# PNP 665- Gremlins VS Goonies+ Pokemon ?'s+ AP Interview+ TWIPYS LIVE Vote!

**Source:** Poor Man's Pinball Podcast  
**Type:** podcast_episode  
**Published:** 2026-01-21  
**Duration:** 60m 1s  
**Beat:** Pinball

**URL:** https://poormanspinballpodcast.libsyn.com/pnp-665-gremlins-vs-goonies-pokemon-s-ap-interview-twipys-live-vote

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## Analysis

Orbital Albert discusses Gremlins vs Goonies pinball IP potential, claims to have evidence of Gremlins pinball in development from a Howie Mandel livestream encounter, ponders Pokemon pinball design concerns following Jack Danger's apparent departure as designer, and votes in the TWIPPY awards. He emphasizes Pokemon's massive cultural moment (30th anniversary) and warns Stern against a flawed launch.

### Key Claims

- [MEDIUM] Gremlins is a real pinball machine coming and on the way — _Host claims to have recorded video evidence from a Howie Mandel livestream approximately 1.5 years ago where Mandel reacted suspiciously to mention of Gremlins pinball, exhibiting behavior the host interprets as indicative of deception (repeated denials, stopping mid-action)_
- [HIGH] Jack Danger is no longer the designer of Pokemon pinball — _Host directly states 'I want to believe that jack decided for one reason or another to just not do be the designer thing anymore' and speculates either Jack chose to leave or was removed by George Gomez due to pressure or performance concerns_
- [MEDIUM] Pokemon pinball is rumored to launch around Pokemon's 30th anniversary (February 2025) — _Host states 'am i right but i wouldn't be surprised if you had a pokemon pinball wouldn't you want to release it in around a rate at the same time as the 30th anniversary perfect timing am i right' and notes the 30th anniversary is 11 days away (episode presumably recorded late January 2025)_
- [LOW] Pokemon pinball is rumored for Costco distribution — _Host mentions 'it's rumored to be going into Costco at the same time' in context of Pokemon's retail dominance_
- [LOW] Goonies would be a better pinball theme than Gremlins due to emotional/nostalgic FOMO potential — _Host's opinion analysis using ChatGPT and personal reasoning about cult classic status vs seasonal franchise value_

### Notable Quotes

> "I have absolute proof that Gremlins is coming. Kind of, sort of, a little bit."
> — **Orbital Albert**, ~26:00
> _Hedged claim about Gremlins pinball evidence from alleged Howie Mandel livestream encounter; establishes core rumor of episode_

> "Howie Mandel...basically like stared the camera was like wait who did you hear that from...That is such a lie that's the biggest lie ever"
> — **Orbital Albert (recounting Mandel's response)**, ~30:00
> _Host interprets Mandel's vehement denial as suspicious/indicative of lying based on poker experience_

> "I do think obviously there was some you know plunge issues with x-men obviously and i do think because Jack's designs are so unique...If you took John Borg's two most different designs, they aren't even as different as Jack danger's only two designs."
> — **Orbital Albert**, ~48:00
> _Praises Jack Danger's design philosophy as radically different/innovative compared to Borg's work; context for concern about his Pokemon departure_

> "did Jack leave because he didn't feel he was doing a good enough job on Pokemon or was he...get the boot off of it...should we be really really worried and concerned with what's going on with pokemon"
> — **Orbital Albert**, ~52:00
> _Expresses genuine concern that Jack's removal from Pokemon signals potential design/production problems_

> "it's momentous don't screw it up come on make this your most flawless launch stern please don't drop it until the code's decent"
> — **Orbital Albert**, ~59:00
> _Urgent call to Stern regarding Pokemon pinball launch quality; emphasizes stakes of IP/market opportunity_

> "Pokemon cards last month graded well over 1 million cards and there was only about 900 sports cards graded in total by PSA...Pikachu and his frickin' buddies are now more popular as an alternate investment than every PSA-graded hockey card, basketball card, baseball card."
> — **Orbital Albert**, ~57:00
> _Quantifies Pokemon's cultural dominance/investment value as context for pinball market opportunity_

### Entities

| Name | Type | Context |
|------|------|---------|
| Orbital Albert | person | Host of Pinball Nerds podcast (Poor Man's Pinball Network); poker player and tournament director; primary speaker for episode |
| Jack Danger | person | Pinball designer known for X-Men and Foo Fighters; apparently removed from or departed Pokemon pinball design; host expresses high regard for his innovative layouts |
| George Gomez | person | Stern Pinball designer/decision-maker; potentially involved in removing Jack Danger from Pokemon design per host speculation |
| Howie Mandel | person | Actor/comedian; host claims to have encountered him in exclusive livestream ~1.5 years prior where Mandel reacted suspiciously to Gremlins pinball inquiry |
| Gremlins | game | Pinball machine in development; host claims evidence of existence from Mandel livestream interaction; 1984 film IP with seasonal rewatch potential |
| Pokemon Pinball | game | Upcoming Stern release; Jack Danger no longer designer; rumored for ~30th anniversary launch (February 2025); Costco distribution rumored; high-stakes IP with massive cultural moment |
| Goonies, The | game | 1985 film IP competing with Gremlins for pinball adaptation; host argues superior FOMO/emotional potential; water slide mech opportunity discussed |
| Stern Pinball | company | Manufacturer of Pokemon, X-Men, Foo Fighters; criticized by host for vanilla/mid livestream execution; urged to improve launch quality and fun factor |
| John Borg | person | Pinball designer; created Guardians of the Galaxy and other titles; compared unfavorably to Jack Danger's design innovation by host |
| Drop Target Danielle | person | Host's wife; surveyed regarding Goonies vs Gremlins IP preference; agreed Goonies better |
| Ken Cromwell | person | Co-host/co-owner of Flippin' Out Pinball podcast; recognized by host as marketer/community figure at Jersey Jack and now independent media |
| Greg Bone | person | Co-host of Flippin' Out Pinball podcast; credited alongside Ken Cromwell |
| TWIPPY Awards | event | Content creator awards (formerly This Week in Pinball); host votes in awards; some community drama historically associated |
| Poor Man's Pinball Podcast | organization | Network hosting Pinball Nerds podcast; organized by Orby; platform for host's content |
| Drew C. Sedolia | person | Patreon member and pinball tournament player; won provincial finals for third consecutive year (mentioned as achievement worth recognition) |
| Dylan | person | Owner of Flippin's Arcade; won New Brunswick provincial finals and will represent province again; previously got second place |
| Hayden | person | Host's son; recently started work and received father's financial support; damaged Honda Civic in backing accident |
| Retro Ralph | person | Content creator mentioned as discussing Goonies water slide/organ mech potential on JBS Roundtable |
| Kale | person | Host of JBS Roundtable (likely Jittery Jerks Pinball Roundtable); discussed Goonies vs Gremlins comparison with Ralph and others |
| Niantic | company | Developer of Pokemon Go; sold last year per host; cited as indicator of Pokemon's ongoing cultural relevance |

### Topics

- **Primary:** Gremlins Pinball IP Rumor & Alleged Evidence, Pokemon Pinball Design Leadership & Jack Danger Departure, Pokemon 30th Anniversary Launch Timing & Market Opportunity, Goonies vs Gremlins IP Comparison for Pinball
- **Secondary:** Stern Pinball Launch Quality & Community Engagement, Jack Danger Designer Innovation & Unique Layouts
- **Mentioned:** TWIPPY Awards Voting, Provincial Pinball Tournament Results

### Sentiment

**Mixed** (0.55) — Host excited/optimistic about Pokemon pinball potential and Goonies IP merits, but genuinely concerned about Jack Danger's removal from Pokemon design and warns of launch quality risks. Stern's execution and design choices criticized as 'vanilla' and 'mid.' Positive sentiment around tournament community and personal life updates tempers overall critical tone.

### Signals

- **[community_signal]** TWIPPY awards historically associated with drama/politics around content creator voting; host acknowledges preferring voting over drama aspects (confidence: low) — Host states 'would i rather there be all the uh drama linked to everybody uh you know bitching moaning and complaining...no i don't like all that stuff but i did like voting in it'
- **[sentiment_shift]** Stern Pinball livestream production quality criticized as 'vanilla' and 'mid'; hosts lack energy/fun compared to past Jurassic Park era execution (confidence: medium) — Host directly states 'now it's it's a little bit vanilla now it's they're a little bit mid they're kind of seem like they're trying to have fun but they're just not' and contrasts with past Josh Sharp T-Rex costume era; calls for 'make pinball launches fun again'
- **[design_philosophy]** Host expresses genuine concern about Pokemon pinball quality given Jack Danger's departure from design role (confidence: high) — Host asks 'should we be really really worried and concerned with what's going on with pokemon' and frames Jack's removal as potential red flag; states he's 'tempering expectations' after years of hype-then-disappointment cycle
- **[design_philosophy]** Jack Danger's pinball designs (X-Men, Foo Fighters) praised as radically innovative/unique vs. John Borg's work; significant stylistic divergence even between Jack's own two designs (confidence: high) — Host states 'If you took John Borg's two most different designs, they aren't even as different as Jack danger's only two designs' and credits Jack's uniqueness as reason for optimism about Pokemon—now tempered by his removal
- **[market_signal]** Pokemon cultural dominance unprecedented: 1M+ cards graded vs ~900 sports cards monthly; Pokemon Pocket still massive mobile app; Pokemon Go still active 10 years post-launch (confidence: high) — Host cites specific statistics on Pokemon card grading (1M+ vs 900 sports), notes Pokemon Pocket as top mobile app, Pokemon Go still played/monetized despite 10-year age; frames as 'momentous' opportunity for pinball
- **[personnel_signal]** Jack Danger no longer serving as designer on Pokemon pinball; unclear if voluntary departure or removal (confidence: high) — Host explicitly states Jack is 'no longer the designer' and speculates either personal choice (pressure, inspiration loss) or George Gomez decision to remove him. Potential concerns about design quality/production issues as result.
- **[announcement]** Pokemon pinball confirmed as upcoming Stern release; 30th anniversary launch window (February 2025) (confidence: high) — Host references Pokemon pinball as known/confirmed product multiple times; 30th anniversary timing (~11 days from episode recording) aligns with February 2025 launch rumor; Costco distribution rumored
- **[product_strategy]** Pokemon pinball rumored for simultaneous Costco distribution at or near 30th anniversary launch (confidence: low) — Host mentions 'it's rumored to be going into Costco at the same time' but provides no sourcing or detail; speculation only
- **[rumor_hype]** Gremlins pinball machine confirmed in development; alleged evidence from Howie Mandel livestream reaction (confidence: medium) — Host claims ~1.5 year old recorded video of Mandel reacting suspiciously to Gremlins pinball inquiry, with doubled denials interpreted as lying behavior. Video evidence inaccessible (stored on broken wife's old phone) but host promises to locate/retrieve.
- **[business_signal]** Stern messaging/marketing critiqued as prioritizing wrong elements; host urges focus on code quality, fun factor, community engagement over cosmetics (confidence: medium) — Host's broader critique of Stern livestreams being 'vanilla' and low-energy despite Pokemon's cultural moment; implicit concern that Stern misses opportunity to leverage IP momentum with lackluster execution

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## Transcript

Welcome back to Pinball Nerds, episode 665, and we're with Ben Thede. pinball podcast my name is orbital albert and on today's show we're going to be talking all about what is better because i've heard rumors of both goonies and gremlins so which is better i'm going to give you the definitive answer in my non-humble opinion in just a second also we're going to be talking about pokemon pinball pondering and pontificating i don't know if i'm going to do more pondering or more pontificating but uh those are the two things i figured well we're gonna talk a little pokemon okay because the the day the hour the moment of pokemon none of us know exactly but they say it's coming soon and i'm starting to feel my pikachu jiggly puff if you know what i mean got that little tiny bit of chew in my puff little jiggle all right uh what else are we talking about we're going to be doing some twippies voting that's right formerly known as the this week in pinball i don't know i don't think it was ever i don't i don't know anyways it is the twippies it's not the same as it used to be would i rather there be all the uh drama linked to everybody uh you know bitching moaning and complaining about who wins the content creator twippy and in this type of voting and that no i don't like all that stuff but i did like voting in it i did like talking about it and uh you know just just like me as a former tea company owner uh you know i like to spill the tea once in a while as well so but what else are we going to be talking about we're going to be talking about about we're going to be talking about provincials i play them this weekend that's right how did my victory lap go i'm going to let you all know don't worry though i know how much y'all love talking about tournament pinball so i will be saving that for the very end of the show. So without further ado, I just want to say congratulations to each and every person who played in your state or provincial finals, and especially shout out to all the winners. So, so many of you out there. I know a good friend of the show and a member of my Patreon, Drew C. Sedolia, I believe is how you pronounce your last name, Drew. You can let me know if I screwed it up for about the 10th time on the show or not, but drew one for his third year in a row so shout out to him and just so many other awesome players um here in my province dylan won so i guess that's sorry i don't do too much pinball talk but i just wanted to let everyone know i did not not in my province but in the province that i play new brunswick i did not win unfortunately but uh dylan the owner of flippin's arcade did win and will be representing new brunswick for now the second time the other time he represented new brunswick he actually got second and the first player didn't want to go and then uh now he's won and he gets to go rep again and this time he's repping and he's like repping as the first place finisher in the province so good for him um all the machines were in great condition we're going to talk about that at the very end but let's just get into this this was brought up on the jbs round table and they all talked about it and i forget who liked which but i remember like one or two of them i believe two of them like the goonies better and one of them like the gremlins better i actually it's not the gremlins i did think it was the gremlins but it's just gremlins so let's take a look here oh i did want to give a quick shout out um i did actually get a donation between my happy holidays episode on december 23rd and the new year and as promised i matched that donation so thank you very much to to you uh uh i think the person who actually donated uh so they would be preferred to not even be shouted out so that is always an option if you'd like to donate to the show and you just want to do it anonymously or just only me being the only one who knows thank you but i did match that money and i was able to fire off an extra 130 bucks to my son hayden to help him get through to his first paycheck and uh just as a small update he recently did get his first paycheck since he got up there. So he is, uh, he's, I'm not going to say he's living at large, but the man went to five guys, you know, if you're going to five guys, like the cheapest burger, there's 10 bucks, you know, you gotta be sitting pretty or something. And then of course, uh, he crashed his car. No, he didn't crash his car, but he may or may not have backed into a car and ruined his front quarter panel. So, uh, he went from being in a celebratory state and finally getting paid to a little bit frustrated and annoyed because his Honda Civic is his baby. But anyways, we looked into it. Once he can get his butt down to Edmonton to go to one of the wreckers there, as long as he pulls it off himself, he can get a new quarter panel for about $100, probably pay his roommate and best friend, I don't know, a six-pack, maybe a 12-pack of beer to install it. I don't know how hard those things are to get in. So he's only out $100. He is safe. That's the main thing. He is fine. he was reversing in and someone tried to cut behind him going way too fast jerk uh thankfully they were like in a work vehicle so hopefully it doesn't affect his insurance because i don't know i think it's zero fault but anyways i've gone off topic too long but thank you so much to that person who donated i really appreciate it i i realized i i did give a shout out to rachel risto the the most recent patreon member but i did not give a shout out to the person who donated. So thank you so, so, so very much. I appreciate each and every Patreon member. And of course, each and every time someone donates over on top of that. So let's get back into this though. Okay. So in my head, I was trying to think about it. So Gremlins came out in a very special year for me. It's 1984. That's the year my wife was born. So four years younger than me, she is. I was a grand total of four years old when it came out. And the Goonies came out in 1985. So I was very curious as to which one actually was bigger because they felt like they were both kind of the biggest movie of the year. But I suspected, and I was correct, that the Gremlins brought in slightly more money in the box office due to the fact that it came out at Christmas. And we all know at Christmas time, you don't just go to the movies once, you go twice. That's the time of the year that, you know, that I would say November, December, January, everyone's stuck inside. It's cold, right? So you're going to the movies a bit more and it's Christmas time, you've got some time off for a couple weeks. I know even with myself and my family, if we only went once or twice a year, usually that one or two times a year was in around Christmas time. So as I suspected, it did make slightly more, $153 million worldwide for the Gremlins, and then a year later, $125 million. So, I mean, $25 million is a lot of money, but when you're talking about percentage-wise, It's only 20% more or so, so it's not a huge amount more than that, right? 25% more? It is bigger, but they were both very big. Now, this is where I wanted to get a little bit of help. So rather than doing hours of research, I did use AI. I will admit I asked ChatGPT this simple question, which property was originally bigger and which property is now considered more valuable the goonies or gremlins so originally the answer was the goonies slightly more culturally relevant went on to have a number or sorry the answer was gremlins went on to have a number two uh more more merch more horror fandom uh it's also very seasonable so there's christmas rewatch ability But as I suspected, it agreed with me. My thought was that over the years, especially for me, I might watch The Gremlins, especially if it's on TV around Christmas every three or four years, especially when my sons were younger, I watched it with them. But nowadays, I still will watch The Goonies maybe every year or two, but I don't think I would go back and watch The Gremlins nearly as often. And I feel like the Gremlins has become, or sorry, Goonies has become much more of a cultural phenomenon. It's really became more of a cult classic. And so now, even according to chat, it does say here which is more valuable. Gremlins is still considered slightly more valuable overall. It's actively used by Warner Brothers. Newly animated series, I forgot about that. Gremlins, Secrets of the Magwa. Magwa. Okay, strong merchandising power, recognizable mascot, Gizmo. Come on, the cuteness of Gizmo cannot be. This is like I said what happened with Barrels of Fun and the Carl factor that helped Winchester sell out, right? So this has the Gizmo factor. So you do have that really, really cute factor, kind of like the Mandalorian had with Grogu, right? Baby Yoda. so uh easy to reboot sequels and spinoffs it also has higher commercial and licensing value i'm a little surprised by that now the goonies though uh it does agree with me here chat agrees with me and says arguably more uh prestigiously prestige and nostalgic extremely strong emotional value one of the most beloved 80s adventure films but harder to sequel less toy and merchandise potential Warner Brothers is very cautious with it. So, well, I mean, good on whoever worked with Warner Brothers and got this. That's really awesome because apparently it's a little bit challenging to get. But it is culturally iconic but less flexible as a business IP. So it sounds here like the bottom line, bigger originally gremlins, more merchant franchising power gremlins, but cult nostalgia and emotional impact. And what's the one thing you need for FOMO? Fear of missing out. And that is an emotional response. So if the Goonies demands a bigger emotional response because it has a bigger emotional impact, because it's a much more of, it really holds a lot more nostalgia. It's more of a cult classic as opposed to kind of considered a Christmassy movie. Then in that case, I think that you could probably agree with me that the Goonies would sell better. And that was my bottom line, somehow backed up by AI. But who knows? Here's the thing. I did check. I did a massive, massive survey. And I checked the one person who was home with me today. And I asked Drop Target Danielle. She agreed. She thought the Goonies would be a better one. And that was after we watched the trailers for both of them, by the way. Now, I will say this. The Goonies also wins on better call-outs, okay? the Fratelli's Chunky Chunk, you know, the Hey You Guys thing with the Three Musketeers. No, it was with the Baby Ruth, the whole thing with the, what's it, the something, the Tubular Shuffle. I don't know what it's called. What's it called? The Jello Belly Shuffle. There's some type of shuffle that he does with his belly. Can you imagine just the same way that they have the Walking Dead remastered, the big fat Well Walker, how his belly shakes around now? Can you imagine if they put a really shaking, I don't know. Anyways, it doesn't matter. The point is that Goonies would have better callouts. There was slightly better music. I'm sorry. I know that I was reading with the gentleman who did the soundtrack for the Gremlins, and he's slightly better known and is more legendary. But there was actually like multiple. REO Speedwagon was in Goonies. Who else was in it? I'm just trying to see here. Cyndi Lauper was also in it. The Bangles. Philip Bailey. Yeah, good enough. Yeah, the Cyndi Lauper song, good enough. That's basically the theme song from the Goonies. But then again, now you've got to pay extra if you've got to get those, so maybe they have less money for toys and mechs, because if you get the soundtrack included for Gremlins, now you've got a lot more money left to make cute little gizmos turn into scary gremlins, right? The thing is, though, that I don't think that Gremlins has aged as well. Both of the special effects in both of them are obviously far outshadowed by what we have now in modern movies. But just watching even the preview, it's very cringy seeing those weird puppetronic type frickin' gremlins things. So I don't know. Excuse me. Okay, do not have a strawberry banana smoothie with flax right before you start doing a pinball podcast because you will be gassy out your... No, no, out your mouth. I wasn't going to rhyme. Come on. Oh, and here's the cool part, though. I will tell you this. I've stated this before. I have the receipts. I have proof that Gremlins is a real pinball machine and it's really coming and it's really on the way, even though I wish I had proof that it was Goonies because I think those water slides in the Goonies do lend themselves to being perhaps one of the coolest uses of a mech that we've ever seen a lot of old em pinball machines had something called a waterfall on the right hand side well some on the left as well i'm just thinking atlantis uh has it on the right hand side if you guys go to google and you look it up it's called a waterfall well can you imagine if this waterfall was more of a water slide type type mechanism and in the as the balls quickly coming down this thing you get to choose left right left right um i think they even mentioned it on the jbs show um either retro ralph or kale i believe uh was mentioning the part with the water slides or the part with the organ playing i think it was retro ralph the part with the or the organ playing would be really cool i agree with that wasn't it data or data was the one who was doing it data data uh he won key i forget his name i never pronounce it right but he went on to be in everything everywhere which is an incredible movie. I think it won like Oscar for best supporting actor or something. But anyways, check out what a guy He didn have a movie career for like 20 years since The Goonies And then you have Sean Astin or Austin who in um Austin See I always say Austin Thank you. Thank you. That's my editor in chief over there. My producer in the corner, uh, give me a thumbs up and then a hilariously thumbs down. Uh, anyways, I almost, so Sean, we'll just go with that. I almost got to go see Sean after spending a lot of money, not a lot of money, but 30 or 40 bucks, a lot of money for me on comic books, Stranger Things comic books. He was supposed to be at Halicon, which is down in Halifax, a con fest there, and I was going to pay to get him to sign them and then perhaps get them even graded or at least authenticated for at least the signature portion graded and authenticated. And yeah, he pulled out last minute. It seems like the only thing the man is short on isn't just his vertical height, but it's also his patience. He decided he didn't have time energy to come out here to Nova Scotia. So I was pretty upset about that. But anyways, Mr. Sean, that's why I call him Sean Aston, because he's a little bit of one. Come on. Well, like, come on. Anyways, I think they're all going to like the one in Manitoba or Saskatchewan. Take it easy there, Chapel Roan. You can go to Manitoba or Saskatchewan. You can't come to Nova Scotia and go to the freaking coast. Come on. Come get some donairs and lobster rolls, you zombie. All right. Anyways, so what I was going to say is I do have absolute proof that Gremlins is coming. Kind of, sort of, a little bit. Recorded on my wife's old phone before it broke, which she still has it. We have to get a new battery for it. It currently is not working. But I'd like to think if the battery were replaced, we would still have access to that video that I recorded on there many, many, many years ago. Maybe not many years. Okay, maybe a year and a half ago. I was part of a very small exclusive live stream behind a paywall. I was gifted, not like a Patreon, but like a member subscription from someone that I considered family or they considered me family. We're a group of like basically a group of nerds that follow this podcast called the H3 podcast with Ethan Klein being our fearless leader. and he basically went on this long series of interviewing Howie Mandel and having him on the show and doing this whole thing with a prolapse let's not talk about that today though this is a pinball podcast and basically Howie Mandel started his own podcast after being interviewed by Ethan and going well wow I think I could do this I think he had started doing it with his daughter but his his podcast took a totally different route and they started doing behind the paywall stuff And while I was in the regular non-behind-the-paywall one, one of the other H3 family members or whatever gifted me, someone who was talking about H3 in there with Howie, a free Patreon membership. And it turned out like a couple days later, I just happened to be on YouTube and I went in there and I shat you guys not. There was like between 25 to 30 people. I think at the time that I asked him, there was around 25 people. Originally, it was up to 30, but it was down to 25. And he's just literally doing a behind the paywall, walking around the studio, just showing stuff in the studio. And when he got down to this arcade looking thing, it was for a Bobby's World. And Howie Mandel used to be the voice of, hi, I'm in Bobby's World. Check me out. I'm in Bobby's World. What are you doing? You can't be watching videos on your phone in the middle of a podcast. All right. Okay, listen, as someone who gets highly distracted, I got TikToks to death there. But that's okay. I'm back. So just like Howie got distracted when I said that to him, he was distracted. I was distracted just there. But so when I said that to Howie, he basically stopped what he was doing and he said, what? And I said, oh, is that like a pinball machine? I asked him something to do with the – oh, I asked him, would you ever think about having another arcade machine for any of your other properties and he said oh i don't know i'd have to think about it i said well what about a gremlin's pinball machine and originally he he immediately stopped what he was doing he looked at the cameras though he was shocked and he basically like stared the camera was like wait who did you hear that from and i just typed into the chat oh uh it's just a rumor in the pinball world is it true and he said no it's not true come on no it's definitely not not true it's not i don't know who told you that that is such a lie that's the biggest lie ever and usually whenever someone says something twice they're lying like if you ask someone hey did you eat the last uh piece of cheesecake and they go me no no i wouldn't have eaten the last that doesn't sound like me i wouldn't know no i didn't do it they probably did it but if they're like no i didn't eat it then they they i mean they still might have but they're a better liar than howie and that's why i think that even if we never see a gremlin's pinball machine i think in that moment time now here's me being a conspiracy theorist that live stream i went to try to go back and get capture better audio or video quality or do like a screen capture as opposed to me just recording on my phone as I, as he talked about it. And I don't know what's wrong with my wife's phone. We have to get something fixed on it to get it. She has, she got a new phone slightly, like, like not long after that, after she went back home. And I've only listened to it maybe twice after that. Is it 100% evidence, even if I could find the video? Of course not. But did he, was it super duper duper sus as a guy who was, uh, you know, a novice pinball or pinball, a novice poker player for a very very long time i've won poker tournaments at bally's paris in vegas um i've won multiple online tournaments i've got i actually won a 550 dollar um aruba wpt world poker tour um event where i got to play against the old uh the old poker brat himself phil helmuth and i even got to play i satellited my way and i believe in a 25 satellite i won a 600 plus 60 dollar into the world's largest poker tournament online ever called stone cold nuts 2 which was through um i believe ultimate better was it poker stars with that i think it was ultimate bet and it was worth like i don't know like seven million dollars six million dollars something like that played it for 14 and a half hours but i bubbled out alas i am not a millionaire but my point is is through these years of playing poker if i've learned nothing else i can tell when someone is lying i can't always tell when they're not lying or when they're telling the truth of course but i can tell when they're specifically some little susses going on so even if we don't ever see a specific gremlins pinball machine i guarantee you he's heard about it they've been asked about it they've talked about licensing and i would guess it was somewhere near to that time because he seemed pretty stoked and excited about it and i'm gonna look for that video i'm gonna hope to find that video ah i might even have to pay to get back behind the paywall and see if it's still there i don't know all right moving on moving on uh next we're gonna do a little bit of pokemon pondering and then we're gonna be voting in the twippies now i have been voting in the twippies for as long as the twippies have been around and i've been making a show for voting in the and that's why tonight it's going to get part of a show there's only one page of questions but let's just move on to pokemon pondering now i don't want to take too long talking about pokemon i promise not to talk about pokemon cards i promise not to talk about pokemon games well maybe a little but i'm not going to be talking about playing the pokemon game i'm not going to be talking about even playing pokemon go or pokemon tgc um pokemon pocket took off last year by the way i'm not going be talking about the fact that it is the 30th anniversary of pokemon coming up what this february so uh yeah 11 days from now less than two weeks from now so i wouldn't be surprised if you had a pokemon pinball wouldn't you want to release it in around a rate at the same time as the 30th anniversary perfect timing am i right but this is what i've been pondering is it better as a massive jack danger fan and huge pokemon fan is it and and even i don't gomez you're home you're my homie gomi but i don't like all of your designs i really am not a fan of james bond look it's growing on me each time i play it i like it slightly better do i think it's better than most boutique layouts? Probably. Do I think it's better than Winchester? No, sorry. You know, it's got the Carl factor. Do I think it has... I just don't think it has a lot of flow. I just... I don't like the big rocket area to the left, top left. I just don't like a lot of the important shots, that weird ramp there. I do like Deadpool, though. I find Deadpool kind of hard, especially the Snicket shot. Usually that's turned off in tournaments anyways, or at least the bigger ones. but or snick snick i think it's a snick um but i do love deadpool if the katana shot is not like just like it's got to be keyed in if you don't have that shooting perfectly it's not a fun shot especially if you're trying to you know that's such a fun shot when it's working well i don't expect every ball to like get all the way around but like you know if half your clean shots aren't getting around then it really sucks but my point is i so far am a hundred percent for all of jack dangers uh you know for x-men and Foo Fighters and even the star wars i thought those are incredible designs especially for what they were like you know his first one had to be home edition right only so much you can do with that i'm sure the bomb is much lower etc i do think obviously there was some you know plunge issues with x-men obviously and i do think because Jack's designs are so unique and so different. Like I'm not trying to be rude or anything. I love John Borg. I owned guardians of the galaxy still to this day. It's the most expensive pinball machine I've ever bought and sold. But if you took John Borg's two most different machines, he's made in the last decade. He's made a lot in the last decade. If you take his two most different designs, they aren't even as different as Jack danger's only two designs. That's how different Foo Fighters and X-Men are even from each other with how unique the ball paths are and the you know the danger room and just so much unique and fun and interesting stuff happening with the shots and the layout and the mechs and callbacks to older machines and so for that reason i'm really excited to see what pokemon is and then you got to give your head a shake and go ow that kind of hurt i'm too old to do that you got to kind of give your head a shake figuratively not literally like i just didn't give yourself like a freaking brain contusion um i i want to believe that jack decided for one reason or another to just not do be the designer thing anymore and kind of go but maybe it was just too much pressure between still trying to update foo fighters code and dealing with x-men issues while still trying to work on probably the pinball machine after the next pinball machine while still trying to work on pokemon while still trying to you know navigate being a father with young kids and having a wife at home and you know he just he's and still trying to kind of keep dead flip alive you know what i mean his live stream channel so it's just a really challenging thing that um jack's having to go through right now and I can understand that you know he's probably just thinking I have no clue what he was thinking and I don't know if George pulled him off of it or if he decided to leave but either way you'd have to give your head a shake if you didn't think there must be some reason why he's not on the machine anymore either he was lesser inspired to work on it or George didn't want him to work on it anymore I mean those are the only two options I can think of or someone else Seth didn't want to work on it but I don't think it would be that I think those are the two most likely options and I only bring these up not because I want to be a chatty Kathy and start getting some hot gauze on why when or how Jack left but it begs the question did Jack leave because he didn't feel he was doing a good enough job on Pokemon or was he did he get the boot off of it and was asked hey would you like to go back to doing this other community job because we don't know if designing is for you you know and in that case should we be really really worried and concerned with what's going on with pokemon and i guess we'll have to wait and see so for all of those reasons i am tempering my expectations and i think that's good because for years and years and years i would get so hyped up about a new pinball machine coming out and then i would just be let down the whole does you know does jaws eat the ball thing even though that wasn't my huge thing but i've always wondered like if there was one pinball machine i thought i could create it would be a pokemon pinball machine so i could sit here and go on and on and on about how oh the ball the ball needs to be captured and poke a ball and there's you know how i mean i do think there's massive massive potential for insider connected so i hope they've done that correctly and i do think there's massive potential for bringing in new pinball people and i do think if they were ever going to send out multiple pinball machines to content creators they should actually go out to pokemon pinball content creators or non non pinball creators who are just into pokemon because wow what a chance to really to really gain a whole bunch of new people like this is a lot like this is a lot of this between the potential of you know it's rumored to be going into Costco at the same time. So between the Pokemon badness that happens at Costco already, just with the card game, and then on top of that, you've got, you know, Pokemon Go being one of the biggest games that came out 10 years ago that's still being played in the mobile store, just sold last year by Niantic. And then on top of that, Pokemon Pocket still being one of the biggest mobile apps out there still to this day, as far as like number of users and number of amount of money it brings in. And then on top of that Pokemon cards now grading more than all sports combined That right Pokemon cards last month graded well over 1 million cards and there was only about 900 sports cards graded in total by PSA So that means Pikachu and his frickin' buddies are now more popular as an alternate investment than every PSA-graded hockey card, basketball card, baseball card. That's including Shohei-o-frickin'-Tani. Come on. so anyways the point is this is like it's momentous don't screw it up come on make this your most flawless launch stern please don't drop it until the code's decent don't drop it until like kill this live stream stern you've got to kill i want to see like go back to having fun on the live streams you know like i remember when when they did jurassic park like josh sharp was dressed up as t-rex right you know like everyone used to dress up and they'd have beers and have more fun with it and now it's it's a little bit vanilla now it's they're a little bit mid they're kind of seem like they're trying to have fun but they're just not bring make make pinball launches fun again can we do that all right i better get into the twippies here i'll be running too long i'm also kind of just getting over a little bit of a cold i had last week so my voice is a little horse a little horse girl all right i'm not actually am i going to do it while we're going probably probably not twiffies here we go oh before i mention that i want to give a big shout out to greg bone and ken cromwell see i'm not going to forget your name ken come on forget about ken special when lit jersey jack pinball um a huge shout out to those dudes they j just interviewed the new owner of American Pinball, Brian Vincent. And what a great interview it was. And Brian Vincent, this dude was humble. He sounds super intelligent. He seems to know what he's doing. He's got a level head. He wasn't making fun of any of the other pinball companies. I don't even think he talked smack about a single other one. He was open and honest about the fact that Game of Thrones needs the code finished. there were some challenges with the company in the last year or two, and he wants to right the ship. And I don't know, but man, thank you, thank you, thank you, Ken and Greg for that awesome interview. They asked all the tough questions, and they did it in a kind and constructive criticism way, and that's what we want to have in this pinball industry and in pinball podcasting. They did it in a timely manner, and good for them. I think that I said on my last show I had a little tiny glimmer of hope for American Pinball. Just like the snow here in Nova Scotia in the last 24 hours, that little glimmer of hope on that snowflake has spiraled and it's turned into about a snowball. I'm not going to call it a snowman yet. It's not that big. It's not the snowman that is the expectations that are Spooky Pinball or barrels of fun for their next couple releases after everyone's just been smitten with Winchester and Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, right? Like, people are in love, baby, and Evil Dead. Like, come on. And now Dune. Dune's getting some. Dune's going to have a longer freaking tail than that worm that comes out of it. All right. The thing I like the best, and I wrote this quote down. When Ken kindly, nicely, you know, tippy-toed a little bit around it at Pinball Expo, how like, you know, they didn't have a lot of new stuff and they had some like other things there. And he said, let's put it this way. We're not going to be bringing Whirlyballs to Pinball Expo anymore. So that is good news. Whirlyballs, come on. You didn't even bring any pinball machines. Get out Houdini. Come on, get out Beer Fest. You can sell some more of those. Suckers, Oktoberfest. Oktoberfest. All right. So shout out to Ken. Awesome interview. And I really, I like, I don't know how to explain it. I like the cut of his jib. As a guy who has an honors degree in marketing from Fanshawe College, who forgot to grab his plug-in, who's running over here right now to get his plug-in, you probably can't even hear a gosh darn toot word that I'm saying. But if you could, you'd know that just listening to the way that he was speaking, I could tell that he is a versed businessman. He took another business category and he grew it. I don't care what it was—it was another manufacturing company. He took another electronic manufacturing company and took it from a small company that they took over and turned it into a medium-sized company. Then they turned it into the largest one in the United States. And now they've world. So, again, I don't say this to hurt feelings or say anything against David Fix because I don't know all the issues that he had with management there and trying to implement any plans he had. But it sounds like this dude might be the W, like it might be the winner. So shout out to Brian Vincent. Sounds like he has his head on his shoulders. Look, do we know if everything else Brian learned in manufacturing this other electronic good is actually going to help him come over and make other electronic goods? Well, not for sure. But if you take a look at it, look at a company like Bally Williams who went back and forth between making pinball machines, slot machines, pinball machines, slot machines. Like, obviously, you know, those are even probably closer than what Brian was making before. But I'm going to be honest, I just, maybe I'm wrong. But when I first heard Deep Root Pinball, David Mueller, Robert Mueller—sorry. He just, I didn't like the cut of his jib. Even when I listened to the guy from Haggis talk, I was kind of like, I don't know. I don't know. Kind of, it was a little bit snake oil salesman vibe-y. But when you listen to Brian Vincent talk, I think he's just, he's strutting straight from the hip. And he totally just, he legitimately seems like a good business dude. I think he's going to continue running it bootstrapped. He said it's not like a huge investment firm. It's mostly him and his family. The guy that he has like, you know, doing customer service and stuff like that right now seems to be doing a really good job. And I don't know, frankly, like I'm happy so far with everything he said. He didn't give me any like warning flags. Do you know what I mean? He didn't say anything in that that you'd go, I don't know. So anyways, shout out to those guys. I'm looking forward to seeing what they do next. All right. Game of the Year. First choice. This is easy, guys. You already know this because you already listened to my top five. So I'm going to go through this quickly. I'm on the Twippies. Make sure you vote. If you hear this tonight, make sure you vote before midnight Eastern Standard Time. That is in about four hours. So only about maybe 100 or so of you that listen to this early will do that. But I bet you a few of you listening have voted. I don't know how big the numbers were for Colin. I hope at least enough people vote to make it worth their time. I am excited to see what Bash Pinball does this, so make sure you're liking, following, subscribing, Patreonizing those Bash Pinball fellas. Isn't one of them Don, too? There's so many Dons in pinball. It's like the Don of a new age. Guys, I invited Donald Garrison over to my house tonight for dinner. He's working a few hours away over there in Maine. Now he said he can't come tonight. So I'm trying to talk him into meeting me in good old Fredericton this weekend. Sounds like he's going to be working straight through, but who knows? I wouldn't be shocked if you saw good old Albert, good old Orby and Donnie getting together for a little pitcher and some pinball and hopefully a pitcher of beer. Oh wait, he only drinks lemon drops and ciders. Okay, I'll be drinking lemon drops and ciders, Don. Let's do it. Let's hang out. Come on. It'll be fun. Don, you're supposed to be on show 666 anyways. So if I saw you, I could bring my recording gear. I'd probably bring my Snowball, not this beautiful Shure SM7B from Retro Ralph. But I would bring my Snowball because it's much lighter and easier, and I'm not worried about it getting broken, and I think it's like water-resistant, yada, yada, yada. I would bring that with me and a little crappy laptop, and we would record a little podcast somewhere. Don, you're invited on 666 anyways, even if we don't meet up this weekend. You and Genghis, brothers. But I've got to get through the Twippies. I get distracted so easily. Okay, so this is easy. Second choice, Harry Potter. Okay, third choice, Game of the Year. Obviously, it's Blues Brothers by Home Pin. Don't we all know it? No, I'd be tempted. I'm tempted to say Portal by Multimorphic, but I'm not going to. I'm definitely not going to say Evil Dead or Star Wars. Sorry Stern, you gotta get y'all grew back. You gotta get y'all grew back. Stern, we're gonna talk about it. Oh, is it Alice's Wonderland? Alice's Adventures in Wonderland? No, I think it would have to go to Winchester. Oh wait, Evil Dead. Oh gosh, the artwork. I'm sorry, the artwork is better on Evil Dead. The shots on Winchester, this is tough. Evil Dead or Winchester? Oh, don't make a bad choice. Oh, Franchi's listening. He's already mad at you, Albert. This is so tough. Oh wait. How about I pick neither? I'm going to say Dune. Look at that apron. Come on, Dune. Dune. No, but it's... I'm going with my heart. My heart says Winchester. I'm most excited to play Winchester of all of them. I haven't played the other three, so... Where did... Did Winchester disappear? No, there it is. Okay. It's going King Kong number one. Harry Potter, number two. Those two are one too easily. Arguably could be higher or lower once I've played Harry Potter, but I've played lots of King Kong, so I'm sorry. That one's up there for now. Best flow of any Elwin ever. I've said that on the record multiple times, and I stand by it. Okay, best theme integration. This probably would go to Harry Potter. I'm sorry it would, but you know what? Second best would go to Evil Dead. See, this is where Evil Dead gets to shine. Third best, probably straight up I'm gonna say Dune. Portal, Portal. I'm sorry, Portal, Portal. Think about it. Portal's got even more theme integration than Dune. There you go. P3, Multimorphic, okay. Best rules and code. Oh wow, this is, uh... see, without having played most of these guys, this is a little bit of a guess. I am going to... well, I love the rules. I'm gonna say Harry Potter. I'm sorry, I'm gonna say Harry Potter just because. Even from Glenn the Skateboarder, he says it's game of the year. You know, he didn't specifically say the code. Shout out to Glenn, though. I'm going to have to say it's Harry Potter. Second, I'm going to give it to Dune. Elemental! Oh my God. Oh wait, oh sorry, Elemental. I thought it was Elements by, yeah, never mind. Okay. But wait, with Carl doing the rules and code for, oh, Winchester would have to be up there. I'm picking Kong. I'm staying with my heart, but for the very end, for rules and code, see like, but Rudy is such a good coder and he's doing Star Wars, but that code is still far from being done. I'm giving it to Winchester for number three. It's got the Carl factor all right. On to best art packages. Okay, well this one is pretty easy here. If Franchi is actually still listening, he's probably gone by now. But if Franchi was still listening, boom. Okay, next. Evil Dead is number one for art. That was easy. Number two is the Walking Dead? No, I'm just kidding. That color palette come on. Even though I did like the art in it, um, oh God wait. Harry Potter because of the CE. Harry Potter because of the... there we go. And Derpy Dragon, by far the most expensive version of it. Come on. Oh, my God. People don't agree with me, and I don't care. Oh wait, but for art, see? Dune because the alternate backglass. There we go. I get to pick, so I did. Okay, best playfield layout. This is so easy. King, King, King Kong has a big gong. That's hard to hit. Okay, King Kong by far. That one's, I wouldn't be shocked if that's number one on the top 100 within the next year or two. Number two, I'm going to go Harry Potter. I'm just going to listen to what my gut here. Number three, it's not going to be Merlin's Arcade. It's not going to be Dungeons and Dragons, I'm sorry. Evil Dead, maybe. It's got to be Winchester. I'm just from looking at it, it's got to be Winchester. I'm sorry. Best audio packages. Okay. Wow. Hmm. This is going to be tricky. I'm going to say Harry Potter. I'm going to do it. I'm going to say Harry Potter. Next, I'm going to go Evil Dead because the cults are spectacular. And last... Oh, what about Winchester, though? See that? Okay, Winchester's going third. I could be wrong there. I might have put Winchester higher had I thought of it. Shout out to Jeff at Dirty Pool. Great job on that. All right. Best animations. This is going to be pretty easy. I think it's going to be Harry Potter. Harry Potter is that Jean-Paul de Win for the win. Harry Potter Slytherin. All right, okay, no sorting hat today, not with my voice this cracked out. Animations—well, it's not going to be Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. It's definitely not Predator with fake Arnold. Winchester, maybe, because they got the animations there. And there probably not Star Wars. People seem to like to hate the King Kong ones, even though I think they're okay. Dungeons and Dragons has cool stuff going on there, doesn't it? But what about Portal? This one, this one's hard, guys. I would need to like just look at all of them. It's not the Walking Dead. I can tell you that. I'm just gonna go King Kong. I just like everything happening there. I'm sorry. I know other people don't agree. Let's go up here and put in my email. pinballnerds@gmail.com. We'll put this through so it's official. Thanks from the Twippies Committee. You're welcome, Colin and committee guys. I understand Twippies aren't as cool as they were before, but can you really complain about something free? He's not charging a penny. Motorcycles. Colin, you got the CAPTCHA here. This is good. Prevent the cheaters. Okay, now I'm going to go in and vote for the exact same things with my nine email accounts. No, I'm just kidding. I wouldn't do that. More motorcycles. Okay, I got you. More motorcycles. Colin, you're obsessed with motorcycles. Why so many motorcycles? I guess I could do this like after, I'm just afraid after answering all of these, like when the podcast is done, it would be gone or you'd have to re-upload it or something. Okay, thank you for completing your ballot. There we go. I voted February 7th, 2026. Oh, that's the time it ends. Okay, good. There you go. Just in time on the last day. I done did it. I voted in the Twippies. All right, okay. Oh my gosh, 47 minutes. We're going way too long. That's what she said. Uh, by the way, I apologize to Enzo and I know even a couple other pinball nerds that have reached out and messaged me over the last few days. I kind of go into a cocoon for like a week leading up to the Provincials, and or state finals, if you will, if you're in the US of A. And I kind of did that. So I haven't been reaching out to a lot of people. I have been responding a lot, and it didn't do me any good because now I can go into letting you know how I did in the Provincials. I did not do nearly as well as I wanted to. Okay, let me go back to the Pokémon thing just for a second to put a bow on it. I can say without a doubt that I want Pokémon to do well. I hope that Stern really understands how big this moment is. I think this is... I'll say not as big because of the average age of the buying demographic, but I will say as a pinball license, Harry Potter is bigger. I admit that, than Pokémon, just because the average age of a person who buys a pinball machine is probably 35 to 65. That sweet spot's probably right around 45. There's tons of 45-year-olds like myself, 45 to 50, right in the middle, right, that are huge, huge into Harry Potter, but there's less of them that are huge into Pokémon. I am a little bit of the anomaly. I'm kind of on the higher. I would say, like, usually, most of the Pokémon collector dudes, I mean, they're probably from about 25 to 35. That's kind of the average for like card collectors. Game players, you see everything from 12-year-olds to 40-year-olds, but again, the average is probably 30. Pokémon Go players, the average is probably 35 to 40. That skews much older. Pokémon TCG Pocket, the average age is probably around 30. The people watching the cartoons, is probably, you know, still watching the cartoons or repeatedly watching them, are the ones more so my younger brother's age, like around 25 to 30. They're probably more in around that age range, around 25 to 35. Even my son, Hayden, who grew up with the cartoons, who absolutely loved the cartoons, he's 20. So he will be nostalgic for it, but he won't really have the disposable income to look at buying something like that for 10 or 15 years, except for maybe a little sooner, who knows, but except for the Costco version. So Stern, are you listening? You have this one moment in time. You better strike when the iron is hot as hell. The early bird gets the worm. Put in any pun that you want to put in the punniness, and I will tell you the funniness is that you got one shot. I feel like I'm in like an Eminem song here. You got one shot, Stern. Don't make it drop. You got the Pikachu and the Charizard with the Jigglypuff strut. You better put it up before... okay, I can't rap. But what I can do is tell you: don't, don't screw this up. Don't. And hey, if you were gonna pay for one pinball content creator ever, as an apology for not paying for that pinball content creator for going before, or just straight up because that said pinball content creator is the world's biggest Pokémon fan who also loves pinball, that would be me. Hook your boy up because the only way that the largest pinball podcaster who loves Pokémon can get to go to the Stern thing—because I am flat freaking broke—so the only way I could go is if Stern paid for me to go. So Stern, y'all know you paid for everyone to go to that first media day. You haven't paid for anyone since. I wouldn't fault you if you didn't pay for anyone ever again except for myself. I got to get there. First of all, I'm probably more broke than 99% of pinball podcasters and probably 95% of pinball players. The great news is you only need a dollar to play pinball. So anyways, I'm going to get off my Pokémon horse, or Charizard, if you will. Okay. Or Ponyta. Ponyta, there you go. Or Rapidash, if you want to see its evolution. There you go. There's a couple. Ponyta is the, as you might imagine, pony, pony-type Pokémon. So I'm going to get off my Ponyta, and we're going to go into talk about Provincials quickly because I like to try to wrap this up long before an hour. So here's my excuses. Time for excuses, okay? Last week, my son had just came back from a huge basketball tournament in Halifax. Right now, they're having issues playing local teams because of the fact that they're quite a bit better than them and they're beating some of the local teams by some 40, 50, 60 points. So the coaches are just giving them Ws without actually showing up and playing them. It kind of sucks for them. So the only way to get in their games and their ratings right now is for them to go to a lot of tournaments down in Halifax. So when he came back from this tournament in Halifax with, like, you know, 200 kids at it from, like, eight different schools, he ended up giving me a cold. And I tried to hold back that cold and flu as best I could until like last Friday. Then I started to feel really, really, really sick the day before Provincials. My voice was even worse than this. I was coughing nonstop at Provincials. I felt bad. Even though I had lozenges, I had some Fisherman's Friend—wait, no, Americans won't know that. I had some Halls or similar to what you call Halls. Some people in the northern states probably have heard of Fisherman's Friend. But the point is, shout out to listener of the show, Doug Parsons, who did really well. I believe he got second in the province for New Brunswick. I talked about coughing, and then it starts happening. So I had a bit of a cold. Owen was gone away to another basketball tournament, which meant we are a one-car family, so drop target Danielle had to stay home with the dogs and the chickens. We had a sick chicken as well, unfortunately, for her. But I got to go and have a nice day. However, I couldn't drink any alcohol. Well, I had two beers in like the five hours I was there. But I couldn't really like, you know, I couldn't really light one up and really like have a blast. I can still have fun sober, okay, being a sober Sally. But I didn't get to have as much fun as I typically have at Brinchellagas. I wanted to have four, five, six beers. Probably not a good idea if you have a bit of a cold or a flu anyways. But I also like to have some gummies and go outside in between the rounds for some fresh air. When I'm driving a car home on a snowstorm, four hours, I just can't do any of those things because I want to be as close to being sober as possible. So this is all to say that I, even though I thought I got there as soon as I could, driving through white-out conditions, white-knuckling it, really honestly, if it wasn't Provincials, if it was just a regular pinball tournament, there is zero shot I would have driven that far and through such weather. But, you know, shout out to Dylan at Flippins. The machines were in great condition. I had a really good time. Uh, Quinn, the guy I played in the first round, absolutely smoked me for one. Um, he's beat me in two of the three tournaments we played there this year already. He knows that location very well. He even said, "Albert, I'm here, you know, once, twice a week. It's my moderate, my location I go to the most. You know, I know these machines really well." He doesn't really play outside of like that town, so I think like, you know, if we were playing at another random arcade, I would have had a much better chance against him. But it's totally fine. I even lost on the machines I picked. We got to play Star Wars first. I was at like 390,000 after two balls. He ended up getting, on his third ball, he ended up going from about 200 million to 1.4 billion. Now, I've got a billion before on Star Wars, but very rarely, certainly not under the pressures of being in Provincials and yada, yada, yada. I did get two out of three house balls and I, you know, I love Dylan, but I'll say the one thing I don't like about his machines is that the EMs and solid states are all on three ball. Especially the EMs—come on. Two out of three of my balls on Super Soccer were straight up, and Quinn saw them there. There's nothing I could do. I tried nudging the best I could. The ball was coming out of the pops, and I ended up getting like one straight down the middle and one left out lane, as much as you can get a left out lane with an EM. So two of my three balls, I just didn't get a single flipper on it. So I was already down 2-0 in two games. Grand Lizard, I just suck at Grand Lizard. Do you ever want to beat me in a tournament? Pick Grand Lizard. I practiced Grand Lizard. I know all the rules. He was getting into three-ball multiball every time. I was rarely doing it. I think he beat me by, like, he like doubled my score. So it doesn't even matter. The point is, by the time I was down 3-0, the fact that I came back on Getaway. Getaway. High Speed Two. Beat him on that. I think it was up 3-1. Then what did we play and he smoked me on? It doesn't even matter. I lost. I lost, so I tied for ninth. But tying for ninth of almost a million people in the province—there's only like 90 players, or 80 players, who played. But, you know, tying for ninth, I'll take it. I'm not going to get very many points. It's by far the worst I've finished in a couple years. I believe I finished like sixth place maybe three years ago. Then I won two years ago. Then last year I got third. So I kind of went like seventh place, sixth place, third place, first place, third place, fricking ninth. Come on, man. But you know what? I still had a blast. It was my victory lap. I got along with everybody very well. There was no drama. I had a nice time. The only drama was the drive home. Oh, my God. We got hit by another 15 freaking centimeters of snow. My back end went off the, uh, I was trying to get up onto the main highway, and uh, I couldn't get up to speed on time, and the cars were going very fast in the only lane that was plowed. And uh, the acceleration ramp was done, and my back end started losing, you know, the traction control lights came on, and I couldn't get up to speed high enough to get up out of the acceleration lane without getting hit because all the traffic was in the one lane that was plowed. And it was a nightmare, but I got home safe and sound. Everyone was fine, so that is good. I had a blast. Shout out to everybody who played. I can't wait for next year. Listen, I might be over the hill and I'll never, I'll probably never win New Brunswick again. I hope I can get out of the first freaking round next year, though. Like, come on. And the thing is, though, I will say this as well. The guy Quinn that I had to play, because I finished fifth and he finished what, 10th in the province, right? Like, or 11th. He actually doesn't play a ton of Saturday tournaments. He plays mostly in the Tuesday and Thursday tournaments, I think. Like, I've seen him playing in quite a few of those ones, and those ones don't give any IFPA points. So even though he played in like twice as many tournaments at that location as me last year, actually three times as many probably, it only appears as if I played way more tournaments than him because I played in 10 provincial standings tournaments and he only played in four, right? Four or five, something like that, like very few. But he finished so well in them and he plays there so often that I figured it was going to be tough for me to beat him there. These are all excuses to say, Quinn, you played incredible. You deserve all the flowers, bro. And everybody, I can't wait for Pokémon. I hope it comes sooner rather than later. I'm guessing it's going to be next month during the 30th. Are you excited? Are you more excited for Goonies? I'm more excited for Goonies. Am I wrong? Are you more excited for Gremlins? I'm curious. Anyways, guys, go join my Patreon. You can listen to Cary Hardy being like, "Why is this guy calling me drunk at 2 a.m.?" You can listen to the Dote. You can listen to the end of Glenn the Skateboarder talking to me. You can listen to my son. You can listen to Enzo. It's going to be awesome. It's fun. It's enjoyable. I think I call back Todd Tuckey there behind the paywall. Go over there. Have a listen. Come on. We're still in January. You can listen to my end-of-the-year wrap-up show. At least one person of the 400-and-something that listened to it has to want to go over there and listen to the end of it. I know it's going to happen. I feel good vibes from it. I hope you enjoyed today's show as well. It's also just a big thank you to me for entertaining me for all these years. So get over there. Join the Patreon. Come have a fun time behind the paywall. And until next time, Pinball Nerds, remember to eat, sleep, and breathe Pokémon Pinball.

_(Acquisition: groq_whisper, Enrichment: v4)_

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*Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-04-13 | Item ID: 192124bd-eaf0-4287-b8ae-a84f312d4c5d*