Is This Pinball?

HELLO??? HELLO???????????? No, you're not hallucinating. It's been four years and we're "back," baybeeee. In these past four years, the podcast market reached an apex and then crashed down directly onto a Casper mattress in a ball of Squarespace-sponsored flames. But we're still here! And Dylan's editing it now! So if you have any issues, bring it up with him! If you're like, "they keep referencin...

HEY THERE, KIDDOS. We're back! For our un-regular, chaos schedule for these un-regular chaos times. This week, we discuss eating one food group at a time, if the book in the living room is yours, Christian rock opera versions of popular IPs, the return to universal subjectivism, and our quickly unraveling psyches. AND IT ALL MAY OR MAY NOT BE PINBALL. GOOD LUCK. Oh, and stick around to the end for...

We can't avoid the discourse! We're talking about what everyone else is! And that thing is Elden Ring ! That's right, we're diving into the saddest monsters, the deep lore, and George RR Martin's tiny lil' hat.

Did you know that three Pinocchio movies coming out this year? There are. There are three. That sounds, like us, like three too many. In addition, we ask what the best century is, what exactly are sports, and should someone watch all 13 X-Men movies? All good questions, we think. Oh, and how pinball they all are, obviously.

Hey friends! Your favorite intermittently-released podcast is back!  We start of with the tried-and-true Discussion of Ol' Dusty Tomes with Dylan Waite and, uh, things kind of veer off-course from there. I mean, what did you expect? That's kind of what we do.

Willie says "it's objectively an episode!" And an episode it is! Tune in to listen to us lose our minds over ska jazz cover art, berate Dylan his old dusty tomes, some obligatory Sondheim opinions, and other super accessible and broad topics that are sure to appeal to everyone and everything. Oh, and we figure out if it's pinball. Obviously.

Did you think we left?? Did you??? You dummy, did you think we'd leave YOU???? Never. We'd never. That's right: we're back and committing to being entirely uncommitted to any sort of schedule. But here we are: letting you know what's pinball and what isn't. And we missed you. This week, we discuss the dark carnival, Dylan disappointing children,  Malignant , Willie's conquest of Pokemon Go, an ult...

WE'RE BACK BAYBEEEEEEE. That's right: your three hosts are fresh off summer vacation and are back to talk about... wax museums. Yes, that's right: Dylan spent some time in Salem, MA, which is positively overflowing with wax facsimiles. Come for the wax chat, stay for word history, witch talk, and if wizards could have stopped global catastrophes.... and how pinball it all is (or isn't). We missed...

Hey fronds! "Is This Pinball" is going on summer break! As you may have noticed the past couple of weeks, we've been wrestling with our own personal life schedules in this era of reopening. So, we're going to take the summer to get our feet back under us. Until then: Stay safe! H.A.G.S.!

This week, Dylan brings in some French literature with a priest who can't help but love the ladies, Amy loses her mind over  Speed , and Willie remains haunted by Resident Evil . Tune in for the allegorical truth of pinball, Point Break , Gary Bussy, a confusion of Jeffs, and some actual real thoughtful discussion of game design (WHO WOULDA GUESSED?) 

Last week, Willie (for reasons known only to him) decided to watch all the  Resident Evil  movies. Did you know that there are a lot of them? Like, a LOT of them? I didn't. But there are. And now Willie is gonna tell us about them, because otherwise they'll haunt him forever. How pinball is Milla Jovovich? We may be the only ones brave enough to find out.

OK, sure: Amy might have recorded this hunched over her computer in her parents' den. And, yeah, Dylan's audio is haunted by his ever-rumbling air conditioning. BUT YOU'RE NOT HERE FOR THE SOUND QUALITY (probably), you're here for the GOOD GOOD GOOFS. And this episode sure has a lot of those good goofs you crave. Whether we're DUNKING on Donald Rumsfeld, marveling at Hitachi's range of products, o...

Uh oh Amy has gone to Connecticut to do New England type things and left the boys all alone! They sat in the dark for a long time and then Sam Trillo (a.k.a. Poochy) walked in and turned the lights on to chat about music and comedy and just how pinball singing pee pee poo poo quietly to yourself is!

We have a whole smorgasbord for you this week! Wanna know what Dylan thought about  In the Heights ? (The answer might surprise you!) Wanna know about what fantasy series Willie knows a lot about? (The answer might surprise you!) Wanna know if a game called  New World  is possibly a minefield of BAD CHOICES? (The answer absolutely will not surprise you!) WE GOT IT ALL, BAYBEEE.

Willie starts the pod by saying that we "might not have that many things" to say about the movie we all watched, Zach Snyder's  Army of the Dead . Turns out we have LOTS of things to say about it: why something that sounds good on paper could be so boring, why it might not actually sound good on paper,  The Hot Rock , why even zombie ladies can't catch a break from being fridged, superimposed Tig...

With Willie and Dylan returning to work, and Amy on some theatre panel or another, scheduling got away from us this week. BUT don't worry, we'll be back next week AND, in the meantime, we have a new song from Dylan and Willie's band, The Pile! Amy thinks it's a jam! (And maybe you will too.)

This week, we're talking about video games that allow your characters to *~*do the nasty*~* Awwww yeah, baybeeee. Where do they success? Where do they fail? Why do they usually fail much more often than they succeed? WE'RE HERE TO FIND OUT. Tune in for discussion of GTA: San Andreas, Dragon Age Inquisition, Mass Effect, The Sims, The Last of Us Part II, those free to play games that tell us there'...

It's been too long since we've really tried to figure out  what pinball is , but we're here to rectify that today, through the use of Dylan's dictionary on symbols. Can we finally get to the true essence of pinball, looking at the meaning behind orbs, silver, and ramps? And what does it have to do with Egyptian mythology around pure silver god bones? TUNE IN TO FIND OUT. Oh, and we also talk about...

In this episode, we return to  Resident Evil , just in time for the release of  Resident Evil Village: Giant Lady Dating Sim . We're here to discuss why this is Dylan's favorite (ever) Resident Evil , the internet's unending horniness, why Capcom hates hands, and also why Capcom seems to be one of the last goofy-fun AAA developers.

Hey! We got a lovely, meaty email in the inbox, courtesy of listener Sam. Sam asks us some questions. And we give them some answers. This is why you should write us. Think of us as your crotchety grandparents, and we just wanna hear how you're doing. SO WRITE US, OK? (psst: isthispinball@gmail.com )   Also. Listen. We thought we were done talking Pokemon, but just when we're out, New Pokemon Snap...

With the new Mortal Kombat movie out, we're here to talk about the game that scared your grandma and has birthed at least three live-action movies. Tune in to hear a discussion of the best things about the 1995 and 2021 movies, and the worst of both, and how if we could  only just smash them together , it might make a good movie. Oh, and did you know that there's a lot of background lore in Mortal...

It's been a year! A full year of this! Whatever this is! Thanks for being here. We may not have figured out what pinball is just yet, but, honestly, who has? In this episode, we discuss Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters , dentists, and whether or not this is the very last episode of Is This Pinball? Is it? Is it the end? Listen and find out, fronds! 

This week we talk about the most pinball thing of all time (yes? yes.): Theatre! Our special guest Justin Keim recently directed one of Dylan's plays for radio, and we're here to discuss theater in the era of closed stages, Millennials, the transcendent nature of brisket, and the Sisyphean task of audio production. Find Savannah at https://lanescovenpresents.buzzsprout.com , or search any podcast...

This week, we're talking about the best movies of the decade. But we're not talking about the best movies of the  past  decade, but the best movies of the  next  decade. We have our eyes firmly locked on our movie-prediction crystal ball and, believe it or not, saw a Na'vi multipurpose psychic cloaca staring back. What else do we see? ONLY ONE WAY TO FIND OUT, BABY.

Willie said he had a topic for us this week, and that topic is "places." What does that mean? WHAT DOES THAT MEAN, WILLIE? WHAT DOES IT MEAN????? Turns out, it's mostly a chance to talk about New York, Chicago, and San Francisco, places we have opinions about (unfounded, particular, *hot takes*) and also the glory of the Denver airport. Also, we finally settle who a New Yorker is. We solved it. We...