on to playfields. If I'm freaking out at a freaking golem switch, imagine how I'm thinking about doing a playfield swap. That might be stretching it a bit too far, but I'll talk you through the golem switch, and then I'm pretty sure we'll be on the playfields by Christmas. Hopefully. Now, am I going to see you in about two months' time? Looking forward to that. It should be pretty cool. So this is the Southern Hemisphere Pinball Championship. So you hosted it last year, I believe. Yes, so it's my full responsibility for it. It's all my idea. Great. And then I got in touch with Lee, who's a buddy of mine, and Dan Robar, and they're in Sydney, and Lee lives in Malgoa, which is just out from Penrith in Sydney by the Blue Mountains. And Lee's got a bigger... I've got 120 pinball machines. I think Lee's got about... roughly about the same, and then he's got Dan Robar's machines as well, so he's got another 100 machines there on top of that. So he's got the barn. Now, did you end up going to the barn last time? I didn't go to the barn. The last event... I had been to an event at this place when he had, like, the Batcave. Ah, the Batcave. Which was underneath, but apparently this was a lot bigger. I think you were there when... was that the one that I won? was it? The one when I won the classics I think. Yeah, I think it was. That was the last one he had, yeah. So he has the barn which I haven't been to. I've been to the Bat Cave a couple of times. So he lives on a country like a 10 acre block out in the countryside and he's got the Bat Cave which is underneath his house and he's got a barn up the road where at once before the house was built that's where they used to have all the pinball machines and so that's where this one's going to be. There are going to be over 150 pinball machines set up and we're going to run the whole idea of the southern hemisphere pinball champs is that you went to Pinberg and I've been to Pinberg and it's pretty damn awesome but unfortunately most people from Down Under can't get to Pinberg because it's a long way away and it costs a prick a lot of money It's a 22 hour flight Yeah, crazy 22 hour flight it's on the wrong side of America for a start for us so the whole thing's it's really cool to do it and everyone should do it once in their lifetime but you can't go every year it's just a lot of time and money to go there so what I wanted to do was basically run a mini Pinberg in New Zealand and then Australia. So I talked to Lee and we said, hey, we'll alternate between the two places every year. He was up for that. And Dan gives us a hand to run it. And so, yeah, as you said, last year we had it in Pukakohe in my house out there. We had 75 people, I think. This year so far we've already got 75. And there's a few slackers like you, Marty, who haven't paid yet. So eventually, hopefully we'll get it edging up 90 to 100 people, which will be pretty cool. Be one of the biggest Sydney events that we've had. and we'll start on Friday, we'll have a flip frenzy and then Saturday and Sunday we'll do the Pinberg format and all the players will play 3-2-1 scoring, same as Pinberg and then the top 32, or 4-3, 4-2, whatever it is, 4-2-1-0 I think and then the top 32 will go into four-player finals just exactly the same as Pinberg so that should be pretty damn cool. Well, I'm definitely going to that one. We can assure you. I'm excited. I'm just going to pay for it, that's all. Minor detail. Oh, yeah. You're on the list, mate. You're on the list. And then we're also going to run our Bells and Chimes on Sunday night, and we're also, over the whole weekend, we're going to do the same as what happened at the last Batcave, where there's a side competition, a classics pump and dump. Oh, good. Love it. So that's the one I won last time, and we didn't know how it would go because we don't really do pump and dumps down under, but the Aussies got so into it, by the time it finished, I think the winner got 40% of the pot, I think, or maybe 50% of the pot, and I was lucky enough to win it over, I think it was 80 people or something there, and I think I got $1,250. There you go. It's worth it. I think I pumped three or four grand into the machine. This is the interesting thing about pump and dump, because I did see a poll somewhere where they were talking about the favourite formats, and the pump and dump format didn't really rate that well. But, and this is one, because I'm doing it again this year when I do Flipout, and it's because you can control the metrics, meaning the prize money just sort of escalates as people are playing, how many people enter, how many more buy-ins they do. So, you know, that money goes back to people, but it can be as big as small depending on how many people turn up. And also I think, you know, because we don't run many of them down here, Down Under. In America for a long time it was the predominant format so I think in America people are a little bit sick of them and they're looking for something new but for us Down Under it's still a novelty so the good thing about it too is you can go in there and I used to like it when it was at Indisc, now Indisc has changed to the Puppa format, it's a lot harder I still qualify to it but it is a lot harder than the Puppa format but I like the Pump and Dump one And you can see some guys, I remember, I think it might have been Josh Sharpe telling me one time at Finberg, a few years ago, some guys spent like $1,200 on entries. Wow, okay. Some guys do get a bit carried away. Yeah, that makes my contribution seem a lot better for me. I think at the last Indus, I think me and Danny on entries spent over the three days, I think about $300 US, I think, something like that. So for two people, that's not too bad, I guess. That's not too bad at all. And then when I got 17th in Classics out of, I think, 130 people. No, no, it's more than that. I think it was over 200 people. I got 17th and Jim Balsita was very pleased to PayPal me my winnings of $42. That's pretty awesome. I was the winner. Exactly. Now, so you are also, because you're known as the pinball guy in New Zealand, You also, I believe, are kind of like the distributor for speaking. Is that right? Yes. So, yeah, Charlie, well, I approached Charlie first because I wanted to get an America's Most Haunted because I played one. I thought that's pretty damn cool. And so that was pretty cool. So I said, well, if anyone else in New Zealand wants any, I'll give them a hand to get them here because in my previous life I used to be a furniture guy and I used to import 100 containers a year from, like, throughout Asia. So that's something that I do. So it's sort of blossomed. It's not a money-making gig at all, unfortunately. I think Australia's got the same sort of set-up as New Zealand does. So it's not like a Stern distribution or a Jersey Jack one where you're making a cut on the games. I'm not doing that. The customers pay Spooky directly via the internet portal, and I ship them all back. So we've got, in a country of 4 million people, I've got five Alice Coopers coming, another two TNAs. I'm working on a TNA sold out. I've got two other people that want them. I found them, I've got a new unboxed one from a guy who hasn't opened it yet, so we're just working on getting that back. And we've already got another two TNAs here, and a couple of Rob Zombies, and just my one America's Most Haunted. So that's pretty good little effort for New Zealand and Spooky Machines. So, yeah, pleased with that. Those ones should be leaving Benton next week, hopefully. Yeah, well, it's good. And it's good that you've got, you know, a good number of Alice Coopers. I played that at TPS. I played it last year at Pemboog as well. and just code-wise, it has come leaps and bounds. It is so much fun to play. It is. It's a real cool game, and I like games that are a little bit different. People don't like Rob Zombie, but it is a brutal game, and it is very similar, I think, to some of those got leaves from the mid-'80s like Black Hole, and it can whip your arse, and people don't like their arses getting whipped, but I really like Rob Zombie, and I got to the... I'll finish the Wizard mode a few times in that game, so that's my sort of claim to fame, but it is a really... Yeah, I really like Rob Zombie, something a little bit different, and Alice Cooper's a good challenge to play. The shots are tight, which, again, not everyone's going to like that. But, hey, for me, I want a challenge. If I'm going to spend $10,000 on a pinball machine or $12,000, New Zealand, on a pinball machine, I want something that's going to be interesting to play six months or a year down the track, not something I can beat in a week. You're a monster. Sorry, Marty. Still got your monsters? Yeah, I've said it. It's one of these things where my satisfaction in the first couple of weeks went down and down and down, and then it went up, and then it went up again, and now it's great. And I was playing beta code, and so I've got what is going to be, I believe, 1.0 code. I'm testing it at the moment. Not necessarily going to be a massive update, but it's just one of these things where it does everything really well but I know it's still a work in progress. There'll still be some stuff to come. I haven't played. You've got the LE. I've only played the Pro and I like all Borg layouts. I like Borg stuff even though some of it can be a bit similar. It plays like the Pro plays like no one's business. The ramps and everything are lightning fast. I like the layout. But just, yeah, the code just didn't click for me. And that's a little bit like Ghostbusters. And that's the only problem I have with Munsters. I just don't have a lot of confidence that, I mean, obviously it's going to progress along, but I don't see the format of the code changing at all. But, yeah, my buddy Nimblepin, he's just bought a black and white premium. Fantastic looking machine. And those guys love the Munsters. They love the theme. They're right into their Elvira and Munsters and that whole 60s, 70s horror-y sort of thing. Campy horror. so it's the best thing in the world for those guys and yeah, they love it. So yeah, it's good for some people. For me, it didn't really push my buttons but certainly it was fun to play and I liked the layout and the shots all felt good on it. I just hope somewhere it can go somewhere with the code and turn around a little bit like Deadpool and then maybe I might want to buy one of those one day too. You never know. It could happen. Probably won't. No, no, no. It could happen. It could happen. Now you were saying before about your Evel Knievel restoration. Talk to me about that. Well, that's almost a NASA machine I bought really probably up until say 2013. I always had a very cookie cutter layout by most people. Mostly 90s VMDs. I had all the data race machines. In 2013, I got picked to go to the IFPA World Championships in Germany. So me and BJ Wilson, who will be mentioned a little bit later, packed up our bags and headed all the way to Germany. and at the IPA World Champs, you have to play 24 games and of course me coming from New Zealand, 15 of the 24 games I've never even seen before. You know, it's all these old things and we don't really have a heck of a lot of old pinball machines in New Zealand like they do in America and Australia. You guys still got a lot of old pins in Australia, but we don't really have that here. So that was a big learning curve for me and I enjoyed playing. My first machine I ever bought was a 1976 EM. so I have had some old pins before so that really put me down the path of collecting the older machines and now half of my machines are old ones and most of them have come, I've bought in from the States and one of those was the Evil Knievel which I bought in Boston I bought six off a guy in Boston I paid $550 for it and it went it had a nice, really tidy back glass and the cabinet was reasonable for its age but the playfield was pretty coos so I got a new playfield last year when CPR ran them and finally I had a little bit of time over the school holidays. Danny had some time off university, so we were back at home in Pukekohe, so I thought, bugger it, let's get into it. So I sanded the whole cabinet down, got it all painted in gloss white by Luke, my carpainer mate, and got these stencils all done with the lovely Pinball Pimp stencils, and I've got to heartily recommend the Pinball Pimp stencils, so make sure you get a commission check from him because they really are really good, and polished it all up, and she's looking pretty swish if I do say so myself. So this, so Evel Knievel, that machine came out sort of around the cusp really of electromechanical to solid state. It did. It is solid state though. It's got the, like the digital background doesn't it? It does. Now Evel Knievel is one of those crossover machines where they did make some EM ones as well. So there's not many of them around but they did make the EM version and then it changed to the first generation of solid state. So the sound in Evel Knievel is still chimes. So same as like Mata Hari and a few of those other early ones where they don't have electronic sounds, it's still got the chimes. Right, okay. Now the only reason I was going to ask was I was looking at the play field and it's of that era of ballet which was really basic. Pretty much, yeah. Is it fun? I played it when it came out, but I've not played that since it came out. Well, you must have been young then, Marty. Yeah, I was seven. Oh, there you go. You're the same age as me. Shh, don't tell anyone. No, Evel Knievel's not one of the best of the classic Ballys or Stearns. In fact, gameplay-wise, it's very much one of those, you know, always shoot it up the top, shoot the spinner games. There's not a lot to it. It's actually not that dissimilar from, say, something like a Captain Fantastic, where you just, the whole aim of the game is just keep on shooting the ball up the top all the time. It's not a great game, but Evil Knievel is one of the greatest men that ever lived. That one actually gets passed on theme alone for me. Yeah, there's a lot better ballet games than Evil Knievel, but it's probably one of the coolest things they ever made. And certainly one of the earliest licensed things they did as well, following on from Wizard and Captain Fantastic that they did in 75, 76. and so are you doing another sort of follow it restoration type threads at Pinside? at first I wasn't but then I posted a few pictures of it up on Facebook and I was getting so many messages and emails asking how do you do that, how do you do this so I decided I'll just click it I'll write a thread, I'll send you the link so I wrote a thread because I've taken photos all the way through so because a lot of people now a lot of people are getting into restoring machines and And there's good restored machines and worse than good dough. You know, not only is it a... They are something like Evel Knievel all done up. It's like a work of art, you know. It's a real period piece from the 70s as well. So people are getting into restoring them, but, you know, like you and your golden switch, they're not quite too sure how to do it. So if I can write a thread and help people out... You know, I've read a couple of guys who started... One guy messaged me the other day, and he'd had a machine sitting in the corner for two years, and he sent me a picture of it, and he'd started sanding the side of it down. And so the thread had sort of prompted him to get onto it. So that's good. When I do these threads, and it's the same when I do my travel threads on Pinside. I mean, the whole idea is not to say, hey, I'm cool, I've got a hearse, and I drive halfway across America because it's great. That's a fucking stupid thing to do. No, it's more to inspire people, you know, to get out there. And the best thing about those travel threads is the Pinside dudes that I meet, you know, like some of the guys in Tennessee that I've met and all around America, and they invite you into their houses. You go in there, have a barbecue with them and play their pins. And, in fact, half the time you go to the houses, you don't play the pinballs at all. You just sit around talking and drinking, you know. That's what it's all about. Yeah, just get out there and get into it. And same with the restoration threads. It's like Vids threads on Pinside as well. You know, they inspire people to fix it. And if you can help one guy fix his Golem switch, then, you know, what's next? That's what I've got to say. one day Golem switch next day restored Evil Knievel that's all I've got to say yeah I I yeah I think there's a few steps in between that probably probably not that not that many steps of separation though you know once you get into that you know a lot of people once you get to figure out how to use that soldering iron and put the diode switch diode the right way around so it doesn't completely fuck up your switch matrix then um you know that's the first step and everyone's got to start somewhere I mean, I didn't start fixing pinball machines. Ooh, probably when I bought my first pinball machine in 1989, and I didn't fix the first one I got. It didn't work. And to be honest, when I first got it, I didn't know anything about it. There was no internet, and it didn't work. I think I hit it with a hammer and sprayed it with WD-40, and somehow it fired into life. But I didn't really get into learning how to fix them until probably about 15 years ago, and it's more out of necessity than anything because living where I live in the hour south of Pukekohe, sorry now south of Auckland in Pukekohe there's no one around who can fix them so if I didn't learn how to fix them myself I'd have a hell of a lot of broken pinball machines so there's still a few you know major board repairs and that I ship off to a couple of guys who help me out but most of the stuff I can do myself now so it's um but it all started with a golem switch really you know it's it's got to start somewhere yeah okay I appreciate your pep talk do you need to know it's had no effect well you can't believe I'm trying though you know you are doing a really good effort. I'm a motivational guy. A really valiant effort. I do appreciate that, but... Worst case scenario, I'll fly across here and fix it for you. You know me. As soon as I touch something, I make it worse, and that was actually the case of the Gollum Switch. That's all I'm going to say at this stage. We shan't go down that path. Let's completely change the subject. Let's get into some pinball news. Shall we get into some pinball news? Why not? Let's do that. So the first thing is, we had the thriller in Sternilla to Electric Boogaloo. Sure, why not? This was Keith Elwin versus Zach Sharp on Deadpool, I believe, this time. Yes, Deadpool Premium, yeah. And I managed to watch a bit of it. In fact, I watched the end, really, to see who won. Did you get to watch much of it? I didn't until you sent me the link about half an hour ago, and then I quickly got onto Twitch. When you sent me the link, I clicked on it and it said May 1st, And I went, shit, that's last week. I don't know. I didn't watch it at all. I'll be honest. I don't watch a lot of streaming pinball. The only thing I really watch streaming is the finals of major competitions because I know a lot of the people who are playing. So I watched all the finals of the U.S. Nationals and the pin golf that was in Las Vegas last month. And we put it on. They've got the Twitch going on, the big tally in the lounge. And that was awesome because I know all the people who are playing. So I have a bit of buy-in there. But normal Twitch feeds. And I don't really get it. I'm out fixing up Evel Knievels and Golem Switches instead of watching that, to be honest. Fair enough. And to be honest, it's really interesting because, you know, when I stream, I've got people that I know, but I'm not necessarily getting tournament players because if tournament players are watching me, they're not going to learn anything. So I do, my viewers are more casual people that, you know, play pinball for fun because I'm the same as well. Like, I'll watch a tournament and I'll occasionally go into somebody just doing some shits and giggles stream, but I just don't have the time, so it's more so I do the tournament. So I get it. It's a big time soak, and I haven't got a job. Well, I haven't got a job at all, to be honest with you, but I haven't got a job. A lot of people do sit around in front of computers all day so they can sort of have it going on the side and do their work and watch it work. I can't do that. I have to sort of dedicate time to it. But I did watch the end of it, and I've got to say, the best thing of the whole stream was right at the end when old Gazza Stern walks in and starts talking in the middle of the stream. It was just hysterical, and they ended up asking for a dealer, and what sort of dealer was he asking for? I'm not quite too sure, but it turned out it was a Harley Davidson dealer. Right, OK. Oh, I've got to love Gazza. So who won, Keith versus Zach? I don't know, I missed that bit. I think it was Zach. Yeah, no, Zach did win. They did say that Zach won. He did. And Keith must have gotten hissy fit because I didn't see him at the end when Gary was there. Keith had gone home, I think. No, Keith was back working on his next machine. Ah, fantastic. Do we know what it is yet, Marty? No, we don't know, but I've heard it's Godzilla. What? What, do you think he's doing Godzilla? Nah, that's, you know what? I, what I get told, I just, you know, it's interesting and we'll talk about it, but it could be anything. Well, it could well be Godzilla because I know he does like the, the Stern God, the Sega Godzilla. He loves it, yeah. He does. Yeah, it could well be. Yeah, that actually could make sense. So, good on you, Keith. Well, and if you remember, you know, when we talked about Beetlejuice and the whole, you know, the fact that they said, well, if people aren't passionate about it, it just won't get done. Well, at least you've got somebody passionate about Godzilla. That's right. So, there's a start. Other pinball news. What's all that Frenchy stuff about? Yeah, well, yeah. Well, you know, if you do want to know, There's the Slap Save podcast. He is on every week. I would recommend listening. They're fun guys, and he will tell you all. But, you know, he's an artist. He's very passionate. We'll leave it at that. Yes, that's all. We'll be interesting to see what happens. I haven't listened to that podcast yet, so I might tune in this week and give it a listen and see what's happening. Yeah, do. They're good guys. I like them. Sounds good. Speaking of... Here comes a segue for you. Passionate, pimple people. No? Yeah? No? John Popadook. You don't get anyone more passionate than John Popadook. If you're talking pinball and cardboard, he's the most passionate man in cardboard. I mean pinball. So what's come across our desk? I mean, it sounds like we're proper reporters now. What's come across our desk? This news is in. So there's been a cardboard mock-up, or what would you call it? Like a... Cardboard? or like a phone call, but he loves a bit of cardboard, this fella. Yeah, showing what Alice in Wonderland could look like. I was going to say my first impression, but it wasn't. It was actually Ryan's first impression because he spoke to me. It just reminded me so much of Magic Girl. It does, yeah. This one sort of looks like it might work, though, maybe. Although I can't... I'm sort of having a little bit of trouble figuring out how those ramps work, but it looks pretty bloody rad. Yeah, obviously they're return ramps. We just don't know where they're returning from. Where they're returning from. It looks like, and I'm assuming, I think you would tell me that there's a thread there that has this on it, but I think there's a side ramp that goes up and comes around to the right ramp. I don't know how the left ramp is fed. Yeah, you see the scene, it's a little bit like Circus Volterra. I think where the right ramp, you can shoot straight up the middle in that line of... The picture's not that great, by the way. But you can shoot straight up the middle where that line of inserts is, and it looks like that goes up to feed the top playfield, but the left-hand ramp seems to just come out of the LCD screen, so I'm not too sure what's on there. So what it's showing is his love of having the LCD screen in the backbox, like Circus Voltaire. I really like that. I think that is cool. I do like to have it there. not so much in the playfield like Highway tried to do. I don't mind it down there, but I think that's a spot where I always like it. It's the best thing about Circus Voltaire, apart from it being a very pretty-looking game, the actual best thing about it is the DMD at the back, I reckon. Yeah, but because it's such a narrow DMD, that's OK. I was going to say one of the problems, but one of the many problems I had when I played Magic Girl was you couldn't actually see the majority of the playfield anyway. And if you wanted to see it, you're actually then not able to have things elevated at the back of the machine. That's right, yeah. And I think that becomes a bit of a design hindrance, really, if you can't stack the back of it. Because if you think about, you know, the shape of and the angle of the playfield and the cabinet itself, you get more distance at the back of the cabinet. That's where you should absolutely be stacking this full of toys and ramps and mechanisms, not a screen. If you remember back to Magic Girl, and you can see it in this cardboard as well, that when John put all the stuff out back in the day, he completely, of course, John being John, apart from racking up a huge Starbucks bill, because that's where half the money went, was down the local Starbucks, evidently. But the cabinet is a lot... he redesigned the whole cabinet, so the cabinet at the back is a lot higher, and you can see that in this cardboard picture. So you can see the sides are probably four inches higher than a normal cabinet above the playfield there. So he sort of worked around that, but a magic girl, as you say, that whole centre spiral ramp that didn't work sort of covers the whole LCD screen, so the whole thing's a sort of a design disaster, really. But this one looks a lot better. It looks simpler I give it that which means more achievable It would be interesting to see obviously this is a picture from back in the day you know back in his factory So this picture is probably three or four or five years old but it'll be interesting to see how this transfers into the, you know, the Deep Root game. Deep Root, there I see it. Yeah, you did. But you know what? It's one of these things where I want to say these machines because I think they are going to be amazing to look at anyway. Well, there were some, again, I haven't followed the Deep Root thing too long. In fact, I didn't go until someone linked it to me. It might have been you the other day who linked me. I had to go and search for this picture. And so I hadn't looked in the Deep Root thread for months and months and months. And I've popped my head in there. Of course, Iceman was in great form, as he always is. And a couple of things I saw in there were that they were targeting the games, like the pro-level games, and I don't know whether they're going to be different levels, but they were talking about $5,000 US retail price for their games. So, you know, that's $1,000 cheaper than a Stern, and it's the same price as Thunderbirds. So, I mean, I know they'll be worried about Thunderbirds, but the... Well, maybe they won't be. But, you know, it depends where they go. And the other thing that was interesting in the thread was that, I think it was yesterday, Iceman had got a letter from Deep Root saying that his, because he was one of the original, he had money in on John's games, he had money on a Razor back in the original, you know, five years ago. And so he had put his lot in with Deep Root. And he's got a letter saying that they're expecting his game to be delivered on or about the 30th of June. So that's not that far away. That's only a couple of months away. Wow. Okay. And that's what it said. And he posted the whole letter with pauses and everything. and if they didn't deliver the game by the 30th of June this year, not next year, then there was a penalty or he could get his money back or something like that. So they must be pretty confident that they're going to be pumping out at least a handful of games by the 30th of June, which is seven weeks away. Yeah, okay. So stand by. And so what's that one that's going to be coming out? Is that Razza that's coming out? What it said in the letter, and I haven't got it in front of me, I apologise, but it said something like, we're going to have three games ready on the 30th of June. And it more or less sounded like you can have your pick because I think off the top of my head, Iceman had $4,000 in or something, so he can use that $4,000 towards the purchase of any of those three games. That was the sort of gist I got out of it. And on the 30th of June, he is going to see those three games and he gets to choose which one he wants. So that was the gist I got out of it. Okay, well then that at least gives us the latest time frame that we will see something is 30th of June. Yeah, that's right. At least some designs. Not far away. No. So, yeah, as I say, stand by, because news is coming out in probably a couple of months' time. Well, and so speaking of Razor, we mentioned it last week. Somebody written in after we saw that, you know, video that was kind of leaked of kind of almost like a bit of a promo or what could be like a DMD sort of promo for Retro Atomic Zombie Adventureland. And someone had written in saying it sounds like Jeff Teolas. and we were kind of like, no, if it was Jeff Teolas, he would have told us. Well, he... He did tell you. He didn't tell us. He didn't? No, we found out like everybody else on This Week in Pinball. Ah, I didn't see that. Yeah. Teolas has been doing some moonlighting, eh? He has been doing some voice work and good on him. We've been saying for so long, I mean, we're not going to call out the characters, but it's obvious who he is. But he's just a master of voices. Like, he can disguise his voice in others. And it wasn't until someone pointed that out. Actually, it wasn't until I actually saw it written down that they'd said, you know, Jeff DeOlus was the voice talent. I listened to it again and went, oh, you know what? I can hear it now. But I didn't hear it. I didn't hear it without knowing. So, that is a true artist. I didn't know that until you sent me this list half an hour before we started. And I had that big game, 1.5 billion or whatever, on Aerosmith last night. And halfway through the game, it suddenly dawned on me that the Jackie voice, who's the jack-in-the-box thing that taunts you when you're loading up the toy box, it sounds just like that dickhead Pinside Petey. So I thought the teal was through the voice for that as well. Well, if he did, he would have then beaten me to have a voice in the game. so I'm sure that he would have told me about it. I think I might have to get a podcast going so I can get my voice in one of these games. Exactly. We need a New Zealand themed... That's right. You know. Maybe the next wrestling game we could bring back the Bushwhackers if you remember those guys. I vaguely remember the Bushwhackers. Oh my God, they put New Zealand on the map. Did they though? Well, they probably made everyone forget a bit. What are we talking about? The map of embarrassment. The bushwhackers. That does sound very familiar, but I'll have to look that up. Yeah, so everyone can YouTube that. A lot of the wrestling fans out there will remember it. That's about when I stopped watching professional wrestling. When I was very young and I figured out it wasn't actually real, but don't tell anyone. Okay. I will. I've made a note. I will look it up. If I find something that's interesting, I will put that in the show notes under bushwhackers. That's right. There you go. So, now here's an interesting story for you. So, bribery. I don't know how I'm trying to link this story. Bribery and Australia. And Australia. I think we're off the same sentence. I don't know whether you know, but did you know that Australia was originally a convict colony? I have. I think I might have even mentioned that a couple of times before. You may have. Some of it does, some of it's still around, you know. I mean, there are a few outstanding citizens like yourself around, but there's still a lot of skullduggery in Australia. Very, very few. We are literally a country of thieves. Just letting you know, that's what we are. So, but fortunately, we are having some, you know, governing bodies that are trying to crack down on that kind of stuff. and one of them is the Independent Commission Against Corruption, or ICAC. I just wanted to say ICAC. That's it. So there is an article, and I will link this in the show notes, where it talks of the story of a cop. Well, he's actually an ex-cop now. And he was accepting bribes, including a Spider-Man pinball machine. Fantastic, and not only any Spider-Man machine It was an $11,000 Spider-Man pinball machine So, I don't know, would that have been probably a Volt edition maybe? I can't describe one, it's probably just any old one, you know But the amazing thing in the story that you'll link to the Sydney Morning Herald article It's got a picture of a Spider-Man pinball machine in it Which is, it's pretty fantastic Most amazing thing I got reading from the story And people can read it if they want to was that the whole thing was a scam where this cop guy was billing the university, the Sydney University, for contracting for security that they never did. And one guy, they billed one officer, and he was paid for working 543 hours of work in one week. There's not even 543 hours a week. No, they've got. And this went on for years and years and years. So they call it ghosting. And I know of this very well because I work for a sales and marketing company and we put people out there doing events or being on site in retailers and others. And people do that. They actually go in, sign the book, walk away, five hours later, come back saying that they've signed out. They never actually were there. So it's chosen Australians. Australians. Well, the amazing thing with this story was, because actually this is about the only thing on this list that I knew of half an hour before the show, I got an email the other day or a message from Mrs. Measlemods in Albuquerque, and she sent me the story. This story has gone all around the world, and it popped up in her local paper in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and she sent me the link to it with the Spider-Man, Guy being bribed with the Spider-Man, and she just wrote, Bloody Aussies. Which I thought was the funniest thing. So Australia made big news in Albuquerque, New Mexico. So Breaking Bad and the stolen Spider-Man pinball machines. You're the talk of the town in Albuquerque. We're thieves. I wear it as a badge of honour. Why not? Everyone's got a claim to fame. Exactly. Why not? Fantastic. Yeah, there you go. So we also, another piece of news that we saw this week was further details on the Pinball Hall of Fame. Now, I know you've been to the Pinball Hall of Fame. Yes. I've also been to the Pinball Hall of Fame. What did you think of your visit, or possibly visits, to the Pinball Hall of Fame? Well, I've been there a number of times, and yeah, it's cool. I mean, some people do get, I don't think, you know, it's very, very hard to keep 250 pinball machines. The machines are in shit condition. Some of them are, yeah. Some of them were when I was there. The funny thing with the pinballs there is that Tim really likes his older machines. that all the EM machines are all, last time I was there at Christmas time, we spent a lot of time playing the EMs, and a lot of those EMs are mint, and they play really well. It's the more modern machines. Like I remember there was a Spider-Man there, talking Spider-Man, a few trips back, and it had a really low high score on it, so I thought, oh, I'll have a game like that, and I'll get the high score, and I'll feel good about myself. And I played it, and then the top flipper didn't work, and then I figured out why no one heard the top high score. so but it's hard I mean when you go in there you always see that all the people gravitate towards those games like all the modern games and there's no one playing the old em so they don't get um you know the new new machines get a thrashing and god bless Tim he's open from like nine o'clock in the morning till midnight every day so he's um those machines are getting a big thrashing hey so yeah I think it's not and some people say hey you should have beer and should have food and but Tim doesn't want to do any of that sort of stuff. Nah, I know. He's sort of doing God's work. I know. People are sort of saying, have beer and food so you can get more money so you can maintain these machines. So, you know, I think he's basically said that there's 250 machines at the current location and the new location, which is just further off the strip, just near where the big famous Las Vegas sign is. It is on the main road. Yep. And Greg is wanting to have 6,700 machines in the new locations. So, great, love it, well done, but, you know, now you've got to maintain 6,700 machines. Exactly right, and that's the problem, and that's so good, and I'm never going to criticise Tim because he does a job that everyone thinks is easy, but that's a real hard job that he does. He's been doing it for 30 or 40 years, and to be honest, I think he's over it. And he still cranks out, I think, you know, he's donated millions, or at least a million dollars, if not more, to Salvation Army from all the work that he does there. And so, yeah, this is his idea. He's paid cash for the land. I think he paid $3 million for the spot. The only problem I had with the spot, you know, I'm a real estate guy these days as well. That's what I do, commercial buildings. And it is on the, technically, it's on the strip as you drive in, but it's still, the problem in Las Vegas is still no one's going to walk there because it is way down by the Las Vegas, way down past Mandalay Bay. So you're still not going to get that walk down. You're still going to have to get people going in Ubers and things like that. So it's really no different from the location where it is now in that regard. And then, yeah, as you say, the other thing is, hey, he's got 250 machines now, of which not all of them work 100%. So, yeah, if you want to have 500 or 600 machines set up, then that's a shitload more work. And to be honest, I don't know if it's going to get a lot more money through the door because it's still in the same scenario. It would be a lot different if it was in the middle of the strip, like, say, you know, down by New York, New York or somewhere like that. Then, obviously, there'd be 10 times the people coming through the door. But I don't know if the new location is going to make that much difference. But Tim knows what he's doing and he's got the money to do it. So he's already sold his other building. I think he's got a year or two to get out of there as part of the deal. And I heard when he was talking about the plans for his new place, it's going to be two-story because the plot that he's got is very long and skinny. right next to the airport and next to the Harley-Davidson place. So it's going to be two stories. So it'll have car parking on the ground level, and then I think you'll have to go upstairs to go to the pinballs. So it's a huge undertaking. It's going to be a couple of million-dollar building, so good on them, and wish them all the best. Yeah, same. And hope Spider-Man fixed that flipper. Yeah. And so it was the disappointing moment for me, Because, you know, you and I, we've played a lot of pinball, right? Yeah, we have. How often is it, take EMs out of the piece, how often is it that solid state onwards, you get to play a machine for the first time? Well, sort of never, really. Yeah, I've sort of got to the point now where I have played most of the things, everything that I want to play, if you know what I mean. Yeah, I'm the same. I think the last one in recent times that I got to play that I'd never played before was BMX. Yeah, no, I haven't played that one. In fact, I don't think I've actually ever seen one in the flesh. Yeah, they had one at New Zealand. Was it Pinfest, I think it was? Oh, Newcastle. Newcastle, yes. Yeah, not New Zealand. I was going to say, I'd know that otherwise. No, I don't think I've seen one. So, yes, a couple of those classic students I haven't seen. I haven't played the Kung Fu one either. So, there's none of those here. Black Belt, whatever it's called. So, yeah, so it was like that going to... And admittedly, this wasn't necessarily a rare game. But this was... was, you know, the poker game. What is it? World Poker Tour? World Poker Tour. Thank you. So this was World Poker Tour. And so I hadn't, I'd never seen it because just in Melbourne, none of them were around. So, yeah, first chance to play was at Pimble Hall of Fame and it was busted. And it was just so disappointing. Yeah, that is a shame when you have something there that you do want to play and it's not working. I know a couple of times I've been there that pinball circus game hasn't been working. And people would travel, you know, pinball dudes would travel there just to play pinball circus. So, yeah, if you do go there and your pinball circus isn't working, then obviously that's going to end in tears. But I suppose worst-case scenario, come back the next day and hopefully it's going again. It is worth the support if you only want to play two games in the whole place and they're not working, but what are you going to do? Yeah, that's what it is. So, it's a thing you can't. Now, even though It's not a big point, but I know Black Knight Has got some new code out Have you had a chance to play Black Knight yet? No, none here Any over there yet, Marty? They are on the Gold Coast So these are at the time zones They have a special deal with AMD where they get them air freighted That's right So it's on site and People I know are playing it And you know what I think the summary from, I mean, it's going to be no different to what everybody's saying already anyway, is that it's a fun game, animations are great, the music gets a bit repetitive, but it's brutal as fuck. It's really what everybody is saying, and I've watched a lot, and I mean a lot of video footage now of people playing it. Oh, never seen such a brick fest. That's unusual that's unusual for people not calling Houdini and Alice Cooper breakfasts. Right, exactly. I'll be honest, I haven't watched a lot. I did watch the launch stream, I think the Jack Danger one that they did, and it looked okay, but apart from that I haven't really seen much of it, and I certainly haven't had a chance to play it as yet. But it's a little bit like, to me it looks like a mixture between sort of, you know, like a no-fair, very much the same colour scheme as no-fair, but with the World Poker Tour upper playfield on there. It's the only thing that worries me a little bit, that upper play field. There doesn't seem to be a lot of stuff to do up there. And when I was watching that screen, I think they had Ali and the pro on there. And just, again, I apologise if I'm wrong, but the upper flippers, they didn't seem to have a direct feed to it, so the ball was bobbling around a lot up there. So it wasn't like, say, BK2000, where the ball, you know, shoot a loop and it comes around nicely to the flipper and then you can loop it again or you can hit it into the lock. it seemed to just be bobbling around a lot more up there in fact I was watching Keith Elwin play it and that's who I was watching play it at the time so whether it was just the way that game was set up or that's just the way it is I'm not too sure but yeah Beaver's like any game always keen to give it a go and I know my mate Simon down in Wellington's ordered an alley because he's a Steve Ritchie fanboy and he's got nearly all of Steve Ritchie games so as soon as he told me months and months ago because I told him I think BK's coming out again and he said, right, I'm going to get my name down for an alley and then he has. So I was talking to him today and he's still extremely excited about it. So that's all good. He's a happy boy. Awesome. Well, yeah, I really want to see it. It's funny though, because the more I'm watching these videos, I'm thinking, I could play that better. But I wonder whether I will and whether I'll also brick like everybody else. That's the problem. I mean, just looking at the design, All of those lanes are relatively close. They're about halfway up the playfield, so I think if you hit the ball pretty hard and you smack into one of those posts, I think it's coming back pretty quick. It's going to be the quick and the dead, I think, sometimes in those games. It might have to be to trap it up and pick your shots a little bit better rather than just trying to flow it around the place. I think your flow players or your just play-on-the-fly players are going to not last very long. Well, yeah. Anyway, I'm looking forward to playing it. We'll see how we go. Awesome. So what did you get up to this week in pinball? Well, what did we do? So we had the Auckland Monthly meet last week over at BJ Wilson's house, who I mentioned before. BJ is an interesting guy. He's a Canadian guy, but he's lived in New Zealand for a long time now, 15 or 20 years, and he's actually helping Jerry with the P3. He's a coder, and he's designed – I'm a little bit vague on some of the name of the games, but he's helped Jerry on a number of the games there. And last time I was over in Texas a couple of years ago when I went to TVF, me and BJ went to Jerry's house and we played the head-to-head game, Heads Up, when it very, very first came out. And that's the game that's linked together. So me and Danny and Fiona went down there and played that. And I love the P3. The P3's so clever. So we had that at BJ's house the other night. And the competitions we're having here now, a little bit like in Melbourne and in Brisbane and Australia, we've got so many people who are getting into pinball now. We had 42 people show up at BJ's house the other night. So we're getting regularly 30 to 40, 35, 40 people every month at just monthly meets, which we hold in people's houses. And then we're having the big events like Pincade, where we're getting like 100 people showing up. So in a little country of 4 million people, and there's only a million people in Auckland, it's getting pretty crazy. It's almost getting to the point where there's so many people wanting to play pinball, the houses aren't big enough for everyone anymore, you know. So it's a good problem to have, I guess. And what about your place? Like, are you still sort of getting lots of regulars over to both your places? Well, you know, I run a bit. I don't want the pinball in New Zealand. It's certainly not just, hey, come to Dave's house all the time. So we share it around. We've got a number of, we've got about eight or nine regular hosts who have got, you know, eight plus pins at their house. Because really, when you get 40 people at your house, you really want, we play four-player games all the time. So really, eight pinballs is really what we're after. Eight or more is good, otherwise people are waiting too long. so what I do with my place is we have a couple every year outside of Pincaid, we have a couple every year at the apartment, normally will be the first meeting of the year in January and then if we're around at Christmas we'll have either a Christmas or a New Year's meet so a couple of years ago we used to do a New Year's every year because my house isn't far from the Sky Tower where they settle the fireworks off on New Year's Eve so everyone comes up plays pinball, gets drunk and watches the fireworks off the balconies that's always good times but Last week, that's the other thing I did last week, was I got sponsorship from, I've been working a lot on getting sponsorship for some of these events, because in New Zealand we don't charge anyone to play pinball, so that's what we decided to do back in 2012 when we started, all the meetings and everything are free, so outside of Pincade and a couple of the big events, everything is free, just bring a plate and go to everyone's house for nothing, so I get a lot of sponsorships, and I've been working on the breweries to give me sponsorships, because breweries make a lot of money, and so why not take some of it off them so I got Max to sponsor me again and Max are owned by Lion Nathan who are the biggest brewer in New Zealand and they've given me another last year they gave me 80 dozen beer this year I haven't quite got 80 dozen out of them because there was a new guy there but I conned them into giving me almost that much and so we'll have another big event at my place on the 30th of June so here's a New Zealand event for you guys $20 to enter and you get a free six pack of beer which is worth $15 so that's a pretty good day that's for a whole day of pinball at Dave's house so you've got 120 pinballs to play and you get six pairs for nothing as part of the deal so that's pretty cool so we'll play a big 7-5-3-1 IFBA type match play event on that and that's called the Max Rockaway Pinball Classic so that'll be on Sunday the 30th of June all day so that's the next big one we've got coming up here Okay, and so that Isn't that 30th of June? That's when the, that's when razzers are going to be Delivered, so you might actually have to have like a live Feed into people's homes to see whether they actually Get their machines. Well, I don't think anyone In New Zealand really gives a shit, but I don't think anyone anywhere Gives a shit. Iceman does Well, okay, so There are some people. Yeah, there are, of course There are some people who do, but yeah, really And of course, don't forget we're a day Ahead, so we won't See, won't be the 30th here until the Monday We'll be up live streaming on the Monday We'll get to know before anybody else Because we're in the future That's right, we are, we're men in the future Correct Fantastic So that's about all I've been up to Apart from working on Led Zeppelins and Evil Knievels And advising people on Gollum Switches That's about all we've been up to Yeah, so What about yourself, Marty? Yeah, we're talking about me and my Gollum Switch So, yes, I think it was me that actually broke off my Golem Switch accidentally, but I can't know for sure. Anyway, the summary is, as soon as I open up a machine, I make it worse. Bad things happen. I just couldn't do it. So my Lord of the Rings is now out of action until I buy a Switch and get somebody in to solder it. So looking forward to coming over to do that. It was handy to hit friends with soldering irons. You know, that's what I find. I've actually got a soldering iron, but I am so bad with it. Anyway. But also, as I said, I streamed Munsters the other night. God, I love it. But as I said, I was streaming new code, and all I will say is that there's flipper codes, kind of like, you remember when Dead Patti's flipper codes, but there's flipper codes that show the credits. I'm just encouraging people to go and watch the credits. That's all. Yes, do you get your name up there, Marty? Yes. Wow. Yes, we do. What, as a tester? Yes. Fantastic. So, again, my badge of honour. My name is now in two games. You're almost as famous as Richard Rhodes. That's more, because he's only got one. Has he only got the one? I was playing The Shadow the other day. That's my favourite, my go-to, Belly Williams from the 90s is The Shadow. I've actually brought my one up to the apartment because I like playing it so much. And it's set up really mean. And I noticed Jason Wendrick's name in that. He has a tester from back in the day. Yes, same as I've never seen it before. So good on you, Jason. Call out if you're listening. Thanks for meeting me at the Indus here, Jack. Love you, Jason. Yeah, you're the best. He is. Good guy. So let's actually read out some mail. We've actually got a lot of mail, and I know you know that because you read the mail. I did. And the first one is, so last week I talked about music themes, right? And I was kind of sort of saying, you know, besides all the rock bands, what other things would people want? And I've got to say, I was really, really pleased with the suggestions. And I'm just going to read out a couple, if you don't mind. Okay. The first one is from Ryan Wanger. Now, I'm just going to, just as a side note, Ryan Wanger is from Comet Pinball. So, if you are wanting LEDs, go to cometpinball.com. And I also need to add that Ryan, good competitive pinball player, he was also in that game, in InDisc, with Werdrick, and knocked me out of that fucking round. So thank you, Ryan. You're the best. Thank you, Ryan, you jerk. You're the good Ryan. So comicpinball.com, just in case I haven't said that enough. So he wrote in saying, hi, don't sit around thinking up dream things, but what I would like to see is a music-based pin where you build the song as you play by making shots. Now, he had me at that because that was, I don't know, a while ago I said that that's the kind of music pin that I would like Is that certain shots start, you know, bringing in a bass drum or a bass line or, you know, guitar line or whatever it is And you start building the song And that's exactly what he's saying And the band, I don't know whether you know of them, but the band that he said is Infected Mushroom He said would be perfect for this And I couldn't agree more I freaking love infected mushroom never heard of them tell me about them so how would you describe them I think they've been around for a very long time and I think original days they were sort of considered Doa trans I know I'm probably talking stuff that means nothing to you but it's I don't know I'm just going to try and google it now get a bit of a Wikipedia on this for um yeah they they they produce perform psytrance electronica and psychedelic music um oh that just the stuff I into You are totally into psytrance So psytrance go all that kind of stuff You wouldn't say it's not hardcore like techno. It's not industrial. It's somewhere in between. It's probably a slower version of hard house, a lot more melodic. but sort of like the reason why this has come up with Ryan's suggestion is these long tracks that build and they have motifs that come in and out and the individual lines themselves you could absolutely break down into the different stems and start building those as tracks in a music pin so absolutely agree with that so I think that's a great suggestion you and Ryan will really enjoy that but you know there's other people I know My friend James is also into infected mushroom. And those people that know infected mushroom will know exactly what we're talking about, right? I'll check them out. Good. So the next one's from Nitson. And I don't know whether Nitson has said this before, and I think we've read this out, but he's also said B-52s. He said they could carry a fun pinball game with their tunes. They sounded a bit more poppy than other new wave bands at the time, but they have a wide variety of songs that just put you in the zone. So my personal favourite is Good Stuff But there's just a lot going on So yeah, I think they were originally Surf Rock And then I think Sort of the legal tender sort of phase They went very electronic And then they went back to sort of pop Then they did sort of, you know, kind of new wave And they had my favourite album Just for those people Just allow me, indulge me in this My favourite album of the B-32s is Bouncing Off The Satellites Freaking love that album and then they came back into popularity with that whole Love Shack and Channel Z and all that kind of stuff. But what I like about B-52s as a theme is A, it's fun. B, visually iconic. And C, they have songs that are very recognisable but also have very different styles and themes so you could build modes around all these different songs. So, my big thumbs up to B-52s What do you think? Ah, yeah Do you want people to buy these things? Yeah, and that's what I said a while ago When I mentioned B-52s I would love a B-52s pinball machine I don't know whether it would have mass appeal That's the thing I agree with you I'm not a B-52s guy But some of their music is pretty cool And something like Stayson that's got a retro sort of surf Especially the first stuff It's got a real cool vibe about it It's upbeat. It's cool music. But at the end of the day, I mean, hey, you can make a really cool home theme out of it. And I'm sure you can make a really cool pin out of it. And you've got some, most of your stuff's got a lot of color in that, and that would pop. The videos and that that I've seen are theirs. But at the end of the day, if it's a commercial thing, then, well, if you're making, say, you could make 52 of them, that would go and be 52. And I'm sure you'd sell 52 of them. But as far as 5,200 that Stern would be wanting to sell might be a bit of a flop. But it certainly has potential there, no question. I mean, when it comes to music, I mean, everyone's, like people say, Pink Floyd would make a cool music pin, but, I mean, for me, that would put me to sleep. But everyone's got different tastes. But if you said to me two years ago that you'd be playing a pinball machine that had jazz music in it, I'd just laugh at you. But Batman 66, like the Catwoman theme, it's... And it's basically just low-key jazz music, and it's fucking awesome. So, who knows, you know? I'm a heavy metal guy, but at the end of the day, it just comes down to how cool the game is and how well everything's integrated, you know? Well, okay. So, from one of my good friends from the Loser Kid Femble podcast, they mentioned Sum 41. Now, who are they? That sounds sort of familiar. That's a pop punk band, is that right? Well, they sound like that, but I believe they're actually metal. Okay. So... You're not super familiar with them? No. And they do look a bit punk, though, don't they? Yeah, that's what I'm sort of picturing. More of that sort of post-Green Day sort of band. But, hey, I might be wrong on that. That's not some guys I'm particularly familiar with. No, I'm not either as well. So I just sort of had to... We were sort of texting each other. I was sort of about to go, yeah, cool, bro. I don't know who they are, but I think that was also in the context of, you know, me going through listening to all these new bands and new music and all that kind of stuff. And he was like, you know, check out Sum 41. So there you go. I'm going to. Now, the next one, the next one, the next one I could absolutely 100% get behind. And this is from a suggestion from Brent. Thank you, Brent. He says I debated this in my head One in my head As a lot to whether This would be a good idea Or not But sometimes I feel like the energy And mood and visuals Of nine inch nails Would make a great theme For pinball Perhaps a bit too niche But what do you think? Oh my god I'd be some nine inch nails I would Freaking kill For a nine inch nails machine And Spooky would be the company To do it Exactly For that sort of thing Like a nine inch nails And the other thing Brent mentions too here Is a tool machine and Tall are like the coolest band ever and they've got a new album coming out in the next couple of months, I believe. I actually just saw it. Just before we did the podcast, I saw a message that they put the first song out today. I haven't heard it as yet. So, yeah, that's been a long time in the coming. But that, yeah, Tall, Nine Inch Nails, that sort of music, especially, like I say, for spooky, like 500, 600 machines, absolutely perfect. Some of that music would certainly suit a pinball machine a lot more than some other music, that's for sure. Yeah, again, as soon as I saw that, I thought, okay, music, and also, when he did send it through, I thought, oh, you know what, I will go to, and this is a recommendation for anybody that's got Spotify, if you put a band name in, typically underneath that band will actually have, this is that band's name. So if you type in Nine Inch Nails, there'll be a playlist that is called This Is Nine Inch Nails. And what it tends to do is play all of their music from most popular or probably most downloaded, I don't know, all the way down. So it gives you a way of being able to jump in hearing their most popular tunes and getting a sense of the band. So I've done that with Nine Inch Nails this week. and I probably got about 20 tracks, I think, where I came to the conclusion that I'm not in love with their music as much as I thought I was. But I cannot deny that they make great music and visually they make very recognisable and memorable moments and I think that could make a fantastic pinball machine. And at the end of the day too with a pinball machine, like if you look at your Iron Maidens or your Aerosmiths or your Kiss, you really only need six to eight songs. So out of those 20, and you don't even need the whole song. So with your nine-inch nails, I'm sure you could pick eight or ten great moments out of what you listened to the other day. And it's the same with Tool. Some of the Tool music drools on for hours and hours, and that's not going to suit pinball at all. But you throw in something like, I've totally forgotten the names of their songs, but if some of them were more up-tempo stuff, it would just be like, oh, man, just be killer. Yeah. So, Brent, that's a great suggestion. Good on you, buddy. Thumbs up. Yeah, thank you for that as an idea for Pimple Machine but also for, you know, inspiring me to go and listen back to some Nine Inch Nails. So, there you go. And the next one's from Ezra. Ezra, I love Ezra. Ezra we speak to quite often. Now, Ezra has, and I know this band. In fact, I've met, I think he's a guitarist or singer, and I think Lucas from the Bayside Pimple Club that we've talked about often, he knows this band very well as well. They're an Australian band called, and I just love their name, they're called King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard. I've heard of them as well. I've never heard of them. And then I've got a friend in the States up in the Bay Area. His name is Moff on Pinside. I've been to his house. Real nice Gregor's his name. Real nice guy. and he sent me the link to these guys a year or two ago and he said, check these guys out. And I went, what the hell is that? But it was pretty cool. Yeah, so they're a bit psychedelic. They're a little bit out there, a little bit left to centre. Exactly right. But I've sort of seen some of their visuals as well. I think they'd be great. But again, I don't know whether I see the mass appeal there. But anyway, great suggestion. And I got to say King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard. So there's that. And then, actually my favourite. So here's one of these moments, I know I do sort of ramble on about music, but every once in a while, I stumbled across a band that I probably should have been into, but never really gave them a chance. And when I do, one of the most beautiful, joyful moments you can ever have in life for me, because I'm into music so much, is when I discover a band and realise there's about 10 albums of theirs that I have never heard, and I can just listen to all of this great music. This happened about six months ago with the band Muse. And I was always a fan of their song, Nights of Cydonia. And some people are going to groan, some people are going to go, yeah! It doesn't matter, it's one of those divisive songs. So, I just happened to be, I think it might have been on Netflix, I think it was actually on Amazon Prime. I was just sort of looking up whether they had music concerts, and Muse Live in Rome was there, and I thought, oh, you know what? I'll just play their concert. I know Knights of Cydonia. I know it's an epic track. I wonder what they're going to be like. And it was literally just amazing song after amazing song, even more amazing song, and then it just crescendos right at the end with all these songs that I knew but didn't know it was Muse. and I would just fricking die for a Muse machine. But Dan Donnell actually wrote in and said, if you get a chance, do like I did, replace all the songs in Iron Maiden with your favourite Muse ones, you won't regret it. Yep, Muse, huge band. Another band I haven't got into. I've heard a bit of their stuff and some of it's pretty cool, but just not a band that's really, really pushed my buttons. But I certainly appreciate what they do. Yeah. I'm good on your band. They wouldn't be metal enough for you, I don't think. Yeah, I've also seen one of their live, I don't know if it was that concert, but I have seen one of their live concerts that was shown on TV or something and watched it. They put on a good show. There's only three guys in the band from the ring and it wasn't visually that exciting with those three guys because they tended to be standing around a little bit more. But yeah, certainly musically it was cool. Probably not going to go and see one of their concerts, but I'll certainly give it a decent listen if I had a chance. I would. Send me a playlist and I'll give them another go. Okay, I will do that. And again, they're doing a world tour at the moment and they're not coming to Australia. And it's just one of my bugbears that these people call these things world tours and they don't count Australia. Up until very recently, like when I was a teenager, I've been a heavy metal guy since I was 12 or 11 or 12. And no bands ever used to come to New Zealand because we didn't have any venues. So we'd get the really big bands and they'd go and play at their rugby stadiums and you'd get 30,000 or 40,000 people showing up, but you'd never get the Iron Maidens or anything here, and the likes of that. So now we've got some good indoor stadiums with like 12,000, 14,000 seats. We're getting all these bands now. It's like a smorgasbord of bands, and just about every band that comes to Australia, comes to New Zealand. We just had Slayer and Anthrax here, Judas Priest a couple of weeks ago. So we're so lucky these days that, as far as New Zealand goes, we are getting these bands, and yeah, so much better than what it used to be in the old days, I can tell you that. so there you go no Muse though but Nick Mon Muse come to Australia you fuckers yeah they'll be they'll shut up if there's money there they'll be there anyway so thanks for those emails came through for music topics for Pinball and for me to explore other bands really appreciate it let's let's go into some other emails and this one is from our good friend Jeff from This Week in Pinball he said just finished mowing and listening to your podcast regarding what is my unmet need in pinball where you guys were talking about online connectivity. Here are my two cents and my unmet needs. First off, the best and most fun way to play pinball for me is out with friends at barcades or with friends at my house or theirs. However, it isn't always possible to get together with people, so when you're playing alone, there are two options that I hope we'll see in the future. Option number one, some type of online connectivity that leads to social interaction. All games eventually get a little stale, but some type of social aspect could keep games interesting a lot longer. and add more fun. Twitch is a great example of the fun social interaction. I tried starting up on Twitch for this week in pinball just to have some fun social interaction. While I play, but my internet speed isn't fast enough. Yeah, that is a problem for me as well. It probably needs to be in real time, but we can play or gain someone in a group and chat with them as we play. Speed runs, top scores, there are tons of possibilities. I need to reconnect with somebody I know that has got a possible solution for that. So stay touched. Stay touched. I'll just... I'll get back to you. So the option two, the other option that doesn't necessarily include social interaction would be a game that is very detailed and immersive and deep that you can save as you go and pick up from where you left off. To play with the video games, imagine getting home from work and playing a few games of Fortnite, but instead you're playing a pinball machine where you're trying to beat others in some challenge. Or imagine getting home from work and jumping on and playing Zelda or Red Dead Redemption or Skyrim or any other journey-type video game, but instead you're jumping on your Harry Potter pinball machine oh don't start Marty's just jizzed in his pants oh my god twice now on your Harry Potter pinball machine and you have a horcrux or two and you're working on beating the dragon and Tom Riddle's diary to click another horcrux and you finally do it you save a game and can't wait to pick up from where you left off love it that would have solved my Lord of the Rings dilemma where I had to let the machine cool down after 45 minutes exactly That's a good idea. Someday, maybe someone in Indianapolis can play with or against someone in Melbourne. How cool would that be? Yeah, I get that. I get that as well. I think it's one of those build it and they will come sort of scenarios. I don't know. I think it's one of those things that pinball people always want something new, but they don't. Especially with pinball guys, a lot of pinball guys being older. I think that would appeal to the younger guys who are used to online gaming and that, but it's certainly nothing that doesn't really appeal to me, to be honest. But that's me. I'm an old guy, and it doesn't really float my boat. And the other thing with pinball is, unlike video games where everyone's playing the same video game, pinballs can all be different. So, like I said, I've got $1.5 billion on Aerosmith, but my Aerosmith's set up at 7.8 degrees or something. It's something crazy for pinball tournaments. So, whereas, you know, everyone else has a set up at 6 or 6.5, it's not really a level playing field if you know what I mean. Hey, for fun, it's cool but for serious competition and that, not so good I don't think. But anyway, whatever floats people's boats, I'd like to say put it out there, see what happens I reckon. Well, I agree. If that's going to bring people together and enhance the Hoppyball experience, then just freaking do it. So, great email. Thank you very much, Jeff, for reaching out to us. That's awesome. Another email from Ezra this week. Ezra has just been on fire. He said Total Nuclear Annihilation has a co-op mode, as you know. I was just thinking it would be cool if Pirates had one as well. Most people can't get to break the curse, but with co-op, even some unskilled players could get to a wizard mode or two. Not exactly a genius idea on my part, and it might be more trouble to implement than it's worth, but there you go. Why not? Why not have co-op modes? Yeah, people love it on TNA. I've got to admit, I've never played it. I've never done a co-op mode on TNA. It's so much fun. Yeah, everyone says it is. Because me and Danny are so competitive players, we just always play each other head-to-head, and that's what we do. I've got no desire, really, to get to the end of the game. I just want to beat Danny's face into the ground when I'm playing her, as she does to me. So that's our gig. But people love the co-op mode. They really do. And the good thing with TNA, I suppose if you're just one player playing TNA by yourself, maybe it does get a bit repetitive if you're playing it all the time, but the co-op mode really breaks it up. So, yeah, I think it's a great idea, and it certainly wouldn't be hard for JGP or spend to put that into their machines at all, you know. It's just a simple bit of coding. It wouldn't be a problem. Absolutely. So, good idea, Azza. It adds another, especially for the home user, you know. These days you're paying $10,000 for a pinball machine, even $10,000 US. So if you can add something like that in there and it adds another dimension of enjoyment, then why wouldn't you do it? It's a no-brainer. Well, I'll tell you what's interesting. Like, you know, things like, you know, Wizard of Oz. I've been two gems away from the Somewhere Over the Rainbow Final Wizard mode, and someone said to me, well, why don't you just put it on five balls? And I'm like, no, five balls is cheating. We all know that five balls is cheating. But if someone said you could actually play a four-player game and everybody is progressing towards the Final Wizard mode, I'd be all on that. Yeah, because that's a different thing. The problem is if you've got your game on five ball or you've got your posts, everything's set to easy and then you get to the game. A lot of people, and again, the home user, the Pinside guy, when they want to get to the end of the game, I know there's a few guys on Pinside who openly say they put their machine onto 10 balls. And that's good. They want to see the end of the game and they want to play to the end of the game. So good, they'll see a game and they can do whatever they want. So yeah, it's all good. If you want to see the end of the game, then do whatever you want to. but yeah, certainly I reckon the co-op mode, any of that sort of stuff, it doesn't, obviously there's a programming cost, but you're not adding any hardware costs or anything into the game, so why not do it? And once you've written that base code, you can transfer it across to every game, and I'm sure you'll see that implemented on some spooky games going forward. Not that I know anything that you don't know, but it really is a no-brainer, and something like Alice Cooper, which is a hard game, they could bring in a co-op mode on that maybe, and then two or three guys could get together and try and get to the end of the game and battle the demon or whatever you do at the end of that game. Yeah, it just opens it up to people that are less skilled, like me. I don't know about that, Marty. You're a top 200 player these days, too. No, 300s. Oh, that's still by your weight. You'll be 200 soon. But certainly nothing wrong with your pinball playing, Marty. but I don't think it even comes down to even lesser players or anything. I think it's just adding that, especially with the bulk of the market these days being home guys, it just adds, like I say, the games are so flippant expensive these days. It just adds that extra dimension. So, you know, hey, you can play it this way, you can play it that way. And I think that's sort of what Jerry's doing with the P3 and not everyone's on board with the P3 and the computer and the screen and the play field. But when you play that thing, there's so much stuff in it. this fun game to play, you know? It really is, yeah. It's cool. Not everyone's into it, but I think a lot of people haven't played it, but I always love people on Pinsize say, hey, we want our games packed, and we want it to do this, and we want to do that. Well, go get yourself a P3, because Lexi Lightspeed, there's so much shit going on in that game. You play one mode, then you play another one, then things are popping up, and then you're loading this round thing. It's pretty fucking cool. Yeah, it is good. Give it a go. Okay, okay. So, last email for the week. So, this is from Chris, also known as Nevis. Hey, Nevis. I've met Chris I've met Ryan Hey Lame ass Marty Yeah Nice Oh he has met you Yeah he has Hang on He says Hey Ryan But you know Not this week It's a great show This week as usual I love the store And the swag Thank you I'll be ordering Some useless crap Very soon And by the way If you are listening to this You've probably only got A few more hours to go Currently There is free shipping On head to head Merchandise It's going to end On the 6th of May, which is just about to end in Australia, but I think it's probably on American time, so you may be able to get free shipping. Anyway, so, thank you for bringing that up, Chris. He says, I was thinking about your discussion of Jersey Jack prices and the new Wonka Standard Edition. He said, a long time friend of mine once told me this after a family vacation to Disney. He said, everything at Disney World is exactly $1 less than no fucking way. Genius. I had an original Wizard of Oz Emerald City Limited Edition for $6,500. I know it wasn't sustainable, etc. Since that time, I've seen Jersey Jack prices continue to rise, and I've said, no fucking way. So this is a good move by Jersey Jack, and I plan to support it. I want a Wonka, and I'm going to get a Standard sometime next year. Keep up the fun. Your show makes me laugh every week. Thank you, Chris. What do you think about Chris's sentiment there? Well, yes, good that they have dropped it down. I mean, for me, J.J.P. games aren't I'm not paying 15 grand for any pinball machines sorry to say but they are especially for the American obviously that's where the bread and butter in pinball is the American market and 7500 is obviously a lot better than 10,000 bucks so good on them if they can do that and from what I saw they haven't really taken that much out of the machine it's just that lock mechanism at the back so I think if I was in the market for a for a woolly wonka, I'd just buy the cheapest one. You're not missing out on anything. Looks exactly the same. 99 out of 100 people ain't going to know the difference. So pocket the money and buy yourself an Evel Knievel with the savings, you know. That's always been my bottom. That is good advice. It is, man. Well, I've always said that to people. Hey, you can pay this for that. Or you can, people say, I get so many emails going to a website, a pinball website here in New Zealand, and half the people in New Zealand, I've helped them get their first machines. and they say, hey, I want to buy an Addams Family. I say, that's a cool way. You want to buy an Addams Family? These days they sell for $9,000 or $10,000 New Zealand dollars or you can buy three other games. What would you prefer, one game or three games? And then they've got a decision. You can buy three lesser games and one of the famous threads on Pinsider I did was when Star Trek LE came out. That was when all the prices started going up and at that stage they were $13,500. So I said, well, I'd really like a Star Trek LE but I'm not going to pay $13,500 for a Star Trek LE. So how many games can I buy? And I think I ended up with seven Now they weren't necessarily Yeah they weren't necessarily the world's best games And I haven't To be honest I haven't got most of them One of them was Millionaire No it wasn't actually I'm just calling out that you hate that game Yeah that's a piece of shit But anyway that's another story I think from memory One of them was WWE Royal Or WWF Royal Rumble I got one of those And an Apollo 13 Yeah it's fair okay so the games of that, what I would call BNC yeah yeah yeah I think it was either 6 or 7 I got for the same price as the brand new Star Trek LE and then in the end I ended up getting a Star Trek Pro, a really nice used one but it was a root game off route for $6500 later on, so I ended up with a Star Trek in the end anyway, but it was an interesting I did it on purpose to see how many games I could buy for $13,500 so So six or seven used games as opposed to one. And some people said, hey, I'd still rather have the one Star Trek Alley, and Star Trek Alley is a shit-hot game. But, you know, it's an interesting scenario. Seven good, fun pinball machines for the same price as one new one. And now the machines, I mean, that was three or four years ago. Now the machines are a lot more expensive than that. Exactly. All the machines have risen. And also, I would say, from my experience in Australia, I think the used market has increased more as a percentile than the new one. You could price it. In fact, I would probably concur with that too. I don't think these days if I wanted to buy like the new limited edition Stearns in New Zealand, 16,000 now, 15,900 I think. What are yours? About 15,000 aren't they in Australia? 13,800. Yeah, so yes, like 14 grand round figures. So roughly the same sort of price. Ours are a little bit more expensive because there's a little bit more shipping for us. But, yeah, the prices, like your WWF Royal Rumbles used to be, I think I paid 28 or 3 grand for that. You probably get 4 grand for it now. So I don't think I get as many games now. I probably only get maybe five instead of six or seven. I think what you're saying is dead right. There's just so much demand. They say a high tide raises all ships. I think all the old ones have gone up, except for Millionaire. You can still buy Millionaire for about a grand. And it's a grand old Bugs Bunny birthday bash. So, yeah, God bless Millionaire. But there's still plenty of old shooters you can get cheap. But that's the thing. When you're starting out in pinball, that's what I always say to guys, brand new guys for the hobby who aren't going to be listening to this, but buy yourself a cheap game, play it for a few months, because a lot of people buy one and then the novelty wears off, you know. They, oh, I really want a pinball machine. they play it for a couple of weeks and then it sits in the corner and then they put it back on eBay and sell it again, so I say just get yourself a cheap one to start with, buy yourself a three grand game, play it for a little while and then if you don't like it, you put it back on your eBay or your Trade Me we have here and you get your three grand back again, you haven't lost any money so as opposed to if you go and buy a new $16,000 game, if you sell it you're lucky to get $12,000 back for it here anyway, so you're going to lose yourself four grand, so anyway, a lot of people have got more money than I have, that's for sure not that many I don't know what's called asset rich and cash poor yeah fair enough I was going to ask you if you could loan me some money no not now that I've just outlayed cash on my card you can't afford a golem switch no that's exactly right so anyway all good there you go so David that's the end of our podcast this week thank you very much for coming on again thank you for having me back on and being so short of guests that you asked me again I appreciate that. Scraping the barrel now.