I was starting to get depressed waiting on C2C!

Last chance Nate
to post at least one podcast per month in 2018!!

he exists...

I've been saving podcasts for the last week or so for the 15 hour drive to TPF. Might not be able to resist listening to this one before the trip.

Wait??? There is a Hilton Kaneda feud?

Big fan of your merch.

this is what we're talkin bout nate.. Don't think for a minute your podcast needs to be edited perfectly, sound drops, talking about the latest news. If you simply have to record mostly about life with a cheap pair of usb headphones, I think most of your listeners are cool with that. Just don't go dark for months at a time.

Good to have you back Nate. Great work on the nearing 40s goals but just a tip - diet drinks are really bad news. All sorts of issues are created in the body from the chemicals themselves and the brains response to what it thinks is a sugar drink.

Just one article here but perhaps swap it for coconut water

https://www.newsmax.com/t/health/article/705796?section=diet-and-fitness&keywords=diet-drink-health-sugar&year=2015&month=12&date=14&id=705796&aliaspath=%2FHealth%2FArticle%2FArticleTemplate&oref=www.google.com.au

And I suppose you're gonna say that cigarettes are bad for your health too?!

Ok - I'm not a smoker, but I'm with Nate in that I do enjoy a nice cold Diet Coke (or two) most days!

Heck yeah! A person need not sacrifice every one of life's little pleasures because it offends someone or some group. I say keep guzzling those diet cokes.

You’d be surprised how amazing food tastes once you lose a cola a day (or more) habit. Your tastes buds gradually recover and you can taste subtle flavours again. Blasting your buds with max saturation sweetened drinks just kills your taste.

After you’ve been off it for awhile and have one you’ll taste how awfully over-sweetened they are, and you won’t want more than a sip.

Just drink water. A little coconut juice or citrus juice cut with water for something ‘fancy’.

people care about you and the stuff will kill you. Be prepared for brittle bones as you age if you dont get off it... I watched it happen.

Also, worth note that getting off caffeine is very important for more permanent weight loss.

Here Nate. Some counterpoint for you.

https://theoutline.com/post/842/diet-coke-is-not-killing-you?zd=1&zi=wgguedci

Diet drinks make me vomit, but, to each their own.

Nate, I'm listening to your podcast from the beginning, and it's very interesting to hear your thoughts on the then "future" topics (you talked about Heighway Pinball on ep 06). Just really cool to know what the pinball landscape is like now, and to hear your thoughts about how you think it is in a resurgent state back in 2013-2014 or whenever you did it.

Keep up the great work, and like others have said, we just enjoy hearing you talk about things, even if not 100% pinball related.

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Too funny. If it's any consolation, I'm with you on the diet coke thing working great for diets (I'm sure it's quite the consolation). Also, my bones are naturally pretty sturdy so I think I can live with them becoming a tad more brittle. Maybe I'm wrong though and I'll end up cursed with the nickname brittle bones Brady or something like that.

Nate is BACK!

We need to ship him a few machines and get his brain 100% back on Pinball.

What’s this work nonsense? We have Pinball to discuss!

Great podcast, thanks for posting. Was great to learn more about Elwin's Iron Maiden.

Thank you for getting KME on the line. This really adds to the game's launch!!

Nate are ya back? Two episodes in 2 weeks, just like the old days.

Appreciate the conversation with KME -- great to hear insights right from the source. Thanks Nate!

Nate that was an excellent interview, kudos.

KME and I aren't friends or anything, just occasional run into each other chat style, but we were talking a while back after he was hired at Stern, and I said when his game came out I hoped that he would really be able to discuss the journey from Archer to it. This was exactly the conversation I wanted to hear.

i dont think its an "obtaining pinball" issue. sounded like hes still in a temp apartment that doesnt allow noisy pinball

awesome thanks Nate and Keith!

Missed ya.. figured since you were playing pinball with Ed on facebook there might be a chance of a new episode.

Term for after pinburg = painburgh

Hey man ( ) ... entertaining podcast as always - thanks. Did you skip fast thought #3 though? I haven't redownloaded and listened again so if not, never mind.

Finally, since you asked - I for one do NOT think IMDN is the best pinball machine ever. Or even Stern's best game ever. It's a great game, but I can't anoint it as the greatest since its theme and music don't do anything for me. FWIW, I'd personally pick MET and AC/DC over it among Stern music pins.

fast thought #8
in regards to Audio being heard/broadcast out of the speakers for A, I found the sound quality really bad (think Charlie Brown teacher voice) and also extremely distracting/disrespectful to the other people still competing in lower divisions. On the sides it was very loud and in your face (esp the ohhs and ahhs when announcers got excited). Also increased the volume of the entire place as everyone raises voices to talk over the broadcast that only a minority of people there were listening to.

I did provide formal feedback and a request to have it turned down/off until the side banks were done with finals and was told "sorry they said no as A bank is what matters and people want to hear the announcers"

Honestly found this to be a very shitty response from the organization. If an individual player had been behind me making an even remotely similar audio distraction then they would have been told to stop/ issued a yellow/red card. The lack of consistency on audio distractions was not the right decision on this ruling and really needs to be fixed. Just get rid of the in person audio. it was poor quality, distracting, and anyone wanting to hear announcers can just plug in their headphones to their phone and stream along with people at home.

There could probably be improvements to PA speaker mix, learning how to set up for large venues, how to aim the sound.

But this is the future of large pinball events.

were you there?

I enjoyed hearing the commentary. It made it more enjoyable than years past to watch. Throughout pinburgh noise is EVERYWHERE with 211 groups competing at the same time.

I took my time machine to Pinburgh 2020. Here's a pic.

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that actually is not the case for finals. I am glad it made it more enjoyable for you as a spectator, but honestly I think spectators should come after the enjoyment and excelling the sport for competitors (only way to feed the sport is to till the soil)

During finals they had all the banks set up at the front of the venue/Pinburgh area. A on stage, B C D E on the front two rows on each side of the stage.
They had set it up so people would not walk into the finals for any group and start playing games and limited distraction. This in effect made the baseline noise up front even lower so the announcers were extra loud up there.

Unfortunately then had speakers set up on the stage and they blasted the announcers out the sides to the C and B (I think B was on stage left?). If you walked over to the sides once the speakers were turned on for A quarterfinals/semifinals round then you would have a clear reference and nobody would think otherwise. The announcers voices through the speakers were louder than any other distraction the entire weekend of play, louder than the games, louder than all 211 banks being played at the same time, louder than Josh Sharpe cussing at any point of the weekend, and honestly found it really odd the way they decided to do it this year with the audio and putting spectators in A at higher importance than competitors in all other banks.

It is really not needed and as many spectators said, it even distracted from their viewing (listen to Nate and he moved back to see better and not hear the announcers as much), was impacting gameplay (active coaching of A players and impacting decision making), and also distracting to many A players that had to deal with it.

Pinball is not a premier national sport built in arenas and never will be, so the idea that all players should get used to loud distractions is silly, esp when one of the head TDs specifically made an announcement at the start of the event about not distracting others and respecting their bubble (both physical and audible distractions). Pinball honestly is more geared toward home spectating than in person spectating (home screen, audio, multiple cameras, etc... are all better at home than a screen 10 feet away where you barely see details and charlie brown audio quality) If anything, the audio is an extremely important aspect of the game and if they want to step up the level of broadcasting then they need to get better direct audio feeds from the game and mics on players like the helmet mics in NFL.

This really was not a positive for the greater sport and I hope they sincerely consider a major change (or just do away with the announcer speakers completely and have them just online broadcast).

Alternatively, I suppose we can all bring bullhorns and start commentating on all games as they go one during the seeding rounds and other division finals (joking, but this is the corollary)

Welcome back Nate,

I know this isn't the thread for how to improve Pinburgh .... but the audio deployment this year leaves me scratching my head. Why the couldn't commentary be streamed? Pull on some over-the-ear headphones to block out surrounding noise and get commentary piped directly into your head. Tune in and listen at a low volume or chose not to and don't = win/win.

Would hate for the Pinburgh audio crew to be hired for the Masters Tournament (golf) ... Their babble + speakers turned up to 120 db and distributed around the course = Masters being cancelled and spoiling an 85 year old tradition. Pinburgh has got to be changed for next year

I noticed this, as well. There was the bonus "Fast Thought 1.5," though, so technically we still got "Five Fast Thoughts," just with an atypical numbering scheme.

Of course anyone could wear headphones and use YouTube to hear the live stream. There was a friendly crowd gathered and it was cool to talk to the spectators as the matches were progressing. 200 people with earbuds in would be lame.

almost as lame as playing your best pinball ever to make it to a B C D or E division playoff and then to having to be disrupted by some loud speakers while you are attempting to continue your competitive run? Just putting some perspective on what should really matter here.

I think this really all comes down to >> do you think that spectator enjoyment (inability to wear 1 earbud so you can listen to a commentator and still talk with your buddy; or just watch at home later if you want actual good commentator listening) should take priority over all competitor enjoyment/ actual competition?

I think we should also be honest here, the audio quality of the speakers was really bad! They could not possibly have added much to the overall spectator experience.

Another option would be to have the A finals (say top eight) AFTER the other finals are completed and then turn on the commentary on the speakers.

That would run waaaay too late.

I would like to see B, C, D, and E start earlier.
Then start A a little later and dont start the announcing till after all other competition is complete.

That said, I dont think the A players should have to deal with that added distraction during the finals either. I am sure some dont mind (maybe like the added hype) but I know some said it was distracting and did not like it. It is an additional distraction and definitely can impact the game. Spectators (including announcers) should not be allowed to even potentially impact the game.

I really think the on site loudspeakers were of little value, loud, and pointless. A good solution needs to be found to not distract all competitors. If spectators really need the loud speakers (I dont think they should since the majority of people at the competition and watching live already know all the stuff being said), then there are much better ways to implement this.

Play better.

Great to hear another episode Nate. Sorry to hear of your personal struggles and I hope you're able to overcome them and continue to find personal and professional success.

Great podcast as usual, Nate!

FYI, at Cactus Jack’s we’ve been running a Pinburgh tournament clone (granted with 1/4 of the machines and 1/10 of the players) for the past 4 years. And a Circuit Event no less. Including having an EM and early SS in each bank.

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