I'm David Ferrier in New Zealand to accidentally marooned in America and I want to figure out what makes this country tick.

Now as soon as I started to settle in the United States, I found a few bars that I liked.

I love bars in America, mainly because you can go on your own like a total loser and just sit up at the bar and do your thing and that's normal. You don't need friends. There might be sports on that you can watch,

or you can just strike up a conversation with someone random next to you.

The last time I was at a bar I met Rhonda,

who was in a reminiscing kind of mood.

We live on the boulevard, so there's been gruesome moments.

I watched a guy get hit on a motorcycle,

and I watched him fly up in the air in his shoes and his helmet went everywhere.

In New Zealand, going out solo isn't really done.

You have to be with friends and friends are great, but sometimes you just want to have some time to yourself or meet someone like

Rhonda. The other thing I like about some of the bars in America is that they have pinball machines that you can play.

I'm not sure when I started really noticing this but they're an extra thing to do and

like drinking they can be done solo or with friends. And so today we turn to pinball, a game America turned into a phenomenon, one that's currently booming

here in the US. I wanted to explore the origins of the game and where it fits into American

culture in 2023.

So, hold on to that table and make sure your reaction times are up to speed,

because this is the pinball episode.

Flagless. episode. I'm a fly this bird touch down in America.

Probably one of the more wild transitions in an intro.

I sort of just was thinking about bars a lot, and then I met Rhonda, and then it's sort of,

oh, there are pinball machines,

...