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Ep 37: Graphic

Final Round Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 12m·held·Jul 3, 2021
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.035

TL;DR

Tom Graff discusses streaming setups, District 82's tournament dominance, and post-COVID pinball competition landscape.

Summary

Final Round Pinball Podcast Episode 37 features Tom Graff, a competitive pinball player, streamer, and dentist from Wisconsin, discussing his streaming setup evolution, the explosive growth of District 82 (a major tournament venue in Green Bay with ~106 machines), tournament formats, and the post-COVID landscape of competitive pinball as the IFPA reopens. Hosts Jeff Teolis and Martin Robbins explore streaming infrastructure costs, tournament venue development, and player preferences for tournament formats.

Key Claims

  • District 82 started roughly 3 years ago and grew from ~20-25 expected attendees to 40+ on opening night, eventually reaching 80-90 person tournaments

    high confidence · Tom Graff describing District 82's growth trajectory

  • District 82 has approximately 106 machines ranging from EMs to modern Sterns

    high confidence · Tom Graff describing the venue lineup

  • There are fewer than 10 major venues across North America with 100+ pinball machines (excluding private collections)

    medium confidence · Jeff Teolis and Tom Graff discussion of venue scarcity

  • Karl D'Angelo's streaming content and setup documentation was influential in helping Tom Graff develop his streaming infrastructure

    high confidence · Tom Graff crediting Karl D'Angelo and Jack Danger for streaming knowledge

  • Multi-input HDMI capture cards have dropped from ~$1,800 to $400-500 USD recently (Elgato models mentioned)

    medium confidence · Martin Robbins discussing capture card pricing trends

  • August 1, 2021 marks the beginning of the IFPA's return to tournaments and WPPR scoring after a hiatus

    high confidence · Jeff Teolis stating the IFPA opening date

  • District 82 owner Eric Thorne reinforces pinball machine posts and performs extensive custom maintenance making games tournament-ready

    high confidence · Tom Graff praising Eric's machine maintenance approach

  • Triple Drain Podcast features Tom Graff, Travis Murie, and Joel Engelberth as three co-hosts discussing pinball in a light-hearted, unscheduled format

    high confidence · Tom Graff confirming the podcast hosts and approach

  • Josh Sharp has already contacted Eric Thorne about hosting a large October event with 6 tournaments over 4 days at District 82

    high confidence · Tom Graff mentioning Josh Sharp's contact with Eric Thorne

Notable Quotes

  • “It's kind of a new thing. It started roughly about three years ago. And the funny thing is when Eric started it he came to me and said you know Tom I'm thinking about doing this what do you think I'm gonna run a league on Tuesday nights how many people do you think I can get and... I basically said to him I said Eric you know you're gonna be lucky to get 20-25 people on a Tuesday night to come well little did I know that I think when he opened up, he probably had about 40 people, and that turned into 60, that turned into 80, and it just kept growing from there.”

    Tom Graff @ ~22:00 — Documents the explosive, unexpected growth of District 82 from Tom's initial conservative projections to becoming a major tournament venue

  • “I started out with three webcams and a very long USB repeater that was about 50 feet long... And that evolved into doing camcorders. And then finally, you know, looking online and finding all of Carl D'Angelo's wonderful stuff and just basically going through what he did.”

    Tom Graff @ ~6:30 — Chronicles the evolution of pinball streaming infrastructure from basic webcams to professional capture card setups, crediting Karl D'Angelo as a key resource

  • “To me, it reminds me of a mini Papa. I mean, I never went to the Papa facility, but I'm speaking of when I would go to Pinburg and, you know, just the magnitude and different games. It just reminds me of that.”

    Tom Graff @ ~36:00 — Places District 82's significance within pinball community history by comparing it to legendary PAPA/Pinburgh tournament venues

  • “The only ones I can think of are probably the Pinball Museum in Banning, Pinball Hall of Fame. There's that place in Indiana that recently had a tournament, Pinball Wizard, I think it's called. The one in New Jersey, there's the Pacific Pinball Museum as well.”

    Tom Graff @ ~37:00 — Identifies the scarcity of 100+ machine venues across North America, underlining District 82's exceptional status

  • “I miss the people more than the tournaments. And I don't know whether that's from doing years of pinball profile and getting to know so many different people in this community and liking the entire majority of them.”

    Jeff Teolis @ ~73:00 — Reflects community sentiment about post-COVID tournament resumption, emphasizing social connection over competitive play

Entities

Tom GraffpersonJeff TeolispersonMartin RobbinspersonDistrict 82venueTravis MuriepersonJoel EngelberthpersonKarl D'AngelopersonJack Dangerperson

Signals

  • ?

    venue_signal: District 82 in Green Bay has grown from expected 20-25 attendees to hosting 80-90 person tournaments with 106 machines in 3 years, becoming a mini-PAPA equivalent for Wisconsin/Midwest competitive pinball

    high · Tom Graff detailed account of District 82's explosive growth trajectory and Eric Thorne's machine maintenance standards

  • ?

    technology_signal: Multi-input HDMI capture card technology has become more affordable ($400-500 USD vs prior $1,800), lowering barrier to entry for professional-grade pinball streaming

    high · Martin Robbins noting Elgato's new 4-input HDMI capture card pricing and accessibility improvements over USB-based capture

  • ?

    content_signal: Triple Drain Podcast launched on Pinball Network with Tom Graff, Travis Murie, and Joel Engelberth as light-hearted, unscheduled format without sponsorship

    high · Tom Graff describing Triple Drain as passion project with three hosts who 'love pinball' and 'just enjoy talking to each other'

  • ?

    industry_signal: IFPA reopening August 1, 2021 after hiatus, resuming WPPR rankings and tournament circuit; state championships return January 2022

    high · Jeff Teolis stating 'August 1st is the beginning of the return of the IFPA and Whoppers'; discussion of WPPR point decay after tournament expiration

  • ?

    event_signal: Josh Sharp has booked a major October event at District 82 with 6 tournaments over 4 days; Zach is also attending

    high · Tom Graff: 'Josh already contacted Eric about we're having a big event in October, six tournaments over four days'

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.217

0:00
The Pinball Network is online. Launching final round pinball podcast. It's player versus player and player versus machine. Welcome to the final round.
0:39
Hey there, once again, Jeff Teolas here. A little hoarse, not the face, the voice, so bear with me, but thank goodness it's not just me. It is also me, Martin Robbins, here on the Final Round Kimball Podcast. This is episode 37, and we've got a very special guest this time, Jeff. We do? Who is it? I don't know. I just wanted to hear your voice again and just to see if I can really get you to break it. Because we're really on knife edge here with your voice about to fail completely. But the person we've got on this episode, I've met this person. And I say that because I've not met a lot of people around the world. So when I get somebody overseas that I've met, I get quite excited. And this person streams on Fox Cities Pinball. We're talking to Tom Graff. How are you, Tom? Good. How are you guys doing? Oh, shit. I thought it was Neil. Darn it. I mean, hi, Tom. It probably should be Neil, honestly, but he's working right now, so you get me. It's a Friday night. Where is he working? What sweatshop is he in? He's actually working at our local baseball team, minor league team, the Timber Rattlers. He works in concessions. Okay. He's not working in the marketing, coming up with a better name, the Timber Rattlers? That's what they're called. okay the timber rattlers what is a timber rattler uh it's a snake oh okay their mascot is fang all right that's good it's the miners you know listen you're close to the milwaukee bucks all right they're trying to make history by getting into the nba finals and we're talking about timber rattlers yep okay so look we did a bit of an introduction talking about who you are and what you do but i'm gonna say i think what you're most famous for is being present at my biggest pinberg fail and overseeing all the poor decisions i made uh and i'm really sorry for uh almost tilting through on your ball yeah but you did well that pinberg didn't you yeah i i ended up uh winning uh b division yeah i i didn't feel so bad when i found that out that you know you knocked me out but at least the person that knocked me out won something i'm okay with that yeah and actually uh the other person who was in our group uh one of the other people ben clement he ended up going to the finals as well so i was in a winning team yes just wasn't part of the winning people ben he's the right fielder for the Timber Rattlers, isn't he? He is now. Well, that's where you two have met each other, but a lot of people have met you, Tom, at least virtually on Fox City's Pinball. It's one of the great streams here on the Pinball Network. That's been a lot of fun, and that's why I mentioned Neil earlier, because I've seen Neil play. We saw him recently in Pin Clash, and the two of you are quite excellent players and getting a lot of it in on stream. Yeah, you know, we started, I started streaming a while ago, but I was, I just really, it never took off and I kept kind of pushing it back. And then I started doing it again and the District 82 happened and I started streaming their tournaments and the rest is kind of history. But speaking of Neil, I mean, he's getting to be a phenomenal player. He's starting to scare me a little bit. But so the journey of setting up the stream, I ask this because I know that there are still obviously a lot of people came on streaming during COVID. But there are still some people that are trying to get a stream set up. Talk us through what it was like for you getting your stream set up for the first time. Well, it all started with a bunch of webcams and pretty much it. I started out with three webcams and a very long USB repeater that was about 50 feet long. Bragger. Yeah. And basically just drag it all around wherever I go, people tripping over the USB wire. And that evolved into doing camcorders. And then finally, you know, looking online and finding all of Carl D'Angelo's wonderful stuff and just basically going through what he did. And that evolved into mirrorless cameras and basically a mixer. But anyways, it really, if it wasn't for people like Carl D'Angelo and Jack Danger, I wouldn't know what I was doing. There's so much information online.

  • Victoria, Australia uses an eradication policy for COVID-19, shutting down the state on detection of cases, while New South Wales uses contact tracing

    high confidence · Martin Robbins explaining Australian state-level COVID strategies

  • “The best 20 tournaments that you've done in the last three years go on your card. But what happens is, after one year of that tournament, you only get 75% of the points. After two years, you only get 50% of those points. And after three, it's expired.”

    Jeff Teolis @ ~61:00 — Explains IFPA/WPPR ranking mechanics and why 2021 tournaments remain valuable despite the point decay system

  • “So for Victoria, which is the state we're in, so that's where Melbourne is, we have an eradication policy. So if there is a hint, if one person or two people get COVID, they get shot. We shut down the state effectively.”

    Martin Robbins @ ~65:00 — Explains Australian COVID policy differences and impact on tournament planning in Melbourne

  • “I love the pinball format. I really do. You've heard me bitch about it. I think it is a unique thing. The thing I bitch about it, and I will continue to bitch about it, is it's not well laid out for timing.”

    Jeff Teolis @ ~85:00 — Reveals Jeff Teolis's nuanced opinion on tournament formats—enthusiasm tempered by logistical complaints

  • “He really tears them apart and, you know, does things to them that I don't normally do when I break down a game. I mean, he reinforces the posts and things like that. I mean, it's just amazing how the games play.”

    Tom Graff @ ~32:00 — Praises Eric Thorne's maintenance philosophy, indicating District 82's competitive advantage through superior machine conditioning

  • “It's just a lot of fun just talking to your buddies about pinball and putting it out there... we're not getting paid to do it.”

    Tom Graff @ ~14:00 — Clarifies Triple Drain Podcast is passion project without sponsorship, despite Marty and Jeff's sponsorship of their streaming setup

    • Eric Thorne
    person
    Josh Sharpperson
    Zach Sharpeperson
    Raymond Davidsonperson
    Keith Elwinperson
    Colm McAlpineperson
    Neilperson
    Ben Clementperson
    Fox Cities Pinballvenue/organization
    Triple Drain Podcastmedia
    IFPAorganization
    Pinball Network (TPN)organization
    Stern Pro Circuitcompetition
    PAPAorganization
    Timber Rattlersvenue/organization
    Pinball Hall of Famevenue
    Pacific Pinball Museumvenue
  • ?

    community_signal: Players expressing strong desire to return to competitive tournaments post-COVID, with emphasis on community interaction over competition itself

    high · Jeff Teolis: 'I miss the people more than the tournaments' and detailed discussion of tournament endurance concerns mixed with venue appreciation

  • ?

    operational_signal: District 82 owner Eric Thorne implements custom machine maintenance (reinforced posts, deep teardowns) to tournament standards, differentiating quality from typical route machines

    high · Tom Graff: 'he reinforces the posts and things like that... it's extremely rare to go up to a game there and find out that you know, a flipper doesn't feel right'

  • ?

    gameplay_signal: Jeff Teolis prefers flip frenzy and match play formats over traditional pinball format, citing logistical and endurance concerns but acknowledging pinball format as most unique and fun

    medium · Jeff: 'I love the pinball format... but it's not well laid out for timing' and 'These flip frenzies I think are great... in two and a half hours, three hours'

  • $

    market_signal: Fewer than 10 major venues across North America have 100+ pinball machines; District 82 is exceptional for combining size with tournament readiness

    medium · Jeff and Tom identifying Pinball Hall of Fame, Pacific Pinball Museum, Pinball Wizard, and VFW Michigan as main examples of 100+ machine venues

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Elite players (Raymond Davidson, Keith Elwin) attending District 82 events; notable local/regional players (Colm McAlpine, Travis Murie, Escher) increasing presence at venue

    high · Tom Graff: 'getting these big names to come out like Raymond Davidson and Keith Elwin to our events which has just been a blessing'

  • ?

    regulatory_signal: Victoria, Australia uses eradication policy (full state lockdown on case detection); New South Wales uses contact tracing; impacts tournament planning in Australia

    high · Martin Robbins explaining Victoria's 'eradication policy' vs NSW's contact tracing approach and Melbourne Silver Championship cancellation risk

    • 5:34
    Anybody can do this. Marty, that was kind of your path too, watching people like Carl and Jack and figuring out the ins and outs of streaming. I mean, you've been doing it a long time. I know Tom and Neil, they haven't been doing it as long, but you kind of had that same genesis, didn't you? Yeah, exactly right. I started with webcams. I remember at the time I was switching between two machines with webcams. And what I found really, really early on is that when you try to use too many webcams, it just doesn't know what it's going to do. And when you go switching, you get all sorts of conflicts. So I did move on to camcorders. And then thanks to Carl D'Angelo, I then on my big rig got a four input HDMI capture card. And I say this not because, look at me, I can afford it, but the capture card was something like $1,800. But for those people that have got a tower PC, there are actually new capture cards. I think even Elgato have just brought out a new 4-input HDMI capture card, and I think it's around about the $400-$500 US mark. So it's much easier to get into a big professional streaming setup because the technology is coming down in price. Yes, absolutely. I started out with the cam links and just finding out that there was a lot of difficulty with the USB stuff. Like yourself, Marty, I went to a capture card, graphics card type of deal. and it's just so much easier with the HDMI directly into it. The computer remembers everything, basically, and with the CamLynx, there was just a lot of problem of the computer forgetting its settings and things like that. It just makes streaming so much easier. I've got two setups. I've got a home setup and I've got a mobile setup, which is via a laptop and using USB capture devices. I now take my really big and really heavy tower with me when I'm doing an on-site or remote stream just because it's easier. Even though it's a lot more equipment, it's just easier because it works. USB is always a bit of a problem. So there you go. So once the two of you were throwing your money around and buying all these wonderful cameras to satisfy your egos and look at me's and all things like that, that wasn't enough for you was it tom i mean you had to go okay you know what i'm gonna go multimedia here i'm gonna be like marty i'm gonna start doing a podcast i've been told you started up one here on the pinball network uh triple lame uh it's the triple drain i felt oh sorry i felt it fit travis joel and i pretty well you know just basically our play so when we decided to start it we really wanted to keep it light-hearted and not on a schedule and we all decided that you know we're just going to kind of wing it and it's been paying off it's it's a lot of fun it's just three guys who love pinball that just enjoy talking to each other and bsing basically wait a second how are you saying it's paying off i want to know what quantifies paying off. I mean, Marty and I, we look at our checkbooks and we can see in our bank accounts, each sponsor that the money it brings in. It's ridiculous. I don't want to brag, but seriously, I mean, we buy a lot of cameras. I'll just leave it at that.
    9:10
    How has it been successful and satisfying for the three of you? It's just a lot of fun. I mean, obviously we're not getting paid to do it. I joked when we had Zach on that he was sending us new inbox pins, but of course that's not happening. But it's just It's just a lot of fun just talking to your buddies about pinball and putting it out there. Fun is great. I'm glad the three of you are enjoying that. But fun ain't paying the rent, my friend. All right. Get some sponsors in there. You talked about your cameras for your stream. You talked about being with Travis and Joel doing a podcast. Never once have you mentioned you've got a hot tub. Hello. That's what I was just going to say. I don't have a hot tub. That's the problem. Inflatable pool. is is is all you need these days you know what would be a great stream one day is like raise money to shave travis's beard and mustache what mustache or enough power to turn on his pinball machines when he's doing his video blogs that is fun that the three of you are doing it and you can tell that the three of you are having fun i'm kidding of course, but we see a lot of Fox City pinball. We've seen Travis, and probably we're going to see Joel as well, participate in events at District 82, formerly called Titletown, now District 82, right there in Wisconsin. How far is that from Green Bay? Is it right in Green Bay? It's pretty much next door, a couple miles. If you're listening, District 82 is the new Whopper Farm, certainly in North America. I can't think of any place that runs more tournaments. And now that the IFPA is back, that place is going to be very, very busy. And we'll see a lot more of you, Tom, and probably a lot more streams. Tell us about District 82. Have they been doing this for a long time? Is this a whopper fest that we're going to be seeing in the next few months, probably years for the next who knows? Have they been doing this always or is this just a new thing? It's kind of a new thing. It started roughly about three years ago. and the funny thing is when Eric started it he came to me and said you know Tom I'm thinking about doing this what do you think I'm gonna run a league on Tuesday nights how many people do you think I can get and there were some leagues in Madison and I basically said to him I said Eric you know you're gonna be lucky to get 20-25 people on a Tuesday night to come well little did I know that I think when he opened up, he probably had about 40 people, and that turned into 60, that turned into 80, and it just kept growing from there. It's amazing how many people have really come out and checked out the place and stuck with it. We have just a great community here at District 82. I'm just amazed at how it's just taken off. And yeah, I mean, the tournaments, we've had some winner 2Xs, summer 2Xs that have had 80 to 90 people. And even during this COVID pandemic, now that things are kind of settling down a little bit here in the States, we're getting those numbers back at the tournaments and even getting these big names to come out like Raymond Davidson and Keith Elwin to our events which has just been a blessing. You say big names I didn't hear Jeff Teolis's name in that that seems a bit odd. We're hoping Jeff will come we know you know they're still kind of in lockdown in Canada but we're hoping Jeff will come in the next couple of months. I know you're waiting for him to cut off his mullet before he's invited. I understand. I get it. I would. I'm just hoping he'll come to announce, take some pressure off of me. Marty, have you not seen the Netflix documentary, how to make a murderer? Uh, there are a few mullets in Wisconsin, so I would be very welcome. Thank you very much. Do you know what? Side note about murders. Go ahead. No. What was really funny was that this, that I watched making a murder. It was just gripping and fascinating. If you close your eyes and listen to the voices, they all sound like Chuck Emery.
    13:40
    Maybe that's just somebody that lives in another country thinking that, but I was like, are these people around the corner from Spooky Pinball? Are they somehow related maybe? I don't know. I'm just putting it out there. Chuck might have hired half the staff. Who knows?
    13:57
    And speaking of Chuck, No, we'll get back to Chuck in a second. I want to talk more about District 82 because you said, yeah, Raymond and Keith are there. Well, they're in Illinois, so I don't even know how far the drive is from Chicago. What is it, three hours maybe? Yeah, about three, three and a half. Okay, but I've seen Colm McAlpine there. That ain't a three-hour drive. Travis Meary's been up a few times. Is he driving there? What's going on? He now has permanent residence in my house. Well, that's something I know that you've offered your place for a few people. Do you have the most disgusting couch in all of pinball? Well, now I do. I bet.
    14:33
    And I would assume you're a bit of a clean freak too, because for those that don't know, Tom, you're a dentist, correct? That is correct. Okay. Listen, I can talk pinball with anybody, but I've got you on right now. So everyone else, I'm talking, this is me talking to a dentist here, trying to get some free advice. Okay. Crest white strips. Are they the real thing or should I be bleaching? Because I mean, I don't care. I want the super bleach. I want my teeth to look like piano keys and not the black ones. I've already got those. I want some pearly whites on this mug of mine. And I go into my dentist and they say, honestly, Crest White Strips are the best thing. They're not that good, are they? They're okay. I mean, they work well. For an over-the-counter product, they're probably one of the best ones. They have a gel that's on a clear plastic that sticks to your teeth. And if you salivate quite a bit, which sometimes putting that stuff in your mouth does, they tend to fall off a little bit easier. So in those situations, sometimes the at-home bleach you can get from a dentist is a little bit better, where we basically take models of your teeth, make trays, and then put the bleaching material in the trays so you can wear them at home. And I heard that you can get those syringes on eBay. I mean, someone told me I've not been buying them for the last five years. Yes, you have.
    15:59
    You've got a great smile, Marty. You do have to be careful with that stuff because it can burn your gum tissue. Yes, I have heard that that's a problem. Certainly hasn't happened to me. Yeah, I mean, okay, I drink a lot of soda or pop or whatever you want to call it, like Diet Pepsi. I've got two cans in front of me right now. If you ever see me at a tournament, I've always got some Diet Pepsi. It used to be Dr. Pepper, but I'm trying to lower the calories and just kill my brain with aspartame. Anyway, that stuff's not great for your teeth. Smokers probably have the same thing. I'm not a smoker. But anyway, I just want to know what's the trick? What is the magic? Listen, money's no object. I'm not buying cameras, all right? I got money saved for these pearly whites, all right? What's the best thing I can do? Tom, give it to me. What? As far as bleaching your teeth? Or just getting them white? I have perfectly straight teeth. Okay. I can't smile, actually, in a photo. This is the dumbest podcast ever. Who cares? I cannot smile. And it's not because I'm afraid to show my teeth. I just can't lift. I don't know why. I look like it's a fake smile. Some people can do it all the time. Nobody in my family can smile with their teeth. My wife has the perfect teeth, and she can do it. And it's embarrassing when I'm beside her. Well, for a lot of reasons. You're just going to need some cosmetic surgery, Jeff, and raise your lip. Yeah. Hey, Marty, line up a plastic surgeon for episode 38. Full replacement. Da Vinci Vinnies is what I'm hearing. I don't give a shit. I don't care if someone goes, oh, hey, what's new with you? I don't care. If it hurts your eyes to look at them, I want them. Yeah, some dentists do Botox and things like that. I don't get into that stuff. Maybe that would be a solution for you too. Just get some Botox, have some really big lips. Well, what bleach are you using on that pinball couch of yours? Because that's got to be some serious cleaning going on there.
    17:50
    Hydrogen peroxide. Sodium hypochlorite. Honestly no having those guys here has been great And this last tournament we had Escher up So that was pretty fun Ryan Wanger was up Did the two of them just fly there Yes, they flew in. But Ryan didn't stay with me, just Escher. I think he's from there, isn't he? Isn't he from Wisconsin? Ryan? Yeah, I think so. Not that I was aware of. Well, let's just pretend he is. I'm pretty sure he is, actually. Okay. So, yeah, you're getting a lot of people there. And just looking at the frequency, because the IFPA has opened up again, I looked at some of the calendars and places like Kid Force in Ohio, they're ready to go on Monday nights. And we're probably going to see in the next few weeks more trickle in, especially as August 1st is the beginning of the return of the IFPA and Whoppers. So people have been hungry. We've been without it for a long time. And what really impressed me is even without Whoppers, you're still getting great numbers at these tournaments. Like you say, almost 100 people showing up at some of these triple play events. Honestly, I think it has to do with the atmosphere there. And Eric Thorne, the owner of District 82, all those games are his baby. I mean, he really tears them apart and, you know, does things to them that I don't normally do when I break down a game. I mean, he reinforces the posts and things like that. I mean, it's just amazing how the games play. I mean, you're not going to go there and find, you know, and certain games that are on routes, you'll find that certain things aren't working. It's extremely rare to go up to a game there and find out that, you know, a flipper doesn't feel right or, you know, these targets aren't working, and certain aspects like that. and he really takes great care of those machines. So what's the lineup of machines there? Is it modern or a mix of modern and old? It's really a mix. There's about 106 machines, and there's everything from EMs to early solid states to the more modern sterns. He's really got a good mix of games. To me, it reminds me of a mini Papa. I mean, I never went to the Papa facility, but I'm speaking of when I would go to Pinburg and, you know, just the magnitude and different games. It just reminds me of that. A hundred machines on a location is a lot. I mean, it's huge for Australia. Between the both of you, do you know how many venues there would be across North America that would have upwards of a hundred machines? There wouldn't be that many, surely.
    20:48
    Not that many. I mean, the only ones I can think of are probably the Pinball Museum in Banning, Pinball Hall of Fame. There's that place in Indiana that recently had a tournament, Pinball Wizard, I think it's called. The one in New Jersey, there's the Pacific Pinball Museum as well. Yeah, there's a good one in Florida as well, too. I would say less than 10. Now, there are places that are private collections. The VFW in Michigan, I think they are 300-plus machines in three different barns. That is Clay's place, if you remember the old TopCast.
    21:31
    And that's only open once a year to the public. It's members only. The VFW, that's spectacular. And if you ever get a chance to do that, check that out because new games, old games, pristine games, wood rails, everything you could possibly imagine, they've got it. They've got linked NBA fast break. And I just loved going there. And these kind of places like District 82 are really special because you don't see these big venues. And especially when it comes to what you and I love is the tournament play. It's one thing to have the machines, but to have them tournament ready, as Eric does, to make them tougher, he doesn't want them long playing. They're still playable, but just certainly what you would expect in a high-caliber tournament. So I would wonder, yeah, he's doing these events that are bringing a lot of the local people there and some others. It's very attractive, but there's got to be bigger plans. There's got to be an idea to maybe do IFPA, I don't know, 19, which is, well, you've got Florida next in May. You've got Germany in 2023, and then it comes back to North America. What about pinmasters, things like that? Yeah, I mean, we would love to host something like that here. you know it's just all getting our ducks in a row so to speak marty there's going to be some voids i mean they're going to be some tournaments that come into the stern pro circuit they take the top 20 tournaments over the last three years kind of whatever the average whopper value is and those are considered for the stern pro circuit every year they kind of drop five and add five well i would imagine over a few years with what district 82 is doing they're probably going to be creating something like this some big type event to have at least a stern pro circuit event but i was talking to josh and we were talking about is it going to be whopper crazy and and his exact words to me were i'm just going to go to district 82 and uh get my whopper fills for that's how i'm going to qualify so expect to see uh mr sharp there yeah i i heard he already contacted eric about we're having a big event in october uh six tournaments over four days so I think Josh and Zach are coming up for that as Josh will say all the whopper-tunities well just on that as a side do we think that there are going to be people just packing in as many tournaments from now to the end of the year to compensate for the lack of whopper-tunities? I think there'll be some of that it's hard to say because you know the next few months there's not going to be any state points either so I don't know how that's going to affect things. Are some people just playing to qualify for their state and maybe not necessarily playing maybe right away and waiting towards January? And plus you have parts of the world that are still in lockdown and won't have an opportunity. I know in the states here we're okay, but I know, are you guys still in lockdown? I know you were talking about it on your last podcast. We're not allowed to talk about it. We're not allowed to talk about it now. We got an email from Ian that said, hey, just let me know when you're not going to talk about COVID anymore so I can listen again. So every time we're going to talk about COVID, we're going to say, hey, Ian, how are you, buddy? And we're joking. Listen, Ian, as you hear, I live in a place where there's a freaking lockdown. Marty lives in a place where there's a lockdown. It's not just what's happening in the States. It's everywhere else in the world. So guess what? it's a pandemic it happens once in a while well i don't know once in a lifetime hopefully this is it so if we talk about it there's a reason why well and it really seemed like you know marty where you're from in australia it seemed like everything was fine and now all of a sudden they're talking about these delta variants yeah this is tom talking and this is not us this is tom bringing this up no so here's here's the difference it depends on your the government's or our state government's strategy. So for Victoria, which is the state we're in, so that's where Melbourne is, we have an eradication policy. So if there is a hint, if one person or two people get COVID, they get shot. We shut down the state effectively. So Sydney, which is in New South Wales, over the last three or four days has had an outbreak. They aren't locking down, although a cluster and some suburbs have gone into lockdown today but they don't shut down the entire state they try to manage it out through contact tracing whereas in melbourne they just say we're not going to rely on contact tracing we're shutting everybody down so right now we aren't in a lockdown only a little pocket so we're kind of okay but the problem with that is and again i talk about you know the tournament that hopefully i get to put on the end of the year which is the melbourne silver championship it could just be cancelled because one person has the virus and then we go into lockdown for two weeks it's that's just because that's the policy they take wow so let's put things into perspective here in canada i mentioned that i was talking to a bunch of different league members and i don't know anybody who's setting up a tournament in canada for august 1st for september 1st luckily the rollout's been good for for vaccines in fact 75 percent of adults 12 or not adults, 12 and over have received a vaccine in Canada. We're doing really, really well after a slow, slow start. So that's good. But people are still kind of waiting until they get their second dose. So that kind of puts us into mid-October for maybe starting up leagues and things. But again, what you were saying, Tom, are people going to be jumping at opportunities right now here in the last half of 2021? Because there are no state, there are no provincial or country championships happening in January of 2022. Now, for those that don't play competitive pinball, how the IFPA works and how your rankings work, they take the best 20 events you've had. So if you did really well in this tournament, you got X amount of whopper points, and that goes on your card. The best 20 tournaments that you've done in the last three years go on your card. But what happens is, after one year of that tournament, you only get 75% of the points. After two years, you only get 50% of those points. And after three, it's expired. So all these tournaments that happened in 2021, they might go on your card. But if you have 20 better events in 2022, they'll all disappear. Now, a lot of people don't have that many. So I would imagine these 2021 events are going to be big and on people's cards, even the great players and even the people that play a lot. So I think there's a real attractiveness to what District 82 and all these tournaments are doing. I know I've booked a couple of tournaments, and right now the border's closed, but it looks like it's going to open up, thank God. So, yes, you might see me on that stinky couch of yours, Tom. I'm looking forward to, in September, pinball at the Zoo in Michigan, and then the Klee Pin in Independence, Ohio, just outside of Cleveland. And then I even booked Expo, too, not knowing whether or not I can go or not, but fingers crossed. Yeah, I'm looking forward to Expo. I really like that tournament. I'm also I also booked for Freeplay Florida I'm hoping they're gonna have a tournament I assume they will we're kind of doing a little family vacation to Florida all my kids are vaccinated so that's a pretty good feeling and kind of getting back to normalcy that's good you're doing a family trip there especially with Neil because the way he plays at Freeplay Florida he might just actually pay for the trip that would be nice so where are you on the scale of i really miss these tournaments to uh you know i've still got pinball to play and i'm okay not playing pinball tournaments uh i am i really want to get back to playing in tournaments i mean i've been luckier than others obviously because i've actually been playing in tournaments for you know over six to nine months at District 82 because our our lockdown was only a couple of months and kind of Wisconsin slowly opened up so as you've seen on the stream we've been wearing masks and then taking precautions you know for other people I'm sure their need or want to go out and play in tournaments is much greater than mine. I'm sure, Jeff, you're ready, right?
    30:10
    I miss the people more than the tournaments. And I don't know whether that's from doing years of pinball profile and getting to know so many different people in this community and liking the entire majority of them. A few Australians I could do without, but, you know, I only did the show every two weeks, so whatever. I play pinball at home, but it's different when you're playing it in competition, no question about it. And sometimes it's frustrating playing in tournaments because you just don't have it. I said this to Josh a few years ago. I said, I don't know how much longer I'm going to be playing competitive pinball. Certain tournaments really beat me up. The 24-hour battle at the Sanctum, fun, fun event. It physically took its toll on me the last time. Not so much the first time. Maybe I got lucky. Maybe my sleep patterns worked out well. But I felt like crap for quite some time afterwards. And I don't know if I can do that one again. And darn it all. I loved, loved that venue, the tournament, the format, the staff that run it, everything about it. But I just don't know physically if I can do it anymore. And you mentioned Free Play Florida. Boy, there's a tournament where you qualify in the morning. You know, it's a pump and dump. These pump and dumps, maybe you get some good scores and that's good and you can take a break. But if you don't get good scores, you keep going and you keep going and you keep going. And just the endurance, I don't know if I have it anymore. For both of you, I don't even know whether we really have talked about this at length, Jeff, but what is your favorite pinball tournament format? You know what's funny? If you listen to anything I've ever done, it's the one I bitch the most about. But it is the absolute most fun I've ever had in tournaments. And by the way, I don't think I've ever, ever qualified for one of these tournaments, but I think it's just so much fun. I love the pinball format.
    31:53
    I really do. You've heard me bitch about it. I think it is a unique thing. The thing I bitch about it, and I will continue to bitch about it, is it's not well laid out for timing. There's nothing you can do. If you get a machine that maybe goes down or it's just long playing, it backs everybody up. So as much as I like that format, you would need fewer amounts of people playing in it for it to run smoothly. But that's just not the case, the way the Whoppers work. So that frustrates me a little bit. These flip frenzies I think are great because maybe it's the endurance thing I was mentioning earlier. I like that in two and a half hours, three hours, I can play a flip frenzy, get a lot of games in, maximize the whoppers, and I think those are great. But other tournaments, match play is great. The ticket is challenging. I don't know if there's really anyone I don't like. The heads up is spectacular, just not easy to do because it's tough to have two machines. I don't know. I like them all. I really like match play tournaments. I'm not so keen on playoffs I think I get a little more nervous with them but I kind of like just kind of running through that match play and once you're once you're done with the rounds you're done I think one of the hardest formats is probably that in disc or pop a ticket format where you have to you grab a ticket and you have to do well on those five or so games and to me that it's grueling, it's nerve-wracking, especially when you get to your last one. You're like, okay, I got a good card and I got to really play well here. I think that ticket tournament is the best indicator of the best players. I really do because it really requires consistency. A pump and dump, I was joking with some other top players and stuff about pump and dumps is, you know what, by the third or fourth game, the good players kind of figure the game out and maybe take some risks because even if you don't get it, you can try again, you can try again. You can't take that kind of risk in a pop-a-ticket format where you have to have five consistent good games and you can't have what they call a bleeder. If you have a game that is absolute garbage, you're not getting any points on that and you only have five game-step points on. So the pop-a-ticket is a true test. I love that format. I'm yet to play the ticket format because obviously the last pop-a that I was at, pop-a-20, which was the last popper that was a pump and dump format. I don't think I'm going to like it because as you say it rewards the better players I like to buy my way into the finals so I wouldn't be able to do that. But let me tell you I think my favourite format to watch, to play in and to run was the heads up and I've only ever done it once and this was at Ryan C's place where we had two Wizard of Oz and two Star Treks and we did actually restreamed it as well it was just nail-biting silly fun for me playing in it being able to kind of glance over to the person next to you and see where they're up to it's actually a race it's a race between you and another person and you can see who's front and who's behind you can overtake them you can crash All that kind of drama just is so intense. It was probably the most fun I've ever had in a tournament. My only kind of heads-up tournaments have been the one Carl has run with Pin Clash. And the first one, you know, qualifying was difficult because you had to do the new Blar Challenge in a certain amount of time. It's nerve-wracking. It's that speed. It's basically a speed run. You're trying to beat the other person in a certain amount of time. And for me personally, that's a tougher tournament for me because to me, when I start rushing myself, that's when I start missing my shots and get off my game kind of thing. And that's why Neil made it into Pin Clash and you perhaps didn't, right? Is that what happened? Pretty much. yeah definitely definitely not my best format okay you are good at some things no question about it You a top 100 player I been defeated by you a few times in fact and you are an expert because of all the different games there at District 82, and you certainly have a nice collection at home. We've been trying to figure out what's the best multi-ball, and we're going to get to some of the responses we had from our listeners and emails in the second half. But, Tom, we'll open it up to you. Is there a multiball that just jumps out at you like, oh, that is so satisfying? Everything about it. I guess I haven't really thought about it.
    36:47
    That's his way of saying he's never had a multiball. Oh, shit, wrong question. Pretty much. I really like games where I can stack the multiballs, so I like Biter Man a lot. Yeah, I guess I never really thought, like, what's my favorite multiball? all the games I have or have played. How about you guys? Good question. Because we talked about it last week, I've had some time to really think about what just fills me with so much joy. And I've got to say, it might be controversial. It's recent and it's a bit of a, some would say it's a throwaway, but it's still worth good points. For me, my favourite multi-ball is Cherry Bomb multi-ball in Guardians of the Galaxy. Love it. Just silly fun. 60 seconds fun. Crazy. Balls everywhere, Jeff. And you've still got to get it in the mouth. Well, I have a Guardian. I've disabled Groot's mouth just because it's such a pain in the ass. And during multi-ball, when that thing goes up and down a lot, sometimes it'll get stuck. So I've disabled it, in fact, so I don't have that problem. But, yeah, sure, multi-ball is good. You know you're going to get 60 seconds of madness. It's not going to be any shorter, any longer. and hopefully you've got some shot multipliers on there. It's a lot of fun, no question about it. The music fits well with it. I like what Tom said about the stackable. It got me thinking, you know, Spider-Man, yeah, certainly easy to stack and continue. Bram Stoker's Dracula is one of the best stacks too. If you can get Coffin, if you can get Mist, if you can get Bats, all that kind of good stuff.
    38:25
    That's pretty impressive. I think we had a mention about Whitewater, maybe it was a few weeks ago. and is it the greatest multi-ball ever? No, but if you can fire three shots with the upper flipper to get the max jackpot. With five times scoring, oh my God. Forget about it. Game over. Oh, just the best. Yeah, so there are a lot of good multi-balls and we will have to figure out what the best is by you, the listeners, telling us on our upcoming poll, but we might add some of yours in there, Tom, as well. Actually, I do have a quick question because I know you have a Led Zeppelin LE2, correct? Yours is fine, right? No problems? I got a new play field. It's spectacular, smooth as silk, everything. But, and I'm wondering if you can help me with this, have you had any problems with your electric magic?
    39:11
    Yes, I mean, I did have to replace the spinner mechanism on there. I think the newer models, they've changed that mech, and I know that's the case on mine. But what did you have to change? So I had to take off the top portion, and there were basically what holds the spinner. There's like two metal brackets. You have to replace those and then put the mechanism back, basically back together. But the spinner is a little longer, I want to say, as far as the arms of the spinner go. So I haven't had any issues since I replaced it. So what I've noticed, and I've asked a few people on Pinside, and I'm asking this on a podcast, not in a complaint way by any means. I get good feedback when I do this. So I have my spinner occasionally reset parallel to the play field. And I guess the reason this is happening is because it's, I mean, it was so perfect for so long and it was resetting. But as you get into the actual electric magic multi-ball, and there are multiple balls in there, let's say it's spinning. and then you fire another one in there and you hit the spinner as it's spinning, it can bend the wire, and I guess that's what's happening. Yeah, that's what happened basically with my first one. How do you get around that, I wonder? With the first one, they recommended that you bend the brackets that were holding the spinner, but the new mechanism, so the old mechanism had these round heads that held the spinner, and the new one is just like a flat, flush piece of metal. It's all basically, think of like a rectangle, but then it has a little hole where the spinner goes in, whereas the other one was a rectangle that had an extension off of it, like a head with a round circle that also had the hole for the spinner in it. So what they recommended initially is that you bend it out a little bit so that spinner would have a little bit more space. But if the spinner is actually bending, then that's an issue, like the arm on the spinner. But there are other spinner games where you're in a multi-ball, and you must hit the spinner as it's parallel to the play field, therefore bending other ones, I would imagine. But, I mean, this electric magic is so close to the bottom of the flippers that it's getting a pretty good impact. I know Ken Walker at Galloping Ghost was fixing theirs and anyway, if anybody's got some ideas help me out because the game is a lot of fun I know you're enjoying yours as well too Oh, it's awesome, I love it Hey Marty, you know how we're recording this on Friday, June 25th Well, one of us is recording on June 25th Oh yeah, sorry there Mr. Future Saturday the 26th there for you Actually, you're at work right now, aren't you? I am actually in the office, Damien's over there I'm waving at Damien. Does he know what you're doing? Yes. I did actually say, hey, look, I might come in a little bit later because I'm recording the podcast. He said, why don't you come in and record in the office? So that's what I'm doing. Okay. So just yell really loud. Haggis pinball's the best. Then that way, Damien won't give you shit. Go ahead. Do it so he can hear it. Yes.
    42:36
    No, let's keep going. I mean, it's true, obviously, but I just don't want to shout it. All right. We've got Tom there in Wisconsin, and because we're recording this five days before it releases, there's a good chance, based on what we've heard from Charlie Emery, that a new game might be out before this podcast comes out. How stupid would we look if we didn't talk about the new spooky game? When we've got a guy from Wisconsin, we release a podcast, we don't even mention the new spooky game? Well, right now, as of Friday, we don't know what the game is. So, Tom, please entertain us, all right? We're just going to ask some generic questions, give some generic answers. You know how when you talk to an athlete and they say, you know, well, we had to put in 110% and, you know, tomorrow's a new day and, you know, we just got to keep fighting. But all those kind of generic bullshit answers, we're going to give you some questions. We'll change the questions in post, all right? We'll actually be more specific about the new spooky game, but we just have to throw that out there right now. So, Tom, what do you think of Halloween?
    43:35
    Oh, it's great. It's one of the best shooting games I've ever seen. I don't know. yeah yeah now does the theme grab you because i know some people are like i don't know no not really um yeah the the theme halloween really resonates with me i'm a a big fan of the halloween genre so yeah definitely for me love it yeah i'm not into the halloween genre what about the music what about the artwork i mean be specific what do you like about halloween i love the color palette they've used i love the art style that they've used is that specific enough without seeing it yeah yeah cool is this halloween gonna be their best seller what do you think? Oh, definitely.
    44:32
    Could be. Could be. I mean, you know, 750 Rick and Mortys is pretty good. So, seriously though, having a look at the underneath of the playfield. Yeah, go on. What I will say is I'm really excited about this. You know, I think Spooky have now, I think this is the second time, maybe even more, but I know with Rick and Morty, before they did the release, they showed the underneath of the playfield as well, and people started speculating. What was really interesting about this, and I guess now... Hold on a second. Did they actually show the underneath of it? I don't even know. Yeah. Oh, I guess I should check social media. I didn't know that.
    45:12
    Don't worry, we'll fix this all in post. Go on. We literally, all of us here in the office, just all gravitated around a computer and looked at this, and we were just absolutely fascinated about what it could possibly be on the top. Because I know that they've said that there's multiple upper playfields. There's server motors, there's subways, there's, you know, they're using the new Ben Heck board system, I think it's called Pinnator, maybe? I don't know. I think, in all seriousness, that it's just going to be a great game. Just from underneath, trying to imagine what above the playfield's going to look like, I don't know. I think it's going to be absolutely jam-packed as far as technology goes into a game so far tom put a bow on this what's your favorite thing about the new game halloween uh the drop targets on the mini play field is there one yeah we think so yeah you can tell there's two drop target mechanisms if you look at it there's a cut out on the i think it's the right hand side uh it almost looks like a lightning bolt shape, but there's a flipper mech, and I think, I'm pretty sure, two drop target mechanisms.
    46:31
    And there's one other mechanism that I can't quite tell what it is, but that's from my looking at... Where are these fucking pictures?
    46:42
    Spooky. On the spooky Facebook page. Like, you know, it's not cryptic. Look it up. I'm looking, I'm looking. oh oh oh ah i said oh yes yeah oh you haven't seen it yet obviously i'm looking at it right now it's wood it's a lot of wires i see a few coils i don't see the drop targets though what i thought was interesting is there's it looks like two subways and on the left hand side of the picture it almost looks like there's three cutouts on the one side underneath the subways yeah do you see that mark yeah so people are speculating that maybe there's multiple ways you get into that subway okay and it looks like there's there's optos and uh in front of each of them gosh you guys are like creeps checking up the pinball skirt here yeah but it's i don't know it's fascinating it's fascinating except also for me now that it was a year ago because i'm you know air quotes in the industry uh but i find this stuff fascinating whereas i wouldn't have cared 12 months ago listen i know nothing about making a pinball machine shocker but uh i do like how clean this looks i do i like those subways certainly jumped out at me and again by the time this airs i'm sure we've seen the other side of the playfield so we're talking about past tense stuff but uh good on Spooky once again. So I know we're all excited to see what Chuck and family are doing. So congrats to them. And Tom, we appreciate you coming on here. We will check you out on Fox City's Pinball. We will listen to you on Triple Lame. Is that what it was again? Triple Drain. My apologies. You know, it was totally sincere. Best to you, to Travis, to Joel, to the Couch Cleaner, and to Eric up at District 82. Thank you very much. I will try to get there. you couldn't have put a tournament like back to back with X1 I'm already in that I have to come there twice now come on sorry I know you can just live with us for two weeks how's that legally binding it's now on a podcast so when I knock open the door my friend thanks very much thanks for having me appreciate it so there we go there was Tom Graff from Fox City Pinball and Triple Drains or triple lanes, according to Jeff. But what did we learn, Jeff? Crest white strips suck.
    49:15
    What are you using? I have not used anything to bleach my teeth. Liar. Yeah, it's a complete lie. It's a syringe? Well, yeah. Well, it's a syringe that has the liquid inside it that you put into your mouth guard, which you then put on. And how long do you have to wear the mouth guard if it was not you, but the other person? Your twin brother. The other person. It depends on the strength. Some of them you leave on for half an hour. Some you can leave on overnight. But it's a mold of your teeth? Well, yes. Okay. Or a mouth guard of some kind. Anyway, I don't know the details about this. I've never done it. Does your friend have problems with his gums? Yes. Correct.
    49:56
    That friend does. Yes, correct. Oh, well, what are you going to do? There you go. You know, we talked about making the big bucks on this podcast. It's not all about making big money. I mean, the majority is, don't get me wrong. There's no other reason to do it. But every once in a while, we like to have a public service message.
    50:16
    Are you sick of hearing about COVID-19 and the pandemic? I know we are. Where we live, there have been several lockdowns, restrictions, and life disruptions. Both Jeff and I have had our vaccines, and with the exception of some funny accents, there have been no side effects. Listen, we don't have all the answers. we trust the scientists and experts for good advice. But we did search the internet to find out what both sides of the vaccine argument are saying about getting the shot. Depending where you live, you can get the following. Free Girl Guide cookies, beer, weed or guns. There's even scholarships, Foo Fighters concert tickets and places to get a much needed haircut. Others have suggested when you get the shot, you'll get the fastest 5G network or magnetic arms. You'll even have Bill Gates on speed dial. Look, we aren't going to mention it anymore in this podcast, but we will conclude by saying it's your body. It's your life. Please ask the experts what's best for you, not some WebMD or video you saw on YouTube. This has been a final round public service announcement. Every one of these offers are true, except the fake ones. The point is, get your fucking vaccine shot. Marty, I don't even think I asked you the last episode, so I could say what's happened in the last fortnight. I could say what's happened in the last month, but the reason I ask, what is going on? I mean, I know you're busy with Haggis, but you're getting ready to move. Like, is it crunch time for you? What's going on? Yeah, so I do actually move home in a week and a half. So that will be the 7th of July. So, and it's one of those, like three months I've been waiting to move. and I've not really been all that fussed about it but what I will tell you is the woman that was living in the house I'm moving to has moved out she's given us a key like we're three weeks out we were, sorry, three weeks out she's given us a key to the new place saying move in whenever you like that sounds boring what's not boring is the fact that the theatre room has now been emptied and it is fucking huge I thought I was going to be able to fit 8 machines in there I reckon 12, maybe even more Keeping the piano in there? Once I get rid of the piano Once I wheel that out onto the street, we're talking 15, probably 16 machines Here's the other funny thing Again, no one's going to care about this but the theatre room actually comes with a projector already in it They're like, yeah, have the projector and I was like, I looked at this projector and it looked like a toy projector. It just looked really cheap and just awful. Anyway, I thought, you know what, I'll look up this projector. Turns out, when it came out, it was $30,000 for this projector. Wow. So it might still actually be okay. I mean, it's probably worth $5, $10 now, but who spends $30,000 on a projector for their home? We're talking Richie Rich here. Yeah, it's a great place. I'm looking forward to it. Are you going to actually fill that room with pinball machines? Is that a comfort zone for you? Like 12, 15 machines? You've had four for a long time. I don't know what the most you've ever had, but... No, it's always been four because I've only had maximum space for four machines. So even eight, doubling the number, that's a huge amount. Is that the goal to get to that? I mean, I would assume a haggis machine or two might be in the theatre room, but But you also have a couple other machines. You still have Wizard of Oz. You still have Star Trek. Correct. I've also got to start buying back machines. Well, not that I would buy back the machines that I've sold. But yeah, I still do want to replace what I did sell. I don't know. Do you know what? Here's what it is. Where I'm living right now, I could only ever have a maximum of four machines. It was a hard limit. With this, what I'm saying is I've probably got a hard limit of 15 machines. That doesn mean I going to get 15 but at least it means that if I got more than four machines I know I can expand further If I rearranged my basement where my machines are I might be able to do 11 but that doesn really help us if we were to have League. I love checking out Oz Eric's incredible lineup of games that he has, and you can check him out on Melbourne Silver Bowl. Hi, Eric. Happy belated birthday as well. I definitely, the next time I come to Australia, have to check out Eric's lineups. But when he did a walkthrough, I noticed it's pretty tight. So you couldn't have a lot of people in there playing because your backs would be against each other as you're playing different machines. And I joked with him. I'm like, do you ever sell machines? He's like, me, sell machines? No, never. I can't. And he has. But I'm just saying, you know, as some of these new games come out, it's difficult for him. Like, where am I going to put them? He's got some of them in the hallway. There is that kind of sweet spot. So my sweet spot is probably eight machines. I have nine in my basement right now with three others in storage. and if I go to 11, it's too tight. If you were to take out the bondage dungeon, how many more would you fit in? Yeah, that's totally my thing. Wrong co-host, all right? That was head to head.
    55:28
    You're all the same. I had to remove a couch. I remember when my friend came over, Dan Bitterlick, he's one of the guys who got me into competitive pinball. Dan's a good player out in Victoria, BC, not Australia. When I got my first game and my second game, He's like, you can get a few more in there. And then once you move that couch, I'm like, that couch is never going. That couch has been gone for about two years, so thanks, Dan. But again, it's when you get people in here. Like, I do host League, and the most I've ever had in here is 24, and it's tight. And that was with eight machines. Now that there are nine set up, well, I'd bring it down anyways. But 20 is maybe the max, and that would be tight. A lot of people sometimes hang out outside. I've got a back patio that they can hang out. But if the weather's bad, that doesn't really help anybody, and I don't really want them throughout the whole entire house. You know, that's the one weird thing too. I mean, as we're asking people, okay, IFPA is back. Leagues are going to start up again, certainly tournaments. There aren't a lot of people that are comfortable in my neck of the woods that are ready to kind of, do I really want people to come over? Maybe not yet. And I say this because I booked, as I mentioned, a couple of tournaments coming up. And one of the ones that usually happens at Expo is it's an invite-only tournament that I have never made because I'm not good enough to make it. It's the Power 100, and it takes place at Josh Sharp's house. And it's basically, when you look at your player versus player, it's basically what your record is against top 100 players in the world. So it doesn't matter what you do against anybody outside the top 100. It's only how you do against the top 100. And the top, whatever, 50 or 100 are in the Power 100. And they are invited to Josh's place to play this invite-only tournament. I said, are you running that this year? His exact words were, fuck no, because it's just too soon. That's all. Just too soon. I think he's going to do a different variation, but maybe it's done at Expo as opposed to done at Josh's house. Yeah, we're not quite there yet. And I know the Foo Fighters just had a huge, huge concert in New York at Madison Square Gardens. And they took some flack from some people because they said, hey, full capacity, come on in. I'm going to have this concert. the only catch is you have to be fully vaccinated and there were protests well there might be that when it comes to pinball tournaments people hosts might say look you have to be fully vaccinated or they'll say at the very minimum you have to wear a mask inside tom said they've been running those tournaments at district 82 they were wearing masks they're not even having food inside so we just have to get over that hump and eventually things will get back to normal but right now there's still that who has a vaccine who doesn't that kind of thing yeah i've got to say i agree with Ian. Fuck, I'm sick of talking about the COVID. Yeah, me too. I say that not I'm sick of us talking about it on the show. I'm sick of it still being around and it still being a problem. It is. And I hear you loud and clear, Ian, and he's not the only one. There are other people that say, you know what, I don't want to hear about it. Even on Pinclash, you know, I'd ask questions about, is this arcade open? And someone put in the chat like, oh, here he goes talking about COVID again. Well, it's a fucking thing, man. This pandemic we've never seen before. I don't want to talk about it. I hate fucking talking about it, but it's affected everything.
    58:39
    Yeah. Agreed. Anyway, Ian and others, trust me, I'm consciously now not talking about it because we are all sick of it. And I do like talking about how excited I am to see things opening up because I am, because that is a sign that we're getting back. I'm thrilled. Yep. Agreed. So that's why I'm excited about signing up for these tournaments and I'll be signing up for a bunch more. So what about you? Tournaments? pinball, machines, what's going on? Yeah, look, as I've said last time, fortunately, even with lockdowns, we can still come in and work. It has affected us, as in Haggis, the lockdown. It has caused some challenges. I'll leave that to Damien to give a bit of an update. But that really is the problem, is it's still affecting everybody and there's now a lagging effect that's happened. But anyway, we're still here plugging away. We're still in production. Yeah, that's me really. What about your fortnight? Are you still in lockdown? The vaccines have really been going well. So we're out of our stage one. By the time this airs, we're going to be in stage two and probably fast-tracking to stage three. Things are opening up. Things are starting to happen here. So thanks for everyone for getting their vaccines and being responsible. It's good. That's how we're going to get back to normal. Hopefully this fucking Delta variant isn't going to be the end of everything. But no, I'm so excited that we might have an actual summer here. And the borders, too. The big thing, too. You know, Tom said, when are you going to come here? Well, as soon as I can is the answer. Yeah. So they're basically looking at if you have both vaccines, you'll be able to cross the border if it's non-essential travel. Yeah, I can. I feel bad because there's a lot of property owners that maybe are Americans that have properties in Canada, vice versa, and they can't get across for 18 freaking months. Or they have to go through some stupid court, not stupid, this long, expensive quarantine that maybe it's a money issue, maybe it's a time issue. I couldn't even go out and see my sister-in-law because the province was 14-day quarantines. I'm like, no, this is brutal. But again, all behind us, it's starting to turn. So I've been very excited. I actually made a chart of where I want to go in 2021, 2022, and I got a lot of travel to catch up on because I used to do quite a bit. So it's coming back. Yeah, again, travel is the big thing. So as we are opening up, there are some pinball shows coming up. One is the West Coast Pinball Festival in Perth, which I don't know. Oh, actually, you do know where Perth is because you've been to Perth. I've been to Perth. Beautiful. Great sunsets. Yeah. Yeah, so September, they're apparently going to have over 100 pinball machines. So that's really exciting. And hopefully Haggis gets to get over there. And hopefully Damien says, hey, Martin, come over there. We've also got Pinfest in Newcastle is going to be on again, I think, in November. And again, hoping to get to go to that. So really, again, it's about, like I said before, when Tom was on, whether we get all of a sudden we're in lockdown and we can't travel. So hopefully the worst of it's behind us. And I'm looking forward to going to these shows and meeting people and now being able to talk about, you know, all the great stuff that we're doing at Haggis. Maybe it's too early to ask you, but you used to try to come to North America maybe once, twice a year. Is that going to be still possible? And maybe even from a work standpoint, now that you're with Haggis, is it too early to say? I know Indisc was one of your favorite things. And who knows, you know, people are wondering what's going on with the Museum of Pinball and Indisc. Well, I don't think you need to worry about Indisc. Worst case scenario, I'm sure they will rent a place. Because think about it. All the machines in the tournaments, they were gyms anyways. It was just such a great backdrop to have that museum of pinball there. But as far as the tournament, I mean, you might not be able to do the classics match play. But everything else they can still do with gyms machines. So what's the worst case? They rent out a facility, let's say. They get their money back or whatever from the entry fees and all that kind of good stuff. And this still happens. Are you going to be able to do any kind of travel? What do you think? so many people still reach out to me to see if I am coming up just because I've obviously made friends over there and we want to catch up again I haven't got how do I say this just lean over and ask Damien right now hey Damien well again I'm hoping that Haggis gets to come over for these shows but as far as personal travel I do tournaments etc because Indisc really is tournament only it's not an expo it's not a pinball show so you wouldn't necessarily see haggis over there. But as far as personal travel goes, I just don't know. Because I don't know about travel and travel restrictions, I'm not even considering it. I've still got... So when you and I were meant to go over to Texas for... Well, not only for TPF, but also the Deep Root launch, I've still got that money sitting there in credit from Qantas. So I can fly. but you know there's a 14 day quarantine on return yeah so there's no point in me leaving at the moment no that is a definite deterrent for sure maybe things will change second vax all that kind of good stuff so fingers crossed we shall see all right what can we do we don't need to worry about travel restrictions we don't need to worry about anything because everyone can participate in this and boy oh boy do we already get some feedback from this it is our next contest we're going to be doing. We're going to finally figure out, once and for all, what is the best multi-ball? This is the final round, best multi-ball Battle Royale. No? Yeah, that was tight. That was good.
    64:28
    So we have had a lot of entries. We've certainly got enough for a 32-game bracket. There are some machines that have been counted twice, for example. And, you know, we can talk this through now, Jeff. Are we talking about the machine, or are we talking about a specific multiball casing point? Jurassic Park by Stern has been nominated for Raptor multiball, T-Rex multiball, and Chaos multiball. Or do we just say it's Jurassic Park? Ooh. Well, I have thoughts on it. Okay. Are we trying to figure out which game has the best multiballs or multiball, if it's only one? Or are we trying to figure out what the best single multiball thing is? I think it might be better to do what's the best machine with multi balls now I know that's not what we said but it might include more and get people thinking well geez you know Jurassic Park it's got t-rex it's got raptor it's got chaos I don't know what do you think you asked me I told you my opinion there you go well I think I think then that I don't know I'm thinking best multi multi-ball not machine because i think there are some very ordinary machines that have got a good multi-ball case in point thank you travis moseman for writing into us he has nominated smog multi-ball from the hobbit okay yeah see now that's more specific if you just said the hobbit is the machine with the best multi-balls you'll be like i don't know about that but smog well that's different and because that is a phenomenal multiple one of my favorite multiples it really is that good so you know what i mean i think you're better just sort of saying well this individual multiple is good on its own merits okay but i look at some of the people like glenn wechter said you know he he gave us a bunch of games but they weren't specific which multiple he said like i like bram stoker's dracula which one was he talking about was it missed multiball? Was it Coffin? Who knows? He put in Game of Thrones. Who knows which one it was there? Correct. But he did also say, if I could only have one, I would say Dinah multiball. Anyway, it's up to people. People like that kind of stuff. That's why we've put it out to the public, because people have nominated things that like Adam's Family. Adam's Family multiball has been nominated. Meh. You know. Smart. Okay, I promised Ian Harrower I would talk about this because he said, you better mention balls are popping balls are popping and i said what is balls are popping it was the first game with multiball that's right he said take a look at the there's a good video of it i'm like did you have to manually do it he said no no no no take a look at the video so maybe we'll put a video up on our facebook page you can find us on final round pinball it is pretty impressive i have to admit especially for its day yeah okay yeah anyway lots of i've got to say really really good nominations for multiballs and it just reminded me of how many good multiballs there are out there in some fairly ordinary games so we're going to do a bracket we are going to do a bracket and depending on how many we get if we get 64 then we'll do a 64 game bracket if we get anywhere between well because we've already got more than 32 we will then have to find some sort of ranking are we getting the gifts in our polls again or has that been kind of yes oh we'll see how we go. We'll see. I think we will. Gifts, baby. The gifts are gold. I don't even care about the poll. Yeah, it does take me about four hours to do. So up to you whether you feel like I could either be getting out Haggis games or I could be generating gifts for your entertainment. You tell me. You've already got their money. As I was saying it, I thought to myself, it's got to be the gifts. yeah boy do we get a lot of good feedback i want to thank people you know chuck webster wrote in glenn we mentioned brian had some chris warren from alabama jimmy larson so thanks and then of course everyone on facebook too so listen when people actually take the time to write a an email to us it certainly means a lot to us and we respond to them all maybe not right away but we we certainly appreciate that people take the time out to write us at final round pinball at gmail.com you can also reach us on Instagram finalroundpinball, we're on Twitter finalroundpin, can't believe I got all that right Marty, you didn't, I didn't nope, Instagram is finalroundpinballpodcast oh fuck one day you'll get it right can I also just add that a special mention to Stu Thornton who I mentioned last week, who now works for Haggis he wrote an email to us because I can literally see him from where I'm sitting, he's like two seats away from me he's like, oh I'm cool, you know I can just talk to you and I'm like, do you know what? Just send an email because Jeff will appreciate it. And I'll read this, okay? So he said, I never get around to writing emails mainly because I'm lazy and also because I can just call across the room if I want to talk to Martin. So Jeff, this one is for you. I've played plenty of machines and experienced plenty of multiballs, but there is always one that sticks in my mind. Yes, Marto, I know you think it's overrated. I listened to that episode while I was waiting for my second stick in the arm. But Star Trek, the next generation Borg multiball. Great example of theme integration. I agree. That is a spectacular one, too. I mean, the only thing about it is it's easy to get to. You're going to get to it by ball three. So one of the factors for me thinking of what's the best multiball is, is it difficult to get or do you just get it? You know, like the old Data East games, you're going to get your multiball, your tri-balls on ball three, and you didn't really have to do anything. It still can be a great multiball, but Borg is pretty impressive, especially when you can fire two shots from the guns if the cannons work into that center spot. And I think that to me is the game right there, that multi-ball. Yeah. We did actually have a face-to-face conversation about it because it was like, you know, I know you don't like the game, but, you know, book multi-ball. I'm like, no. And he was like, oh, but you need to do this, you need to do that. I'm like, I didn't know you had to do that in multi-ball. I didn't know you ripped the left spinner to regenerate the shields. I never knew that. I never knew that either. but that's what you do. I had no idea. Yeah. Anyway, it's probably one of those things where you run out of jackpots and you're like, oh, what's lit? The spinner. Okay, but don't remember that as a game rule. Never knew that, because all I'm doing is focusing on the middle. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right, Stu, thanks for writing us. Appreciate it. Marty, we should probably go find some gifts, right? Or maybe you should make some haggis machines, one of the two things. Anyway, something's got to be done. Yeah, correct. We will. And we will speak to you again in another fortnight, which will be right in the middle of me moving. But that's the sacrifice I make for you. And by the way, once again, congratulations to Spooky Pinball on Halloween.
    71:34
    Yes, well done. One last thought, Marty. What do you think of Halloween? I think it's fantastic. I think Halloween is their best game so far. Congratulations to Charlie and Bug and Squirrel and everybody over there. but what specifically marty just don't be so vague what specifically do you love about halloween the specific thing i like are the flippers specifically i like them you're you know i do okay i know you're busy and uh hey man it's summer summer here it's good times uh again thank you for writing to us it means a lot and uh we get back to you and uh it makes us kind to generate these polls and fun things. Marty, you still having fun doing the show? Yeah, why? Okay, well, fuck, we'll do another one then. All right, two weeks, we'll be back. Yep. That's the deal. See you later, guys.