# #118 Haggmess - The Classic Pinball Podcast **Source:** The Classic Pinball Podcast **Type:** podcast_episode **Published:** 2024-08-13 **Duration:** 118m 38s **Beat:** Pinball **URL:** https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/george272/episodes/118-Haggmess---The-Classic-Pinball-Podcast-e2n4jeh --- ## Analysis George and Dave discuss the Haggis Pinball collapse, focusing on Fathom Revisited and Centaur remakes. The Australian manufacturer faced catastrophic failures due to delaminating playfields (a 'friction playfield' design that relied on friction rather than adhesive), resulting in over $1M in unpaid debts to individuals and distributors, alleged fraud involving false delivery promises, and widespread customer losses. The hosts reflect on pre-order red flags, cite Terry Hardy's investigative video, credit Zach Minney's Flippin' Out Pinball for backing affected customers, and discuss broader industry concerns about upfront payments and declining community engagement post-COVID. ### Key Claims - [HIGH] Haggis Pinball used a 'friction playfield' design with no adhesive; playfield held in place by mechanisms only — _George and Dave discussing Terry Hardy's video; George cites this as explanation for delamination failures_ - [MEDIUM] COVID-era supplier change caused delamination problems; new material was different from original product — _George: 'during COVID, they had to change suppliers. And the long and short of it is, I don't think it was the same product.'_ - [MEDIUM] Haggis Fathom machines sold for approximately $10,000 originally; now reselling at $7,900 with delamination issues — _George reporting secondary market prices on Pinside_ - [MEDIUM] Approximately 200 Fathom machines were manufactured worldwide — _George citing Terry Hardy podcast episode: 'they made $200,000 of these' (money, implying unit count)_ - [HIGH] Distributors are owed $259,000 across three distributors (US, Canadian, European) — _George citing pro forma financial document from NAP Arcade: 'distributors total... $259,000'_ - [HIGH] Individuals are owed $846,000 across 86 customers who pre-ordered — _George citing pro forma: 'it lists individuals, and it says 86 in total. for a total of $846,000'_ - [MEDIUM] Haggis called customers claiming games would be ready in six weeks, requesting final payment, with alleged knowledge they would never deliver — _George: 'you called people up and said, your fathom's going to be ready in six weeks. Can you pay the balance on your game? And speculation is they knew full well they would never deliver'_ - [MEDIUM] Haggis created and shipped 'space age pods' to customers as part of a playfield replacement ruse, maintaining appearance of being proactive while company was failing — _George: 'this guy went as far as building this space age pod to ship new playfields to people and you would ship back your delaminated playfields so they kept this ruse going'_ - [MEDIUM] Haggis also produced a game called Celts that did not have delamination complaints and proved they could manufacture to decent quality — _Dave and George discussion: 'They made 100 games, maybe more... they kind of proved their... They proved that they could make a game'_ - [HIGH] Zach Minney of Flippin' Out Pinball backed distributors' losses and refunded customers affected by delamination — _George praising Zach Minney: 'he basically backed everything up and said, I'll cover whatever, you know, if there's something wrong, I'll cover it'_ ### Notable Quotes > "They better get it right." > — **Dave**, ~2:00 > _Dave's initial gut reaction upon hearing Fathom would be reproduced; presaged the disaster_ > "I don't like that. No, I don't either. And I don't know where this falls as far as companies that have done it in the past, but it never seems to work out the way that you have it in your mind. There's always a glitch. There's something that comes up, and then inevitably the house of cards falls." > — **Dave**, ~3:30 > _Dave expresses deep skepticism about pre-order business models; prophetic observation about Haggis_ > "This hobby is lucky to have a guy like Zach Minney and flipping out pinball to distribute machines." > — **George**, ~6:45 > _High praise for Flippin' Out Pinball's customer protection during Haggis crisis_ > "It's basically two layers. The traditional plywood, you know, plate field. But on top they put, remember they said, oh, this, you know, plastic or whatever it was, you know, couldn't be dented. He took the sledgehammer." > — **George**, ~7:20 > _Explanation of the fatal 'friction playfield' design flaw_ > "The only thing that would adhere, they called it a friction play field. There's no adhesive. All the mechanisms were to hold this indestructible play field in place." > — **George**, ~8:45 > _Core technical issue: friction-only design with no adhesive backup_ > "I feel bad for people. I feel really bad for people." > — **George**, ~35:20 > _Emotional response to customer losses; repeated emphasis on sympathy_ > "You effed up. You trusted us." > — **George**, ~41:45 > _References Animal House quote; commentary on blind trust in pre-order schemes_ > "During COVID, you used to be able to go on Twitch any night of the week and find a pinball video. You know, somebody doing live stream. Not now." > — **George**, ~48:00 > _Observation of declining pinball community engagement post-COVID_ > "What happens when you get all the way down to the apron, and you put in one of the screws, it was one of the last items on the playfield, and it spiderwebs? No good. You've got to take everything off and start all over again. A, expensive. B, that's just crazy to try to do that from a manufacturing standpoint." > — **George**, ~77:45 > _Technical explanation of manufacturing nightmare inherent to friction playfield design_ > "We started this mess back in June of 2019. Wow. Yeah, what a long, strange trip it's been." > — **George and Dave**, ~85:00 > _Milestone: podcast reached its sixth year anniversary_ ### Entities | Name | Type | Context | |------|------|---------| | Haggis Pinball | company | Australian pinball manufacturer that produced Fathom Revisited and Centaur remakes; collapsed due to delaminating playfield failures and alleged fraud totaling over $1M in unpaid debts | | Zach Minney | person | Owner of Flippin' Out Pinball distribution company; backed Haggis customers and distributors affected by delamination failures, absorbing losses | | Terry Hardy | person | Competitive pinball player from Oklahoma; created investigative video documenting Haggis Pinball collapse, interviewed affected customers and former employees | | Bruce Nightingale | person | Associated with Rochester Pinball Collective; received one of first Haggis Fathoms shipped to US; reportedly complained about quality and game functionality; rejected the machine | | George | person | Co-host of The Classic Pinball Podcast; leads discussion on Haggis collapse and broader industry concerns | | Dave | person | Co-host of The Classic Pinball Podcast; provides restoration expertise and technical perspective on playfield failures | | John Day | person | Electrical engineer/modder known for Lissy board reprogramming work; suggested as potential solution for Haggis game repair | | Damien | person | Former Haggis Pinball figure; nicknamed 'Mr. S' by community; alleged to have pilfered over $1M according to rumors; reportedly in hiding | | Fathom Revisited | game | Remake of classic Bally Fathom by Haggis Pinball; ~200 units produced; suffered delaminating playfield failures; now reselling on secondary market at $7,900 with reliability issues | | Centaur | game | Classic Bally game remade by Haggis Pinball; limited production (approximately 2-3 units); never widely shipped; customers paid for pre-orders but delivery never materialized | | Celts | game | Haggis Pinball original game (not a remake); ~100+ units produced; did not experience delamination complaints; proved Haggis could manufacture decent quality | | Flippin' Out Pinball | company | Pinball machine sales, distribution, and rental company owned by Zach Minney; distributed Haggis machines; backed customers during crisis | | Rochester Pinball Collective | organization | Pinball venue/collective in Rochester, NY; received one of early Haggis Fathom machines; experienced quality issues and subsequently sold/returned machine | | The Classic Pinball Podcast | organization | Podcast hosts George and Dave; recently reached sixth year anniversary (started June 2019); discussed platform migration and content challenges | | Marty Robbins | person | Appears to have been guest on podcast episode discussing Haggis/Fathom; mentioned by George as potential source of initial information about Fathom remake | | NAP Arcade | organization | Source for Haggis Pinball financial pro forma document detailing debts to individuals and distributors | | Deep Root Pinball | company | Referenced as similar failed/troubled manufacturer alongside Haggis and Pinball Brothers as cautionary tale of upfront payment scams | | Pinball Brothers | company | Referenced alongside Deep Root and Haggis as manufacturer with problematic upfront payment and delivery history | | Stern Pinball | company | Major manufacturer; compared favorably to Haggis for ability to ship replacement playfield assemblies without burden on customers | | Lissy board | product | Aftermarket reprogramming board/mod that can reprogram classic games; suggested as potential retrofit solution for Haggis Fathom machines | ### Topics - **Primary:** Haggis Pinball manufacturing collapse and fraud, Friction playfield design flaw and delamination failures, Pre-order risk and customer trust in pinball manufacturers, Financial damages: $1M+ in unpaid debts to customers and distributors - **Secondary:** Flippin' Out Pinball's role in protecting customers during crisis, Secondary market pricing for Fathom and Centaur remakes, Post-COVID decline in pinball community engagement and streaming, Podcast platform migration and content management challenges ### Sentiment **Negative** (-0.82) — Hosts express deep sympathy for fraud victims and anger at Haggis mismanagement; tone is cautionary and critical throughout. Brief respite in technical discussion and podcast anniversary milestone, but dominant sentiment is disappointment in manufacturer failures and cautioning against pre-order models. Post-COVID decline in community noted with mild disappointment. ### Signals - **[product_concern]** Haggis Fathom Revisited machines suffered catastrophic playfield delamination failures. Root cause: 'friction playfield' design with no adhesive relying solely on mechanical assemblies to hold plastic overlay on plywood base. COVID-era supplier change introduced incompatible material that exacerbated failures. (confidence: high) — George and Dave discussing Terry Hardy's investigative video; multiple customer accounts of delamination; pro forma financial documents showing scale of failures - **[product_concern]** Supplier change during COVID compromised playfield material quality; new product differed from original specification, triggering widespread delamination. (confidence: medium) — George: 'during COVID, they had to change suppliers. And the long and short of it is, I don't think it was the same product.' - **[regulatory_signal]** Haggis Pinball engaged in alleged fraud: false delivery promises (calling customers claiming 6-week delivery, requesting final payment with knowledge games would never ship), creation of sham replacement pod program to maintain appearance of solvency while company collapsed. (confidence: medium) — George: 'they called people up and said, your fathom's going to be ready in six weeks... And speculation is they knew full well they would never deliver in those games.' References to pod creating illusion of proactive help while ruse continued. - **[business_signal]** Haggis Pinball liabilities exceed $1.3M including $846,000 owed to 86 individual customers, $259,000 owed to distributors, and major debts to Commonwealth Bank of Australia ($95,000), American Express ($57,000), Australian Taxation Office ($153,000), and supplier Planetary Pinball Supplies ($56,000). Company has ceased operations. (confidence: high) — Pro forma financial document cited from NAP Arcade showing detailed breakdown of unpaid debts - **[sentiment_shift]** Haggis collapse represents critical erosion of customer trust in pre-order manufacturing model; hosts note broader jading of hobby community; references to parallel failures at Deep Root Pinball and Pinball Brothers suggest systematic problem with upfront payment schemes. (confidence: high) — George and Dave extended discussion on why pre-orders fail; Dave: 'it never seems to work out the way that you have it in your mind. There's always a glitch... the house of cards falls.' - **[community_signal]** Zach Minney of Flippin' Out Pinball provided critical crisis support by backing customers who purchased through his distribution channel, absorbing losses and refunding affected buyers. This action highlighted importance of trusted distributors in pinball ecosystem. (confidence: high) — George's extended praise: 'This hobby is lucky to have a guy like Zach Minney... he basically backed everything up and said, I'll cover whatever... if there's something wrong, I'll cover it.' - **[content_signal]** Terry Hardy, competitive player and content creator, produced detailed investigative video on Haggis collapse documenting history, timeline, technical failures, and interviewed affected customers and former employees. Video widely referenced in community discussion. (confidence: high) — George repeatedly cites 'Terry Hardy video' as authoritative source; credits Hardy with interviewing customers and explaining chronology and technical details - **[market_signal]** Haggis Fathom Revisited machines depreciating significantly on secondary market: originally ~$10,000, now reselling at $7,900+ despite delamination issues making repair expensive/impossible. Centaur reselling at $4,000-$5,000. Indicates loss of collector confidence and demand destruction. (confidence: medium) — George observing Pinside secondary market listings; 'I saw a game today... $7,900 in bucks' - **[content_signal]** The Classic Pinball Podcast experienced disruption when publishing platform (Spotify) ceased free content services, removing access to George's entire sound effects library (music, edits, commercial assets). Forced migration to new platform; upcoming episodes will have reduced production quality initially while George learns new software. (confidence: high) — George: 'All those files, all those sound files of all the stuff that I use, don't have access to them anymore. Gone... I'm going to have to recreate everything.' - **[community_signal]** Pinball community streaming activity has declined significantly post-COVID. Where Twitch pinball streams were abundant during pandemic, they are now rare. Amateur/casual streams have largely ceased; only professional tournament content and tutorial streams remain visible. (confidence: medium) — George: 'During COVID, you used to be able to go on Twitch any night of the week and find a pinball video... Not now... if it is, it's usually somebody I've never heard of.' - **[design_innovation]** Haggis attempted novel 'friction playfield' design concept: hard plastic overlay (claimed indestructible to denting) held in place by static friction and mechanical assemblies rather than adhesive. Theoretically appealing for wear resistance but proved catastrophically flawed in practice due to assembly complexity, supplier sensitivity, and repair difficulty. (confidence: high) — Detailed technical explanation from George citing Terry Hardy video; friction-based clamping mechanism requiring precise hole alignment; any assembly error caused spiderwebbing of plastic - **[product_strategy]** Haggis marketed 5-6 game limited series where customers paid $6,000 deposit upfront for matching numbered/numbered series edition with exclusive benefits. Strategy to fund manufacturing through deposits; backfired when production failed. (confidence: medium) — George: 'they took, or six games, whatever it was, they took a $6,000 deposit from people if they wanted to be part of the quote-unquote series.' --- ## Transcript Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Classic Pinball Podcast. My name is George. His name is Dave. Hello, Dave. Hello, George. Well, Dave, clock's been ticking. It has been quite some time since you and I have recorded. A lot of time has passed. Let's get right into it. We can do one of two things. we can talk about the latest in pinball or we can talk about your adventures. Your choice. Let's call the latest happenings with the fathom and the centaur and all that happy stuff. Or not happy stuff. I'd like to start by asking you a personal question. Sure. What did you think the first time you heard that Fathom was going to be reproduced? I was thinking they better get it right. And besides that, I don't know. I was, when I first, yeah, they better get it right, and what are they going to do with this thing to, you know, what kind of special thing are they going to do with it, I guess. And are they going to pull it off? Another one. Okay. I guess my story is I heard about this in one of the podcasts, and I want to say it was the one that Marty Robbins was on, but I could be mistaken. It could have been anywhere. I really thought I would want one, but what scared me was the fact that you had to put money up in advance for something sight unseen. Yeah, I don't like that. No, I don't either. And I don't know where this falls as far as companies that have done it in the past, but it never seems to work out the way that you have it in your mind. There's always a glitch. There's something that comes up, and then inevitably the house of cards falls. We've seen the movie enough times, and my thought was, well, maybe I'll buy one on the open market. Yeah. I don't want to jump ahead because I'm going to do a lot of name-dropping along this topic and also some praise to a handful of people. Did you have a chance to watch that Terry Hardy video that's just recently released? I did not. That's the guy with the kind of straggly hair, that guy? I don't know. I didn't really watch it. I think he's from Oklahoma. He's a hell of a pinball player. See him in tournaments every once in a while. He did a really good job in explaining the history and the chronology of what happened with this company. The best part was he interviewed two people who bought actual machines, but not directly from Haggis. They bought them from Flip N Out Pinball. and the first thing I want to say is this hobby is lucky to have a guy like Zach Minney and flipping out pinball to distribute machines. He basically backed everything up and said, I'll cover whatever, you know, if there's something wrong, I'll cover it. And did you happen to see that printed page of the monetary, people taking monetary damages? I did. We'll get into that. I'm jumping ahead. Sure. I'm going to jump all around because I have heard this story from a multitude of sources, and I'm going to try to give credit to all those people. But the long and short of it is these two gentlemen who bought the games had the delamination of the top play field. Did you hear how these things were put together? No. So they have the same problem like Mirco did in some of the scary games? No, no. It's even crazier. It's basically two layers. The traditional plywood, you know, plate field. But on top they put, remember they said, oh, this, you know, plastic or whatever it was, you know, couldn't be dented. He took the sledgehammer. Do you remember that whole video? It was pounding on it. So like a hard top? Do you remember this? No, I don't remember that, but it was like a hard top? Sort of, not really. Here's the catch. I didn't know this, and you probably didn't know this, and anybody who hasn't seen the Kerry Hardy video, go watch it. It's pretty good. The only thing that would adhere, they called it a friction play field. There's no adhesive. All the mechanisms were to hold this indestructible play field in place. Fast forward, I guess during COVID, they had to change suppliers. And the long and short of it is, I don't think it was the same product. Because I haven't heard, and again, this is all from other sources. I didn't do my homework and validate everything, so take me off the hook. Don't sue me. It's crazy what this company was trying to do. Basically, the games were delaminated. And Zach Manning, who I just mentioned, backed it up. He took the games back and gave people the money back. So he's out money. Is Zach out money? Well, now we'll jump to this pro forma I saw. And the third to last item is called distributors total. And, again, you know, I pulled this from NAP Arcade. Give them the credit. There are three distributors. And if I heard on another podcast, I think there's one, you know, there's that many here in the U.S. I think there's a Canadian distributor and maybe a European distributor. the total that they are owed is $259,000 I had no idea the number was that big did you? no I thought there was some big numbers there on a small run of games oh again this was a Terry Hardy thing I heard during that podcast they said they made $200,000 of these I didn't think there were that many made No, I didn't think so either Wow So, that's pretty wild, isn't it? That's pretty nutty, yeah So, the whole idea behind this play field This indestructible play field is You know, everybody complaining about games that get dimples You know, there's not a wood hard enough that will repel a steel ball even with all the, you know, clear coat you can put on there, et cetera, eventually you're going to get pockmarks. But that's neither here nor there. They tried to do something different, and they got smoked. Now, I made the comment that I thought I might want to buy one of these games. So I started seeing them appear, you know, on Pinside and other places, and I kept saying to myself, man, people are unloading these. Why? and I don't know if I mentioned this a long time ago, but when they were first shipped to the U.S., Bruce Nightingale. I remember that. Right. We talked about this. They got one at the Rochester Pinball Collective, and he did nothing but bitch about the quality and the game not working. I never heard about this delamination thing, so maybe that didn't happen with that game. But they got rid of it. and now if you go out onto Pinside and look, I saw a game today. I don't know what they sold for originally. I'm going to say $10,000, but I'm not sure of that. $7,900 in bucks. Now, would you want to take the flyer and open that up and see that you've got a delaminated play field and that the only way to fix it would probably be to take the whole damn thing apart? again I'm asking you know people are like well why are these guys talking about Haggis well because we're a classic pinball it's a classic game after all it's a remake we're big advocates of valley games and stern you know retro stern games Bruce Nightingale I mean you gotta come on he bleeds those games you gotta you know you gotta go with his gut and what he's telling you so he my long and short of it is he saved me a load of money and I feel bad for the people who bought these things they're beautiful looking but they don't work I think someone's going to step up and maybe create something to get it to work you know aka one of these other, I forget the name of the board that does it it doesn't matter somebody's going to put on the cape and come rescue everybody Yeah, John Day. John Day can do it. Oh, I'm sure he's going to appreciate that. Yeah, I think because he's done some of the other people with the Lissy board, they can reprogram the whole game and do a whole bunch of different stuff. So I'd either try to do, if I was, you know, that kind of electrical engineering type to tackle that, or you buy the game and retrofit it back to original Fathom. It's not the same. And we talked about this before, and this is the crazy part about it. It's not only that this game didn't work. Getting parts for this thing, what are you going to do now? I don't know if these are off-the-shelf parts. I'm guessing there are some, but probably not all. Well, some, but that's what I'm saying. I would see what it is and then see, okay, what can I convert back to original Bally or whatever's in there. I don't know if it's a Stern thing going on with there or a Bally thing. I don't know. Again, I don't know enough about it. I've never played one. I've never even seen one. Have you? I've never seen one in person. I've just seen them all online all the time. Right, me too. So, again, there's 200 of these supposedly floating around the world. I wonder where they are. How about the Centaur one? Did it ever get out at all? That never left home base. I didn't understand the completeness of it, but my understanding, correct me if I'm wrong, somebody who can email us. I heard there was one game, and it's Terry Hardy who I keep referring to, said that he unboxed one. So I don't know if that's one and the same. And if you look at some of the pictures on Pinside, I saw one of Damien who they're now calling Mr. S, I think. Something like that. They've given him a name with the S word. So no one likes Damien it seems like No, no Oh my god, he's gone into hiding They said he pilfered over a million bucks At least that's what the rumor is That's like the 1973 Omen 3 film with Damien It's a fiasco It's Just a crazy, crazy Story And we heard this with Deep Root. We heard this with, what is it, the Pinball Brothers and, you know, all these different companies that have kind of come and gone. Why would you give money up front on a game you've never played? It's just, I don't know. I'm just not that kind of person. I'm not that trusting. I'm wondering how many people now moving forward are even more jaded than they were before. I'd say a lot more I'd say it can be very few people they're going to want some assurances let's say or you know put the money in escrow some kind of escrow thing that was talked about too and I think that was inferred but I don't think it was in practice how's that so they lied I didn't say you did but there's a lot of finger games I'll retract. This is a story for the ages. I'm just trying to round up all the cats and put it in our perspective, because I looked at this and said, that's an ambitious project to recreate games that people already have out there and draw the comparisons. But, you know, they were putting modern electronics in it and trying to put a different game set into it. And I get all that. They were trying to appeal to the modern player, but with more retro game. The game that always comes up now in conversation is Pulp Fiction, kind of that kind of spin. So I get it, because these two people that were interviewed both had modern collections and said we were trying to change up our collection by putting in a modern version of a classic. I mean, in theory, it makes sense, but in execution, it didn't work out that way. Yeah, yeah, not so much. It's a shame, too. There's so many good titles that have fallen flat like that. Well, we don't know what the other titles were. Remember that you were supposed to have this five-game series, right? And they took, or six games, whatever it was, they took a $6,000 deposit from people if they wanted to be part of the quote-unquote series. And your game would have all the matching numbers and, you know, all the accolades that go along with it. You can read about it on your own, but you get what I'm saying. So I'll go back to this pro forma. So it lists individuals, and it says 86 in total. for a total of $846,000. So not only did they Shanghai the distributors, the individuals were over a million bucks. Well, didn't any lawyers look at this stuff, going into it, at different people at these businesses, and didn't anybody do any due diligence? I think a lot of it is, you know, don't assume that the law here is the law there. You're talking two different countries. You know, there's a big ocean in between. There was speculation that this delamination was happening because they put it on the slow boat to China, and it would take forever to get there by freighter, and, you know, heat and elements might have disrupted these games. There's all, yeah, it's like anything. Until we hear from the source, there will be speculation on this forever, and I don't know if we'll ever get the real, true story. Actually, they did have a centaur at the Texas show. One went there. So maybe that, again, I might have misunderstood, but to answer your question, I don't think there were many made. Yeah. A couple. A couple. and you want, and again, I don't know I don't remember people talking about playing it I don't know if you could play it, I don't know any of that part but it doesn't matter, there's no more company and there's no no one's going to get that key, but people paid for that, and here's the kicker you know, you said the L word they called people up and said, your fathom's going to be ready in six weeks Can you pay the balance on your game? And speculation is they knew full well they would never deliver in those games. Wow. I don't know how your conscience going to sleep at night with that kind of thing can never do that. I don't know how people can do that. But they did it. And here's the crazy part. So I talked about, you know, how they put these playfields together. this guy went as far as building this space age pod to ship new playfields to people and you would ship back your delaminated playfields so they kept this ruse going with this pod making it look as if they're being proactive and trying to help people people speculate that they knew long before that this was a scam this was never going to be this was never going to be what it was supposed to be as part of that do they want to just sleep really close to the pod is that what happened where is my bell Donald Sutherland Maury my lovely assistant is going to get my bell I said where is my bell I don't have my bell handy how dare I run out of my bell So, yeah, the pods. I feel bad for people. I feel really bad for people. I mean, in the bank loans, business fuel, $146,000. Commonwealth Bank of Australia on the hook for $95,000. American Express on the hook for $57,000. Here's somebody that's not going to be happy. The Australian Taxation Office. Oh, they're going to not be happy at all. For $153,000. Oh, boy. And the licensed or planetary pinball supplies, who we're all familiar with, on the hook for 56 grams. Yeah, so he's going to go and fight and get a voice changer and get some plastic surgery done? I don't know. I mean, you look over your shoulder a lot would be my guess. Look, I feel really bad for people who bought these things. I really do. But, hey. Didn't they make a game? They made stealth as well, right? Don't you remember the line in the, what was it, Animal House? Hey, you effed up. You trusted us. Right. Look, you effed up. You trusted us. Right. Yeah. Exactly. You're not going to spend your whole life worrying about your mistakes? You fucked up! You trusted us! So, here's my last question and we'll sew this up. Is the bloom off the rose for these two titles? And what I'm getting at is, I've seen some original fathoms for sale in the $5,000 to $6,000 range. Various quality. Centaur seems to be a little bit cheaper in the $4,000 to $5,000 range. Again, depending on, you know, quality and, you know, how good, you know, everything is on the game. Obviously, there are outliers, you know, for games that have been, you know, high-end restored or et cetera you've done. But those are few and far between. Do you think people still seek these titles out? I would say they're I think they're still seeking them out there's just so many more players in the game these days of choices to go for that I don't know I don't know if the Fathers and Centaurs of the world are have they gone down a bit in price that kind of thing I don't know we can't go back in time but COVID kind of messed things all up. I'm looking at it and saying is the hobby as strong as it has been in the past couple years? I'm not so sure that's the case. And I'll give you an example why I don't think that. During COVID, you used to be able to go on Twitch any night of the week and find a pinball video. You know, somebody doing live stream. Not now. Oh, that's an interesting data point. I've done it a couple of times. I'm like, I'm not doing anything. Is there anything on here? And if it is, it's usually somebody I've never heard of doing something I don't really care about. So it's few and far between. Yeah, if you have the tournaments on weekends, that's a totally different game. We're not going to get into that now. But just regular streams that used to see people do. I think it got saturated I do see the tutorial stuff coming up on different even old school games I see that coming up once in a while for a pro to play the game that kind of thing but your amateur kind of guy playing pinball I guess not as much anymore I still do my thing when I do a restoration I'll put it out there me talking about and playing the game. But it's not live. You know, I put it out a little bit after the fact. But I get pretty good views on it. Have you seen an increase or a decrease? I guess a little bit of a decrease. But, I mean, sometimes these things take, all the time in the title, they take time to get traction. I'll say all of a sudden thousands and thousands of views after a couple months, and sometimes the first couple of days might only get like 10 or 15 views. Sounds like our podcast. Yeah, kind of. There are days I scratch my head and I go, why were people listening to our podcast today versus every other day where there were low numbers? I don't ever understand it. I do understand, and we've kind of talked about this over the last couple of months, us being a decrease in our podcast, but I think that was because you and I just have not done it for whatever reason. You being busy, I made fun of you in the last podcast. Oh, I have something to talk about with our last podcast, too. You spending a lot of time in Martha's Vineyard. You haven't been spending a lot of time there, but you've been down the Cape quite a bit. Yes, been down the Cape quite a bit. I have a bunch of – I was going over all my service calls since we last hooked up, and so forth and down where you are. And a lot of that stuff is down to Kate. And, you know, I'm going to go back again this weekend for more Kate stuff. It's a nice little market. It's been a nice summer. I mean, I haven't, you know, you can pretty much imagine what I've been doing every day. You know, I don't even call it swimming. Wallowing in the pool. It's been so hot here. I think what you've been doing, you've been sweating to the oldies, George Yeah, I am the oldie And I have been sweating It was so hot one day That I was sweating in the pool It was just So hot It's stupid But we're in for some relief Debbie is coming to dump some rain So hopefully we'll get rid of the drought We'll get rid of the heat We'll get back to some normalcy but I wanted to tell you about our podcast. So today, just early this morning, I kept looking at our last podcast, Embryon, and you know, not our greatest work, but we put it out because I had nothing else to put out. It wasn't out online anywhere. They yanked it. Remember I told you that they were basically changing the platform. Spotify I got rid of all the creative stuff. Well, here's news. All those files, all those sound files of all the stuff that I use, don't have access to them anymore. Gone. Gone. The whole library. All those sound files that I use, the music, all those edits and cuts, those are all sound files like your commercial. You know, Dave, Dave. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's gone too? Those are all SAM files. Okay. Gone. Library's gone. They're behind a paywall somewhere? Is it a paywall? What's going on? No, no. They just decided that we're no longer going to be in this business. Well, it would be a nice little heads up to say, hey, if you want your stuff, we're going to give you stuff. They did give us a heads up. But I don't have the storage capacity for all that stuff. That's why I kept doing it. I'm like, oh, you guys are insane. I just kept racking up files in there saying, okay, I just got to remember the naming convention. And so all our stuff is out on their site. So now, so today I went to go look, and I'm like, I knew it was coming, so I got that last episode out. That episode hasn't been published for a couple weeks, I'm guessing. I kept looking at it, and I'm like, the number doesn't move. Do people really hate it that much? And I look and I go, oh, it's not even out there. They yanked it. So I don't know. So they yanked it and put it back? No, I had to. I had to redistribute it. I had to click some buttons to say, hey, you idiots, put it back out there. So now it's back out there. So it was out there. We had a bunch of people listen to it in the first couple of days. and I don't look at it regularly, but I happened to look last week or so a couple times, I'm like, the number hasn't moved I mean, that happens with like El Toro and some of the really crappy ones, but this was like our worst episode ever and because of them I go, I know it's not great but it's not that bad right is that weird? it is weird, well I still have that, the stuff I've sent you I still own that. I still have all that stuff. I'm just going to find it and send it to you, I guess. Well, I don't need those files. I'll figure a way to get some of the bigger and better sound files. But I've got to build a whole new library. I don't know what I'm doing yet. I mean, we're going to just start publishing stuff. I might not be as robust with all the edits and everything because I've got to learn a whole new product. I mean, they basically left me hanging. I always feared that this day would come, and it came. Well, you know, because, hey, what do you want for free? That's why. You get what you pay for. I don't really care about all the episodes being out there, because they'll be out there forever. They'll float around in space forever. That's fine. But it's all those individual files that I recorded and collected and had named. So when I did something, I'm like, oh, I have that file somewhere. Boom, boom, boom. I don't have to think about it again, you know, click and drop. Now I've got to recreate everything. Oh, yeah. What about the kids saying, Dr. Dave, that you don't have anymore, right? Because I have that if you need it. No, I don't have it, but I will re-record it and, you know, I'll start getting some files. I have a big cloud file. I guess I going to have to start using it because I don know where else I going to be able to store all this stuff I can store it on an iPad There not enough room Yeah you have iCloud right You have iCloud Yeah I have iCloud I have iCloud So, again, folks, what I'm getting at is our show might not be as robust this time. It might take me a couple of times to get going and understanding the software and everything. It'll be good. You know, it'll be good. It's just not going to have all the bells and whistles as normal. I'll get there. Just a little bit of a learning curve. Remember, I'm old. So we were kind of like the U.S. dollar on the gold standard for a while, and now we're on the tinfoil on the ball of string standard? No, we just got thrown out. I mean, it's like, hey, guys, guess what? We're no longer a bar. We're now a spa. Get out. And that's pretty much what happened. Okay. So now you're going to send me the file. I've got to import the file. I've got to import it into the thing. do what I have to do with that, then export this file back to the Spotify. That's the million-dollar question. What's that exercise going to be like? But I'll get there. We're early enough in the month. I'm going to put out an August episode from hell or high water. How's that? Sounds good to me. I think we can do that. I wasn't going to say anything, and then I'm like, you know what, just come free. It's just easier. Why not? Then people can know what's going on and, you know, why things are the way they are and so forth. You know. One thing I want to mention. Yeah. Sorry. One thing I do want to mention before I forget. We turned into our sixth year. We started this mess back in June of 2019. Wow. Yeah, what a long, strange trip it's been. Yes, it has. Yes, it has. Lots of ups, lots of downs, lots of big Lebowski, what do you say? A lot of ins, lots of outs. Sorry. That's all right. I will say we've got about six minutes until this. So why don't you break it here because it's a natural break. Okay. Right? Sure. I mean, we don't have to move forward. We kind of completed our thoughts there unless you have something to add. Nothing about the Haggis thing. They also had Celts they did. Did they do Celts at the game too? Celts. Celts, yeah. And that one, no one complained about that one. That's out there. I kind of alluded to that earlier. I said that. Those games were out there. They weren't plentiful, but they made 100 games, maybe more. And they kind of proved their... They proved that they could make a game and that the game might not have been the best game, but the quality was pretty decent. And they did use that kind of play field, which begs the question, if somebody has a Keltz, have they had a delamination problem? and the whole delimit thing you basically said it just lays on a static cling and the assemblies hold it down and that's why they had this pod they didn't trust customers to try to repair their game in other words take all the mechanisms off and put this new play field on I guess the process was very detailed and exact with a drill because you had to line up the wood with all the pre-drilled holes in it with this indestructible playfield that laid on top, and you had to match the holes. And I guess if you didn't do it correctly, this plastic would spiderweb, and it would destroy, basically, the playfield. So the explanation that was given was, what happens when you get all the way down to the apron, and you put in one of the screws, it was one of the last items on the playfield, and it spiderwebs? No good. You've got to take everything off and start all over again. A, expensive. B, that's just crazy to try to do that from a manufacturing standpoint. I think so. I will say Stern has in the past, well, they've shipped out brand-new plate hills assemblers because some people have little problems, and they just say, okay, customer, take the old plate hill out, put a whole new plate hill in. Right, but there's Stern. Right. It's just a little startup that, you know, you see the pro forma here. These aren't huge numbers. This is, you know, a coffee break at Stern. I mean, this is nothing. Two different animals. Just, I don't know. Like I said, until somebody comes clean with the story, it's going to be speculation. I guess this Kerry Hardy has interviewed some of the people who used to be employed there. How much dirt comes out of that, you know, I guess we'll find out. Wow, interesting. Yeah, it's a big pinball soap opera there, certainly. You want to hear something funny? Sure, go for it. So my friend in New York State sends me a text. Do you know anybody who repairs pinball machines? I said, yeah. I said, what game? So she sends me back a reply. A pachinko machine. Concorde Airplane. Oh, supersonic. Well, wait, I asked again. I'm like, Concorde Airplane? I'm like, that's what I thought first. I'm like, let me just confirm. So I just sent it back to her. It's in Warwick, New York. It's down by the Jersey line. It's not in your neighborhood. But do you know anybody down that way? Actually, we were just in New York. Here's the reply. Yep. That's it. You sure know your S. Nice. That's pretty funny. That's pretty funny in real time. By S, you mean supersonic, of course. Yes. Right. Yes, of course that's what I meant. So where... Are you ready for... Wait, one more thing. Was she in Jersey or New York, you said? Warwick, New York. It's right over the Jersey line. Okay, still over a trip. We're up in Kingston, so we'll travel. Right, that's probably an hour and change from where she is. Okay. And it's a supersonic. So I'm automatically going to go to, they're probably looking for a cheaper pair. That would be my guess. That ain't me. Exactly. There might be a supersonic for sale shortly in Warwick, New York. Right. unless you can find a guy with a pair of pliers and a blowtorch he'll do it for a hundred bucks you don't know anybody down there you don't know anybody who does repairs down that way do you? I don't I get a lot of people around the country who call me lately and email me about this kind of stuff and I just send them over to to Pinside database of people who work on games by state so you can find oh is that true? there is a database? there's like a directory in there you can find you know there's no real ratings on them, so you're kind of just going by, okay, I'll interview these people that are in my state and see what's going on. I'll go look it up for her. I'm not going to ask her to go do that. I'll go figure it out. Anyway, are you ready for our audience's favorite segment? I sure am, George. And what segment would that be? What's up, Doc? What's up, John? No. Yeah. Oh. Yeah, I think so. No, it's not. Ask Dr. Dave. We had some e-mails a while ago. We haven't made those e-mails lately. We've had crickets. We've had some crickets. Yeah. We haven't e-mailed. Well, I'll ask again. If you want to share your story about a fathom pinball you might have bought from Australia, contact me at theclassicpinballpodcast, numeral 1, at gmail.com. Or, Dave, give them your email address. Or you can try me at dave at pinballdoctor.com. That's pinballdoctor, all spelled out. There you go. Or head over to my website at pinballdoctor.com. Okay. Anything else you want to pitch? Yeah, why not? Why not my YouTube channel as well, Dr. Day's Pinball Restorations on YouTube. Actually, I have a lot of good – I've been putting out some tech tips out there lately, different things that I've found and just kind of say, you know, I'm going to show you a quick video about this just to save some people some time and money on some of these weird problems I've come across. So I put a couple things out there a little for some tidbits for people as a thank you for checking out my channel. So that's out there. While I was waiting for you, I looked at your YouTube channel and watched part of that World Poker Tour. Nice game. Yeah, thanks. You really pipped that thing out. I did. I'd say, George, you know what? I'm actually getting down to this whole mod thing. It's just kind of cool. You like the mod thing when people want to pay for the mod thing. Get a boy a cigar. Exactly. And there's people out there that will. So I'm happy to do it because these mods ain't cheap. Some of them are, but a lot of them, you're going to dump a toy box on top of, go to Toys R Us, get a toy box, dump it on top of the game, and then some. so I do have fun doing it I'll start with that one with the World Poker Tour I think because that was that was a fun one let's see so back in June or even earlier than that this customer that you've met that led Zeppelin Premium or no Led Zeppelin to me yes over in Shrewsbury Northborough actually Oh, okay. Next time over. Pokemon. And, you know, he's got a nice setup there. He's got one game, and he's got a house down in Nantucket. And he says, you know, I'm really into poker. And I look around his room. He's like, yeah, I can see. He's got a nice poker table layout. I guess he plays hold'em all the time with his friends, and he's into it. And a nice game room, too, very nicely appointed. And he said, well, you know, if you ever had a world poker tour for me, I'd like to put that down by Nantucket House and say, well, we can do that, but I need to, you know, I need something. We've got to cover the cost of getting it over there and all the rigmarole to get it to Nantucket and that whole thing is going to be a thing on top of me wanting the game out. Oh, no problem, no problem. We'll work it out. So he's willing to, you know, do what it takes to get it done. So I don't think he has any problems throwing money at a situation. He's got a daytime job. He's doing all right. Oh, yeah. Yeah, he does. He's got a date. Yeah, he's doing great. I've heard that he does sometimes Zoom meetings from the pool, the backside of the house pool. I remember when he was getting ready to put that in. I remember this person. I remember this house. I remember who he worked for. I won't disclose, but, yeah, that was quite the place. Yeah, quite the place. So I said, okay, we'll go forward, and I'll, so I listed, I just started doing research, okay, what can I do to roll Poker Tour? I mean, it wasn't really well loved when it first came out. It was kind of like, yeah, it's okay. It's starting to get a little researched. People are actually liking this game more these days, and it's getting a little popular. So I'm finding, okay, what can I do to this game to pimp it out? And I found, I don't know, about 10 or so different things to make this game really pop. So I put them all out there, and I said, here's what I can do to your game. You know, which one would you like? How much for all, he asked me. I said, well, give me a day on that. Let me figure out what these things cost. I like when people say that. I do like that. Give it to me all. I want to go all in. Basically, like in poker, you're going all in. So I added up the cost of it all. I added up the time for me to do it all. And I said, I looked at the final number. I was like, that's a pretty big number. But it's like, you know, it's like a World Poker Tour LE kind of number. So, okay, it's kind of there. So I gave him the number. He says, sounds good. Like, cool. So I will start ordering up your stuff. So here's what we did. We did, now this game came from Stu and Ben. And it was Ben's game. Oh, I didn't know that. Oh, this is Ben's game. Ben's game, yeah. Yeah, so, because I was looking for a World Poker Tour, I couldn't really find one out there to source originally or, you know. I found, I know Ben had one. He's about ready to be done with it. He's going to move it on shortly. And, you know, but he wanted to beat the, get the super-duper wizard mode first before he lets it go. So I said, okay, what do you want for it? He gave me a fair price. I said, okay, I'll have it for that price once you're ready to sell it to me. In the meantime, we hit the Allentown show, and I found another one there. And then I found something. Mike McGordy showed me another one. And they're a little bit cheaper, a couple hundred bucks cheaper or so. And it's like, no, I want to keep my deal with Ben. I don't want to go back on that. We have a handshake on it. You know, nobody's exchanged hands yet. Plus, he's someone I know. He's someone close by. Easy transaction. It's worth throwing a little more money than what I could buy from somewhere else. I know what it is, you know. So I did that. they brought it over, and they well-wrapped it, dropped it off here, and it was really nice. I mean, the cabinet was gorgeous on it. It was really a home-use only game. You know, he played a bunch of times, so he, you know, definitely had some, you know, it needed a nice cleaning, it needed a nice refresh. So he did that to it. Cabinet was gorgeous, back glass nice, play feel real nice. Did 30 hours of restoration work on it. Basically made it into an LE. You know, we only have an LE for this game. We did things like put in the perfect place to look on rubber all around, warm LED lighting all around. And this time we actually did color correct LED lighting for the inserts, which I've never really done before. I've usually just done a hybrid approach. But in this game we did LEDs everywhere. I still didn't like how the LEDs would be off and on, off and on, kind of like, I don't know, incandescence of a nice warm analog effect to them. They're off and on. I don't know, just better for your eyes, especially when you get older. I don't know, it's kind of too jumpy for me. So I installed a, my first ever LED OCD board for this game. Wow, what a difference. That thing is well worth it. It makes all the LEDs behave like incandescent lighting, but with the brightness of an LED. So I did that. We built all four flippers, both kicker assemblies, new Titan mirror glazed balls, of course, new optically cleared glass. Let's see. Modify the factory pop bumper rubber replacement. I have a video on this too. They put rubber in the wrong spot so that one of the pop bumpers wouldn't work right. It wouldn't go down the way. It would kind of shape the rubber and break it eventually. So I MacGyvered that. I took that all apart, moved some posts around, put new rubber on. So now that whole thing, that whole pop bumper area has much better action. It won't break the rubber anymore. I also put the special EVO red pop-up for lighting on all the pop-up that actually shine white light down and a bunch of red light up. So it has more illumination there. I put a brand new, this game, just like the Elvis game, has a second-level play field. It's all clear Lexan, and they get trapped early on. You try to buff them out, but they're still scratched up. So I put a brand new one of those in there. So there's no play field there at all. It's nice and brand new. You can see through it. We put mirror blade, plate filaments, side blades on it. And we put in a Flipper Fidelity custom enhanced animated LED box lighting system. So these early Stern games, the early 2000s, they put in fluorescent light tubes in the back glass, one big light tube. So what this guy does, he makes these custom panels that kind of, you take the fluorescent tube out, you put this panel in, he's got LED lighting in certain spots that will go to the back glass or the trans light, and some of the things, and you attach it to the main board so that when a flasher goes off, these lights will go off. It's a lot like a System 11 game. He makes it like a System 11 kind of look to it, and even maybe like a WPC game. So it's kind of cool. It's a backwards thing to like a different era, but it works in this game. It's specific to that game? Yes. Yep. Each title from whatever title he does, he'll do a custom thing for each title. You know, it ain't cheap either, but this guy wanted some cool stuff, so I got him some cool stuff he don't see. So I put that in the game. And also the lighting kind of morphs and changes in the back glass, and this flasher LED lights in the back glass that light up. So you modernized an older game. Yeah, I did. I modernized it, yeah. And there's an LED or an LCD in the play field. Did I see that correctly? Yeah, there's an LED. Or a dot matrix. What is it? No, it's more like just those ice cube LED lighting that you'd have on an older game, just LED lighting, two rows of them, to basically show you what cards you have when you get certain drop targets down and what your hand is and that kind of thing. It's just like a feedback on what you have for a hand when you're playing this poker game. Okay. I also put a color LED D&D into the game, put in a factory poker chip shooter rod and the shooter rod housing, We put Flipper Fidelity whole speaker system into it. That made a big difference with the sound. Much more low-end and clearer. You hear the people talking a lot better. What else do we do in here? Oh, and also put in my first-ever LED trough lighting kit, so it lights up your flippers like a modern game does. You asked me about this, and I want to hear a little bit more. What do you think? Because you can buy these from a variety of people, and they're inexpensive. Right. Did you like it or not? I kind of liked it. I would say it's a little more subdued than the way the Martin Stearns do it. The Martin Stearns have, like, two spotlight cutouts inside the apron that shines a direct high-definition spotlight on the flippers. so it's really made for it. This other way of doing it is kind of Leroy and Jethro's version, where you take a LED lighting strip and you tack it into the trough underneath there, and it shines out, and it does shine on the flippers a little bit in that area, So it's improved, but I'd say it's maybe 60% to 70% of what a modern game would do down there. And I'd say it's a little more towards the right flipper than the left flipper, just the way that you kind of have to shove it in there and do it. But it's kind of cool. I'd say for, you know, modern games, you know, 90s and 2000 games, yeah, it might be a good way to go. You wouldn't put it on a classic game, would you? No, I don't think I'd put it on a classic game Okay No, I wouldn't put it on a classic game And you wouldn't put those pop bumpers on a classic game? No, uh-uh You know, all this mod stuff like this And putting the toys on and all these little things It's all meant for, you know, any kind of, you know, 90s D&D onward You know, so and it's fun doing it. Especially when you get the, you know, the client that wants to do it and willing to pay for it and do it. It's great. You know, I don't mind it at all. It's kind of, it's kind of, it's fun and creative. You got to find these things and track them down sometimes. I also put in a, a real stern knocker with a real thwack when you win a game, you know, because these games just came with just a knocker, a virtual knocker from the speakers. So now this has a real knocker that I showed off during my, video of the game. And I think that was all we did on that game. Yeah, that was about it. Has the game been delivered? Game's been delivered. Actually, Stu offered to help me deliver it. So we got to use for the first time that it's like an it's a stair climber. Not the Escalara. Escalade. No. Escalara. Escalara. You're right. Definitely the truck. It's better than the Escalar. This thing is like a $4,000 unit. It's the one that Tim over at Pins and Pixels uses, and it's pretty beefy. It takes a little effort to pick it up secondhand, so you've got to get a deal on it. So we utilize that to go down the guy's backyard. It's all paved. It's all like stoneworks and no grass to go on, which is this thing does not like grass. You have to be on solid ground. But I saw Stu use it, and it definitely is a back saver, but it's a lot slower. It's a lot to traverse the whole area we're doing. It took us probably, I don't know, four times as long because every step has to be, you know, hitting a button, doing this, bring it back one by one. So it was interesting, you know, utilizing that. Probably could have gone away with just my two-wheeler doing it one by one. But, you know, any chance we can save it back, we're going to do it. So, and Stu was offering, hey, let's go do it. So then I utilized, once we got in the house, I utilized the device that John Day and I made, the automatic back saver RV jack thing with the cradle on it that you put into the game. And you put your drill on there, it jacks it right up in the back, put the legs on, no more lifting the game up at all. So that was a real help with that game. turned it on, and it was all nice and lit up, and he was loving it. And so he said, oh, there's a couple things in the Bud Zeppelin. He said, sure. So I did a couple things in that, cleaned it up, and I basically, that was a gratis. You know, here's your little free service call for a little extra for him, you know. I'm going to have to look back and see how long ago it was. That's a number of years ago when we went to that house. I think he's got about $4,000. You were doing a fix for Stern, if I recall correctly. Yeah, a fix for Stern. And then I also, after I did that or during that call, maybe I did a second call, after the Stern thing, I did, I think he, I don't think he had Stern pay. I think he paid me himself for that. I don't think he even bothered with Stern to fix it, I think. He just had me do it. Then I upgraded all the rubber to go over to that stupid black cheapo rubber they give you. Oh, I remember. I was there. I remember everything. I remember everything. How was your house in Nantucket? Having gone there. This game went to his house in Northborough. Oh, okay. He changed his mind. Oh, okay. I thought he was going to take it to Nantucket. Yeah, no, no. No, sorry. That's why I thought Stu volunteered right away. Hey, I'll go to Nantucket with it. Oh, no, no. That would be, he would never do that. It would be way too much time out of his day. Now, this one worked for Northborough. He said his wife decided to let him do it in Northborough. I have two games there. so he had to do that and at the end of it his wife is not as much of a pinball fan as he is let's say especially when I put the subwoofer on the Led Zeppelin I said how does it sound and he said my wife hears it great upstairs so not really a fan and after I delivered the world poker tour he said yeah I really had to work on it to get me this game here well you got a poker game room here so yeah on the way out I said, oh yeah, by the way tell your wife I'm sorry no, don't I was going to say, did you see the wife and did she give you the stink off? I have not seen, did I meet her? I might have met her once way back but I don't think I met her recently so I didn't see her recently yeah, I could have bulked it up for the subwoofer but I didn't do it that day because the world pulpit doesn't really need the subwoofer a music pen needs it, the world pulpit doesn't really need it I will down the road if you want me to, but I said we don't have to do it right now. We can do it later on, you know, that kind of thing. Right. So let's see. I could give you a rundown of all the games and talents that we have hit recently and a quick little blur about each. There is the highlight in here about a Stern Nugent I'm going to talk about. Yeah, the two highlights, basically, are the World Poker Tour and all the work. Actually, it's three things. That one is the Godzilla thing that's going to be Martha's Vineyard I've got to talk about, and then the Nugent we've got to talk about. But I'll go to a couple. I'll go down the little list here. So what we've done so far on my summer workcation, because it's been a workcation the whole summer. Yeah, you've been everywhere. Everywhere. I'd say so in early May we went to Orleans for a $6 million day spa. Then we went to Mashpee for NBA Fast Break, Ramper Day Spa and Repair, Dead Batteries, NVRAM. And then we built the Star Switch and had MacGyver the Star Switch to give a game, because no matter how you press it, it wouldn't go. So that was kind of messed up. Then up to Littleton, New Hampshire for the Getaway Day Spa. They needed two days to do that one. So that customer paid for our stay up there and a little extra, plus everything else we had to do with that one. then to Guilford, New Hampshire for a Road Kings Day Spa repair of a neglected game that came with this mansion right on Lake Winnipesaukee so that was kind of nice to hang out there for a little bit then later May over to Dover, Mass for a Captain of Fantastic Day Spa then over in June in June we have this customer from Oregon and he called me up and he said hey, I really want a Stern Nugent. He has a modern game, but I remember playing this game as a kid and really wanted to get one and thought I could find a nice one. I said, okay, I'll find you one. So he gave me a little deposit down. I was looking, looking, looking. Then I realized, wait a minute, I had a Stern Nugent that I restored for myself years ago, and I said, oh, don't need to keep it. I'm going to sell it. and I sold it to this woman in Scituate, Massachusetts, who grew up with Ted and me. Yeah, you told the story before. Okay. So abbreviate on the story, but okay. Now I remember this. You brought it back from her, right? I brought it back. So I bought it from her, got it back, but it wasn't quite, it went through a little bit of hell and high water while it was away from me for about five, six, seven years. so I couldn't just take it and say ship it and make some money there's four kids attack the thing you know daily playing the crap out of it it was well used it was well used right but it still so I re-restored it Maureen had to touch it up a little bit the lockdown bar mechanism which from stirring back in this time was made out of pot metal so most of the times they were okay but this one they actually broke it off and this thing was broken It like oh this isn good So these are made of unobtainium So I had to MacGyver that and figure a way to drill a hole and reattach this thing that broke the metal right off. So I figured out that, fixed that part of the lockdown bar. The back glass started to flake some more. You can't find a Nugent back glass anywhere. I looked around. No one has them. BG Resto does have them, but that's another whole story I'll get into. Good luck with him because customer communication, not his strong suit. So did the whole thing, got it done. I wanted to keep the back glass intact. So my latest – I used to use this stuff called – not Triple Thick. You know Triple Thick? Yeah, Triple Thick. yeah, you kind of spray it on, kind of thing. It's kind of a clear coat thing. But I found over the years the formulation, sometimes it works, sometimes they make it worse, and things will start blooming and flaking even more. So I stopped using that. Now what I do with a back glass like this, I'll take a big sheet of Mylar, and I'll carefully just lay it down over the whole back glass, keep it all intact, and then I'll do a little touch-up over the plastic of that Mylar and call it done, which is what I did to this game. and then I put a special color-changing LED where his machine gun guitar is shooting out the neck, so a kind of cool little effect there, and a couple of little niceties into the game. So it was playing really well, looking great, ready to ship out, and I spent half a day without my driveway, you know, wrapping it up, making sure it's secure, blanket wrap, blah, blah, blah. North American Van Lines, I was trying to get the small-time guy to pick it up, because they have these small-time guys actually stepping up now. A lot of people, they're not doing anymore. Older, hurt backs to deliver a game. Retired, whatever. So, the new guys are doing this. I found them on Pinside. Oh, great. Oh, well, I do your northeast area and down to Florida, but going all the way back to Oregon and out that way, nah, I can't go that far. What about that new guy that's doing all the North East? I contacted him. He can't. He won't go that far. It's too much of a trip or something. He was just up in your area. Yeah, but he can't go to Oregon. Oh, oh, oh, oh. It's not picking it up. It's delivering it. Delivering it. Oh, I got the game. I'm sorry. Oh, yeah. No, I picked up the game from Citruid. I was working on it, restored it, and now it's ready to go to the guy in Oregon. So I'm trying like hell to find them. So I finally said, okay, do I have to go to the North American Van Lines again? You know, Michelle at NAVL. Michelle's been promoted now. She's like a district, you know, mucky-muck over there. So now I'm dealing with an underling. And she was nice, too. I figured her name. But, you know, and the price was going to be used to be like, you know, $350, $475. Now it's like $700. Yeah, $750 or so, $800. Right. Right. And, you know, you get to kind of wrap it as best you can. And he said, you know, they said, well, do you want the extra insurance? And he said, hey, I'm in for this for so much money. I'll pay whatever extra, I'm going to insure it for the full value. Absolutely. So he did. He put the full value on it. And, George, it's a good thing he did. Oh, no. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Wait, wait, wait. Before you tell that story. Sure. this is not an easy game to find, correct? No, it's not an easy game to find at all. Nope. And they made not many? 3,000? 4,000? I'm going to say 3,000. I don't have it in front of me, but low numbers. Not 10,000. Not 10,000. I'll give you the exact number here. 2, 4, 3, 7. Oh, wow. That's low. Low. Okay, go ahead. Give us the punchline. Okay. So. It sounds like it might be a punchline. It might be a punchline. So I will, let's see, I will read what he said to me. Poor guy. He's a real nice guy, too. Let's see. Yeah, this is August 5th. So he said to me, an STI moving company. Okay. This is back yesterday. Yesterday. So this thing, I sent this out there on July 16th. No. That's almost three weeks ago. Yeah, it was supposed to be there in two weeks. So it went on a tour somewhere. I think it went to the Badlands. Because it's a game. That's why it went through Death Valley. Death Valley. And I think maybe the zoo had, I don't know, an exhibit with a bunch of gorillas. Did it meet up with a wood chipper? I think, have you ever seen that American Tourister commercial? Yeah, with the gorilla. Yeah, that was the people. The luggage around the cage. Those were the freaking zoo animals that did it. Oh, so those were the employees handling this machine? I think they were. This was gorilla hand treatment? Gorilla hand treatment. Throwing around. And he said, Dave, Nugent arrived today! Exclamation point. I'm thinking, great, that sounds good. How many pieces? Then he says, good news and bad news. It says, uh-oh, uh-oh. All right, well, I guess give me the bad news first. Well, the bad news is that the back glass is shattered, see photo. Oh! And that's tough to find. And the left rear leg adjuster got bent, see photo. The good news is the game started just fine and looks and plays just fine like brand new, except for all these other problems. The truck driver and I took photos of the damage, and I will have to file an insurance claim. Glad I bought the extra insurance. Any chance of a replacement back glass can be obtained. Same question for the leg. So now I'm thinking, I'm looking at the picture you sent me. It's like, wow, the glass looks all broken up, but it's all together. Usually when you break up a tempered sheet of glass. So it looks like a cracked mirror, but it's all together. It's all together because that mylar on the back, remember, kept it together. Right. But it's all apart. Oh, God. So this just happened. So you don't know if it's going to be full replacement costs? I say go for full replacement costs. I say go for full. Absolutely. Yeah. Because that back class, you can't obtain. Well, then, see, you... There's another story. You're going to tell another story. You can't obtain, but you can, but it's a big pain in the ass to obtain it. So, oh, so I looked at the picture of the leg. And I said, wait a minute, I know what I do on these games when I ship them. Even though I want the proper pitch to have the leg levers up in the back for shipping, no, no, no, no, no. I don't want those things up. I want them all the way down so that they're not top heavy. They're not going to get bent. The leg lever won't get bent over by hitting some carpet or something or hitting a truck or whatever. So they're all the way down. It's like, well, how can you do that to the leg lever being bent? Well, what they did, what is bent, where the leg lever screws in, that bottom part of that leg is bent up. So that flat part is bent up towards the other two pieces of the leg, the framework of the leg. Right. So I'm thinking. Right, like a little square, right. A little square. So now I'm thinking, okay, I see what happened here. Someone dropped this game. on that leg with so much force, it bent it, and that glass just slammed down on top of itself and shattered right there because tempered glass is very, it's weaker on the edges. When it takes an edge hit, it's very weak. When it takes a front hit, if you punch the glass, it can take that. But you can't hit it on an edge that hard, it'll shatter. So they shattered this glass by dropping that game. They sort of wrecked the leg, but you could bend that back. I told them you could probably bend that back and be fine. But the glass... So then I'm thinking back, okay, well, I know BG Resto has this glass. And it looks pretty darn nice. They don't have mirroring for it because the original glass is mirroring. But they do have fake mirroring. And it looks very acceptable. In fact, I offered it to him a while back. I said, hey, instead of the original glass, do you want me to get one of these? This is way back. And we're talking. He goes, no, I'd rather just have original. I said, okay, no problem. Easier on me. And you're going to get it a lot quicker. I said, wait for this guy. So now fast forward to BG Resto. I've been trying to get my, the game I got out of the cave about a year ago, Buck Rogers, that had a problem back glass. I'm going to restore the game. and I gave it to BG Resto because he said, well, I can either sell you one I have with no mirroring or you send me your original one with mirroring, and I can take the stuff off, the ink off it, keep the mirroring, add ink, and now you have a nice back us with mirroring with my new artwork on it. It's like, great, let's do that. Sent it off to him. Didn't hear from him for a while, about a month or so. Hey, oh, I got the glass, yeah. Oh, okay, well, it looks like it's not going to work out, but I have another glass here I can use that's mirroring like yours. I'll just go to this one and send this one back. Okay, let me know when you're ready. I, another month went by. Hey, how is he doing that? Oh, he never sent me any money. The glass is ready to go. It's like, okay, well, he never told me to send you money, so I sent him all the money. I sent him all the money. Still never heard back. Then a couple weeks went by. Hey, did you get the money? So when's the glass coming? A couple more weeks. Then I try to call him. He sends me back a text. Oh, I'm on the phone right now. I'll get back to you later. Never go back to me. Text him more. Never go back to me. So now, so that back glass, which I don't have now for that game, is the customer's game. It's out in space somewhere. I don't know if I'm going to get that back. I mean, I think the guy eventually makes good on this stuff, but I've heard horror stories from other people that this can happen with him. I'm laughing here. This is just, it's such a small hobby. You're grateful to get something. But at some point in time, just come clean and just say, hey, look, I'm really busy. This is going to take a while. It's not going to be tomorrow. You know, set the expectations and then deliver. Just people. Yeah, he doesn't know how to actually say, hey, I'm running behind. It's going to take a lot longer. Maybe he's used to people yelling at him or something, but I wouldn't yell. I want to be, like with my customers, I try to keep them informed. If you have communication, that's all, that's key. If you're on communication, now you're going to, that's going to be a problem. You know, so it's a bad way to run a business if you're on communication. You've got to have communication. So now it's like, so now I just did to him the other day, I sent him a text saying, hey, now I'm looking for a new gym back class that you have. I'd like to order that too. So I figured I'd, and I already bought several restos, several backups from him about a year ago. I got a Stern Stingray, and I got that Blackjack one. I got them two at the same time, and those came within about maybe a month or two. No problem with those. So I've done business with him before, and had no problem. Now, I think he's an airline pilot, so he flies around somewhere, busy, I don't know. But this is kind of more of a hobby for him. so I'm sure he has everybody in the brother thing, hey where's my back glass so I'm adding to my but now I need this Nugent glass for this guy and you know and I don't know if I should order it for him and then oh no no no no no no no no no get out yeah the insurance company it's first of all if it was me and my game I would say you basically taken a classic and wrecked it because that original Backglass is no longer available. Yeah. So I want full refund. You deal with this anchor. Then what I would do if I were you is I would find out who that insurance agent is. I would get the number from your customer and then call that agent and say, hey, here you got a game without a Backglass and you can't get one. How much do you want for the game and buy it on the cheap and go do it again. That's what I would do. George. Well, think about it. The insurance company has got to make good on it. So it's like buying a classic car or any other, you know, object they are. If it goes south, you've now got a sea anchor. What are you going to do with it? They're not in the business of restoring it. They're going to try to get rid of it and just move. Yeah, here's the thing. I'm not going to store it. I don't know what to do with it. All the complications. That's what I would think. Here's the thing. The customer is not going to let it go. He wants to basically keep the game. He has no idea. The game works fine. He just wants a backlash. Now, if they pay full value, they want the game, right? Yeah. Okay. Just like if your car is totaled. That's the analogy I would use. The car is totaled. It gets sold to a lot. at some point in time, that car is either going to be sold or restored or both. And if it's sold, all the insurance company wants to do is move it along and get what they can for it. Because it basically becomes a parts machine. Well, so at this point, he has to negotiate that. He says, okay, I want the game, but I need the back glass. Give me X amount of dollars for this back glass. So I basically told him, you need to get between a grand and $1,500 to cover the back glass and the leg. Anyway. Absolutely. Get as much as you can. As much as you can. You know, get even more than that, you know. That's the way to go there. I was thinking of, like, trying to, you know, if he could kind of give me a lot of that dough, I can find him a glass, put all the chrome stuff on the glass, blah, blah, blah, and ship it to him in a nice shipping container and get it to him. But I don't know. Or I could just have him do all that stuff and say, here's what you do to make the glass. The insurance company. That's why you bought the insurance. Insurance company, make good on it. or give me the money they're going to give him the money then he has to go figure it out maybe that'll be it that's different if he's left hanging that's different but I would he should get maximum value from that insurance company to make his game right I think we can leave it right there there's more to this story I guess what I need to do this point is just basically say here here's he's the BG Resto hit with the gut message this guy and see if he can get something going with him what about that guy in Europe who's been reproducing back glasses who's that guy is he a playful guy or no no no no back glasses you would have to ask me I'll have to look it up it's on Pinside maybe? it must be I've heard the guy's name before if you said it I'd go yeah that's it he's recreated some back glasses with the mirroring that's what made me think about it I'll see if I can come up with it I forget whom I heard it from it was probably on a podcast somewhere but give me a little bit I'll see if I can find it Okay. I mean, with Nugent, I mean, who knows? You know, licensing rights, I don't know about Europe, but, you know, whatever. He might, you never know. He might have, you know, might have the capabilities to do that. Maybe I can get a Nugent and a, what's it called, a Buck Rogers out of this guy. I don't know. The other guy. We'll find out. Anyway, so what other stories do you have for us? So let's go on. You said you had another big story, Frank. I got another big story. Actually, here's a cool timely story. We're not going to go right to the big one right away. But we were down the Cape once again. We've been down the Cape a lot. And now I keep getting customers from Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard knocking on my door and asking me what it will take to get over there. So I've basically been telling them, here's what it takes to get over there. So you've got to be on your big boy pants. and uh well if they live in nantucket they've already got big boy pants exactly it's a matter if they want to if they want to uh part with some of those stacks right they got plenty of stacks they can source them this way i'll give them good value for their money um but other stuff i've had self dennis did a wizard day spa uh then i went to burlington after that july the week of july i Went to Burlington, LaMaitre game room there. Did six months cleaning and fixing. Need of a Madness, the troll was all messed up. I had to put a new troll mechanism in there to pop up. The Slimer on Ghostbusters, that thing notorious for a frayed cable. It acts just like a tilt-bob assembly, except the Slimer is always on. Hit the ball against him, it goes off. So it's like the opposite of a tilt-bob. but it's all frayed up so it's always on because it's a little frayed cabling i was always hitting the wrong thing so i finally got one of those after waiting for months a special order from pinball life with special order from stern i finally got one out of them paid big money for it but i just passed it on to the customer because they wanted it and now they got a nice working ghost parts the way it's supposed to be uh worked on their hobbit someone broke their The shooter rod off. I had to put one of the... Oh, how the hell do you do that? And the back leg was messed up because they kind of wrecked that, too. I had to put a whole new plate in the back that almost tore the cabinet off. I think during the old past couple years of Cooties, I think he moved all the games out of there because they had special, you know, they want to keep everybody safe and distance and all the rest of that horse hooey. And, you know, put them all back in there. And some survived well and some didn't do so well. So I had to go do and redo a lot of that stuff. I know a Hobbit, Godzilla, Kiss, two Ghostbusters, a Deadpool, and Medieval Madness. Did that. Worked with Maureen and I. Did that. Churro, Junkyard Day Spa, NDRAM and some other stuff than that. That was an old day thing. Just a lockdown receiver. And then we go over to East Ham on July 29th by Barrels of Fun Pinball. What game would this be, George? Labyrinth. Correct. But, so this lady... The game I've played and you haven't played. I have now. Until... Until... Of course now. Until a couple days ago. Did it have that stupid munchkin thing on the backbox? She paid extra for that. Yeah, she wanted all the... She's such a big fan of this game since childhood. She loves this movie. So she got all the crap with it. So she ordered the game and the custom shooter rod and the custom animated topper. and all this other stuff, and I don't think Barrels of Fun maybe has deep enough pockets to hire maybe the correct moving team they should, maybe for down the Cape, maybe they didn't have one down the Cape or whatever. Well, these gentlemen showed up. I'm not sure they were actually gentlemen. They lift things up and put things down, and they, she said, well, can you put, okay, set the game up. They didn't level it right. Can you put this topper on? We don't know how to do that. Can you put the shooter on? No. What's the other assembly? I don't know what that is. We got to go. So she said... Oh, he just delivered the game and said, here you go. Here you go. Plugged it in. Turned on. It played. Okay, that's it. All the extra stuff, no. You got to figure it yourself. So she emailed me. I said, no problem. I can get down there. So I told her it's like... You know, it's a bit of a travel to East Timnus and that, so it's a little bit of travel and whatever and time and so forth. I gave her kind of a ballpark. It wasn't too bad for pricing, you know, compared to what I usually do for a day spot because it's already the brand new game. I just got to install some crap. So it also makes sure everything's working right. I don't know if I asked you what you think of the top of you. You've said crap twice. Well, I don't know. It's interesting. They have hairstyles of the hair. You can actually use hairspray on them and part them different ways. There's all kinds of different things you can do with these little dolly dress-up you can do on them. You know? Right. So when I went down there, I thought that was going to be in a box. I thought, no. When I went down there, the top was on. It's like, wow, how'd that get there? And I saw the cabling for it. A bunch of cables coming down. Those were all installed. So he said, oh, her husband, I guess, is some kind of IT guy. he kind of knows a little bit of electronics he kind of he had he had a clue it's like well what do you need me for you get this guy he looks like he you know well i guess they plug the lint they plug the lint but the topper never worked and he didn't want to mess he didn't know how to take the glass off to get the shooter rod in the new shooter you don't want to mess anything up you want to mess anything up i guess he did the topper didn't work so okay i'm stopping there I think that's what happened. So I did the shooter rod. That came out great. I put the tilt bob in. That's fine. Then I went after doing the thing. I checked his work, and I had to download the special install thing for the topper. All about eight different connections. Made sure they're all the right way, all the right way. Yeah, that's right, that's right. Why is this thing not working? I said, oh, you've got to go through software. You've got to enable it. Okay, so I enabled it in software. and it says can't communicate to XYZ device. So no communication again. Kind of like BG Resto, no communication. You know? A lot of that going on. Beat that horse. I'm going to. So anyway, so I'm looking at it. So then I'm looking, all this stuff, these modern games now are taking, they're all going by what Stern did with the Spike 2. They're all using the RJ45 computer internet cabling for a lot of stuff. This thing included for communication. And I noticed on there, the guys, I guess they try to do something by hooking the cable up to it or something. Anyway, they put an RJ45 cable. It was too short, so they kind of pulled on it and stretched it over. and they pulled the RJ45 socket out of where it was so now there's like about I want to say 12 little fingers in there maybe 4 of the fingers making contact the rest of them weren't, it's like well that's your problem and I said well I could try to de-starter this and take one of the ones from another board and start it up and say you know what but this is a brand new game it's under warranty, I probably shouldn't be touching any of this, what you need to do instead of me doing that But just have them give you, it's their problem, it's their fault that these guys installed it. Have them give you a brand new one of these boards. So we got them on the phone, and they were all pissed off that their movers didn't do the right thing. No problem, we're going to send you a new board. So she's been very happy with their tech support. And customer service. And customer service. They're right there on the spot, which is great. And the guy was nice. I talked to him on the phone. So that's all set. So I said, okay, so everything else is done, but as soon as you get the, all you got to do is put the board in. I showed them how to put the board in, put it in here. And they're going to do that part once they get the board in. And hopefully they're all, they should be all set. And so I gave her the, I gave her the bill and she wrote me a check. And I said, this is, this is 200 bucks too much. She goes, no, no, that's your tip. That's your coming down. Wow. $200 tip on top of it. Very nice. So. Very nice. That was a nice place to go. Nice, nice people. Let's see. Also went to East Ham for Attack from Mars Day Spa Part 2. That was a long day. Original? Original, yep. I went down there a year ago and did Part 1, ran out of time, did all the major stuff. I didn't do the upper part of the play field because it would take me hours to do that, which is it took me five hours on Part 2 to do that part, which we did. It was 100 degrees down there. It was hot. So it'd be a nice summer, man. Yeah, but these people, they have a nice house, and their place is worth like $3 million to $5 million. Oh, they don't air-condition it? Well, they do, but they have two different ACs, you know, one for up, one for down. They just had a guy fix the AC for upstairs the other day, and today the downstairs one went. Probably the same part, probably a capacitor. So he apologized, no AC in the basement. But I just went, what I do with that, I have my official Dr. Dave shirt I wear, in these circumstances, I carry in the car a cut-off t-shirt to wear. So I just like swapped into that and I felt cool. So cool that, yeah, too cool for school. But anyway, it was 20 stairs up and down. So it was like Rocky running the stairs up and down in Philadelphia there. Went on July 21st to another, this house was a $10 million mansion on the water of Manchester-by-the-Sea, Massachusetts. They had a Stern-Simpsons pinball party. that I installed, I don't know, 10, 15 years ago. It now had no sound, but was working. No sound at all. And, you know, it is a day spot. It's been a while since I've been there. So I said, okay. I did some research on it, this and that. I got a new board for it in case I needed it. And I heard it might be a bad sound ROM. So I went right for the sound ROM. And I looked at it. and the sound room, a lot of the pins, like nine of the, I think it's like, oh, I don't know, 20 pins on the thing. Nine of them were all bent underneath, like from the factory that installed it wrong. It was barely, it was hanging on by a thread that this thing would have any speech at all or talk or music at all. And just over time, it just didn't make contact anymore. So I bent them all back, tried it again, and kept bending one of the pins. One of the pins did not want to go in. I finally tried it the fourth or fifth time. It actually broke off my hand great. So then I said, okay, now I'm kind of screwed. So what I did is I took another extra chip I had I didn't need. I put it in the socket. I cut off that pin that was having a problem getting in there. I cut it, took the chip out, put the back. And soldered it to the original chip. I put the chip in with the broken leg, soldered it on there. bang good to go but just in case i did put in i have a brand new board i bought for this guy because i didn't know you know he's far away this i i know he's you know he wants it running no matter what so i put a brand new board i got from pinball life from from the sterns from simpsons with everything on it for big money i put that board in and took his board back with me but it's put in stock just so he has a new board um and what else do we do you've got a lot of different games man a lot of different games um a lot of different platforms a lot of platforms yeah yeah everything now i'm seeing a lot of stuff now and i keep getting lots of em work coming my way but i keep even getting the stew i keep um really you're getting a lot of em stuff ems keep coming all the time ems yep you know unless they really want to do something you So please take my money, high-end resto, and they want to go crazy on it, then I'll think about it, but it's going to be a while. But these days, I just don't have the time to really go do the – if I didn't have as much work in front of me, yeah, I'd probably take it on. But Stu's always looking. He goes through them pretty quick. He gets it done. So it's like, here you go. I gave Stu four of them the other day. So that's how that goes. So it's fine. I'm glad I can hand them off to a guy who knows what he's doing with the EM stuff because that's all Stu does. But the next big one is going to be Martha Vineyard four trip monopalooza on the Godzilla Premium this guy has So I been trying to he very busy Like I said he the number one pool installer on Martha Vineyard I think maybe the only one. He hangs out at the local yacht club. Those are his customers at the yacht club. He doesn't even advertise. He doesn't have to. He doesn't have to. The yacht club – He's on Martha's Vineyard, and his clientele belongs to, was it, Edgartown Yacht Club? Yes. Right. Yeah. Okay. Look, if you don't know anything about Massachusetts, just Google that, folks. You'll get a pretty good idea of the wealth of the person who lives in that burg. Right. And it's not their first home. It's probably their third or fourth home. Exactly. Right. But that's a different stratosphere. This guy is, I will say, he probably has some bucks, but he's like a down-to-earth guy. He's telling me he had hippie parents growing up. So they named a really cool name, an Indian name he's named from that. And he just found his niche with doing pools and freaking just from the ground up made this business. And he's very successful at it. He's a 7-year-old, I think a 5-year-old. and he bought this Godzilla premium. It works great, but his son's been playing the crap out of it. Loves the game, plays it every day. But because of all the stupid, again, stupid, stern, cheapo black rubber and the stupid pitted balls. It's what keeps you in business. It does, though. You want them to put that rubber in until they close the doors. Exactly. You know, every labyrinth, right? Make my own stock in a company that makes black rubber. That's all I can think of. Either that or they have so much backlog of this crap they have to go through to use it before they get the good stuff. You're the only one I ever hear talk about it. But I get it. I've seen the remnants and results. So it's, hey, keep doing business. Jersey Jack and Barrels of Fun all use, I think, pinball life, clear silicone rubber and collard rubber. Because you can tell their games have it all on them from day one. It's more expensive, but it's worth it. That's why Stern doesn't do it. I mean, if you make that many games, a couple of bucks times a hundred, a thousand games, it adds up. Yep. Nickels and dimes add up. It sounds stupid, but, hey, People keep complaining that they keep raising the price on games. I saw, I'll forget if I don't interject right now. Sure. So I know you're not a big fan of the latest Godzilla, the black and white Godzilla. No, I don't get that at all, but yep, not a fan. I happen to like it, but I own a Centaur, so it kind of makes sense. I saw one for sale, a premium. Ten plays on it. less 600 bucks out of Maryland. I was like, wow, okay. Makes you sit and wonder. He wanted the game brand new, out of the box, to play it just for 10 games. Huh. Isn't that weird? That is kind of weird. Well, I guess. I mean, they might be a mod maker, I don't know, you know, they might be a professional photographer, it could be almost anything, but I just found that weird. I'm like, oh, that's a pretty good deal. I mean, get the game with, you know, 10 plays on it, $600 less, that's okay. Yeah, I guess for $600, well, that's an expensive $60 a game, right? Right, but like I said, you know, hey, there's always a story behind it. You know, it was out on Pinside. I think I saw it today. It was just listed. So I'm sure somebody will scab it up because they want the game. You know, I don't know how well that game is selling, if they're in inventory or not, But it appears to me, I mean, this is a good time to, I guess, talk a little bit about this. I'm seeing a lot of stuff go through the filter at Pinside. A lot of games for sale. A lot of newer games for sale. Really? So people are hurting for the dough? They're kind of... It makes sense. I don't know. Hey, it doesn't seem to affect your customers. But I'm sure there's some churn. I don't see a lot of older games. Some, but not a lot of the stuff we collect. It just seems like people keep their hands on that stuff. You see them like late 80s or 90s and above? No, no, no. Mostly modern stuff within the last five years. A lot of that stuff. A lot. Even stuff from the last year or two. John Wickson. Wow. Okay. Yeah. There's churn. I don't get people, but whatever. I keep saying that. I say it more and more every day. I think the pinball hobby in general, I would say, on the whole, kind of materialistic. You want the latest thing, and short attention span theater applies to that as well. So you're materialistic. You want the best and greatest thing. You want to play it for a while, okay, I'm sick of this. Get it out of here. Give me the new best and greatest thing over and over and over again. You know, trying to be chasing the dragon kind of thing, you know. I interrupted. You were talking about doing the day spa on this Godzilla. Are you doing a day spa on this? No, this is going to be a monopalooza. That's what I'm calling it. Oh, he wants to put all kinds of stuff on it. Oh, oh, yeah. So first of all, it's going to be, you know, clean it up and do a day spa on it and that kind of thing. And he said, I'd really like to get an LE if I could, if you could find one of those. And I also want to get a Jaws LE because I'm right here in Mucklesville. I'd like to have that game. but I can't really find one. So he said, well, I can make you a premium pretty darn nice. I can make it into an L.A. pretty much. So I said, oh, tell me more. And then he said, you know, I have no problem, you know, paying for your stay here and paying for your meals and your trip over here, and plus the rate you get to pay. So I do it with my contractors all the time. It's a different thing, a different way to do business here on the islands because we just know, you know, it costs more to do business here for anything. Never mind if you're really good, you know, it's going to cost money. So he's totally on board with that. So I said, great. So I gave him a bunch of different things to watch with different upgrades he can do that I can do for him. And I gave him almost too much information. And he's so busy that how many times does he text me back? I might hear back from him like in four days or five days. I try to call him and he's busy with something else. I might get a call back. So at one point, I had all the stuff ready to go for him, but I'm not going to buy anything. I even told him, I said, listen, I get to stay booked, but there's a cancellation Ryan Policky. If I cancel by next Wednesday, I don't get dinged. So I want to make sure that you are – I know you're a nice guy and so forth, but I've got to cover myself and say something happens and you get sick of the game. My son hates the game. I don't want you to come over. I'm on the hook. So that being said, I need you to, you know, send me X to cover a portion of the stay and a portion of what I'm buying. You're covering your nuts so you don't get screwed. Yeah, yeah. In case something happens. It's probably not, but, you know, hey, money in hand makes it easy. Right. So he said, yeah. So I said, well, just send me a check. Oh, I'll just, you take credit cards? I can, and I'd rather take a check, but sure. So he says, send me a picture of his credit card back and forth and whatever, all the information. So I charged his credit card, you know, the amount we said, you know. And he said, oh, and he said, if you charge whatever percent to run a car, just charge it to me too. So I did. I charged him the amount, 3% to the car. So all together, I, you know, got that paid. So that was cool. So now I felt confident enough not to cancel a thing and to start really doing some shopping. and I found all kinds of cool stuff with this game that a lot of it is cottage industry stuff so a lot of it is you have to wait for these people to get up a list of people, then they build it supply it to the list of people of the want list, then go back to another list I see the list for these mods on different games on Thinside I'm dumbfounded by the amount of games that people have again, having been in this hobby for a long time it's hard because Stern doesn't release numbers on their games they don't release numbers, they don't but when you start seeing, you know, a hundred, two hundred people looking for a specific mod, it's like wow, they do sell a lot of games, don't they? they do because it's only a small audience I mean, you know, the people who buy mods, it's not everybody there's some people who just, they want a ritual game They don't want it mucked with. So what did you end up buying? I've seen most of the mods of this game, and some of them are incredible. Well done. A lot of them are not even available. Right. The ones I want that I'm on the list for these four, because, you know, you can't get a – it's like a Jolly Madison zinger. You want to buy them, but you can't find them anywhere. By Stumbler Pinball. So you've got the Godzilla Tokyo Neon Sign mod, a fantastic mod. You've probably seen that one. I know what that is, yeah. The Godzilla Lolly UFO mod kit. I know what that is. That's a really good one. I like that one. That's a nice one. The Godzilla Noodle Bar building mod. I know what that one is, and that's a nice mod, too. And the subway building mod. I'm not sure I know what that is. That way that's basically the building is kind of a corner is kind of chopped out of it. It's kind of okay Yes, I do know that one. Okay, and it's glowing it glows like it just got some fire breath from Godzilla It glows blue and it glows red like it's just been torched by Godzilla Right and these things ain't cheap. I mean each more no several hundred dollars each, right? Yeah I mean if I bought all these mod that's like That's $1,000. That's probably $1,200 worth of mods. Right there, yeah. Yeah, they're like $300. All those buildings are $300, give or take. Yeah. Yeah. And people load them up. I mean, so I didn't hear... I mean, there are so many other ones. You've got those electrical towers that are available. You've got the bridge upgrade that's available. Oh, yeah. You've got the Mech Godzilla that's available. all that plate that goes in front. Yep. I can list all these off to you because I've done all this research on it. The Mechagodzilla, the Godzilla that has the blue LEDs in the back of his spine that goes in the back left. Oh, right, right. Yep, I see that one. And then they made the one that's even, the same guy is making one for the topper. He puts the same guy on the topper. It looks fantastic. Yeah, I saw that too. So I'm on the list for that. I'm on the list for the one inside the game. Somebody's really paying up. Must be a good year putting pools in. I didn't get it. Oh, yeah, it's been hot. Well, I can tell you firsthand. I know what I paid to put my pool in, which I won't disclose. Right. But I can imagine it's probably double. And two percent? Or double. Probably double. Got to be. Wow. Yeah, it's got to be. Yeah. It's got to be. Yeah. everything's got to be brought in everything right that um is the other things you know so i basically some of the stuff i'm probably so i'm gonna be going out there during my my birthday i get a big number birthday i'm gonna be coming up to i'm gonna be on the island for my birthday too doing work which is kind of i didn't think about that one too well but uh so but we'll make the best we're gonna have a day or two free over there i think marina and i so we'll be able to hang out and do some stuff. But I think what he said, he said, well, whatever we can get done this time around, I can always have you out again next year to do round two. So I'm thinking if that list doesn't come up for me to be available and get it in time for this, I still... And there's other things, too. I want to get the pin graphics power blade for Godzilla. So instead of arc blades, which look nice in the game from Stern, and I'm thinking about getting those in the meantime. I never thought in a billion years I'd have this conversation with you. Yeah, we're the classic pinball pockets. What are you guys talking about? What is going on here? What are you doing to my show? I don't even mean it that way. I know. It's just mods. You've never done that. And now all of a sudden it's like, oh, okay, well, it's something new. and when you have an open checkbook, it makes it really easy. It's fun. It's like going on a shopping spree for, you know, you're being a buyer for somebody. So I'm on the wait list for that. And let's see. Oh, the Atomic Godzilla place will figure. I'm on for that one, and there's one on top of the game. One thing, oh, then I have other ones that I haven't ordered yet. This is going to be several grand worth. So, I don't know. By the time I'm going to hit him with a number at the end of this thing, I don't know. That's going to be one expensive God's building. One expensive game. So, Diddy's Pinball Mods has things like the Drake Building, the Tesla Strike Towers, the Nagley Oil Building. Yep. I've seen all this stuff. It's crazy. You keep going. The Red Bamboo Fighter Jet. I've seen that, yeah. So here's the ones that I have. Oh, and you said the fighter. How about those, the new ones I just saw, those slingshots, those plastics that go over the slingshot with the jet on it? I think it goes over the flipper speed lanes, right? One on each side? Yeah, it's one on each side. I thought it was for the, right, it's for the lanes, right. They don't light up, though. Okay. Right, but there's sculpts and they're hand-painted. Right, hand-painted. The guy's like, hey, I'm only making 250 of these because the painting takes forever to get done. So, yeah. I was thinking about that one. I'm tempted to know. I don't know. I've got to. Oh, come on. Just add it to the pile. Just add it to the pile. He won't even notice. He won't even notice. That'll be like 60 bucks for 100 bucks. You've got $200, $300 items on the list. I did order from Tilt Graphics. I already ordered. So I ordered some small-time stuff that I can get in the meantime before I put the hammer down for the big-time stuff. I did order the Godzilla-inspired street ramp decals, so they're like a painted dotted line for the ramp for a street thing, and the flipper decals, the scales for the flippers. I'm going to put those. I got those ordered. I also ordered the pinball noodle building, and the... I did get the Kaiju Scoop sign-up grade because at least I can have that in hand before the other one is not going to be here anytime soon. And I did order the Arc Blades as well because I don't know how to get some Power Blades. So you basically ordered stuff that you knew you would have in hand. All this other stuff might take some time. Might take some time. I want to shift gears for a second. You mentioned Jaws. Yeah. Did you try to help him find one? Not yet. He's been in contact with Tim over at Pin and Pixels, and he's got a deal from him, but he can't get one. So I figure if anybody can get one, it would be Tim. You know? Tim, maybe. There's other distributors. I don't want to keep going there, but, you know, I would follow around. I would think he's already made the phone calls around. I figure, you know, he knows how to use the Internet, you know, but he wants to see if I have any inside info about it. Yeah, I guess that's a tough one to come by. and all the mods for that game. That's already started, so he'll load that thing up too. Wow. On top of that, I'm going to do a, I think I'm going to do a pinwoofer sound system on it, which is what I did for my Stern game. Remember that? That freaking mania? Oh, Dave. Enough. We've got to end this. And I'm going to add a subwoofer to it too. We've lost enough listeners. They're going to just look at us and go, what are these guys doing? And a shaker motor. Where's the classic pinball talk? And a shaker motor and high-definition glass. I think that's about it. And a partridge in a pear tree. Right. Please. I really want to say, I want to go back to the guy and say, just like, what is your budget? Is there a top? Because I can keep going. I don't want to freaking go over any budget. But I think he's kind of like, I kept saying different things. Like, oh, I'm okay with that. I'm okay with that, too. I'm okay with, like, everything's okay. I think his seven-year-old loves it so much, he wants to have his seven-year-old love this game forever. So he just wants me to... All you have to do, Dave, is call him up and say, you know, I've got your credit card. If you'd like to execute the sale on all these items, I'll just charge your credit card and off we go. What do you think? Oh, that's an idea, too. Well, how much is it going to be? Ah, $4,000. Yeah. Yeah. For the mods alone, never mind me doing them. Right, right. You know, you're traveling out there. Anyway. So do you have any other stories? Because this has been a long... What's it going on? It's been a long time. So it's... So I think I should be going. I think our next show we should do... I know you did a Dolly Parton. Oh, a tough game to come by. So we should probably do that maybe the next time. What do you think? And you have a video out there, right, so I can watch that? I don't think I did a video. Did I do a video? No, I don't think I did a video. No, you didn't do a dollar video? No, I didn't do it yet. I'm due to do it. Oh, you still have the game? I still have it. I still have it in my upstairs game. Oh, okay. So it was supposed to be picked up July, but that didn't happen yet. I haven't pressed the guy either on it because I don't mind keeping the game and playing it for a while. You know, so that's fine. But I haven't really had time to play any of it. I've been so busy. But I like to have it around so I can't find one in for myself. So why not play it in the meantime? Tough game to come by. Like you said, you know, one or two episodes ago. It's so amazing. Diamond does them a long time ago. Nobody won this game. Like NC. Nobody won this game years ago. You could have bought a crap load for like 50 bucks a piece. Dolly's getting on in years. And, you know, let's just leave it at that. there's a bigger audience beyond pinball, I think, for that game. Yeah, you think so? I do, and I would go as far as to say this. Why wouldn't you make another one? Stern makes all kinds of games. Or one of the other vendors. I mean, they made an ABBA machine. I'd make a Dolly Parton before I made an ABBA. Just saying. Yeah. Just saying. I think basically, you know, I don't think people really care for, I don't know, the artwork so much in the game. I don't know. I think it's the way the game is designed and the layout is what makes the game special. It's a lot like, again, like Globetrotters. Made by the same guy, too. And that's why it's so nice to play. You know? I'd like to have one but you know that's another game that you don't like I said tough to come by don't see him often along with a lot of other games I would have thought oh I know what I forgot to say I get it and with him too but go ahead clean up how much time do we have left we got four minutes but I gotta I have another quick story too but go ahead no you first alright so we are going to the Cape again coming up this week, this weekend, because I got a couple jobs on there, but John Jolly, the Buckaroo Bonsai of the Cape, is going to be the drummer in a reggae band called Chango Axe at the Beachcomber Wealthly, and he wants Maureen and I to be special VIP guests to hang out with the band ahead of time. Oh, you gotta go. And Saturday night, and party with the band, and get in trouble with John. down at, uh, at a Wellfleet with the band down there. That's a great place. Too bad we, uh, this probably will not be available until that. I have one thing that I don't want to forget, and then we're going to say goodbye. Sure. If you recall, last episode I said, oh, how many embryons can there be on site? Right? You know, arcades, etc. Sure. And I think I said, That can't be more than five. How about 27 different locations? I think most of them in the United States. Dumbfounded. They're all over the place. They're on location, like, ready to play for the quarter? Yeah, 27 different locations. Wow. Right. I don't have the locations. Go to Pin Map. Type in Embryon. You'll find 27 locations. So I'll eat my words. There are a lot of them out there. They're in arcades. Wow. Okay. Interesting. Right. Probably Ted Nugent, not so much. I'll have to look that one up. I'll give you the stats next time we get together. So that's on pin map. On pin map, on pin side? Pin map. Pin map on pin side. Yes. So with that said, I'd like to thank everybody for tuning in. Hopefully we reclaim our audience given all the issues that have transpired over the last couple months. We're back. we're better than ever. My name is George, and his name is Dave, and stay lit and tilted. Okay? George, I would say we are back and beautiful. I was going to say something else, but then I said, no, I can't say that. I can't say that. As much as I would want to like you, I just can't. I just can't. You sure? Everybody. Geez. If you haven't figured out, guys, we do a lot of innuendo on the show. A lot. Read between the lines. There you go. I'm back and I'm... Orange. Oh. That's why I said I'm back and I'm beautiful. Right. Right. There you go. Right. Same word. Same word. Same word, just a different text. Right. Okay. I will say one more thing, sir. I just picked up a Fishtails ramp game highly sought after people like that game really? yeah ok well this one works I got to do a little day spa on it I'm thinking of doing the cabinets really badly fade I'm thinking of doing a a whole graphic thing on it but we'll see what happens ok stay tuned stay tuned folks less than about 30 seconds to go Shall we go? Yeah, we're gone. All right. Bye. Peace out, people. See you. Later. Later. I've got a podcast. I want to talk about this band here. What do you want to hear about? I want to hear about this band. What's the scoop of this band? Like from the origin? Yeah. Yeah, why is it so popular? Why is it a big whole thing here? What's happening? So the following is a lot of good friends and people who don't see each other that often anymore. and just the guys in the band are likable. Not only are they good musicians, but they're likable as well. Okay. You know, so their friend group shows up, and that friend group's friend group shows up, and it becomes an event. Look where we are. We're in the dunes on Cape Cod. Okay. It's a good scene. Nice. And perfect Carl Weathers for it, too. It's like prime time, summertime Cape. I'm good with this, man. I'm glad that we're getting September Carl Weathers in August. Yeah. We deserve it after July was over. Oh, hell yeah. Tell them about Shango from the start. They used to play in my kitchen. Really? Tell them about this, though. What's that? Playing in the kitchen? No, just all of them. Not this. He wants to know about the industry of Shango. Okay, so the bass player and John, the percussionist, kind of started it. John Jolly. Yeah. Mr. Oyster. Yes. and it just kind of grew you know when one person would leave they'd bring in someone else and that someone else had someone else they knew and it just kind of built up to a point where they they were legitimate around here for a good 10, 15 years anyway at least what year would this be? when was the heyday? I didn't know it was going to be math tonight the 90s maybe? no no no 2000s 2000s okay 2000s like 2000 like sure Sure, yeah, 2000 to 2015, somewhere around there. Okay. And they played all over. Give or take. Two or three the other way. If there was ever a reggae show on the Cape, these guys would open up for it. So they've opened up for a lot of, like, big names. Or they were the big names. Yeah, headlining stuff is more like this kind of gig. Yeah. But they've opened up for big names and bigger venues. Yeah. And they're tight. They sound good. I mean, they haven't played together since last year, and I'm sure they're going to be fine, which is nice. I was asking Michael, this guy. Yes. I was asking him, so you guys, like, practice ahead of time? He's like, no, no, no, no. We're just getting together. I was like, would you guys have, like, a set list in mind? He's like, no, we're just going to kind of roll. It's like, that's awesome. It's like riding a bike for them, you know? Like, once they get together in the same room again, they practiced last night. They might have practiced once or twice, and it's that vibes right back. Yeah. Well, they know which person plays their song. Sure. That song. As soon as they start playing a certain beat to it, okay, we know that tune, that's when we bang, just hang it, Yeah, they're going to play a lot of the ones that they normally would, and they have a set list that they go by that kind of just, if they keep it the same every year, Right. they might expand on it here and there. Okay. You know, if they're feeling it and they look around and kind of their eye contact is good, their communication is good, they'll know it's played a little bit longer, but that's fun. It's a lot of fun. It's more than just the music. It's the scene, too. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a group of people like you probably won't know anybody here which is fine. Right. You'll probably walk away with I know John. That's about it. You'll walk away with a lot of friends including me, Dave. Oh, cool. All right. I like it. Sweet. And what's your name again? I'm Daniel Sears, man. Daniel Sears. David or Dr. Dave. Dr. Dave. I've heard all about you. Dr. Dave. Cool, cool. I've listened to your podcast. Really? Podcast too? all right, man. Well, if Ron Jolly's on a podcast, apparently he's the most famous guy on the cake, you know. Yeah, right. And God bless you for having patience with him and his machines. I know. I know what kind of man you are already. I take on special cases, you know. Sure. That's okay. Yeah. Hopefully he gives you some oysters for the other day. Oh, he gave me some oysters. He first started, he said, I need a bunch of oysters to eat. I said, well, I'm not really an oyster guy. He said, well, I'm not going to give you any. And I said, well, I'll eat them. I'll take them anyway. And I did. I shocked them and everything. I took a screwdriver and did it. I mean, Rockefeller style. You give me Rockefeller style, I'll take them anyway. It was all good. Sorry, saying hello to you. Oh, no worries. No worries. It's going to happen multiple times. I bet. Yeah, that's good. You're tracking him with your wife. A lot of fans. She's a little yoga babe. Who do you call when you want your pinball machine restored? story. Dave! Dave! Who? Dave! D-A-V-E! Yeah, Dave! Dave! Right. But George, you don't know what you're saying. You're under their control. George, we've had it with you. Say no rodeo, bro dad. Hasta la vista, baby. _(Acquisition: groq_whisper, Enrichment: v3)_ --- *Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-04-13 | Item ID: d2b02a00-5081-486b-a22e-ff79b58ccc61*