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Episode 278: Morten Söbyskogen, Norway IFPA Director

PodcastAnalysis updated 2d ago34 min listen
From the creator

After watching the movie TENET, I was worried about the Oslo airport. Alas, just fiction. Morten provides all the Norway information and pinball tidbits as the country's IFPA Director and one of...

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Highlights

  • Norway has COVID restrictions including 1-meter social distancing, recommended face masks on public transport, and bars closing at midnight with table spacing requirements
  • Norway's pinball scene has grown consistently since 2014, expanding from Oslo-only activity to clubs in Bergen and Trondheim with competitive focus
  • Morten is ranked second in Norway's IFPA rankings and has qualified for IFPA World Championship
  • Kristiania Flipper Selskap club relocated to basement location of Andromole with 130 square meters of space
  • Sandra was diagnosed with grade four brain tumor in August 2014 with initial life expectancy of two years, and passed away in March 2018 at age 31
  • Morten's first pinball machine was a Sega GoldenEye purchased in 2014
  • Norwegian government implemented total lockdown on March 12 when COVID-19 appeared in Nordic countries
  • Morten's planned memorial tournament for Sandra's birthday (March 14) was cancelled due to COVID concerns just days before the event

Notable quotes

“everyone is actually touching the same, you know, the same few centimeters with the buttons and the lock bars. And there's a lot of physical interaction.”
Morten Söbyskogen
“I would probably like to see a stable, like the situation being quite stable for a couple of months at least.”
Morten Söbyskogen
“It's been really growing. And we are very close, as you say, to Sweden. So there are several times a year where many players are going over to a small city called Borås.”
Morten Söbyskogen
“I'm very easily going into the, you know, like each pinball machine has to be, you know, set up the same and it has to be the same for every player.”
Morten Söbyskogen
“My friends hate me and my club mates hate me, yeah. I mean, when I'm buying a new game or acquiring a new game, the first thing I'm doing is opening the outlanes, removing rubbers, tightening the tilt, removing ball save.”
Morten Söbyskogen
“I feel like the achievement of getting to the end mode is so much bigger when you know you've done it without any, you know, assists. Maybe I'm a bit tournament damaged when it comes to that.”
Morten Söbyskogen
“And yeah, we met, we got along, we fell in love, and chose to, you know, commit to each other. So we had a two-year long distance relationship where she finished her studies back in Austria, and she always wanted to go back to Norway.”
Morten Söbyskogen
“But we didn't talk too much about the fact of her life ending much earlier than it should be but we kind of chose to continue living with a sense of normality in our lives”
Morten Söbyskogen

Entities

  • Austrian Pinball Open· event
  • Borås Pinball Open· event
  • Dutch Pinball Masters· event
  • EPC (European Pinball Championship)· event
  • IFPA World Championship· event
  • Jack Danger's Iron Maiden Challenge· event
  • Pinberg Challenge· event
  • Game of Thrones· game
  • Iron Maiden· game
  • KISS· game
  • Sega GoldenEye· game
  • Stingray/C-Ray· game
  • The Walking Dead· game
  • Death of Giants· organization
  • Flipper Kellern/Flipperkellern· organization
  • Frail Grounds· organization
  • Kristiania Flipper Selskap· organization
  • Oslo Pinball Club· organization
  • PIN Lab· organization
  • Pinside· organization
  • Tilt· organization
  • Jeff Teolis· person
  • Morten Söbyskogen· person
  • Sandra· person
  • Tom Andre· person

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