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Season 2 Episode 1

This Flippin' Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 5m·analyzed·Dec 28, 2023
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.035

TL;DR

Pinball hosts celebrate $6K+ charity fundraiser, discuss hobby philosophy shift toward personal joy over competition.

Summary

The hosts of This Flippin' Podcast reunite after over a year apart to discuss charity work, personal updates, and hobby philosophy. The primary focus is on their successful Sleep in Heavenly Peace charity bed drive event, which raised over $6,000 and provided beds for 25 children, bringing their four-year total to approximately 100 beds. They also discuss how their approaches to pinball have evolved—focusing on personal enjoyment over competitive metrics and community connection over influence.

Key Claims

  • The Sleep in Heavenly Peace charity event raised slightly over $6,000 in 2024, enabling the donation of 12 complete bunk beds plus a half bed (25 kids total)

    high confidence · Host (Tommy) discussing their December 17th charity stream event; specific dollar amount and bed count provided

  • Over the four years of running the charity event, they have collectively raised enough to build approximately 100 beds for children in their community

    high confidence · Host (Tommy) summing up total impact: 'after four years, at this point, we should have roughly been able to build 100 beds for children in our community'

  • The event had over 80 donors including online contributors, in-person visitors, and auction participants

    high confidence · Host (Tommy): 'I think we had over 80 people donate, be it online, yourself included, Taylor. Thank you. Online donations, people who showed up to come in person'

  • Manufacturers including Stern Pinball, Spooky Pinball, and Jersey Jack Pinball donated items for the charity auction

    high confidence · Host (Tommy) describing auction donations: 'we have a tournament that day, and we did an auction full of all sorts of pinball memorabilia and merchandise that was donated from Stern Pinball, Spooky Pinball, Jersey Jack Pinball'

  • Taylor Reese has not been actively involved in competitive pinball play for an extended period due to other life commitments and hobby realignment

    high confidence · Taylor: 'I went from like valuing other people's opinions...to very much accepting like, bro, if you like Valley truck stop...I have absolutely no desire to influence anyone's opinion on a game anymore'

  • Taylor Reese has a fine arts background (undergraduate in sculpture, one year of MFA in painting) and has been focusing on custom artwork including lamp design

    high confidence · Taylor: 'I went to school, I went to undergraduate for sculpture and I went to I went for a year MFA program in painting' and discusses making custom lamps and artwork

  • Taylor's custom pinball rails (Reese rails) production has been significantly reduced due to wood supplier mill shutdown during COVID and supply chain issues

Notable Quotes

  • “if nothing else, if I die tomorrow, which I really hope I don't do by any means, it's pretty cool to know that we were able to do something like that through a hobby that we already all love, pinball”

    Tommy (Host) @ ~5:00-6:00 minute range — Expresses the profound personal meaning of the charity work and how it reframes the value of the pinball hobby

  • “I have absolutely no desire to influence anyone's opinion on a game anymore. If I ever did like it's just this is why I like it. If you also like it. Cool. If you don't, that's also OK.”

    Taylor Reese (Co-host) @ ~35:00 minute range — Captures his philosophical evolution away from podcast-driven opinion-sharing toward personal hobby authenticity

  • “if you have a limited amount of time to do it, like I don't want to be doing it with people that aren't making it fun...If you're in a group with three people where you're like, oh man, this is a great group. Like you could lose all night and you still have a really good time.”

    Taylor Reese (Co-host) @ ~45:00-48:00 minute range — Articulates the shift from competitive/WPPR focus to social enjoyment and group chemistry as primary hobby driver

  • “pinball for me like i prefer it to be my alone time which ironically like last night i went down to the bar...thinking it was going to be empty...and there was like 15 people down there”

    Tommy (Host) @ ~52:00 minute range — Illustrates the tension between pinball as personal escape vs. social community activity

  • “it's such an easy way to give back because you're providing an entertainment right you're providing entertainment”

    Taylor Reese (Co-host) @ ~18:00 minute range — Articulates the philosophy of leveraging pinball venues as platforms for community good

  • “doing the podcast didn't take a lot of time, but it's just like trying to feel like you needed to have an awareness about a hobby takes a lot of time”

    Taylor Reese (Co-host) @ ~30:00 minute range — Identifies podcast production as requiring not just recording time but ongoing hobby engagement and knowledge maintenance

Entities

This Flippin' PodcastorganizationTommypersonTaylor ReesepersonSleep in Heavenly PeaceorganizationJohn HawksbypersonNorth End PubvenueStern PinballcompanySpooky Pinballcompany

Signals

  • ?

    community_signal: Successful scaling of local charity bed drive event from $5K to $6K+ over 4 years, with over 80 donors and 12-hour community stream with tournament component, indicating strong venue community and manufacturer support

    high · Tommy detailed the progression: 'last year...just under five thousand dollars' and 'we raised slightly over $6,000 this year' with 'over 80 people donate' and participation from Stern, Spooky, and Jersey Jack

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Taylor has significantly reduced podcast engagement and stepped back from regular recording due to hobby burnout and feeling disconnected from competitive/informed perspectives; hosts confirm over one year hiatus from recording

    high · Taylor: 'towards the end when we were recording, I was not involved enough in the hobby to really be giving my...it wasn't an informed opinion' and Tommy confirms 'we last recorded...just over a year ago'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Both hosts articulate shift from competitive WPPR/tournament-focused play toward social play with preferred groups, personal enjoyment, and rejection of influencer mentality on game opinions

    high · Taylor: 'I have absolutely no desire to influence anyone's opinion on a game anymore...it's just this is why I like it' and Tommy echoes preference for small dollar games with good people over competitive tournament play

  • ?

    manufacturing_signal: Taylor's custom pinball rails production severely disrupted by wood mill shutdown during COVID; supplier still not fully operational at previous capacity; production now minimal (dozen sets with raw finishing)

    high · Taylor: 'the supplier of the wood basically shut their mill down for a year...it was just really hard to get material...when they shut down it kind of shut me down' and 'I try to like I've got maybe like a dozen sets in the garage'

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.197

0:00
The episode you are about to hear contains exclusive words. The opinions within are those of the hosts and in no way imply that anyone listening to this podcast agrees with anything we say. Please send complaints to missflippinpodcast at jr.com.
0:55
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to a new episode. We don't even know the count anymore of this flippin' podcast. I last came to you roughly seven weeks ago with a bunch of energy and excitement after playing in the final battle. And literally the next day, wrestling season started. And since then, I have been tired and beat up and exhausted. but it is with great pleasure that I back to you with my partner and crime and co-host Taylor Reese as he messaged me the other day and said hey man you want to do some recording and I said absolutely so uh Merry Christmas Happy Holidays coming up on a new year whatever y'all want to celebrate but Taylor how's it going man it's going pretty well man it's uh good to talk to it was cool to find out that you had released an episode and I, um, yeah, like, you know, you, you gave me a couple nudges about maybe recording and I, I was like, ah, yeah, I can do this. Um, so yeah, so it was cool. It's good to talk to you. It's good to catch up. And, you know, I have a lot of questions for you cause I know you've played games that I haven't played. I know you've got games coming in that I haven't played. I know you've been super busy, even though you're a dad and stuff now. You've got a lot going on, but you're still very deep into the pinball hobby. And you've been doing some really cool stuff over the holidays with your charity stream. So, yeah, it's good to talk to you. It's good to catch up and find out what you're up to. Yeah, so, hey, what's up? What's up? Yeah. On that note, thank you for bringing it up. Because that was the first thing I did want to address is I know last year we did an episode with me and my buddy, John Hawksby, who have started this charity bed drive that we've done at North End Pub as of last week, now four years running.
2:55
And last year we raised it was just under five thousand dollars. and I am happy to report that after hosting our event on December 17th this year, where we do a 12-hour charity stream via Twitch, we have all the games on free play. People can come and donate what they want to play all day. We have a tournament that day, and we did an auction full of all sorts of pinball memorabilia and merchandise that was donated from Stern Pinball, Spooky Pinball, Jersey Jack Pinball, and then I kind of just did a closet clean out on all this stuff I've been hoarding for years as well. And all of that together, we raised slightly over $6,000 this year. The price of everything, as everyone knows, has gone up. So the bunk beds were costing roughly $500 to build this year. But with the total we were able to raise, we had enough to build 12 complete bunk beds and we raised just enough. We ended up donating a little extra at the end ourselves on top of what we had already donated to get another half bed built, which is a half bunk bed, so it's a bed. We were able to provide beds for 25 kids this year, is the summary of what I'm trying to say, through Sleep and Heavenly Peace, who will be donating all that money to. And then John with his group, the Birded Villains in Indianapolis, they will actually go on the bed builds and actually do the deliveries at the beds as well. So I think what we have figured out, adding up everything we'd raised the previous three years, And then with this year's total, at this point, after four years, we should have roughly been able to build 100 beds for children in our community who didn't previously have one. So if nothing else, if I die tomorrow, which I really hope I don't do by any means, it's pretty cool to know that we were able to do something like that through a hobby that we already all love, pinball. We had an awesome turnout this year. I think we had over 80 people donate, be it online, yourself included, Taylor. Thank you. Online donations, people who showed up to come in person and donate and people who bought things through the charity auction. So that is absolutely a group effort. We couldn't do it without everyone's help. And it's by far, I think, like the most important thing I've done in pinball. Like it was what we use pinball to end up helping kids. And I don't think there's anything better we could do with it. So thank you to everyone who donated, who bought something to the pinball manufacturers, who donated things for us to auction off. is really spectacular. So that's a really positive note that, you know, that made my Christmas, made my year. We're just happy we're able to do that. I think it's awesome. You know, as you know, like in the past, I did, I've done Pins for Kids, which was like my charity thing. I took a hiatus because of COVID, but that's something that I'm excited to start back up probably early spring, but yeah, it's definitely like, it's, you know, it's, it's one of those hobbies where it's very like privilege based, right? Like we're really fortunate that we can afford these machines. We're really fortunate that we have the time that we can go and play these machines. So I think like finding a way to use them to give back makes it seem a little less selfish. Um, and I know that for me, there was definitely a point in the hobby where I was like, man, I don't know. I don't know if I can do this anymore. I don't really, how do I justify like having these machines in my basement? Um, but doing, starting to do like the charity stuff and that actually kind of snowballed into the league that we started here. Um, but it all started with the charity stuff and there are, you know, there's, um, a good friend, Rob Pinnell, who's a local here. He runs charities as well. He, you know, he does regular tournaments and yeah it's great i mean i think it's it's such an easy way to give back because you're providing an entertainment right you're providing entertainment so um yeah definitely i congratulations to you guys like great way to uh raise money and second year running and like you said you were able to provide 100 beds for kids or you were able to provide beds for 100 kids like that's that's a substantial thing to do um yeah it's uh it's really like we're it's a lot of stress putting on the event yeah it's like every year in my brain like the bottom line is we're raising money like if if we just raised 500 and it was enough to provide one bunk bed you know two kids have a place to sleep yeah that's awesome yeah um but in my brain it's like we have to keep increasing and one upping the year before, which is just like my, in my brain, if I don't do that, it's some sort of a failure. Yeah. When in reality, it's like, we're just doing something good for the community regardless. Yeah. Um, but we, we hit that. So we ran a silent auction and everything just had a piece of paper in front. People could write their bids down and we're trying to like total that up while we got cash getting thrown into a jar. And we got donations coming online from all sorts of things. So I'm doing all this math. And remember, I'm a social studies teacher, so that's hard for me. And we're going through the day, and I think it was around 8, 8.30. A couple of the people had gone up and been looking at what bids were already on the items. Or maybe it was 7.30 because the auction was going to end at 9 p.m., and we were going to keep streaming until midnight. And they gave me what the total was for the auction, and we looked at what we had at other places. And we're like, okay, we've already hit the 5,000. We already surpassed what we did last year. And in my brain, I was like, okay, these next three hours are just fun now. Like now I can kind of hang out and relax and enjoy a little bit of what was going on. But it was just an awesome day overall. Like everyone who came down had a good time. Like the people, we had 20 plus people and I think we had 24 players in the tournament, which for us is a good number. Yeah. Everyone had fun. It was, it was good games in the tournament. We were able to, we had no technical difficulties this year with the stream, which the last two years have been like majorly bogged down with technical difficulties. It's two years ago at that time, we were actually, my wife was pregnant with Conrad and we had already had the miscarriage which I know we've talked about on the show and she started spotting during the stream and we I had to like leave and go to the hospital so we lost like the internet had gone out at the bar that day so we were using my hot spot so the last couple hours didn't get streamed and then last year something happened with the internet at the bar where it was just cutting in and out so we were streaming for like two minutes and then it would cut out for a minute and then it would be back for 30 seconds out for 30 seconds and we just didn't really know what was going on there was nothing we could do to fix it and then this year just like perfect for 12 plus hours we barely dropped any frames it was like i don't know if the internet's just gotten better or if technology's gotten better but this year ran perfect we switched games up about every hour we got to stream a lot of the tournament games on it uh we got to stream free fall which i was really excited about because there's not a ton of good gameplay video out there for that it's one of the new games i've gotten this year and added to locations so yeah man just overall awesome awesome fun day for a really good cause and uh i'm pretty sure we're gonna be back next year for a fifth year of it so nice you do do you do any other charity tournaments like during the year or is that your big one it's like that is our big one yeah um we actually and i honestly can't remember if I talked about this on the last episode I did or not um we I think I mentioned it we had a player who would come down and play in some of our tournaments in our leagues who passed away uh about a year and a half ago and his family uh inherited his collection and none of them are really pinball people and they're pretty well off financially so uh instead of trying to sell through his collection what they decided to do was reach out to the people he was friends with and the locations he played at, and they wanted to donate his games to public places so people could continue to enjoy them. Wow. So we ended up inheriting his Whitewater, which is amazing, obviously. We've got a memorial plaque on the lockdown bar for him, and his family just wanted it in a place where it could be played and enjoyed by his friends. Yeah. Which is awesome. Yeah. With that being said, that's obviously an amazing thing for them to do, but I can't like couldn't just accept that so what we're doing is actually donating the coin drop from that machine itself to a charity back in the county that he lived in um and I can't remember the name of it off the top of my head but it's basically dedicated to helping to reunite families who have been separated for one reason or another and that's what they asked if they were if we were going to make a charitable donation uh kind of in return for the gift that they were giving us that's who they asked us to go to and we basically said we want to kind of make it a continuing donations so that in his memory we're continuing to help with something uh in his area so that's awesome something else that we're doing um but as far as like a big annual event yeah we just do the the sleep in heavenly peace um the whole idea is like in my brain it's obviously great if you can do more charity events all the time um we're not that busy of a location still to this day we've obviously grown we have more players than we've ever had uh but i think it's more effective to throw like one big annual thing um and then your players it's kind of like this it reminds me of like the school stuff where they sell kids sell things to raise money for whatever school club or sports team they're on and you're just constantly getting hit up i'd rather not hit my players up all year um for you know help with this that and the other it's like hey let's let's make this our cause you know and if other places have causes we try to go and help and send players or money and do what we can there uh but as far as i'm concerned like this is what we've chosen to kind of get behind it directly impacts people in our community but that's another thing too like when we're streaming and we're doing that event i always remind people like hey this is helping specifically my community this is where we live that's where we want to make our impact but like if you rather donate to your local chapter sleep and heavenly peace is located in every state so like you could help in your state there's a good chance i think indiana has six different branches itself. We just donate to Indianapolis because it is the closest to us, and we have direct involvement then with the building and the delivering of them. So if that's just something that sounds like a great idea to you, you can choose to donate and help in your own community. We do that same charity as well. But that, to me, is what makes the biggest difference, not that there's anything wrong with global or nationwide charities and stuff. But to me, it's really more important to impact your local community where you can kind of see the difference, hopefully. Absolutely, man. Yeah, well done. yeah well done so what have you been up to man it's been it's been over a year since you and i have done this yeah and i would like to personally thank you because i don't know i don't think there's any misconceptions out there we don't have that many listeners but like there's nothing wrong between taylor and i we just busy yeah but i just want to thank you like you've reached out and checked on me make sure i'm doing okay with fatherhood stuff and uh offer tips and advice and I appreciate all that because it has been, without a doubt, difficult for me. I'm still adjusting. I think I'm doing a good job. But, man, it's just hard. You guys all, you and Glenn and Berto and Steven, you guys all undersold how, like, time-consuming and stressful this fatherhood thing is. But I'm figuring it out. We're doing pretty good. Conrad's healthy and fun and active. So it's all good. But just thanks for all that and checking in. Yeah, absolutely. It's like we haven't talked in a year. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, we've we've kept in touch. But yeah, I I have been I've been I've been busy. You know, I kind of like during covid. I mean, I'm trying to think like we last recorded. It was kind of after like the main stretch of covid. We got back. We right. We didn't we do an episode. I think we literally did one last November. Yeah. Late October. It was just over a year ago. I looked at it before. Yeah. So since then, you know, I've kind of gone back out a little bit playing pinball in a social way. Like I play a lot of pinball. I play a lot of pinball. I do a lot of pinball stuff still. But I definitely got out of like competitive stuff like that's not I don't know. I think it's like my. So what I've been up to, I've been I got back into. So I went to school, I went to undergraduate for sculpture and I went to I went for a year MFA program in painting. So I have a fine art background and I've been so. Like making the rails, the Reese Reese rails that I did for I mean, I've done those for like 18 years now. I dialed that back a lot during COVID because the supplier of the wood basically shut their mill down for a year And then it was just really hard to get material And they were set up for doing other stuff, not the wood that I use So that kind of was taken out of my hands Certainly people offered suggestions and stuff like that I was just like the way that I did it, it really was dependent on the way that I set up the system to make them. It was really dependent upon this mill that I used When they shut shut down it kind of shut me down which it was kind of it was definitely kind of tough Like there were there were periods where it was just rough because it was something that I just spent a lot of time doing. But in having that time back, I kind of was able to refocus my energy on working on things that nobody really needed. So, um, uh, yeah, so I've been making, I've been making a lot of artwork. Um, I started, I designed these, uh, I like make these lamps. I don't know how, I don't really know how to explain them other than like, I make these lamps that I'm using, um, for, uh, I'm, I'm making art out of them. I don't know how to explain it. I, I'll like, I can, you know, I have an Instagram If you want to go look at the Instagram, but, um, so I've been doing that a lot. Like, so I, what is the Instagram? If you would like people to look at it. So the Instagram where I'm the interest. So I have an Instagram that's it's underscore Taylor, the dad underscore. And so that's kind of like my, my main Instagram where I post all my bullshit. And then I have an Instagram that I started relatively recently. That's just artwork that I'm doing. And that is underscore Taylor in the studio underscore.

high confidence · Taylor: 'the supplier of the wood basically shut their mill down for a year...When they shut down it kind of shut me down'

  • Tommy has a son named Conrad and is still adjusting to fatherhood, which has been more time-consuming and stressful than expected

    high confidence · Tommy: 'without a doubt, difficult for me. I'm still adjusting...You guys all...undersold how, like, time-consuming and stressful this fatherhood thing is. But I'm figuring it out. We're doing pretty good. Conrad's healthy and fun and active'

  • A deceased player's family donated his collection (including Whitewater) to the hosts' location with a memorial plaque, and they donate the coin drop from that machine to a county family reunification charity

    high confidence · Tommy: 'we had a a player who would come down...who passed away...his family...inherited his collection...decided to do was reach out...donate his games to public places...we ended up inheriting his Whitewater'

  • Tommy has played and completed Godzilla and Foo Fighters pinball games, and is currently playing Iron Maiden

    high confidence · Tommy: 'i beat godzilla like i got to the end' and 'i did finish foo fighters last month' and 'i i beat godzilla...i was on i was i definitely i was playing i have my game set to factory' and 'i have a godzilla that's the most that's the most recent one'

    • “Sleep and Heavenly Peace is located in every state so like you could help in your state...we just donate to Indianapolis because it is the closest to us, and we have direct involvement then with the building and the delivering of them”

    Tommy (Host) @ ~22:00 minute range — Explains strategy for local impact maximization and community connection over broader charity reach

  • “the rails got really, really, I got really busy and like being busy is kind of like...I was making rails every day. If I was at home, I was making rails every day of the year, like Christmas”

    Taylor Reese (Co-host) @ ~25:00-28:00 minute range — Describes the burnout cycle that led to stepping back from pinball community engagement

    • Jersey Jack Pinball
    company
    Godzillagame
    Foo Fightersgame
    Iron Maidengame
    Whitewatergame
    Conradperson
    Rob Pinnellperson
    Ryan Claytorperson
    Texas Pinball Festivalevent
    Birded Villainsorganization
    Reese Railsproduct
    Pulp Fictiongame
    Glennperson
    Bertoperson
    Stevenperson
  • ?

    personnel_signal: Tommy balancing fatherhood (son Conrad), teaching, coaching, and bartending roles; limited free time for hobby engagement; describes first year of fatherhood as unexpectedly demanding despite prior warnings from peers

    high · Tommy: 'wrestling season started...I have been tired and beat up and exhausted' and 'You guys all...undersold how, like, time-consuming and stressful this fatherhood thing is'

  • ?

    design_innovation: Taylor pursuing fine arts practices (custom lamp design, studio artwork) concurrent with reduced pinball rail production; creating separate Instagram account for studio work; exploring non-functional artistic expression

    medium · Taylor: 'I have a fine art background...I've been making a lot of artwork...I started, I designed these, uh, I like make these lamps' and 'I have an Instagram...that's underscore Taylor in the studio underscore'

  • ?

    content_signal: This Flippin' Podcast returning after 13+ month hiatus; hosts emphasizing rekindled connection and informal catchup format rather than structured content production; signals potential shift in show philosophy

    high · Tommy: 'I last came to you roughly seven weeks ago' then 'wrestling season started' and Taylor 'messaged me the other day and said hey man you want to do some recording' suggesting informal revival

  • ?

    venue_signal: Tommy's venue/league showing growth in player participation (24-player tournament, 20+ people for charity stream, league operations); venue supports both casual play and competitive events

    high · Tommy: 'we had 20 plus people and I think we had 24 players in the tournament' and 'we got back. We right. We didn't we do an episode...we have more players than we've ever had'

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Both hosts show explicit rejection of WPPR/tournament culture emphasis; Tommy: 'I don't give a shit about that' regarding tournament Woppers; Taylor avoided Texas Pinball Festival due to 'too crazy...had to wait to play absolutely everything'

    high · Tommy: 'why would I want to do that? Like just to get whoppers? Like, I don't give a shit about that' and 'I've already told my friends i'm not going back to the texas pinball festival this year'

  • ?

    operational_signal: Tommy actively working on restoration of Ryan Claytor's Mr. and Mrs. Pac-Man machine (sound issue and two switch problems remaining); indicates ongoing maintenance load at venue

    high · Tommy: 'Ryan Claytor, if you listen to this, I'm almost done with your Mr. and Mrs. Pac-Man. I've got a sound issue and two switches that are giving me trouble, but it's almost ready'

  • ?

    gameplay_signal: Tommy has completed Godzilla and Foo Fighters; notes that Godzilla ends abruptly on final battle with no restart/city replay loop; currently playing Iron Maiden; indicates shift from Godzilla satisfaction to other titles

    high · Tommy: 'i beat godzilla like i got to the end' and 'i did finish foo fighters last month' and 'when you beat godzilla it ends like the game game over there is no like it doesn't restart'

    • 17:45
    And like I'm not following anybody there. I'm just posting pictures of stuff I'm working on in my studio within an art context.
    17:55
    So I've been doing a lot of that. And I don't want to brag, but I was your first follower. Oh, so what's really funny about that is I I like. I set it up and then I reached out to my wife and I was like, hey, I want you to know I'm creating this new account. I'm just going to be posting stuff that I'm doing in the studio. And she was like, OK. And then I like looked and I was like, oh, are you following me? She's like, no, I'm like, you weren't my number. I was like, you weren't my first follower. So it was you, Tommy. So thank you very much. Yeah. So you see what I've been doing. Yeah. I mean, it's been really fun. And I think the thing that's really been helpful is because I've kind of because I dialed back to real stuff, like it really allowed me to be in the studio and think about just what I wanted to work on. Um, like the rails, man, the rails got really, really, I got really busy and like being busy is kind of like, um, it's not, I don't want to complain about it, but like I was, I was making, I was making rails every day. If I was at home, I was making rails every day of the year, like Christmas, if it was not you know if it was warm enough to be in the garage even if it was really cold in the garage I was I was making rails every day and it just got to the point where I was making so many rails like I really had no other time for pinball because that's where my pinball energy was going to where I really wasn't playing maybe outside of league I stopped playing in league for a while I stopped running my league um so that was kind of overwhelming um and I can't complain because, you know, put money in my pocket, but it was also, you know, it's just like, if you have a certain amount of energy to put towards a hobby and that hobby is, and that energy is being taken up by one thing, um, that's where it's all going. So it's kind of limits what you can do otherwise. So because the rails have kind of slowed down, I do them every once in a while, but I, I, I do that. I do very, very few. Like, um, I try to, I try to like I've got maybe like a dozen sets in the garage, but I'm shipping them all out and they're all like raw. So it's all just bare wood because trying to finish them in lacquer and ship them is always like fingers crossed that they don't get fucked up.
    20:18
    So that was, you know, so that's just kind of where that is. And then I've got a high school. I've got a high school senior. And so she's in her last year of school. So a lot of like I mean, there's definitely got to a point where because of trying to figure out like hobby life balance, I just didn't want to. I mean, doing the podcast didn't take a lot of time, but it's just like trying to feel like you needed to have an awareness about a hobby takes a lot of time. And I definitely I definitely like towards the end when we were recording, I was not involved enough in the hobby to really be giving my it wasn't an informed opinion. Um, and so I kind of felt like, like, I didn't feel like I had a lot of value to my opinion because I just, I didn't know, like, I, you know, I, I know what I like, I know what games I like. Um, but I don't feel like I know enough to tell somebody else what's good or bad. And I, and I don't necessarily put value in other people's opinions as to what's good and bad. And so I think that because it really is all about like your own personal experience, you know, it's like, you may hate this game. That's great. I might like it. Um, yeah, I think if anything, you and I have done this, I really can't remember how long we've been doing this. It's a long time. Um, so yeah. And over that time I went from like valuing other people's opinions and thinking, thinking my opinion mattered to very much accepting like, bro, if you like Valley truck stop and that's your jam. Yeah. That's awesome. Like that's, what's great about this hobby. And if I like people will still give me crap, like Spooky's America's Most Haunted. I love that game. Like, I think that game is so much fun and other people won't. Like, it's just what it is, you know, like there's a few universal duds that everyone can agree on. And then after that, it's like, man, like what you like and who cares who made it, who designed it. You know, like it just kind of that's what's so cool about this hobby. And it took us, I think, a while to get there. I have absolutely no desire to influence anyone's opinion on a game anymore. If I ever did like it's just this is why I like it. If you also like it. Cool. If you don't, that's also OK. Yeah. I mean, I think it's I think it's tough. I think like doing a podcast, you feel like you need to have a really strong opinion because it's probably I don't I don't know. I mean, I don't listen to pinball podcasts, really. um yeah i literally have like none left on my chart i mean and i have and i have friends that do podcasts and and i you know i i respect their opinion but i respect a lot of people's opinion i don't know it's just i don't know it's just tough i mean i just don't know that um yeah i don't know like i don't know like i want i want to like i want to have when i'm playing pinball like i think one of my big things that i figured out at some point is that if i have a limited amount of time, I want to use that time doing things with people I want to be doing those things with. And I think with pinball, like there's definitely a point where, you know, there's the potential for toxicity in any aspect of life, right? The things that I really care about, I don't want that. Like I really enjoy pinball. So I don't really want the toxic aspect of it. And so there's certain things where it's like, if you go to, if you're going to tournaments or you're going to, if you're in a league or if you go to a certain location, like there's going to be the potential for toxic people. I don't necessarily want to, I like the ability to be able to walk out the door if I experienced that. Right. And I definitely found with, yeah, I don't know. I felt like I was butting heads or running into or being put in a position to where I was having to play pinball with people I didn't really like. And that's kind of like, man, if I'm going to spend my time doing this thing that I like to do, I want to be doing it with people I like to do. So I kind of like really kind of dialed back just playing with random people. I don't know if that makes sense. Like I really, like I have a group of people I really like to play with and it's probably generally it's like, I like to play in small groups for like dollar games and stuff like that. I still find, I really enjoy that. Um, but I really, yeah, it's like if you have a limited amount of time to do it, like I don't want to be doing it with people that aren't making it fun. You know what I mean? Like, even if you're like in, like if you're in league and you're in a group of people and you're just like, oh man, this sucks. Cause I don't really like these people. Then it's like, well, that diminishes your experience that night. Right? Well, if you're in a group with three people where you're like, oh man, this is a great group. Like you could lose all night and you still have a really good time. That's, that brings me like, that's what I like that. Like, that's what I want to experience. I don't want to have to like, I don't want to have to like, I don't want to play in a tournament where I don't like the format because the format's not fun to me because why would I want to do that? Like just to get whoppers? Like, I don't give a shit about that. I don't know. Does that make sense? I think that, I mean, just as far as I think that for sure, the Whopper obsession was part of it. Oh, I was definitely there too, yeah. And you're different, me, and I know we've talked about this in past episodes, where like, you do love playing with people, certain people, but people, whereas like, I want to go down and play alone. Pinball is my escape from everything where I have to deal with people, because in my job, I deal with people as a teacher, as a coach, as a bartender. so like pinball for me like i prefer it to be my alone time which ironically like last night i went down to the bar because we were open from five to midnight and thinking it was going to be empty and alissa and conrad fell asleep so i was like i'll pop down there at like 9 30 and go get some games in and there was like 15 people down there playing and i was like oh cool it's good to see everybody and then i jumped on a game like by myself to kind of enjoy yeah and a former wrestler of mine ended up being back in town visiting and was with his new wife at the bar and had been drinking a little bit and saw me and wanted to have this turned into like an hour-long conversation while my game just sat there waiting for me to play ball too yeah yeah and it was a very nice conversation and he said some very nice things and but one of my one of my league player was there was like oh nice you tried to come down and get a night away and you get to play a half game of pinball and i was like yeah but after that i blew up all whitewater and that was the last game of the night before they closed so that was that worked out okay but but yeah i know what you mean man like you you know you want whatever you want to make the hobby be for yourself is what you want it to be and when it's not that like i've already told my friends i'm not going back to the texas pinball festival this year because like it was just too crazy the last two years like i had to wait to play absolutely everything um there's so many pinball locations now whereas before it was like you kind of had to go to a show to see stuff now it's like hey whatever's at the show is probably going to be on location within driving distance in the next month or two yeah it's true yeah like so outside of like Pulp Fiction, which got shown almost a whole year ago now and hasn't shown up really. But those things still happen because it's what it is in the hobby. And again, making pinball machines is very hard. Working on pinball machines is hard. Ryan Claytor, if you listen to this, I'm almost done with your Mr. and Mrs. Pac-Man. I've got a sound issue and two switches that are giving me trouble, but it's almost ready. So I've been working on a game for Ryan to get up to him. but yeah man it's just like you said man the limited amount of time we had you kind of want to do whatever it is you enjoy with it so I understand that completely and I do I mean I think that that was one of the other things like when I kind of like step back a little bit from the step back a little bit when I step back from doing the podcast it was also because that was that was what I really I really like doing like I really like playing getting together to play with my friends. And so when COVID hit, it was kind of like, I don't really know what to talk about, like, you know, like playing in my basement by myself. Like, I don't know, like that seems kind of like that's going to get boring. I don't know. Um, but yeah, so that's kind of what I've been doing. I've been raising two kids. Um, uh, my daughter's GPA is like 4.92 or something top 10 in her class she's doing all right yeah she's doing all right my youngest is national junior honor society so i uh yeah so you know i i don't know i mean i'm really fortunate you know i've got but i also i i will say like i play a lot of pinball in my basement so um yeah what what's the most recent game you've got because we haven't talked about our collections at all man with each other even so i i know you had a godzilla premium i have a godzilla that's the most that's the most recent one okay so i've been you know uh godzilla recently what i've been playing i'm back on iron maiden um so i i beat godzilla like i got to the end and wow yeah which is yeah so i don't know how i feel about that it was a little like it was really cool to do it but the fact the game just spoiler alert spoiler alert i don't know do you want to do you want to know what happens if you don't want to hear this have you have you finished have you played i'm not even close to finishing godzilla i did finish foo fighters last month oh dude okay so foo fighters is okay so well so godzilla when you beat godzilla it ends like the game game over there is no like it doesn't restart like you don't go back and play in cities like you go you you do the final battle and you're done so it's like game over i was on i was i definitely i was playing i have my game set to factory i think i think i have them all set to factory now um and so it was on factory and so i had extra balls i think i was on ball two when I beat it, you lose all your balls and that's it. I had a decent score. It was probably like, I don't know what it was like. It was in the billions, you know, it's seven, eight billion or something like that. But I finished it. And so what I want to do now, because rumor, rumor has it that Elwin's next game is going to be Jaws. That is the rumor. Yeah, so that's – I'm very interested in that. So I want to beat – like I want to beat Maiden.
    31:05
    Good luck, buddy. Well, so first I wanted to beat Jurassic Park. And so at least, I don't know, beating Jurassic Park to me would be to get to the Nublar or whatever and complete that mode in-game. Now, I've gotten to it several times, but I've never gotten back. I've never escaped Nublar. um but in doing that i really fucked up my hand because i've like i play i'm such an aggressive player like i i don't know what it is about jurassic park but it really screws up the way that i hold the cabinet and i play in a really forceful way um i yeah like i was just i was played it too much and i like totally jacked up my hand and and then i had um i started rock climbing again and so but i experienced like this really bad arthritic flare up in my hands and so i had you're pretty old at this and i'm pretty old i'm pretty i'm pretty old i'm almost 52 uh so i had to take a break from jurassic park so i i'm i've moved over to maiden and so now i'm working on trying to beat maiden and for me beating maiden i'm not trying to get to whatever um run for the hills oh okay i see that's what i was considering that no i want to get to um i want to battle the beast and defeat the beast. Um, I was one shot away a couple of weeks ago. So that's kind of what I'm doing, but, um, so that's what I, yeah, so my, that's my newest Godzilla is still my newest game I haven got anything else other than that Um but yeah so my current lineup in case listeners give a shit um have stars and a meteor and a firepower And then I have Doctor Who Attack from Mars a Medieval Madness remake Wizard of Oz still have my Wizard of Oz Iron Maiden Jurassic Park Avengers and Godzilla are both premiums. Everything else is just standard, I guess. but yeah so played um yeah so have you beat avengers no uh no i see avengers i beat and i haven't gotten anywhere near godzilla or maiden so avengers is the i sold that um part of it was i had beat it another part was i had the premium and all those premium mechs nothing major but like they all at some point or another needed some work yeah and that's when i kind of swore off the premium thing and just went with pros that being said um my location partner mark recently traded his scooby-doo for a godzilla premium so we moved our pro to a separate location because we have multiple locations now nice um and we put the premium at north end and my players have been like obsessed with it even though regular godzilla pro has been there for two years this thing is earning like crazy and oh yeah i mean i've openly when godzilla came out like the mechs were very impressive um i will say that the premium plays easier to me specifically because of the mecha godzilla shot being like twice the width um whereas on the pro that shot is way tighter and harder to hit okay so that part i've noticed is quite a bit different yeah um overall but that being said like it is fun without a doubt and obviously uh not counting his bond 60th because of the insane cost and even though i really want it i just will not justify that pricing very excited for the potential rumors of jaws being that i am pretty shark obsessed myself Conrad's entire room is covered with sharks oh nice um I have multiple shark tattoos Jaws was the uh first uh DVD I ever got when I got DVDs I already had VHS copies but like yeah when I upgraded DVDs that was like one of the first movies I got that's awesome upgrade so like that is and it's potential for like themes theme integration and mech potential for that game I could see it doing quite well That being said Even though as I mentioned I'm in multiple locations now I'm up to four different locations I'm still out of room Because I keep getting stuff So this very much becomes I'm going to have to get rid of something If and when Jaws is announced So we probably Get rid of one of our Godzilla models Since we have two of them at this point And go from there With what comes out with Jaws But much like you said about the whole towards the end of our regular recording schedule, you were kind of not as informed in getting out of things. I am right there with you. I am rarely on Pinside anymore. I think that website became very toxic, for lack of better words. But as the hobby expanded, so did the toxicity. And I just don't care anymore about the rumors. like it's kind of like okay cool jaws is coming when it shows up it shows up like i have no longer invest this sort of like thought process of time and energy into speculating what's going to be on there because i the reality is whatever i speculate on whether it's right or wrong it's not going to change anything when the game comes out it'll it'll be fun like because realistically like stern's got it down like they have not released a bad game um i'd say if anything venom has been their most underwhelming title in the last few years as far as like kind of anticipation and reception and stuff that game is fun as hell i don't know i've played venom on location and i yeah i played i played a um i played a premium okay i've only played the pro i've heard the premium plays a lot different um regardless i i really enjoy it i think the rules are cool i've seen my players absolutely get into the entire leveling up and trying to beat the bosses thing so I think that's one of those games that's probably going to be more appreciated in a few years when people realize they can't get it and suddenly it kind of increases kind of like Stranger Things did over time for Stern I think that's the most recent game we got we picked up a Stranger Things when they just revamped them so that's back at North End Pub now too do you think that Venom do you think part of the Venom like lack of excitement is because so many so much stuff was kind of announced or rumors were happening at the time of the release i thought i you know i think very much so the market is oversaturated yeah um obviously i think we're all at least semi aware of how the economy is going in general and i i think there is a reality that some of these companies in the next three to five years may not be around um so i think that's part of it the other part is like i know the venom movies have done very well at the box office and venom is the comic and like it has this great look to it obviously but like i just don't know anything about venom like i think i saw the movie maybe i like tom hardy i know he's in it um but it to me is a theme that wasn't like crazy appealing and then on top of that the game isn't based on the movies that have been successful. It's based on the comic. So I recognize a lot of the characters and the art and stuff just because they're part of pop culture. But I don't know the details of it. That being said, it has the whole push your luck aspect. Do you want to keep building your locks up to the six ball multi-ball? Yeah. And I absolutely love games that integrate that and sort of thing where players have choice in the gameplay.
    39:09
    But what's the benefit of that? So the game and maybe the – I know the code has changed since I played it, but when I played Venom, the thing I did not understand – two things. One, I didn't understand what the benefit of having extra balls in play was, nor did I understand – it took me a really long time to figure out that when you locked a ball, like immediately, like nanosecond, you had to smash or hold down the action button to bypass that. Did they change that? They increased the time in that, yeah. So frustrating. No, I definitely saw that with my casual players. Just thinking like, cool, I'm in multi-ball. I'm in multi-ball, but not knowing they could build it up. They've changed how long you have on that for sure.
    39:54
    I know they changed kind of the difficulty levels of the bosses. They've been messing with that. I was very into it when it came out. And in the first, I don't know, couple weeks before I got a code update, I went through and beat it with all the characters. So I'd beaten it at least three times and done the speed run aspect of it. So I unlocked all the extra characters. Since then, I know they increased the difficulty of beating the final boss, Null. And I've had one player who's been on Null for like three weeks. It just cannot beat him. So I think they're going to have to end up like dialing that back down. But that's one of those things like maybe even there's probably settings in there too. Because Stern is very good about putting in user settings that can be adjusted. I might go in and make Null easier to defeat if that's a possibility on my end.
    40:44
    The building up of the six ball, I assume, and this is just how games like that typically have worked, I don't pay enough attention because I just always go for the six ball. I assume your jackpot values also increase as you increase the amount of balls in play. Yeah. And obviously, you know, the more balls you have going, the better chance you have of hitting. On CERNs, at least, where everything is a jackpot, you have a better chance of hitting those jackpots. So that would be my assumption, but that is purely an assumption. A few of my players have been getting really into rules, and they would absolutely do a better job of breaking it down. That is one part where I feel that I've gotten to a level of, at least on Stern machines, like Stern machines are kind of the same. You start a mode, try to bring in a multiball if it's possible, stack it with a multiplier if that's possible um and you're just kind of learning the different shots which they've done a good job of especially with like elwyn's games and then foo fighters has some very unique shots um i felt like venom if anything was more of a traditional layout than other games have been in recent times but like the rules are all kind of the same on them like it's a matter of you can keep the ball alive learn how to light your ball saves collect your extra balls those sort of things that the certain games are not drastically different from one to the next yeah i'm not complaining because they're very fun so like i'm not saying it's a bad thing they just have a they have a formula down that's very good and even within that formula there are small differences like elwyn's games always have a main multi-ball that kind of has its level of scoring what it is and then they always have a multi-ball kind of like the t-rex multi-ball or mummy multi-ball where like if you play them exactly right you can actually blow games up using those multi-balls but they're really really difficult to play right um you know that sort of thing you got to hit the exact shots in the exact order within the multi-ball compared to like the random first multi-ball that's just you shoot everything um and his modes are similar like if you play his modes the way he has designed them you will score a lot of points yeah if you just go through the mode and get it started you probably won't do real well in it you know he's his are a little more exact i've noticed in the rule position but by and large like yeah i think stern has a formula that works and they're not varying too far from that formula because they found success now what do you think about so foo fighters is a game that i've i've kind of been delving into a little bit more because we had it at a pin golf tournament recently and so i was trying to figure out like just strategically like what to go for it's not a game that i really have played a lot um like what do you think so what do you how do you feel about foo fighters as far as like the rules versus elwyns um i i again i don't have my expertise so if someone picks that in league night yeah i am playing a mode i'm stacking it with a multi-ball okay if i'm walking up to that game by myself and i'm just trying to like so when i walk up to a game like i'm always just trying to put up a huge score and get as far into it as i can like when i've got time to play on my own well so i immediately what it will target if those are conflicting goals though would you rather go up and like get deeper into a game or get a higher score like are you trying to get your initials on the table are you trying to like uh i want to see what's in the game so i'm trying to get deeper okay but usually points will come with that in in doing that points will come with that yeah so like for food fighters there's this huge risk reward of attacking the drop targets which are you familiar with the rules on this or yeah that's that's where i get i i've i've i've seen people talk about them and i know that there's like a robot you're building a robot and there's it helps you like it helps you achieve it helps you you achieve things in the game right yes i think in playing the modes you collect the foobot parts and i could be way off on this but this is what my understanding is so in playing and defeating the modes you collect foobot parts you're building the foobot which is one of the wizard modes or a multi-ball but in the way there the drop targets there's a moving light in front of them whichever light is on when you hit the first target down if you knock down the rest it will then lock that part in and there's a stand-up target behind there bashing that increases that part of the van whether it's like the motor the transmission or the weapon or something um so you can do all three of those and those will then make your modes easier right based on how those levels are okay so like you'll defeat the most quicker you get a bigger time bonus you get a higher scoring it takes fewer shots whatever it is but that for whatever reason because it is risky and stupid because the targets are right in the middle. Like I get super drawn into attacking those when I'm just playing by myself. Yeah. To try and make it so my modes are easier to beat so I can, you know, advance through the cities faster and get to the wizard modes and stuff. Can you play those? Can you advance those when you're in a multi-ball?
    46:09
    I don't know. That's a good question. Because like on AIQ, right? Like I know that the drops you can – I think you can do the drops while you're in multiball because then you can get – or maybe – I don't know, right? Can you do that? Where you like will end up with all like the little side games going or the side moves? I haven't played Avengers in so long, but I feel like you're correct because you can light the super spinner and the super ramps and all those little things. Right, like you can do all – so you can like stack a ton of shit. Yeah. Where it's like everything you're shooting is just like exponentially – Once you're in a mode, I know that you're not able to build up the van part, so you'd have to be playing a multiball by itself and not in a mode already. Not in a mode, okay. So I'm guessing in the multiball you could be building up those parts, and there is a max. Like the colors go from, I want to say, starting at like yellow when you first knock them down. I can't remember. Eventually, if you get it to red, that's the max. Like that part is capped out. So if you knock the drop target down again when that part is lit and you get all three of them, the targets won't stay down. They'll just reset so you can build to a next part.
    47:18
    Also, the cool thing with it, I find cool, it's three drop targets, right? So say you knock down two, but you miss the third drop target and you hit the stand-up target behind it. Yeah. It will then, so it sucks because you don't actually collect the part. It doesn't increase, whatever it is. What it increases is your bonus multiplier instead. Okay. So you can also build, like you can intentionally do that, trying to build up your bonus multiplier because bonus can be decent on the game too um i know the playfield multiplier has something to do with the right orbit shot and it feeding back through the little area on the right side um i don't know how many shots it takes but that's what you get a playfield multiplier with that's a really tough tight shot and i don't intentionally go for it because of that but overall i think foo fighters is very fun to shoot yeah yeah i really like the geometry on it is super fun like the way that shots feed each other like 100 very flowy very fast that being said i think that has been a negative for me from the earning aspect food fighters was our worst game last month in the bar out of 15 games and that's including games that only cost a quarter to play i think it's incredibly difficult for the casual player because it is so fast yeah and it's a game that can become very difficult to get ball control on because the way his shots are set up like you want to keep shooting because things will flow together so well yeah but even when they're flowing well if you hit four or five in a row but then you brick one really bad you know your ball time ends up being pretty short so i do you have a pro do you have a pro or premium i have a pro okay um and it did ship with no rubbers on the out lane post that is the only game that i have actually added and modified in any physical way at my location from factory from stern as i added out lane rubbers wow um it didn help people still didn play it but uh that being said stranger things went in last month and stranger things also has really short ball times partially because you plunge right into chaos you know yeah um but with that being said like that has continued to do really well so far for us um i don't know if players are just more accepting or it's a more familiar theme so they're like okay with losing the ball quickly but i was shocked how far food fighters dropped off because This first month it did excellent for us. Yeah. But since then it's been like a steady decline.
    49:49
    I don't know what other operators have – well, I know what at least two other operators have experienced, and it's been similar. And we all kind of drew the same conclusion, is it's just too hard and too fast for casual players. Yeah. That being said, it makes it very fun for us. We all really enjoy it a lot. So I – Where would you put Foo Fighters as far as recent sterns, as far as depth? um i mean i think it's honestly pretty deep i just had a crazy good game when i got through it yeah uh i don't think it's quite owen level but i don't think it's like far behind okay um because again it comes from partially a lack of like uh whereas you're like oh i go in my basement i play pinball all the time i'm like i go to pinball league on thursday night and i get to play my four games and then on wednesdays i bartend from five to midnight and whatever is broken i stay after i close the bar and i fix and then i play like a test game yeah i don't get a ton of like free time to go and play so i don't learn the rules nearly as well as i used to like i know there's little robot stand-up targets on pooh fighters so even when you brick a ramp or you miss but you're hitting those targets you're building up something yeah i don't know what it is i feel like one of those things that l1 games always do really well is no matter what you hit you are building up something yeah um i think it has a bit of that into it um i do love that it has the overlord captive baller you shoot it and it locks the ball and captive it becomes a captive ball for you to hit right for the multi-ball and food fighters i like that because it's a very obvious thing for players to shoot yeah and those i think it's good when games have that i know john boric is notorious for having some sort of a big bash thing um elwyn's games to me seem to lack that uh you have the truck on jurassic park but i think if you sent somebody up there and you watched like somebody who's never played it and they went up and they shot the truck a couple times i don't think they understand what it's doing initially like i don't think they understand that you're moving your vehicle direction on the map i don't think they understand they're spelling t-rex the light of mode yeah um it's it's not as simple as like oh this thing i'm just gonna shoot it and something will start because if you you spell t-rex but you just keep shooting the truck you never shoot the left ramp nothing's gonna happen you're just going back and forth on the ramp you know what i mean yeah no i i know what you mean i mean it's it's something i i like about l1's games because i don't feel like there's a lot a lot of real estate being used up by kind of superfluous stuff but i do think it does by not having that like obvious object it's yeah it's kind of tough yeah and i still think the greatest example of that and any machine to me is world cup soccer and the goal anyone can walk up to that game and understand i shoot this goal yes and then if you try to shoot it a second time and it's not lit it's going to tell you like shoot the rollovers and you're like oh i'm kind of hitting those on the way up there again right So like it's it has like that approachable part for a casual, but then like shooting the ramps or hitting the rollovers to gain your tickets in advanced cities on World Cup soccer is a little more advanced. Like you have to kind of that takes a little more time to figure out. So I think an Elwin intentionally does that. I don't think he cares if a casual person walks up to his game and really likes it, to be honest with you. Like, I don't think that's who he's appealing to. Yeah. in his design and I think that's part of what Stern has figured out with the sort of rotation on who they deliver games to like it's okay like Elwynn's game doesn't do that Eddie's has Carnage on Venom it has the ship thing on Mandalorian you shoot these clear bash toys enough it's eventually going to start a multi-ball uh John Borg obviously includes something like that I think Jack Danger's example that is Overlord so if three out of your four designers are including something like that uh you know most people are going to have something that appeals to them on location i will say i think overlord is not like it's not bash toy in your face bash toy though you know what i mean like no i agree yeah it's i i like it i really i really enjoyed foo fighters i did not play well in the tournament on it but afterwards i played it a little bit just to kind of figure so the objective in this pin golf tournament was you needed to complete two of the van modes right so you needed to start two cities you needed to complete two cities so um i the first city i started golf goal it was it was a tough golf goal but it was also um you know so the way that the way that the tournament was set up you had the game was set to five balls and then depending upon how far you got within those five balls, you would determine your score six through 10. Right. So if you started, if you, if you started a mode and didn't complete one mode, you would get a six. Right. So it was, so it was, it was tough, but it was definitely like people did it. I mean, people, people got a hole in one on that game. Um, but I did not do well and it did cost me, but yeah. So I started with New Orleans, which I believe was Shoot a purple shot and shoot it a second time. Yeah.
    55:11
    The thing that I wasn't aware of when I played it during my match was the overlord aspect. I didn't take into account that you could start a multi-ball by just hitting that by hitting the overlord. So basically that was a good way to play out your mode because you're a multi-ball. Yeah.
    55:32
    Which goes back to what I said. It's the start of mode, start of multi-ball. Right, yeah. So I did that. Like afterwards I did that. I was able – I think I was able to like get a hole-in-one after the fact, because my second mode I think I played L.A. Or no, I played New York, and I think New York is like you hit the spinner and the spinner is going to – it will rotate the shots around the play field and then it will land on a shot and you have to hit it.
    55:57
    I think shooting the spinner more increases the value of the shot. it increases the value yeah yeah so yeah but the thing that's what i like is that that center shot that center spinner feels like it is just in the absolute most perfect spot yeah each flipper like it's a very easy shot to hit but it feels really good too and it's deep it's like way back in the game which is like there yeah which yeah it's really good but the one thing that i got really confused on Foo Fighters was the action button because there were times where I think I could have given myself like I would have it would have given me shots but I did not like nothing was telling me that and I don't know how I would have known that except afterwards people were explaining to me they were like yeah if you hit it three times you would have gotten three shots like three of the mode shots would have been completed and I was like I had no idea part of those drop targets in the middle build that up so you can collect more bombs by hitting them down oh see i thought it was a totally different shot i thought i was supposed to be shooting like the um like the captive ball up top that does the like the little rotation thing i have no idea what that does i know it does something but i know if you look at the the drop targets one of the inserts in front of them is a bomb so like you're by taking those down and then leveling it up you're collecting more bombs oh yeah i had no idea and then and then when i had it i would i like just held it down like i didn't like tap it so at some point zilla having to hold it down to cash in exactly but i mean the thing is i will say like on godzilla i i don't know maybe it's just because i played it a lot but i'm like i know that you're supposed to do that because there's a thing on the on the you know it's telling you like it's showing you heat ray right yeah i don't know there is an icon somewhere on the display for free fighters yeah that's that's really confused me yeah that's just from uh yeah i can't even imagine the hours you have been to godzilla so yeah i think that's just an experience thing yeah um similarly james bond and the last few code dates code updates is integrated smart missiles and your ability to earn them and use them in shots in a similar way uh spot yourself shots and modes and stuff and it's been done very well you can get one for like a for a skill shot for beating a mode you collect another one things like that and you can get up to four at a time in james bond if you earned them so it's uh i don't know i think those are obviously something that didn't necessarily always exist in pinball but i think that's a cool thing in modern pinball spotting like you're just sometimes you have trouble hitting a certain shot and if you have one of those missiles land it's cool yeah no i i've godzilla man hitting the x-ray or whatever the yeah it's like heat ray i love that i mean it like yeah it gives you so i mean it it gives you a way to play the game it really does it makes you play the game differently yeah like mexico mecha godzilla multi-ball or whatever or whatever super jackpot shot it's like just wait and then it's just like heat ray very satisfying i love godzilla i need i i i'm taking a break i'm taking a break taking a break i need to play it some more since we got the premium i've only got about five games on it i did like i said i am impressed with the mechs though and the one we got has really nice modifications done to it um the guy built like a whole little like miniature scene on top of the building oh yeah it's really cool looking up yeah so there's crazy mods for that game there are uh there for sure are but that's just never been my i've never been big into the modding thing so getting one that already came modded was cool i think that's how my old metallica was too it's like clearly that's that's one of the again one of the things that some people in this hobby like that's what they love doing is getting a game and modding it to hell you know putting everything you can in there i think the only game i've ever done that to myself is creature i've pretty heavily modded my creature so i get the appeal i'm not i'm not like a huge mod guy but i have like i do enjoy um like i did a mod on godzilla i don't know i i did i added a couple mods on godzilla i've been doing like the um the side art inside the cabinets i did that on my sterns um i like that yeah it looks good and i still i think i think our godzilla has mirror blades in and i really like those on pretty much any game too so no they're that it's funny that like to think about now that we have side art or in inside art blades for so many machines like how complete it makes the games look yeah how weird it is that we didn't have it for so long i know in this hobby where they were like ah why not put the art inside the cabinet too like i have people actually see versus the sides of the cabinets which usually are just packed away in a lineup i think it's tough though because i have like i have my i have a medieval madness and an attack from mars and there's side art for those but i don't want to do it i don't know like i just feel like i don't know because it's not i think like my wizard of oz i've thought about doing it because i think jersey jack made some for some version of wizard of oz but i don't know i just i don't know i feel like those older games i don't want to do that to them on on my on my doctor who i try to do it but the cabinet is so tight to the playfield that it every time i lifted the playfield it destroyed them no that's yeah i was like nah we had that happen with the scooby-doo we had had to do some work under the playfield and totally scratched up the artwork but thankfully spooky took good care of us and got us some replacement ones so so um shit so we we said that we were going to talk for an hour and it's been yeah i disagreed to you but i knew that wasn't going to work um but so look down if you want to be done so i think i think that we should finish this episode because i i'm i'm super it's it's been great to talk to you and the fact that an hour flew by means that we can obviously do this again without a hiccup um so i think what we should do is i think we should end this episode and this could be like uh episode one season two or something like that but i think um let's see the one lasted eight years season one lasted eight years but i think that we should try to get together in the next week or two and we can get more into depth because i really want to hear about um scooby-doo i want to hear about um yeah i want to talk about i want to talk about the new games we we've we've touched base and we've talked about kind of the games we have. Um, but yeah, I want to talk, I want to get into depth. I want to talk about labyrinth. Like maybe we could reach out to some friends, you know, maybe, um, get somebody on to talk about labyrinth. Cause that's, I'm, I'm excited about that. Obviously like we, we both have friends that, that work for barrel fun. So, um, a little bias in the fact that I hope nothing but success for them, but yeah, I think that we could, um, get into those a little deeper and i don't know that we should do a three-hour episode yeah no i totally get that and we have to get we have to get five episodes in so we can we can be um we can be uh in the twippies is that a thing so i don't i don't know man i i don't know i don't either i don't either that's all right um yeah man that sounds good uh i look forward to it was good to catch up. Absolutely, man. Hopefully this is a nice little late Christmas surprise for our, our listeners out there. Uh, speaking of which I'll tell you when we get off the air, I got a funny story. Okay. The nightmare. It was good to catch up, man. Hey man, it was, it was great to talk to you and I look forward to doing this again. And, um, yeah, it was, it was really fun and I've got a lot of other shit to talk about. So we'll do another episode soon. Sounds good. All right, Tommy.
    64:06
    Talk to you later, man. Bye. All right. Bye. Outro Music I don't want to hear you. TORSENORE
    65:42
    KING DOG