Welcome to the Eclectic Gamers Podcast. Today is Sunday, August 17th. This is episode 252. I'm Tony. I'm Dennis. and for our Patreon people, some of our Patreon people, we're cloning what everyone else has done. This is an experiment. We're experimenting. We have video. We're experimental people. It's the cheapest setup possible because we record in person most of the time. Most of the time. So I have my CX-405 from my pinball streaming days. That's a great camera for playfield streaming. Actually, the thing that I found with it is, I thought about getting a different one because I use this for talking head stuff when I pre-record for my wristwatch YouTube. But it hungers for so much light, I think because the sensor is so small in it. Now, with pinball streaming, no problem because all the lights from the play field, they look great. But with this, it always looks a little grainy to me. So we're going to look a little grainy, and it's not going to be a bunch of – obviously, we don't have face-to-face because it has to come in from the side. And I have this position to try and hide how messy my living room is. So it just looks at the fireplace. But we are going to – I don't know if people want this or not. But this is Patreon, but only the $5 and above tiers because I don't know if it's – Don't ask someone for this. It's terrible. Terrible. The finest metal to keep the bats out. It's roosting season. I know because I had two bat reports. I was on call last weekend for – For work? Yes, for work. And one actually came in as a phone call. One came as an email, but they were both instances of bats. And I'll briefly share this because nobody cares. So the first one was the extra frustrating one. So the call came in. This person, a bat, got into the bedroom with their daughter who was asleep. And it was having a sleepover with a friend. And so they weren't sure if the bat had possibly bit her or not. How would you not know? You could sleep through the bite because it's a small bite. And no, it doesn't seem to make sense to you, but people sleep through bat bites. Guidance depends on the state, actually, on what you would do. But with kids, you assume if they were asleep in the room that the bat bit them. Okay. Now, but what we would do ideally is let's just take the bat and let's test it. So the bat was still in there. So I said, call Animal Control and have them get the bat and then send the bat to K-State in honor of your shirt and in honor of the fact that K-State does rabies testing. Now, this was like 4 a.m. when I got the call. So I get an email later in the day. I guess they called, and the police came. Animal Control wasn't working. So a police officer came, did catch the bat, and let it go. And the mom was mad. I spoke to her later, and she's like, I told him. I told him we need to test that bat. The health department said to send that bat. And he said, if we had, you know, I don't remember exactly what she said. He said something along the lines of, if we sent in every bat that we caught, you know, we'd be broke or something. I don't know. This is like, so when I reached her, she was at the ER starting the four-shot protocol. Holy wow. With her daughter, which when I got back to work on Monday, my disease containment team was like, yes, this is the right response. She should have started the protocol. And yes, with kids, we assume if they were asleep in the room with the bat, do you just assume the bat got them? It makes sense. the second one was someone who found a bat that was lethargic in a room on there somewhere uh probably starving to death was what my disease team told me later but yeah he got the bat and like i gloved or whatever but he put it outside and then afterwards looked up about rabies and got concerned that maybe he was exposed and i said well were were anyone asleep in a room where the bat was because you just found the bat in the house and it wasn't in a bedroom you're like and you used you know protective gear when you handled it like the bat saliva is not going to be in your blood like it's yeah the risk is low and he's like well i don't think anyone was asleep and you know he's like he started to wonder maybe he didn't know everywhere the bat was it's like probably okay but um we could have tested it but uh anyway um i had them follow up but that one i don't think would require any and this is why you sleep with your bedroom door shut and to prevent fire yes from spreading i guess the doors shut just don't magically stop fire but uh i do want to say we do have a couple new patreon members so we want to thank them we want to thank matthew v and derrick s welcome yes thank you guys so it's weird having knowing i know camera it's just sitting there as a square because it's got my it's got my rig for my teleprompter so it's all just like this big rectangle. You can't even see the camera in it. Yeah, you can't see anything. It's just a big reflection. You just see glass. Well, yeah, and the reflection, which is just carpet. Yes, and hopefully the reflection is not disrupting the... I think I got it bent properly, but if so, hey, it's the low-rent version, and we'll work on it next time, if anyone cares. If not, we'll just go back to just doing audio. What's been going on, though, Tony? I have continued my various... What's the way to put it? Let me think of the most pretentious way to put it I have continued my self-actualization As I continue to Not really I work out and I'm trying to lose weight I got blood tests back My six month blood tests from my stuff And all of my numbers are good And all my A1C is down into a healthy range now and my blood sugar averages are in a much healthier range now. So all of the changes I've made, no matter how painful some of them have been, are meaning that I get to live longer. Yay. Yay. See, everything's coming up Milhouse. It's so great. I just don't get to have candy or potatoes anymore. Well, but I mean, did you ever really like potatoes? I mean, yeah. Yeah. Okay. All right. Mate. Mate. Let's see. I have, well, the black hole's done, so that pinball machine is all finished. And we are also, in terms of Patreon, which, by the way, patreon.com slash eclectic underscore gamers, we will have exclusive content this time. That will be for all the tiers, even the $1 tier. and that will be on watch collecting because we haven't done anything in a month. And gaming-wise, the only thing I've really done is Battlefield 6. I know you've got it in the video game segment. I do. It's been doing pretty well in terms of attracting attention for the open beta. Yes. But I've played the open beta this weekend, which I believe today is its last day, and then I did it last weekend as well because I used to play a lot of Battlefield, but 2042 really put me off. Broke you. Broke you. But the new one does feel very much true to form. The only problem is I keep getting shot in the back. I don't know how much of this is I don't know the maps, how much of it is I'm old, and how much of it is it's the game's fault. In part, well, I'm going to say, because I noticed this with some other battlefields over time, this is 64-player matches. Like, that's a lot of people to be able to find your back. Right. When it was 32, 16 on each team, I felt like my back was more safe. Yeah. It's almost like, and it's a crazy concept, but it's almost like you should work together with somebody and have somebody help cover your back. Yes. The problem is that then we get shot from the side. It's like there's 360 degrees of death. It's rough. It's rough. I don't know. Yeah, when we can get set up in positions with little squads and stuff, we'll all take different angles to watch. But someone gets hit with a shotgun, and I don't even have the Sega, so it's just like a pump shotgun. It makes me mad and sad. It's so sad. But anyway, been doing a lot of time on that. Well, that's good. Yeah, I have been playing some video games, mainly Tower Defense. games. Nothing new. I haven't played one of those in a while. They're all ones that I've owned for years. I don't know. I got in a weird mood for some tower defense. Best tower defense game in your mind ever? It probably has to be one of the balloons games. I don't think I've played those. They're the ones where you're the monkeys popping the balloons going through the down the pathway. I've seen it. I've seen it. Okay. One of those probably. I mean, I really like the visuals and the stuff of it is... Grid something? I don't remember. I haven't played it in so many years, but it was really good. What was the sci-fi one where the AI kept talking about strawberries? Yeah, that's the one on... I like that one. Defense Grid. Defense Grid, yeah. And then they made a second Defense Grid. They did. It wasn't as good as the first one. Yeah. It's okay. I played them both. Yeah. Yeah. I like that one. That's a good one, too. But, like, the balloons games were always just fun because it's like, I have to pop balloons with monkeys. South Park has a tower defense game that actually is pretty decent. Is it? I've not played it. Yeah. Yeah. You control a character, so you actually have essentially a mobile turret of form. But otherwise, you are laying out the actual towers and building that up. But it gives you a little bit more flexibility as well. I think I played that South Park fantasy game. Yes, Stick of Truth. Yes, I played Stick of Truth. It's good. Yeah. Actually, for someone who doesn't regularly watch South Park, I actually think I like all of the video games I've played. They've done two RPGs. There was Stick of Truth, and then there was another one, I think Something of Destiny, or maybe I'm thinking of an Indiana Jones movie. But there were a couple that they've done that are that RPG format. Yeah. No, I liked Stick of Truth. It was good. Okay. Well, now we have to go to the stick of pinball. But what news is there? What news? None. There's nothing. There's nothing. Nothing of note. We're not going to pretend. We're not going to start giving you production updates about what the latest on the – what the run number is on Evil Dead. because if you didn't already order it, who cares? Well, if you're in the latter half, you're this close to getting your... You're very close. You're very close. Ask your distributor. I'm sure they have an answer for you. My sister's roommate's former cousin says this. The space line isn't working here. No, it fails. It was a noble-ish effort. Yeah. Well, our noble listeners have saved us, as they love to do. They've actually given us a number of emails, which, again, you can email us at collectogamerspodcast.gmail.com. So we have a few items here to go over and take care of. First one actually was an email from Scott V. This one, kind of perhaps a play off of our last episode. I dare not speculate, but it says as follows. It is my dream to be so mediocre at my job, but so well-liked outside of my company that I get to create a totally new job description for myself. Additionally, I will still be paid by the company, but I may even do marketing for competitors. I would appreciate any advice to reach my goals and perhaps companies that would be open for this type of work. Well, thank you, Scott, for the interesting question. I don't know what companies are likely to meet all of these needs for you. But what I would suggest if your goal is to be able to be liked so much that you get positions that you want to define, it's all about who you know, not what you know. Well, I mean, that just depends upon what you know. Sure. That's fair enough. I'll even say, like, just as I've gone along, you know, kind of taking a serious tent to this for a bit with my own career, it always frustrated me when I was young and starting out. And it was like I felt like I knew all sorts of stuff and maybe stuff that other people didn't know. But it didn't matter. Like, it was hard to get through in things. And now it sometimes feels like I know everyone. And there are a lot of times where someone will say, like, oh, gosh, like someone else maybe newer or earlier in their career will say, gosh, I sure wish we could get like this person. I'm like, I'll just ask them to do it. Right. Like, I know them. I know their boss too. I'll ask them. It's like, and it works. But today, even now, it annoys me that that means so much. But who you know means a whole lot. It does. It 100% does, and it has direct ties to just how easy things can become and how you can go through stuff. and even the way you're looked at at a higher level. I mean, I have taught a couple of classes at state-level conferences, and I have people still who come up to me and they're talking to me, and they're like, oh, yeah, I was in your class. It's like, I haven't taught a class in like three years. I've also had instances, getting to the mediocre aspect, I have found people that turned out to be not as good or not as active in their job as I initially thought because a person protected them. And once that person was no longer around, it starts to become clear that, hey, this person isn't actually doing as much work as I like. I didn't I just never thought about it. I was just here. Oh, yeah. No, they're doing fine. And then their their shield is gone. And it's like, oh, wow. no, I might actually have to have a conversation with this individual and get them on the right path here. Yeah. I've seen that too. Where you've got a team. It's like, oh, man, these guys are my aces. I send them on whatever. And one member of the team either leaves or gets promoted to somewhere else. And so you're like, oh, that team was 100% the one person. Everybody else in that group just wrote their coattails. Because suddenly they went from my crackerjack, best of the best, send them in to the worst problem to fix team to the people who can't do anything. Because basically they just sat back while the one person knocked everything out and everyone else just basically handed them tools and supported them. It's actually pretty common, apparently. Yeah. There's been multiple jobs with me where I've seen an individual that is seen as something that they are not necessarily performing at. Right. What can you do? Yeah. Anyway, thank you, Scott, again for the email. Next, we have David D. wrote in. He says, hey, guys, love the show. Thanks for the great content. Oh, excuse me. I'm sorry. The end of his email says, if this gets read on your show, let's hear your best New York. Do you have a New York? You know what? This is the part where people are now starting to ask for things without any contact. Like there was the one who asked for the Schwarzenegger. I don't have a Schwarzenegger. Over on the Pinball Show, because I do have access to those emails, I've already seen it where someone wrote in and said, I know this is the other podcast, but could you have Dennis? I think I'd have to reread the email. I think it asks for a Southern Belle. Well, you can do that. Yeah, but I've heard you do that. Because that's just Southern with a higher pitch, but still. Yeah. But all right, New York. All right. Forgive that. Forgive that. You know what? We've got to do research trips to get accents now. That's what it's going to have to be. I would. If there wasn't a camera staring at me, I'd have AI give it the script and then hold my phone up to the microphone and just act like I did this. Just pretend. Just pretend. We need to hire a dialect coach. We're going to start using the Patreon money to hire dialect coaches. All right. All right, David. I'm going to do my best. Hey, guys. Love the show. Thanks for the content. I've got a question. and a bit of amusing. First, why don't we hear interviews from CGC reps? I subscribe to many pinball podcasts and have heard interviews with George Gomez, David Fix, Luke and Bug, and so forth. But I don't recall hearing interviews with anyone from CGC. What's up? The second thought I'd like to bring... I... That's a fun one. I'm so sorry. The entire world. All right. The second thought I'd like to bring up is... Up to is... Now let me try that again. The second thought I like to bring up to is With the remastering of DMD games to Spike 2 do you think stern might remaster was likely the best seller godzilla from spike 2 to spike 3 i asked because i love to own a godzilla premium but i might be willing to wait for a spike 3 version thought though something tells me that could be a very long time thanks guys david all right man we're you know what we're gonna we're gonna i think all i did was talk with my hands a lot and decide that that That was New York. Yeah. We're going to have to start finding like Fiverr voice recorder people and just with accents and just say record this. We're going to burn all our Patreon money on Fiverr. It wouldn't take very many to run out. Okay. All right. So David had two questions for us. The first was CGC and why they don't do interviews. I have no idea. Yeah. I don't know. that's something that I've definitely heard in the past but I don't know the reasoning behind it I've never asked outside of there were interviews with the design team for Pulp Fiction here will be because I feel like we owe David at least a speculation so I'll give him one my speculation would be what's there to say about a remake you're redoing someone else's glory right So could you tell us about Attack from Mars? Yeah, I took the best game ever, and I made it shiny, and I put LEDs on it, and I gave it a modern screen. And a cool topper. And a cool topper. But that's it. Until it's in your house for a long time, and then all you hear is... And then you don't like the topper anymore. Yes. It is a risk. But anyway, that's my guess. I mean, that's my speculation. His second question was the idea of Godzilla going from Spike 2 to Spike 3. Do you think that Stern will remaster Godzilla as Spike 3? Not anytime soon. I think he seemed to feel it would be a very long way. I think that's something that maybe someday, if they vault Godzilla, which is going to be years away because they're still making Godzilla, it would be a consideration if the upgrade's not too much work. I my answer will be no they are not going to move it to spike three and the reason I'm going to say that is what is it about spike three that is going to improve Godzilla like Dennis three is higher than two I know but three is better I I mean from hearing the loneliest number I did hear the loser kid interview with George Gomez I didn't in time for the the pinball show episode I recorded but I have heard it since then so like okay a bigger screen is is planned but we don't want a bigger screen bigger screen suck you see there's there's that uh plus i mean it's already like really old godzilla footage it's not so even if it's like a 4k screen or whatever first of all who cares godzilla 1953 in 4k see what i'm saying like his question is specific to godzilla it's like there ain't nothing there to to make like you can't you what are we going to upscale it like There's nothing to be done. I want the rubber suit to look rubbery. What more LEDs did you want that Spike 2 couldn't have given us? It's like Spike 3 is going to – they are, in the process of doing Spike 3, going to have a different, somewhat different design to the cabinet. It doesn't sound like the next game will be like that. The next game is supposed to be Spike 3, but all the features won't yet be rolled out. But remember, the Spike 3, it's a system. The end users normally don't care about systems. How many people care about – the reason why we care about Williams System 11 versus the WMS board after it was the jump from alphanumeric to DMD. The reason why people care about the jump from Spike 1 to Spike 2 was the jump from DMD to LCD. Outside of Wi-Fi updates, what's there to talk about from Spike 1 versus Sam? It was still – to most people, there was no – you couldn't – You could store more and they could get more audio and stuff in it, but no one... That's all you cared about. It wasn't a groundbreaking change. Right. So the big thing with Spike 3 is that it's going to have a faster processor. So to me, the most exciting thing is I assume the game will boot faster, which would be greatly appreciated. But it's not worth doing a remaster for. See, there's just no feature that Godzilla didn't get because the board didn't handle it. Right. That's what I'm arguing. So it's not like these DMD games. The DMD games could just as easily – well, I mean, Metallica was remastered to a Spike 2. Are they going to remaster it again to a Spike 3? No. I mean, if they – or they'll just reissue it as Spike 3. I could see them reissuing Spike 2 games as Spike 3s, but I think the way they've got it set up, that those will basically be direct transfer. I don't think there's going to be – they're still doing the node boards and all of that. So there's just no point. It won't be a remaster. Yeah, it might be one of those things that when you end up with it, it's just because they don't have spike two parts anymore. They're just doing spike three and just putting it on it. I can see that. Okay. All right. Next email is from Richard A. Now, Tony, in our internal show notes on your tablet, you'll be able to see the full email, but it's very, very, very long. And so I will not be reading all of it. And in fact, he did suggest that he understands the need to cut this one down for clarity purposes and to keep it more succinct. So I'm going to read the I'm going to read the part that I think is going to get the listeners to where we want to go with the discussion topics that he has. So this is Richard's email. Now I can do the low voice. Hi, fellas. Some discussion topics for you. One, the complex rules of today and having so much stuff on the play field. That is fine. Bang for the buck. But sometimes this makes it hard to approach the game and learn how to play. As a subtopic of this, what is a good way to learn to play? I wonder if older, less complex games are a better introduction. And then item two. Playing a game for points versus playing for fun. Maybe approaching a game with a goal of getting a high score is not always the best approach. What games do you two have that fall into the above categories? What are some games that you do not think are the greatest games, but when you see it, you always play it at least once because you have fun? Here's a second discussion for you. Dennis, you own several games. Tony, if I remember correctly, you own one. If you look at a game for purchase, where does theme, gameplay, and to some extent looks intersect for you? Would you buy a better playing game with a theme you do not care for or a game that still plays fine, but has a theme you like. Last thing. News for the video game segment. So I went ahead and kept this in here, Tony, because it was pinball and video games both. Okay. Pinball FX just released their newest table pack, Williams Pinball Volume 9. The pack includes three games, Taxi, Whodunit, and Pinbot. FX's prior release was in June and had three Tomb Raider-themed tables. I wanted to bring the pinball FX items up because I think it for sure falls into video game news and is pinball adjacent. As I have mentioned before, I think games like Pinball FX and others are a gateway to real pinball. I am hoping to write something that Tony can use as one of his news items. Give a little update on what has been happening with the main producers of video pinball games. For example, Zacharia is back releasing new tables and updating old ones. Richard. Well, Richard, thank you very much for the discussion points. I went ahead and included that news here because, as you noted, it is pinball adjacent. So we might as well. It can live, and historically it has lived in either place. I did not know that Zacharia was doing new tables. I didn't either. I'll be honest. I have not played video pinball in a long time. It's been a while for me as well. I very much have moved away from playing video pinball for my, especially as my gaming time has reduced as I've started working on other stuff. That was one of the things I really dropped off because it's just a situation where more often than not, I'd rather just play pinball. If I'm going to play pinball, I'd rather play actual physical pinball. Sure. No, it makes sense. All right, so getting back to his discussion points, he brought up the thing. Let's start with the complex rules. And so do you think, let me start with, do you think older games are better to learn how to play pinball on? I can see the argument. I don't know that there is a better to play pinball on. To me, it's just something that you just start playing and eventually you'll learn. Because even if a game has really complex rules, learning the basics, the rules don't matter. Because you're learning the basics. Until you've got some control of the ball and some ability, you couldn't even dream of following the complex stuff. so I think while it might be easier and you might get more of the big fun numbers and stuff with an older game, I don't know that it's necessary. Yeah, I agree with you. I don't think they're any better to learn on. Certain games will be amenable to teaching you certain skills, but that's really game specific. There are certain games where being able to alley pass is actually pretty easy, or tap passing is easier in certain games. And so there's some opportunities for certain skills that certain specific titles suit themselves to. But in terms of learning how to play, as you noted, it's a physicality in learning the ball skill, ball control. Like you can do that on basically anything. I would say going too far back will not necessarily suit you all that well for the modern design. So, for example, how flat the old EMs were. It's its own skill set in a lot of ways, especially if you get outside of the three-inch flippers and get down to what it used to be. Oh, yeah. That's definitely different. It's a different animal. Worth exploring, but it's a different animal. But what he noted about the complexity of the modern game, that is true from a perspective. Learning how to blow a game up, it is easier on old games where it's like, here you go. What was the whole Williams thing in the 90s? Get multiball and then let her go. Right. Like, that's what your goal is on almost all the titles. The rules were just simpler. And a lot of times in many games, there's only one right way to blow the game up. And so because of that... Left ramp all day long. That's one of the reasons why I think Attack from Mars actually has held up so well as a 90s game. It's because technically, you had three ways you could blow that game up, in my view. You could either go for Total Nuclear Annihilation, which was like the high-skill way to do it. if you're really accurate with your shots, there is go into multiball and blow it up, which is the way I see most people try and do it, like, competitively. And then there's the ultra-risk method, but if you're not all that great, like me, you do, which is you try and blow up saucers. Right. Because it's very, very dangerous. But you can get a lot of points that way. So a lot of games in the past, it wasn't like that. So, yeah, the complexity is definitely there nowadays, and it can be a little bit intimidating, like to have someone especially they fire hose you trying to explain all the ways to play the game but again you usually still can learn to like just follow the flashy lights and and then start you know figuring out like godzilla i could see how it could kind of be overwhelming initially because there's so much stuff going on with it but again it's offering you multiple ways like do you want to start modes and and fight kaiju that's like the main idea and over time they were like, okay, it's confusing people that they have to hit the left ramp and the right ramp to start a mode. Let's make it so they just have to hit two ramp shots. You can also just shoot the building and get the best multiball, the most visually interesting multiball in the game. Or shoot for the Mechagodzilla and get that going. Or, hey, you hit enough tank shots, now you're going to go into the special mode and fight tanks. It's a lot to take in, but you can play it in so many different ways and it doesn't really matter and at the higher levels it does and right well and that's i think that's a thing that you see not just in pinball but in video games as well is how many people chase the the chase the meta chase the the theoretically perfect way to play the game to get the absolute best everything, even if constantly working at it, you know, is slowly, slowly drives you insane because you're not necessarily enjoying what you're doing, but it's like, oh, this is what I have to do to get the best results. And it's something that I think is not worth it in most cases. The whole point of playing a game is to have fun. This kind of feeds into the next question. Yeah, yeah. So playing for points versus playing for fun is the next one. So if you want to go ahead and continue, what are your thoughts on – Yeah, no, I am 100% a fun guy. I'm a fun guy. But it is one of those things that if you're just playing for points and you're not actually having a good time, you're in the wrong place and you're doing the wrong thing. Now, there are people out there. I have met terribly, horribly, I feel bad for them level of competitive people that they either do their best and win or they're actively angry, at which point it's just one of those things that's like, I feel like if it was me, I wouldn't ever want to even play at that point because you're not having fun. Because if anything goes wrong, even if you win but you made mistakes that you saw, I've met people who are angry at themselves because they made a mistake, even though they won. And it's just a matter of, I think it's personality. And I think it's different for a lot of people. I can and I have attended many a tournament pinball, video game, tabletop across the years where I have done okay I've attended a couple tournaments where I've been completely annihilated but the big thing was is I had a good time I met with people, I talked with people I had fun even as I got my butt whooped So for me, fun is always going to be the primary goal of anything that I'm doing. If I'm not having fun, it's not worth my time. Yeah, so in terms of the question on points versus fun, it depends what I view as fun in that moment. Because in a way, I'm thinking this is more points versus story is maybe the way I would think of it. Because, yeah, I agree with Tony. You should always be playing for fun. So in a tournament, my goal is to win. So I play for points. That's what's fun. I'm not going to go on a journey through all of the modes if the modes aren't the best way for the points. Casually, I may do that, though. And the reason why I think it's useful either way is it's good to know the best way to get points. And there are little quick guides that will summarize ways on tournament strategy. Like pen tips was always a site. I don't know if it's still around, but I used to use pen tips a lot. If I didn't know a game, give me two or three ideas on what to shoot for that can give me points. Because even if you're playing for fun, you're still working on your ball control. You're still practicing. You're still getting some skill in theory at how to actually play a pinball game. So it doesn't really matter if you're going for one thing or another. These are usually merged relatively well. There's still like a one right way to get the most points. back when we would play in tournaments a lot and KISS, the pinball machine, first came out, the DMD KISS. Lick It Up was the right way to play it at one stage. Or when Guardians came out, if you wanted to get points, you needed to group multiball all day. And then they patched it and you had to do orb multiball all day. And if you wanted to win, that's what you did. That was the easiest way to get a lot of points. And that got fixed over time. In the 90s, this was very, very common, where the multi-balls are how you get points. There were modes. You could time the modes out. In fact, it was a common tournament strategy on Adam's family. If the power came on and the magnets wanted to mess things up, you just time that out. You don't try and play the game when the magnet's messing things up. The magnet's supposed to be fun, but the magnet's going to kill you, so you don't like the magnet. So, yeah, it's just, for me, there have been plenty of instances where, like in a tournament when I, I used to own a Firepower, so in a tournament in Firepower, I would all I would do is try and light my spinner, get my bonus multipliers with my top lanes, and rip the left spinner. That's all I would do. At home, I would play for the multiball. The multiball in Firepower is stupid. Like, there's not even a multiplier for the multiple balls. All it does is give you multiple balls. That's it. And it's stealable. Yeah. And it's stealable. So, the but it was like the hardest thing to set up in the game so i did it for fun right that was the idea so um so yeah no it's i i read i readily don't just play for a high score but sometimes going for the high score is the fun thing so yeah and i i can see that see i because i different i different when I different when it comes to tournament play When I go to a tournament I never been to a tournament where I cared about winning Not once. I attend tournaments, and the specific reasoning behind attending tournaments is to interact with people who like the same things I do. And for me, they are social events. And that is the primary draw to them. The actual gameplay and spending all of the time playing and trying to get better isn't my primary goal for being there. I'm primarily there for social reasons, and that's the fun for me. That's why, like I said, I mean, and we've talked about in the past, sometimes when you're doing really well in a tournament, especially like when we regularly attended 403 Club, you'd start doing really well, and then you'd be kind of sad that you were doing well because all the restaurants you wanted to go get dinner at are closed by the time you get out of the tournament. That's a separate issue. That's an issue where pinball tournaments are notoriously poor at time management. Yes. Like the big ones, small. And I blame the game more than the organizers because the problem is how many sports games whatever go longer the better you do most of them go shorter but billiards the better you are the faster the game is darts same way but pinball in theory could go forever yes and i mean there's no theory about it we've been to tournaments where somebody was blowing a machine up in an insane way where it's like oh look wow that that that that one guy's turn took 15 minutes and for me it's just and that's a totally aside from the the games but basically when i want to go and and play pinball in my head i'm thinking i want to play for two hours that's like like a move i think that's a i think that's a comfortable number but i you know and i in instances where i'm not winning where i'm not even in the top three i was going five yeah and it was too much for me that's why i haven't done it in quite a while i i do miss going and playing in the tournaments i do not miss i like hanging out for with people but five hours is a lot for me so i think it's one of the reason I enjoy TPF and conventions so much because you go, you play some games, you talk to some people, you play some games, you talk to some people, you play some games. You know what? I'm going to go back to the hotel room and lay down for 15, 20 minutes. Right, we don't have to stick around because we need to get our turn in an hour or whatever. It's like, I'm going to go rest. You know what? Let's go get some – for me, that's the perfect combination of social and playing and everything else. But we've kind of wandered afield on that conversation. A little bit. so we also got asked from Richard to talk about some games that we think aren't the greatest but we always play it like if you see it just for fun like there's a game that you'll always play if you see it Silver Slugger don't see that one around much no yeah there oh gosh there are a lot that that if I encounter it I always want to play it even though I know it's not that that good of a game i would say uh one of the hmm gosh it's tough because now now i'm like well i like it so i kind of want to argue that you know what just say viper night driving we all know you want to say viper night driving no sadly i i just i don't i don't feel the compulsion to go ahead and play it uh you know like because it's like in a way i want to say like adam's family for example when i see it i do like to play it i do i love the call outs and stuff but the game wise i I don't really care that much for Adam's Family, but I do kind of like to play it. TriZone. There's one. Oh, TriZone. That was a tournament play for a long time. Yes, it was. And it's like there's so much about the game I think is not very fair in terms of how it's set up. But you know what? I always like to shoot around on it whenever I see it. So that would be one. Yeah, I do like Silver Slugger, but I own that one. So I don't think that's a very fair one for me to say. I'm trying to think of maybe a DMD game that I'm just like, this is not a good game, but I still always like to spend some time with it if I ever see it. And I was going to – maybe Junkyard. I think every time I see a Junkyard, I play Junkyard, and I don't think that's a very good game. I don't like shooting toast at a dog, so it seems oddly quaint. So that might be one. Yeah, it's not terrible. I'm much the same as you It's like a C tier title It is definitely Less than You know what? Flintstones Oh, okay It's not the greatest game in the world But I don't think I've ever played Flintstones And not enjoyed it Yeah, no, I could see that You know Banzai Run I know people love it I always want to play it But I don't think it's a good game I don't think it's great but clearly I always I don't know if it's just the backbox or what but I'm going to play it another one that I don't know that I'd say it's not a good game but it's similar Big Guns oh I did think about Big Guns I also thought about Furry Cops I think I usually play Police Force if I see it here's one I think every time I've seen it at a show it depends on the people I can't say I always play it, but if I sit at a show and it doesn't have a person on it and I'm doing something else, I play Raven. Yes, Raven. It's like, yes, it deserves to be recognized. It deserves to be recognized. That's probably my best one to give you. Raven. Yeah. Okay. And then the last question of his was about buying a game based off of gameplay or buying a game based off of liking the theme, even if the gameplay isn't completely great because you really like the theme. What motivates you more, like if you were considering a game? I think if I was considering a game, I would target a combination of gameplay and theme. but I think how it looks is very important because in reality, that machine is going to be turned off more often than it's not. And for the amount of space it takes up, it needs to look good taking up that space, in my opinion. Probably because my games are all basically out of sight unless I'm down with them. Right. For me, gameplay is the motivator. There could be a theme that would make me not like – you could have a theme bad enough that would stop me from buying a game. That would be possible. But if it was like, oh, I really like this theme, it just – if the gameplay isn't there, it's not enough. Like Alien should be in my game room if we were buying off a theme. But I don't own it because I don't think the Alien pinball game is a very good game to play. No, I agree. But that is a right up my alley theme. You would think, based off of theme, that I would actually make a real concerted effort to get one of the Krull prototypes from Gottlieb. Because Krull is one of my favorite fantasy movies. But I don't even contemplate trying to acquire a Krull. And I probably could. I could probably buy it. But I've only seen and heard that it is a terrible game. So I'm not motivated, even though I really like the theme. And so the games I own. OK, yeah, I I own Walking Dead and I did watch Walking Dead. So you could say, well, that one kind of makes sense. Star Trek. OK, I've seen that kind of makes sense. I haven't seen every Godzilla in the Godzilla. I don't think I like Godzilla. I knew about, but I wasn't like I don't own any Godzilla movies, for example. it's made me appreciate the Godzilla franchise more now that I have the game but you know it's not I don't think there's a Godzilla I've not seen so I've seen a number of them but I just you know they're not I don't know them well enough to be able to keep it all straight or so Jaws okay I'm a big fan of Jaws so that one kind of makes sense Deadpool though I never read comic Deadpool so but I have Deadpool yeah Iron Man 2 is like the worst Iron Man movie I think it might be worse than 3 but technically Iron Man game is based off of Iron Man 2. So no, for me, gameplay is king. You bring up a good point about the look of the game and there are all these other things that help, that help make you want a game. But there's games with amazing gameplay that you also don't own and have no interest in. Like I enjoy Iron Maiden. I would never own an Iron Maiden. Yeah, there's a... But part of it is there's only so much space, so I can't have everything anyway. Right. That's why I think it's a combination. It has to be a theme that interests you, and the gameplay has to be good. I mean, you know. It's just how much, where are we sitting in the balance of those two? Yeah, it varies a bit. I could see getting an Elton John, for example, even though I don't have any Elton John music in my playlist currently. I don't. Yeah, I do. But, you know, I mean, I like it enough that the theme isn't a – I'm kind of – I guess I'm more positive on the theme than I am neutral on the theme. But, yeah, I don't know. It's interesting. So, yeah, there's obviously a lot of variables that do go into it. But for me, the gameplay is the biggest variable. And that's – I think it's pretty obvious from the games I own. So anyway, thank you, Richard, for all of the discussion items. Now, finally, we have a game sent in from Brandon L., who asked this to be read in the voice of Patrick Warburton. There's no way you have a Patrick Warburton. What? I can't do it either. I just got to channel my Brock Sampson. My Brock. Can't get that fry in there. It's that weird tonality. Hi, Dennis and Tony. I think this is a bit more of a high drop. Hey, Dennis and Tony. Hi, Dennis and Tony. Big fan of the podcast. Dennis is wearing a Patrick Warburton suit. I have a quick game for you guys. The Putin pump. I'm thinking I'm going Bill Cosby era. That's not a good thing to go in any scenario. See, I was thinking Edward from Men in Black. Yeah, that's not the way you said the suit. Guys, if you're interested, I got to keep going. Sorry, whatever it sounds like. Trust me, I'm Brock Simpson though right now. Patrick, I'm so sad. I call it theme duel. I'll assign each of you a theme. Then you'll debate on behalf of your assigned theme, arguing why it would make the better pinball machine. Maybe talk about the theme integration, or possible modes, mix, shots, art, call-outs, etc. Or focus on the meta aspects of the theme, like the overall appeal to the pinball community. Here are the names. Tony. I tried to put more fry in. Dungeon Carl. Tony, Dungeon Carl or Carl? Dennis. Kansas. The state, not the band. I win. I just win. Okay, fine. Okay, fine. You can do the band. You guys decide the winner however you'd like. Peace out. I still win. No. I hope the Cold War was over. Maybe. Oh, I'm getting better at it. Let me keep doing this. I'm going to make it work. We've lost 50 subscribers. Thanks a lot. Thanks a lot, Brandon. Thanks a lot, Brandon. Borburn's here making his money. Oh, my God. This is so bad. You see, it's gone too far. It's gone too far. Okay. They just... I don't know. It's too much. It's just too much. I'll be honest. Will you? Will you be honest? I will. I will. I will. I'm always frank and earnest with women. In New York, I'm frank. In Chicago, I'm earnest. That's a great movie. It is. That's a great movie. It is, but he didn't give us that one. No. I think Dungeon Crawler Carl gives itself a lot of options for it. just because there's so much going on. It lets you, and it kind of plays, it kind of makes fun of itself as it goes in. So it lets you put a lot of fun into it. And it's actually helped because they actually have an animated Webtoon series coming out soon for it. So there'd be animation already ready to gank and use for LCDs. I'm not going to pretend to design the game, but I can tell you right now, the narrator and the prizes are going to be a requirement for getting multi-balls and everything else. It's going to just straight up be necessary because it's the fucking... Achievement! New achievement! that's a lot of dead babies no one understands what's going on so why is this better than kansas the band because that's how i'm not doing the state because what well kansas is well kansas is a good band is famous and has several good songs. I don't honestly think they have enough to hold an entire machine up. They're not Metallica. They're not Elton John. They're not Elvis. I don't think their big titles are enough to hold up, to support an entire pen. While they are far more famous, I mean, I would rather have a Dr. Hook in the Medicine Show pinball machine than a Kansas machine. Okay. All right. Well, since you're only speaking for you, I mean, for me, the main upside is Kansas would actually sell. There is not a single pinball collector, including you, that's buying a game with Princess Donut on it. So, yeah, I went there. That's a lie. No, it's true. You would never own a Dungeon Crawler Carl. You can't even say it. I totally would. No, I don't believe it. And so you mentioned the announcer, which, okay, yes, is very funny. I have to acknowledge that since I'm not going to edit out all the laughter that I had. But look, think of it. All right, so Kansas, famous band, actually going to make us money, sell. All right, you're right. It's not a Metallica. It's not an ACDC. It's not even an Iron Maiden, but the music's more listenable, so there's that. The – Ooh. Yeah, I went there. I went there. Fighting words to metalheads. Think of it. Dust in the wind mode. Not even like a wizard mode. That's too – It's got a fan? No. Just like whirlwind? No. And it sprays sand in your face? Kind of. Kind of. No, this is even better. I'm so proud of this idea. So – and the listener will be as well. two layers of glass. So you have your play field glass, but there's a cover, it could be plexi or whatever in it, and with magnets on the side, so like iron filings, during the dust in the wind mode, then it will blow. It'll use the magnets to pull it out when it's not in that mode, but otherwise it'll scatter the dust and obfuscate your view. It could just use like little iron filings for it. And that'll be the dust in the wind. I could already hear the engineer screaming. No, it's just a few magnets and maybe a little fan to blow it. What happened? Well, I don't know. I activated dust in the wind multiball and my phone died. No, I'm just imagining. Grandpa was playing Kansas and he fired a man. And he just gripped his chest and he died. You just pulse the magnets and pulse it and then it'll move around. And then when it's done, like only the left magnet turns on. Look, any engineer worth their salt could do this. We're not talking like no triple spinning disc here. This is pretty basic science, okay? Grandpa was playing pinball and his pacemaker just started going insane. We could repurpose the mic on the stick for a little wayward son to move around. You bashed a little wayward son. You got that? Yeah. And those are the two songs I know, so that's what's going to be in it. But it will sell better than Dungeon Crawler Carl. It will. And Princess Don't. It will because no one knows it. You're incorrect. I am basically 100% correct. There are people that will have live footage on the screen of Kansas I very proud of you for supporting your side and doing the absolute best you possibly can But my gosh this is such a curb stomp setup It is not. It is like, well, on this side, we have the Kansas City Chiefs, and over here we have a middle school football team. Let's go! I don't agree with that at all. Well, you and your little nerd topic are going to sit there. Nerd topic. Sit there. You're all going to tear apart the side art because there's not enough donut on it or whatever. And Kansas is going to do an album cover for the sides. We'll have live concert footage. What is a Kansas album cover? It's the one with the Uncle Sam looking one. We'll do that one. That'll be the one. Let's see. You don't need to see. I need to see. You never owned a Kansas album? No. Okay, I have. And I only listened to two songs on it. But I don't remember the Uncle Sam looking guy. Yeah, no. Oh, this is going to sell like, maybe not like full-on hotcakes, but like waffles. It's going to sell like waffles. And Princess Donut and Dungeon Crawler Carl are not going to sell like donuts. They're going to sell like no nuts. So all of Kansas' albums have John Brown on the cover. Yes, because it's Kansas, and he's one scary dude. And incidentally, if you guys have never learned about John Brown, look him up. The guy was vicious. Yes, that is valid. Like psychopath. Psychopath levels. But Kansas loves him because he's an abolitionist. So anyway, yeah. So, okay. See? So the self-titled album had a cropped and discolored version of John Brown from the Tragic Prelude mural at the Capitol. Yeah, it's a famous mural. That could be the interior cab art, could be that mural. Right. Monolith has a nine-foot-tall Native American chief in a buffalo robe and a space helmet. The space helmet is questionable. That might be the premium edition. Right, that's the premium edition. Point of no return is a stylized Kansas logo and dragons. Yes, dragons! And not with three eyes like some people would do. This is going to be high-quality dragons. This is great. This is... It's going to be a dragon like on your shirt. Oh, yeah. Definitely. So, all right. They asked us to decide the winner however we'd like. So email in to eclecticgamerspodcast.gmail.com and just say, what? No, I'm going to have them make the listeners pick. Are you afraid? Oh, no, I'm not afraid. All right. Then we'll do rock, paper, scissors. If you're confident, then we're going to do rock, paper, scissors. I'm confident. No, too late. You said we're going to let the listeners. No, you were just saying. We get the listeners to decide. Get your head. I'm going to try to do my bra. Get your head. Get your head. Get your head down there, Gary. Get your head. One, two, three, go. Okay. I thought it was 3-2-1-go. They did both ways at Evo, so it was very confusing. Really? Yes, they did. 3-2-1-shoot. All right. Dungeon Crawler Carl won. Don't email in. I don't want to hear it. Scissors beat paper. Please email in to let us know just how correct we are. No, we don't need re-up. This topic is done. Thank you, Brandon. Don't ever ask for Patrick Warburton again. Never ever. That was rough. Not ever. That was rough. I'm waiting to hear from his lawyers. It's like, whoa, man. Right. I mean, like, you're accusing me of stealing all his work. Right. Exactly. You're going to steal all of the work. All right. Video games. Video games. All right. So we have to get animal cruelty out of the way. Really? Why? So much animal cruelty. In Animal Crossing? No. Nobody likes Tom Nook or whatever his name is. This did happen with Animal Crossing. It did? Yes, it did. But PETA has put out a request to Nintendo to remove Cow's nose ring because nose rings are abusive to cattle because they're painful and they're damaging. Oh, from the Mario Kart game? Yes. That's the most popular character? He is the most popular character. But they want, yep, they just, they love the character. They just want the ring removed. PETA did also put out a thing against Animal Crossing at one point in time. Oh, okay. All right. What was Nintendo's response to the ring? They didn't respond. If you would, but... What if the cow, if we merely linted the ring? It's the one ring. Would it be okay? It's okay. It's just a clip-on. They should totally have a video of the cow just unclipping it and then clipping it on an ear, then unclipping it and clipping it somewhere else. It's just a clip-on. Okay. While we're talking about interesting stuff like this, the state of Louisiana is suing Roblox, alleging that it facilitates the sexual exploitation of Louisiana's children. Wow. Yeah. Roblox is clearly not about what I thought it was. Right? Their Attorney General, Liz Murrell, put out a statement, saying that Roblox endangers the safety of the children. Roblox is overrun with harmful content and child predators because it prioritizes user growth, revenue, and profits over child safety. Every parent should be aware of the clear and present danger posed to their children by Roblox so they can prevent the unthinkable from ever happening in their own home. Let me ask you a question real quick, if you don't mind. Every time you see the phrase clear and present danger, do you also think of the Tom Clancy clear and present danger? because I can't help it. Every single time. I can't help it. Every time. Younger people are like, what are you talking about? I don't know. Younger people listening to this podcast. What in the world? What's Tom Clancy? Yeah. What's a Clancy? What's clear and present danger? Some things don't react well to bullets. Why couldn't I have gotten Sean Connery? Patrick Warburton? because people are stressing you. You know, side topic again. We're off the rails again. I've been cleaning my desk, organizing drawers, doing stuff. I found my voice game where you have the cards that tell you random things to do to try and voice in different situations. I should totally bring it when we go to TPF. That's actually a pretty good idea. And just have it with me so people can come up and we can pull cards and play games with people. If Ron Hallett Jr. from Slam Tilt is there, he does a lot of voice impressions. It would be interesting to see him in that game. Yes. Okay. What an idea. I just need to remember. I just need to remember. I know I put it aside. Set a calendar. I just need to remember to put it in my bag. I would save my Patrick Warburton to win. Save Patrick Warburton for the win. Dean and Hank, what are you doing? Get behind me! Sugar water. Give me sugar water. It's basically open season for sex predators on this app. For this reason, and all of the others we've talked about, Roblox is violating Louisiana law, and that's why we filed this lawsuit. Did Roblox respond to this? No, Roblox didn't respond. And the response is, every day, tens of millions of people around the world use Roblox to learn STEM skills. I don't know how I'd open with that strategy. That's a bold move, Cotton. What's up? It's a video game. We're STEM. We're STEM. Look, my kids play Roblox. I've seen the games my kids play on Roblox. They're not learning STEM skills. That's for sure. It's like when I would play Tetris and I'd get asked, and I would say I was learning how to properly load the trunk of a car or something. Pack a suitcase. I've become a hand-eye coordination mom. I probably did use that one actually to learn STEM skills, play and imagine and have a safe experience on our platform any assertion that Roblox would intentionally put our users at risk of exploitation is simply untrue no system is perfect and bad actors adapt to evade detection including efforts to take users to other platforms where safety standards and moderation practices may differ we continuously work to block those efforts and to enhance our moderation approaches to promote a safe and enjoyable environment for all users. And we talked an episode or two ago about the changes they've put in where they're having AI decide if you're a child or not. Yes, yes. Kind of like YouTube's now going to have AI decide based upon what you're watching, if you're a kid or not. So we'll see how that works out for people. And while we're talking about lawsuits, we'll continue. we spoke last time about Sega suing Tencent over the light of Mortorium being a complete and utter rip off I mean kind of allegedly well Tencent hasn't made any response to the lawsuit because they don't speak on pending litigation stuff I don't comment they don't comment but what they did do was go to their steam page and pull every single picture and replace them with different pictures that don't look like they were stolen directly from Horizon Zero Dawn. And there's stuff that has their main character who looks like a a trying to think of a nice way to say this, a slightly Chinese version of Aloy is no longer prominent on all of the screenshots like she used to be. And they've changed the shots so they don't match anything from there. And they've completely changed the description of the game. The game was originally in a world overrun by colossal machines. Explore the vast open world. Build your base of operations, advance technology and train mechanicals and take on formidable bosses. Starting from the primitive age, forge a new path of development. Defy the machinations. It's not you. It's survive with mechanicals. Sounds like a Happy Meals toy. It does, doesn't it? But they've changed it so it says, make smart use of everything around you to stay alive and face off against formidable bosses. Every step is fraught with danger and requires courage. Only by overcoming the challenges of survival can you carve out a place for yourself in this unforgiving land. So now it's Dark Souls. It's everything. It's so generic. It's every open world game ever. This could literally describe every open world game with no problem. I'm sure everything will be fine now I don't know what you're talking about we don't know we don't know what you're talking about Pokemon Pokemon still has their lawsuits out against Palworld they've won some portions of it some portions of it they've lost but this has nothing to do with that specific lawsuit instead what it has to do is the fact that In Japan, they're putting out limited edition Pokemon toys in McDonald's Happy Meals. Oh. Or they were. Oh. They canceled the promotion. Hmm. Why? Because people and scalpers, especially scalpers, were walking in and ordering Happy Meals by the dozen, taking out the toys and throwing the Happy Meals in the trash can and walking out the door. I do feel bad for the food waste of it all. Well, that's why they canceled it. But my thought is, can't you just go in and buy the darn toys? It does seem like there could be a happy medium here. It seems like you could balance things out. I think, again, the big problem is it's scalpers, the bane of society at this point, or one of the banes of society. So we can't have nice things because they could be scalped. Right. It's like, hey, this band I want to go see is putting out great tickets. They're only $45. They were all bought in the first two seconds, and now I have to buy them for $500. Or I just don't go see bands anymore. Yeah, it is an interesting time out there. We already kind of talked about Battlefield 6, so I'll skip over the most of it. But their open betas have been going very well. this latest one has had over 500,000 concurrent players online estimating groups are guessing that they're probably going to cross a million pre-orders on Steam so maybe that 3 million target or whatever isn't as ridiculous as we because we made fun of 3 million is far more than Battlefield has ever sold for anything ever and I also don't have it in here. I started to put it in and I pulled it out and went and threw it back in. One of the old PlayStation execs did a series of interviews over the last couple of weeks and in one of them he was talking about the prices of games and how the price of a game should have increased every single new console generation and they should be much higher than they are currently, which, I'll be honest, I don't want them to be higher, but I can understand the point. Right. But then he went on to ruin what could have possibly been put as a halfway decent point by pointing out that the reason, it's like you can tell that video games don't cost enough because back in the early PlayStation games when we were turning out games, the parking lot was full of nothing but sports cars. but it's not now because people can't afford it because the games aren't being sold for enough okay even though the companies are posting record profits yeah because the number of sales are so high i think it talks about a whole different problem than he was saying i think the problem is you know uh employee pay not how much money the company is making right right but That was an interesting approach. The car was full of sports cars. Remember Carmack and his Lamborghini or something? Yeah, I think it was Ferraris. He had several. It was either Lamborghinis or Ferraris, but he had a bunch of them. I remember at the QuakeCon we attended, the trophy for the winner of the QuakeCon tournament was a blown piston from the engine. He blew up in one of them. I did not remember that. Well, that's because we didn't win. No. We weren't even close. Well, they suggested there would be computers, and we had to ask Canadians to let us use their computers to play, and we didn't know their macros and settings and stuff because we were on loaner systems. I also would have never won anyway. Well, no. I was very good back then, but not anymore. Not anymore. And because we're in the middle of summer, Nintendo has put out a very important warning. They recommend users of the Switch 2 do not play their consoles in temperature conditions between 41 degrees and 95, or I'm sorry, outside of the band of 41 degrees to 95 degrees, because it can cause malfunctions and damage to the unit. So Your mobile game system Don't be sitting in the park playing it If it's over 95 degrees Or if it's under 41 Yes Because it'll damage it I don't know how many people are sitting outside in the sun Playing their Nintendo Switch A lot of people might have On the 4th of July been stuck doing that That's possible It just sounds miserable To me Like a lot of people's fourths probably were. Right. I have to do this with the family. Don't worry. Humidity is 100%. I'm going to set up here. Oh, it's been bad here lately. It has been. So nothing fancy video gamey, just more humorous stuff this time around. Okay. That's what I got. All right. Well, that's it for the show then. So again, if you want to reach out to us at CollectedGamersPodcast at gmail.com, you can also go to facebook.com slash eclectic gamers podcast though it is better to email than to message over at facebook uh likewise if you want to support the show patreon.com slash eclectic underscore gamers you can support the show for as little as a dollar a month if you want to see the video version that's going to be at the five dollar or above we have the five and the ten dollar tiers as well uh we're available on twitch and instagram as eclectic underscore gamers and we will be back ish in a couple of weeks. Tony and I might have to record that episode a day early, I believe. No, there's another episode before that. That's the end of September. September, I thought it was the end of August. Never mind. That'll be the end of September. We might come out a little early. Until then, though, until two weeks from now, my name is Dennis. I'm Tony. Goodbye, everybody. See you.