Hello. Hi. How you doing? Good. I'm just having a hot flash. Having a hot flash. Oh, geez. Oh, geez. Hey, this is episode 20. Holy smokes. 20 times. Whoa. This one's punk rock pinball after dark. It's 8.57 p.m. On a Saturday night. Late night for us. 8.57 on a Saturday. What did you do? We filmed a podcast. Mm-hmm. We were busy. It's a big night. well first of all a couple things i want to say the facebook group was super fun this week lots of comments lots of sharing lots of pictures yeah i love it did shelly post her tron outfits in there not yet but she better shelly posted post you and joe in your tron outfits like the group there put it in the link below where i might yeah put the picture when i put this podcast up shelly if you haven't shared it yet put a picture of you and joe in your tron outfits down in there it's awesome yeah um so that was really cool um some people are buying the merch from anxious and angry.com yeah did ryan tell you this i just know okay and um so thank you for doing that that's super awesome it is helping offset the cost of us funding all of this so thank you we give a lot it away so anybody that would buy it that would be awesome buy the merch anxious and angry.com or just google punk rock pinball merch hey what's up cyclone cyclone did his cycle he cycled it up yeah um also you should mention that this little baby got fixed yes at the end of last episode i was like why is my uncanny x-men rebooting and i got a message on facebook just a private message from none other than Raymond Davidson. The Raymond Davidson. The Raymond Davidson. One of the best pinball players in the world. And a coder at Stern. And a coder at Stern. That's what he does. Yep. Software guy at Software Code. He's working on the new Fall of the Empire stuff. He did the Metallica remaster. Did Raymond work on Kenny X-Men? I'm not 100% sure. Probably. but Raymond sent me a message and said it's rebooting because it's failing to do the software update within one hour and if I go into the service menu and let it do the update on that screen it's faster and he was right it did the update here I was playing the game thinking I was playing the new update for like a week didn't know I thought I had the latest in there because I saw it start. I'm like, it's updated. Yeah, but it wasn't. Because I came down a few hours later that day. I'm like, it's got to be updated. And I knew they made updates to the Danger Room stuff. And I'm like, this really feels the same. Because it was. It was the same. Oh, my gosh. So thank you very much, Raymond. And I thought that was pretty special. Like you have a machine and you talk on your little podcast that mine's rebooting. And then one of the guys that works at that company and does the code sends me a message on this is why it is. And then he was right. And then now it's all good. And I think that's something that I love about Stern Pinball is that there are people like Michael Grant and Mike Vinikour and Raymond Davidson. I know others. And Cheryl. They're in all these groups and listen to the podcast. Because Raymond's in our group, and Mike Vinikour is in our group, and Cheryl's in our group. And they're in the other groups, and they see what you say. And if you have problems, a lot of times they'll message you, and they'll help you with your problem. Yeah, I've seen George Gomez pop in groups and answer questions, which is like, that's cool. It's a community. Yeah, and they're part of it. Like, the people making the games are, like, part of this. Well, a lot of the people that are making the games, like Raymond Davidson, are some of the best pinball players in the world. Yeah, I can't remember what he's ranked, like three or six or something. I think he's in the top ten. Great player. Super cool. So thanks again, Raymond. That was really, really nice. Really, really nice. So that happened. Yeah, that happened. We've had a busy week on pinball, but we promised everybody at the end of last episode that we were going to talk about our bottom five. Five games. Our top least favorite games. So I forgot about that. Because I thought we were going to be talking about. Is this going to be a long one? It's going to be a long one. Okay. Because we did say. We got our top five worst games ever made. Yeah, the top bottom. Because we're shilly bootlickers and we want to now be able to be critical of some games. Well, here we go. But we're also going to talk about perhaps creating an entirely new pinball association that would have nationwide, possibly worldwide tournaments and rankings and leaderboards. boards is similar to fashion to ifpa but a little bit different and maybe more appealing to like intermediate and novice players as well as great players so we will talk about that after we do our five i don't know what our fifth one is well you know we'll get there we'll get there we'll get there we'll get there because i really favorite but stick around because most people the average watch time on YouTube is like 15 minutes-ish, you're going to need to stick around for the second half about the Punk Rock Pinball Association. Hot topic. We'll probably do other episodes about that, but you're going to want to stick around for that after we get through our five least favorite pinball machines. Are you ready? I'm ready. Are you? Audience, are you ready? They are. Okay. Okay. Okay, so I'm going to go do this one first. Okay. So you can probably read it. So these are in no particular order. No. These are just our five least favorite that we would consider the worst. Yeah, I don't like playing them. And there's no one worst. No. These are five machines that if you tried to give them to us. No, we don't want them. We wouldn't want it. We would say keep it. We'd say no, thank you. so one of my favorite carl pilkington lines keep it keep it uh-huh keep it keep it yeah we we don't want it so this is not going to come to any but a shock to anyone who has listened to a few episodes of this the first one i'm going to mention is shrek i hate it i do not like that game No. I get bored, and it is just pointless. Agreed. And the funny thing is, who designed Shrek? My guy, Pat Lawler. Pat Lawler? Hey, you know what? Every now and again, you're going to have a stinker. And Pat Lawler is, I believe, your favorite pinball guy, designer? Yeah, I'm a Lawler lady. Is he your favorite pinball friend? Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, I just, I've never met him, but I really enjoy his games. Ripley's Believe It or Not, great game. So punk rock stars don't like Shrek. No. No, they don't. The next one I'm going to go to, well, you pick the next one that you want to talk about. We'll save that one for last. Okay. Well, and what are we going to replace this with? There's one on the list that's going to get replaced. We'll talk about that second to last. Okay. The next one would be my least favorite game I've ever played, and I played it with CJ, and we were at the Galloping Ghosts, and we were playing in a tournament, and our game had ended quick. I'm like, let's play something else, and we looked at this one. I says, let's play this one, and he's like, okay, if you want to play one of the worst pinball machines ever made, and I thought, huh, it can't be that bad. and i like cj's kind of particular about his pinball machine like it can't be that bad and we started playing and i'm like it's that bad and the game is spy hunter by bally by bally 1984 it's a 1984 bally i would encourage you to look on pinball map if any of these are near you to some of them are older you may find a shrek near you go try to play that and see if you disagree Yeah, we're not yucking someone's yum. If you love it, fine. This is why they make Neapolitan ice cream, as my dad would say. A little something for everybody. These ones just aren't for us. Yeah, we just don't like them. We just don't like them. It doesn't mean that... I know that people worked really hard on these games, and they thought they were really great. I don't think they purposefully tried to put out a piece of shit. Right. They just don't connect with us. Yeah, we don't connect with these games. Spy Hunter. But, man, Spy Hunter is just bad. I didn't even play it because you and CJ were like... There's just whole areas that's like, why? Just why? Like, is this something my dad would say? Don't waste your time. Don't waste your time. Most of Spy Hunter, I'm playing it and I'm like, why? Why are you the way that you are? Why? Okay. That's my comment on Spy Hunter. Why? I kind of want to play it. Yeah, you haven't played it, have you? No. Okay, well, fine. We'll look for one. Well, you threw that one on the list. I also not to like crap on another game that we played at Galloping Ghost, which is like, you know, they've got a ton of games there. People love going there. You should check it out. But the other one that I don't like is Qbert, like the video game. But this is a pinball machine made by Gottlieb in 83. 1983 Gottlieb. It looked really interesting to me because the flippers kind of go in different ways, and they really tried something new. It just didn't work. That one should have just stayed on the drawing board. They should have been like, let's try this, and then I don't know if it's going to work. They should have said no, but maybe they were under time constraints. They had to push out another game because they were cranking stuff out so quickly. Yeah, in those 80s, they were just cranking them out. Just get it out there. Yeah. It feels like a just get it out there. The artwork on the play field, it felt in my memory like, is there artwork on the play field? And not that it was old or rubbed off. I think it was just very minimal. Was it as good as the older Stern Star Trek? Not the old, old one, but like the... The basic one, the one that looks like... The Steve Ritchie? It's the Steve Ritchie Star Trek. That looks better. Because that looks like MS Paint or something. Oh, that's way better than Q-Bert. Okay. I played Qbert just once, and I'll agree that I did not enjoy it. And I thought I would because I liked the arcade game as a kid. I loved it. The arcade game was fun. So fun. Pinball? Keep it. It didn't translate. Keep it. All right, the fourth one we're going to talk about has an asterisk on it because this game we actually played tonight. Yes, at our new friend Jeff's house. Yeah. In Bloomington. Yeah. And we'd previously played one of these on a location, and it was beat to shit, and it was a piece of shit. It is a very difficult game. It's a very challenging game. But tonight, Mike played a good version of it. I watched a little bit while I was playing a different game. You're playing Elvira Scared Stiff, which is a great game. It's so good. This game is Dr. Dude. Dr. Dude was on our list of worst games. Now, I say, is not on the list of worst games. Thank you, Jeff. Thank you, Jeff, for enlightening me. Jeff was coaching me, telling me what to shoot. And I was able to hit some of them. I didn't do great, but I was able to, like, you had to do this three times and that and that. And I did all that and got the multiball. It's a hard game still. But I think not one of the five worst ever made. It's actually maybe pretty good. So Dr. Dude might actually be a pretty good game, and I was wrong. So we need to find a new one to put in the bottom five. Well, think about it this week. Right now, if you're going to count an EM, Big Indian. I love it. Get rid of it, Joe. I love it. I hate it. I'll tell you what I would put in that spot right now is any game with those gimmicky little baby flippers. What if it has little baby gimmick flippers and real-size flippers? No, if there's a gimmick flipper in there, not interested. Who called that a gimmick? Me. Okay I thought somebody else maybe did No I just stole that from MXV when he talks about gimmicks like mayo and mustard Oh yeah condiments MXV thinks condiments are a gimmick I love condiments. It's like I like the sauces as much as I like the food. I know. If I could just eat the sauce. So Steph says any game with the gimmick little flippers that say flipper. I hate them. She doesn't like them. I don't like them. I don't really like the EM games, really, any of them. But even Space Invaders isn't an EM. It's got those little gimmick flippers. It does have the gimmick flippers. Take it. And those are a scam, because if you flip on those... Don't. If you flip on those... I think it was Ruben. We were playing something, an old one at Ruben, that said they were a scam. Oh, he did say they were a scam. There was one that had a little flipper up top, and he was like, that one's a scam, because It's like you'd hit it, you'd just drain. And I can't remember what game it was. The Scam Flipper. So to be determined on the fifth most terrible, it was Dr. Dude. Not anymore. Well, that was in our fourth spot. That was in the fourth. So we need to find a new one. But we had the list. We'll come up with a new one maybe on a future episode to put in the bottom five. It was Dr. Dude. People can change. And we changed. We changed. So not anymore, thanks to Jeff and his much nicer example of Dr. Dude than the one that we played. Yeah, his games were all very nice. And last but not least, or maybe least. Well, we didn't say these were any ring to order. So this last one, saving it for last, because two people reached out to us after the last episode when I said, this game if you were bringing it and I guess I did mention this is JJP and I said that the plunger seems like a limp dick and Chad Udell and Shelley Sharp both messaged us spoke with us and called it Guns and Roses pretty game to look at beautiful game lots of lights I'd say way too many lights so we'll give guns and roses the title of the worst ultra modern pinball machines in sports cards you call them ultra modern because it's like anything like spike 2 or newer i know jjp's not spike 2 but like a like an lcd game yeah gnr is the worst by a mile and i you know i've been thinking about it i think like the flipper on it like it there's that weird little skill shot so Maybe it's not supposed to be plungy, but I'll tell you what, it feels like shit. Because the skill shot's a little dinky, like, yeah, it's dumb. Yeah. There's no satisfaction in hitting that skill shot at all. No, it, like, makes me not want to play. Yeah. It definitely does not, like, I couldn't wait to play my third ball on that at Expo and just be done with it. And then the lights are, and I've played this not just at Expo, I've played it at, like, three or four different locations. and I know that there is a passionate group of people out there that love that this machine so I again I'm not yucking your yum we just were told that we're being too positive about stuff so we're gonna let a little of this out I think Guns N' Roses is a piece of shit you could describe the play field at all times it's like unicorn sharts with the lights wow there's just lights everywhere everything's lit like what are you supposed to hit everything's lit you just hit everything all the time i mean i played one game not knowing what i was doing i had like four multi balls and in one ball well you were playing good i guess and it still was just like not fun meh clunky those jjps of that era the the flippers feel terrible they've come a long way Their first best one was Elton John. Yeah. So to not just JJP bash here. But prior to Elton John, all of those JJP games, the flippers feel horrible. Yeah, I want to love them. I want to love Hobbit. I want to love Willy Wonka. I really want to love that one. And I just can't. They're clunky. Flippers feel like crap. I do like Dialed In, though. dialed in spawn and then once they did elton john like the flippers felt better avatar the flippers feel much better harry potter the flippers feel much better so they figured something out with the flippers kudos to you jjp for figuring out the flippers you're so posi trying to be posi and a negative video but i would love to have a willy wonka but i just don't like it i know it's not on the bottom list like you couldn't give me a gnr you could give me a willy wonka oh for sure but i want to love it so much more gnr no wonka oh yeah i agree because that version that willy wonka the real willy wonka like great movie i'd argue that like now we're just maybe we'll put that in here they didn't do a great job with theme integration on the wonka Like using movie clips with audio from the film. Maybe they couldn't get that stuff. Yeah, maybe not. Because that disappoints me on that one. I know, because it's just like beloved. And I want it to be great. Yeah. I want it to be great and it isn't. So there we go. We ripped on some games. I hope that makes you happy. Even though, like I would take a Wonka if you wanted to give it to me. I'd take a Wonka. Or if you wanted to sell me one for like four grand, I would take it for that. I'd take a Wonka. Yeah. But GNR, keep it. Keep it. We don't have room. Even at the club, we won't have room. Yeah. And it's just not fun. It's just not fun. Like, GNR is not a fun game to play, period. Not for us. Some people love it. Do you love the Jersey Jack Guns and Roses? Anybody? Raise your hand in the comments. Because our friend Jason, he owned it, and he said he couldn't get rid of it fast enough. and CJ has it now. He traded to CJ for Avengers Premium, I think, which is much better than Guns N' Roses. But I think CJ will probably trade it or sell it. I think Guns N' Roses might be a little bit more valuable. Hopefully, we're not going to single-handedly tank the market on Guns N' Roses. No. Lots of people love it. it's a huge band I know so if you love Guns N' Roses like if they were my favorite band I would maybe still want that just cause there's that one and then there's the is it an older Stern or is it like a Sega I think it's a Stern or a Dead East one of those it was one of those and it was a Borg I'm sure it's better than the Jersey Jack one I've never played it but it's a John Borg so you know it's good John Borg doesn't have a single game that is like a clunk fest period No. None. Genius. Yeah. So there you have it. Our top bottom five. Our top bottom five. The top five of the worst bottom five. To us. Just to us. Yeah. Don't take offense if you love one of these games. It's fine. There's lots of people that shit on Ripley's and I love it. I'll tell you what. Because a lot of folks watching would probably say Venom Pro should be on there. and I'd say you're wrong because Venom even the pro is great and if you think because a lot of people thought Venom Pro it's the worst it isn't it's fantastic have you played Guns N' Roses? have you played Guns N' Roses? have you played Q-Bert? have you played Q-Bert? it's almost unfair because some of those 80s ones It's such a different deal than the new ones, but that's our list. It might change. I'll tell you what, I don't think Shrek and GNR are coming off of it. Shrek, definitely not. So your fifth really could be Family Guy because it's the same as Shrek. I've never played it. No, that goes together. It's the same damn game. I know, Shrek slash Family Guy. I've never even encountered the Family Guy one. I don't care to. No. Because the layout is dumb. Keep it. Keep it. All right. Are you ready to switch topics here? I feel like we've adequately covered that topic. All right. Let's switch topics. Let's talk about something. Topical? Topical. Let's talk about something topical. We've been talking about this for months now, like probably four to six months. I've had the seeds of this idea that I would like to make it's a big endeavor it's a big endeavor I would like to make a punk rock pinball association where we have punk rock pinball themed tournaments nationwide And we have our own player database on our website, and we have our own leaderboards in a similar fashion to IFPA. IFPA stands for? International Flipper Pinball Association. And IFPA is like, they're like the PGA. kind of almost like the PGA and the USGA if you're familiar with golf at all USGA is like the rules of golf PGA has their own rules but it's like the top the governing body the USGA is the governing body and the PGA is like the league for the best in the world and IFPA exists and their formulas because every IFPA tournament you can earn a certain number of points. And there's very complicated formulas behind it calculating how many points are available for this tournament based on things like the quality of the players in the field and how many meaningful games you played and how many players are in the field and all kinds of formulas. And they do a very good job of trying to get exactly, exactly, exactly rewarding the most points to the best people in the hardest tournament. Would you say that's correct? I think that's correct. A lot of work has gone into this. Yes. What is lacking, I think, currently in the IFPA, and I'm not bashing them, like they've existed. And if you want to, if you're one of the top probably 300 to 500 players in the world, Like, even if our Punk Rock Pinball Association tournaments and leaderboards are there and they exist, and even if we have thousands of players, it's going to mean more to you to be on top of the IFPA leaderboard. Totally. That will forever be the gold standard of who's the best pinball player in the world, like whoever's number one on IFPA. Mm-hmm. So we're not really trying to compete with that. Right. But what's the topical piece about it? The topical piece about it is that the IFPA announced this week that starting in the 2026 season, they're adjusting the rules around Amazing Race finals. And Amazing Race is a certain format where every player in the field, you would say you would start on cyclone and the lowest seed would play first they would shoot a score all three balls all three balls and then if i'm the next lowest seed all i have to do is beat their score you could do it in one ball i do it in one ball i beat it in one ball once i've beat that score, I move on to say Iron Maiden. And the person that has the lowest score, they stay there. And if they remain the lowest, they're out. And everyone else goes to the next as you've beaten that score and so on and so on until there's one person left. Yeah, it's really fun, actually. And it starts a little slow, but then it goes really fast. And it's pretty exciting and a fun way to compete. Yes. but they're changing how you can accumulate points in amazing race right because the way that it works efficiently is if if you beaten the low score in a game you go ahead and start the next and you go ahead and start the next as long as you not the lowest person And somehow they saying that because multiple rounds technically are going at once they want to reward fewer points for that, and they want to earn the most points. You have to have the entire field play on one game, and then the entire field move to the next game, in the entire field, which would add five times the amount of time to the process. But somehow it's more fair because it's one round at a time. And somehow that's better for the better players. I don't get it. I don't get it either. It feels like, and what do I know? It feels like they are trying to discourage doing amazing race finals. Because part of their ways you can earn points is by having more meaningful matches. And here is an issue a lot of people have with the IFPA that is not really an issue for me personally, but I know for a lot of people that it's already set up where it really favors, like if you live in a smaller market like us in Bloomington, we play in Bloomington mostly and Peoria, we go all over, but like our home tournaments are down here. And if you live, say, in Kansas or you live in the middle of nowhere in Indiana, No tournament you play in anywhere near you is going to have the ability to be worth enough points for you to be ranked in the top 1,000. So the IFPA, the way it currently is formulated, way favors the people in the big markets like Chicago. because Chicago has a super concentration of people that are ranked in the top 100. Like the majority of the top 100 is in Chicago, and I don't know if that's because they are the best 100 or is it because they have been ranked in the top 100 and they all play each other, so their tournaments are worth 10 times as many points as a tournament that we would have down here. Maybe more. Maybe more. Because I tell you what, we played up at the Papa, and I sucked. I sucked at Papa. And I think I got more for my suckage at Papa. I played like absolute shit and sucked. And I got more for that than I would have for winning a tournament at our house that had 20 players. Yeah, it's funny because we were on the fence about going up to Silver Ball and Papa and even playing in Expo. and our friends down here were like, you have to. Like, you have to go, and even if you, and just shoot to try to end up middle of the pack is what you want to do to just get some points because, yeah, being in Illinois with all of those good players is just really hard. Not that we're ever going to be at the top either. No, no. It's just like how high can you get is really the game that we play down here because there's no way you're going to ever be able to – we don't have the skill level to be – anybody can have a bad game, I get it, but we're not expert level players yet. No, we're intermediate at best. So we're not complaining like we need a format where we can be at the top of the rankings because we're never going to be it. Like when we roll out the Punk Rock Pinball Association tournaments, I'll tell you what, me and Stephanie, once enough tournaments have been played, are not going to be anywhere near the top 50 or 100 in that because we're not that good. So I'm not trying to make a series where we can be ranked at the top because we're not going to be. But I also will tell you, because I also played in the classics at Papa and Expo, and I got more for my shit-ass performance. I played dog shit in those. Just absolute trash. And then I finished second and fourth and stuff down here get fewer points for that than I did for my bullshit shitscapade on those classics games. And it doesn't make sense. No, it doesn't make sense. It doesn't make sense. It just, it makes you feel like it doesn't, the only thing that matters is playing in four things, three or four things up in Chicago. Everything else doesn't matter. Like your leagues in the smaller markets don't matter, which is like such a bummer because that doesn't help. We want more people to play pinball and we want to like grow a community and it's fun to compete at your local place. But you can't compete like across the board, across the country, across the state. You just can't compete with anybody else if there's a bigger market with a huge scene. And it would be a huge bummer if you were an elite player. If you were an elite player that, say, lived in Springfield, Illinois, it's three hours plus to Chicago. So you're not going to go play the monthly tournament up there. You may or may not have the time off work to go spend three days in Schaumburg. But there's also not a single league or tournament you can play anywhere near you in Springfield, Illinois, that's going to get you anywhere near sniffing the state championship level ranking in Illinois. Like, no shot. You could win every single one. You could have 40 tournaments a year in Springfield, Illinois, and you could win every single one of them. and by the end of the year you're not ranked in the top 80 in the state it's true that's just not i mean that's maybe that's still finding the best of the best because if you are the best of the best you'll make your way to those big ones but it doesn't it's not it feels like it's totally discounting anyone that is in a more remote place and the if you're in a remote place without spending big money to travel like you just might as well forget about it it just makes you wonder because in reading some of the comments um after ifpa made this announcement about how they want to to change the amazing race format for next season lots of people saying like i don't even like i i don't even do ifpa tournaments anymore like it's not fun And what a bummer, because I believe in like, again, the IFPA and everything they put into it, that doesn't happen overnight. And that's an easy thing to put together. I mean, just look at their website, their website, super complicated, like, there's a lot of stuff that goes into it. And I don't want to discredit like anybody's effort to get it to where it's at. But it seems like everyone wants to grow pinball. Everybody wants to have more people come into the hobby, and there is a need. I think people are asking for an alternative format. Right. Or it's not even a format, like a league, not a league. It's basically like it's kind of a league, like a national organization and ranking system that maybe takes itself a little bit less seriously. because the IFPA is very serious, and it's serious business, and I think if pinball were to ever, say, make the Olympics, and we should have an episode on getting pinball into the Olympics, because pinball should be in the Olympics, and if it ever does make it to be in the Olympics, it's going to be because of the IFPA. So I'm not trying to, like, complaining a little bit about certain things, how certain types of players would feel about the IFPA. I'm not trying to discredit them in any shape or fashion. Because if pinball becomes a legitimate sport, a more mainstream sport, it's going to be because of the IFPA, and they're going to be the ones. They're like the competitive leaders. But I think especially for the novice to intermediate player, to even very good player, anybody outside the elite, I think there is a desire and a need for an organization that is a little bit less serious about truly finding the best player and tweaking every rule to try to find the absolute best player. Where maybe somebody that isn't the best player could get to the top of the rankings or near the top by playing a shitload of tournaments like our friend Kat. Grinding it out. But like Cat Davis is like everywhere at every tournament in the Midwest always. Yeah. And with IFPA, it doesn't matter because only your top certain number of tournaments even count on your score. So I think if I'm doing the Punk Rock Pinball Association, the amount of points you can earn for individual tournaments in a year is unlimited based on how many tournaments you play. So your points will keep going. it's going to count all of your tournaments in one big score and not just your top 15. So, Kat, if you go and play 100 punk rock pinball tournaments in a year, you're getting points for every single one. Yeah. So you're going to reward the grind of just trying. I'm not as good as these people, so I'm going to play five times as many tournaments and I'll have as many points. Yeah, I think the way we've been thinking about it is If IFPA is like the MLB, like pro baseball, the Punk Rock Pinball Association would be like minor league. Yeah, we're like the minor league baseball. It's like way more affordable, so more inclusive and fun. Like minor league baseball games are really fun. Not that IFPA isn't. It's just different. Those guys I feel like are elite and super serious. Yeah. Not that we aren't. We want to win. Yeah. But it seems like there is an opportunity to bring in the great players, the intermediate players and new players and allow them to all participate together and kind of grind it out together. Yeah. And we haven't landed, we've been talking a ton about it, I haven't landed fully on how people are going to accumulate points and what are all the tournament formats. And I do think IFPA tournaments are fun, and I really enjoy going to the bigger ones and seeing how poorly I stack up to the best in the world. and they are ultra serious but they have to be because like the usga is also super serious for golf yeah and the pga tour rules and their whole format is super serious so we're going to we're going to be like the savannah bananas i was just going to say that even though they're not even a real minor league team no they're just fun they're just we're like the harlem globetrotters even though it's not going to be a joke but it's going to take itself a little less seriously try to encourage maximum participation maximum fun I want to figure out and this is where you can help if you're watching, especially experienced tournament players some way to address pace of play in the bigger tournaments if you have better players maybe it involves like when somebody's lighting up a machine to like tap them out earlier where it's like okay you can't lose but you have to stop and if somebody catches it you're both going to win that round because a lot of that i think for a novice to intermediate like certain rounds taking so long is is not appealing like if you're in a four player match play and like your round on godzilla goes an hour like nobody wants that nobody wants that nobody wants that so we have to figure out how we're going to address like that kind of thing and i know if if you're doing like a high level ifpa tournament you can't do that because this is you need to see who's the best and that's going to take however long it takes so this we also envision this as not just Mike and Steph saying like, this is what we should do. Right. We want to if you are interested in helping to create something like this like please email at livefromtherockroom or DM him on Facebook or whatever I'm Facebook friends with half the people that listen to this show. Send me a Facebook message. Email me, Mike, at livefromtherockroom.com. I don't have an at punkrockpinball.com yet, but we're going to redirect that website. Not yet, but my Live from the Rock Room email will live on. But we need to, because we can't do this just the two of us. I can do a lot of it, and you can do a lot of it. Not really. This is like it takes a village. This is going to take a team. And it's for all of us. It's for everybody. It's for everyone. It's for us. It's for you. So Bird out in Washington State, if you're watching, I know you're a hardcore tournament player. We love input from everybody. And maybe we even think about doing like a survey out to everybody and just getting like that's that's not a huge commitment to answer a survey. But we really would like to get like a small group of people who are passionate about this, too. And let's figure out how we can do this together. Anything's possible. Yeah, because we're looking for a couple of things. I would love like a small group of folks like Bird would be a good one. lily our friend lily would be a good one people that have played on a lot of tournaments and we will do a survey in the group like on a google form like kind of asking some of your favorite things and least favorite things about tournaments try to find the structure that is the most fun with the idea of the novice and intermediate player in mind because the idea of this league or association is to try to rein in more novice players that are afraid to play in a tournament period and like our friend jeff who we met tonight he's coming out next friday to the golden ticket theater and i'm encouraging him to play he's good enough to play a tournament anyone's good enough to play a tournament he's never played one there's another fellow in town I was chatting with on Facebook. I've never played a tournament. Well, you should. But I want some experienced tournament folks to kind of meet with us. Maybe we can get on a Zoom and brainstorm some format options and solidify how points can be accumulated and things like that. The other thing that we'll need help with, this is where we would need a team. So I've talked to pinball friend Matthew, who's an app developer, who would be the he's talented, would make a kick ass app. That is not cheap. No. So I would like to roll this out and build the player database and everything on the web first. I would love to eventually be able to hire Matthew to make this app. I think it would be amazing. I think you'd make a pretty flawless app, and no one else has an app. But we need to first roll it out on the web. So I have some web skills, but I am not a developer. So if you are like a web developer that have ideas on how you could structure kind of the player database on the back end of that kind of stuff, definitely email me. and this wouldn't you wouldn't be working for free like we'll pay something yeah because it's not going to be volunteer work even though we're volunteering but we wouldn't expect you if you're a talented developer like we'll pay you but maybe a little less than the normal rate because if you're a pinballer this is for the greater pinball good we're not trying to make a an association to make money. It's so that there's more fun pinball tournaments and things to be a part of. Yeah. And if you like the idea of this, and I know everybody's time is super valuable and we don't have enough time to spend playing pinball or other fun things like work and other life stuff gets in the way, but if you just want to support it, it would just be really awesome if you guys bought a t-shirt or a hoodie because that is going to help fund this it will offset some of the costs that we're we're putting into it so if you want to help out in a different way that would be super cool yeah buy the merch i i also just want to say i know there's a lot of other podcasts out there in different cat hobby categories and they do patreons and to me that just feels gross so we'll never ask you for just straight up money um like buy some merch is an awesome way to support us yeah because i can tell you just some rough costs to make an app a good app would be over twenty thousand dollars and if you're going to make a really good app it's probably going to be closer to like thirty to fifty thousand dollars i mean that's a lot of hoodies that's a lot of hoodies i'm not saying it's good i know if we build this in a very robust in high quality way on on the web it's going to be at least a few thousand dollars maybe probably three to five to eight thousand dollars i don't know which i'm willing to fund the bulk of it but if you would buy some hoodies if you want this to happen like if you buy a hoodie if you buy one of these hats or buy a t-shirt from anxious and angry like that would help expedite the situation uh right yeah totally totally or please we would love anyone to volunteer their time to help us out too yeah like if you are a web developer and you're like i just want to be on the team and i want to do this for free then i'll tell you what if you develop that part for free and then if because we will do with the punk rock pinball association tournaments we'll do like the ifpa where every the tournament directors pay one dollar for every player and we will take that money and we will have a national championship i already have an idea where that can be and i'm thinking the national championship that we will have like a major punk band or two playing a show at in conjunction with our national championship so some of that money will go to the prize pool, but some of that money could go to pay you, web developer person that volunteered your coding time to build this. We can guarantee you a cut of those funds until you're paid XYZ amount of dollars, whatever the fair market value is for the work that you did. So there's a lot, yes, there's a lot of things we need to figure out. I think raise your hand if and reach out if you want to help us figure it out. And and also if you love doing market research and want to help with a survey, that would be meaningful. That would be great. Those are kind of the first few few next steps. Mm hmm. And I think every every episode of a podcast will give a little update on stuff. Yeah. Yeah, I'm excited. Like, I've been, I think, I just, as soon as we started playing a lot of tournaments, I really love them. But every tournament I play, and I'm not criticizing any tournament director, like, we've tournament directed, and ours are the same. I just feel like this is awesome. I still think it could be better. in terms of just fun for more casual folks because we're like hardcore and like i don't really care that much that like i watched those expo finals until they ended at five i watched that on the stream until three in the morning because we had to come home but like i would probably just stayed there and watched because i'm hardcore but i want to find a way that make it super fun to people that maybe aren't as hardcore as us in a lot of the tournaments that I've played, it's like, I love this, but if I brought my brother here, he would have been ready to go a while ago. Oh, like at Expo? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Or if we brought him to the Silver Ball one. Yeah. Or even some of the bigger ones here. Like, let's say when the Friday ones in Peoria were getting big, if he would have made the finals, he would have probably just rather gone home than stay to play his finals because some of those went, just a few matches in the finals, like goes a long time. It's so fun. And I love it, but like I want stuff where it's like I could make my brother go and he's going to like enjoy 98% of it. Yeah, it almost needs to be something kind of like closer to bowling where like when you bowl in a league i'm just going to use that as an example yeah where you have to do three games i think it is when we did the league it was like three games you do three games and you're done yeah and and there are no finals it's just like you you know what you're getting into yeah like closer to us watching youth soccer versus youth baseball. Like, youth baseball can go, like, there is no clock. It's just going to keep on going until they get through the game, right? But youth soccer, there's somewhat of a time limit to it. Yeah, that's the thing. Here's one thought that we had, and then we'll leave it after this. So, like, on the match play, let's say you got a five-round match play tournament. in almost all the tournaments we've played you do oh five rounds of match play and then the top so many make the finals what if there wasn't the finals and if it was over at the end of the match play that's the standings and if there was a tie breaker you'd play a tie breaker match to get the true standings and there is no finals it's just how the match play worked out There's 10 people, first through 10th. You don't need a top four in the finals. The first place is the person that had the most points after five rounds of match play. Boom, everybody go home. You would have loved that at the Sharps last week. At Joe and Shelly's last week, I would have had second place, just like I did in the strikes tournament, except we had to do stupid finals, and I got my ass kicked, or I sucked on the amazing race on King Kong. So I would have had back-to-back second place finishes. Yeah. but that's why i love a strikes tournament because there is no finals you just play until you're out yeah it's kind of cool play until you've got a strike to give to spare you're in you could still win when you get all the strikes that you're allowed you're out you can go yeah i like his strikes too because the finals and as a tournament director like you've got your own match play now You have to make the new match play thing, the finals for such and such. Now it's these four people and they're doing this. And it's just, do you need that? We just played five rounds. Whoever scored the most, they won. Good night. Keep it. And then we could do another one. Just do a whole new tournament that night. Yeah, you could. Instead of the finals, you could have everybody get to play a second tournament. because you wouldn't have all this wasted time with the finals with these four people playing each other. So much to discuss. Yeah. Yeah, let us know if we're nuts. Let us know if you're into it. Like, be honest. Yeah. Do you want to play in a punk rock pinball tournament and climb the punk rock pinball leaderboards? Earn your popper points? Popper points? Oh, my God. I don't know. Is this a crazy idea? I don't think so. We're doing it. All right. Unless everyone watching says, no, I don't want to do that. Or there's just some real jerks out there who are like, you should totally do it. And then they're like, that's a terrible idea. Let's watch them fall. Yeah. If you all watch and say, I don't want, I wouldn't play those. Okay. F you. I just want to only play IFPA tournaments. Fine. Maybe we won't do it. Yeah. If nobody's going to play, then what's the point? We want you to want to play. Yeah. That's the whole point. Totally. But if we're not, so let us know. Yeah. We have thick skin. Mm-hmm. Put it in the comments, you churros. Put it in the comments, you crazy churros. Yeah. How about that? Yeah. All right. All right. It's 9.51 now. Oh, geez. Almost time for bed. Oh, gosh. It's Saturday night. Saturday night. We've got to get in bed by 10. Oh, my God. So I can wake up at 2 in the morning and be up for like three hours. Uh-huh. Yeah, that's how it goes. Okay. Wrap it up? Yeah. All right. Thanks for watching. All right. See you guys next time. Bye. Toodle-oo.