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PNP Ep. 528-Harry Potter+ Pinclash Micgate+ 2.0 HYPE+ I AM BUYING A FREAKIN PIN!

Poor Man's Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·analyzed·May 17, 2023
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.031

TL;DR

Harry Potter JJP license hype + Pin Clash audio drama recap from Poor Man's Pinball host.

Summary

Orbital Albert discusses his passion for Harry Potter pinball following Joe Kaminkow claim that Jersey Jack Pinball secured the license, speculates on potential game designs across multiple books/versions, and covers Pin Clash Micgate issues where Steven Bowden audio equipment caused streaming problems during the tournament, ultimately praising the event organizers for a well-run competition.

Key Claims

  • Joe Kaminkow posted that Jersey Jack Pinball has the license for Harry Potter pinball

    medium confidence · Orbital Albert citing Joe Kaminkow official account; Albert notes the post was later deleted/modified, creating uncertainty about confirmation status

  • Harry Potter is an unusual license announcement from Joe Kaminkow because he typically works with Stern

    high confidence · Orbital Albert discussing Kamikaze's typical industry relationships and his known teasing of Back to the Future

  • Pin Clash 2.0 was well-organized and run by Karl D'Angelo of IE Pinball on Twitch

    high confidence · Orbital Albert's direct experience watching the multi-hour tournament event

  • Steven Bowden microphone had significant audio quality issues during Pin Clash, creating 'Micgate' community drama

    high confidence · Orbital Albert's personal observation over first three hours of streaming and chat reaction; issue described as 'gargly' underwater-like sound

  • Z-Mac (Zach McCarthy) won Pin Clash 2.0 for the second time

    high confidence · Orbital Albert announcing results; notes Escher Lefkoff also has two previous Pin Clash victories

  • Orbital Albert is a day older than Harry Potter character (both born July 31, 1980 in real terms but Albert claims July 30)

    high confidence · Orbital Albert discussing his personal connection to Harry Potter franchise and his lightning-shaped scar from a Steve-O concert incident

  • Snow Galvin (Colorado Pinball Collective) provided superior commentary and audio quality compared to Steven Bowden at Pin Clash

    high confidence · Orbital Albert's direct comparison of both commentators' performance and audio setup quality during the event

  • Orbital Albert's maximum arcade capacity is seven pinball machines

    high confidence · Orbital Albert discussing Orbeez Arcade space constraints and theorizing about a seven-game Harry Potter series

Notable Quotes

  • “I'm telling you right now whether I have to go sell my blood and move to the United States of America... I will do something to get that Harry Potter pinball machine”

    Orbital Albert @ ~5:20 — Demonstrates his extreme passion for potential Harry Potter pinball and willingness to go to extraordinary lengths to acquire it

  • “Please don't let it go to American Pinball... I really hope that Stern or JJP get it”

    Orbital Albert @ ~12:45 — Expresses community skepticism about American Pinball's ability to handle major IP and preference for established manufacturers

  • “If they wanted it that bad, if they did seven pins, and released... a Pro, Premium, and LE... they could keep us on the hook for like the next decade”

    Orbital Albert @ ~17:30 — Speculates on potential milking strategy for Harry Potter license across multiple game releases over years

  • “It was pretty bad... it got to the point where it was like if you're underwater, it kind of sounds like he was scuba diving”

    Orbital Albert @ ~27:15 — Describing the severity of Steven Bowden's microphone issues during Pin Clash broadcasting

  • “Carl, I know Carl is a sweetheart. Carl was doing everything within his power. Carl did absolutely nothing wrong.”

    Orbital Albert @ ~32:40 — Defending event organizer Carl D'Archangelo against criticism despite audio problems, praising his efforts

  • “You're a big beef jerky face. And you and I got beef now.”

    Orbital Albert @ ~33:20 — Calling out chat members who repeatedly complained about audio issues despite organizers' efforts to fix them

  • “Nobody knows for sure. I'm not going to believe it until I see at least a picture or at least hear an official thing from a pinball company.”

    Orbital Albert @ ~24:00 — Expressing skepticism about Harry Potter license confirmation despite Joe Kamikaze's post due to lack of official manufacturer statement

Entities

Orbital AlbertpersonJersey Jack PinballcompanyJoe KaminkowpersonHarry PottergamePin Clash 2.0eventSteven BowdenpersonKarl D'AngelopersonSnow Galvin

Signals

  • ?

    rumor_hype: Significant community excitement and speculation about Harry Potter pinball license following Joe Kamikaze's post on Jersey Jack Pinball, though confirmation remains unverified with post deleted/modified

    high · Orbital Albert's extensive discussion of licensing possibility, noting Joe Kamikaze posted then modified, creating uncertainty about official confirmation status

  • ?

    product_concern: 'Micgate' incident at Pin Clash 2.0 where Steven Bowden's microphone produced poor quality audio ('gargly,' 'underwater' sound) for first several hours, impacting viewer experience and engagement

    high · Orbital Albert's direct experience watching event, noting he muted audio, closed chat, and engaged less with community due to distraction from repeated chat complaints about audio

  • ?

    community_signal: Chat members repeatedly and unnecessarily complained about known audio issues during Pin Clash, creating friction despite organizers' efforts to resolve; Orbital Albert publicly called out this behavior as 'jerky'

    high · Orbital Albert describing Jeff Teolis's frustration in chat, noting people continued reporting audio issues even after initial complaints, leading to organizer annoyance and viewer disengagement

  • ?

    event_signal: Pin Clash 2.0 was overall well-organized and professionally executed despite audio issues; seeding and competition format were sound with strong final matchups

    high · Orbital Albert praising event organization, seeding (Zach McCarthy #1, Escher Lefkoff #2), commentary quality from Snow Galvin, and recognition of production labor

  • ?

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.275

0:00
All get around, he's on the rebound, hear the sound of our buddy, oh lordy, it's Orby, pinball now to rejoice, he's tugging pinball, craft beer and coffee, mixed with syrup and honey, he wants to laugh with his family in a random tangent, stories of his boys, he's on the poor man's pod network, We're going to get more listeners for the Pinball Nerds Podcast.
0:32
Coming to you from beautiful River Hibbert, Nova Scotia. Welcome back, Pinball Nerds, to episode 528 of your fifth favorite pinball podcast. My name is Orbital Albert, and on today's show, we're going to be talking about Harry Potter pinball, as well as Pin Clash Mike Gate. And what is all this 2.0 hype? As well as, don't worry, I'm saving it for the very end, a little bit of personal pinball news. Actually, there's one big piece of personal pinball news and two other small pieces of more so just personal news. But I'm leaving that to the very, very, very end. But second last, I also have to call out two other pinball podcasters. I mean you know me Orby's trying to go drama free since episode 193 but today it's I've been trying to be quiet I've been I haven't done a lot of shows lately I really miss you listeners I know it's been almost two weeks I just looked it's been 13 days I can't believe it's been that long since I got to talk to Emily thank you for all the positive feedback I got for the interview with Emily Anderson she is just a ball of light she's just a fun outgoing you know, still a little bit newer to pinball especially tournament pinball but really cool, really fun interview go take a listen to that, it's a little heavy it's a little heavy, it got maybe heavier more so than the average pinball podcast where you keep it pretty light and fluffed up, right? but there was, you know, get out your steak knife and fork and get in there and get ready to bite through a juicy succulent episode that was heavy and heavy with no beef, thank God. So here we go. Let's talk about Harry Potter. My entire life, I have been a huge Harry Potter hater. Until, and I used to make, you know, I thought I was, I have my little, you know, well, I had a wannabe mohawk for a very short period of time, i.e. it was maybe three or four inches. But, and I'm not talking, I'm talking about width, not even height, right? you know what I mean? But I had this almost faux hawk for a short period of time, and I used to be hardcore, you know, pretty big punk dude, skateboarder, couch surfer, you know, not a lot of money, partied way too hard way too often, probably shocked that I haven't needed a new liver transplant yet, but I always thought Harry Potter was, like, so nerdy, and I thought it was for like, you know, and you'd think a guy with the, in the future that would have the Pinball Nerds podcast would be okay with nerds. But I can remember my wife, who was just my girlfriend at the time, Drop Target Danielle, got pregnant with our first son, Hayden. And at nighttime, you know, I would always read to her she was going to sleep. And of course, I would try to sit close to her belly and read to Hayden because, you know, many of the parenting books said that if you were able to be very, very close to, you know, the baby. If the father's there and the father is talking to the baby and reading books to it, that when it is born, it will, you know, recognize the father's voice as well as the mother's voice. And so I was sitting there and I think at the time I was reading a Chuck Palahniuk book and, you know, it was a pretty brutal book with a lot of just bad stuff happening. And it wasn't Fight Club or anything. I think I was actually reading Choke or something at the time, but just a brutal book with a lot of sex, violence, drugs, rock and roll, just things, and I knew that, you know, negative seven-month-old or negative six months, however old he was at the time, Hayden couldn't hear what I was saying, but I just thought, well, this is inappropriate, so I just grabbed the closest book I could, which happened to be the very first, I think at the time, one of the new, like, Harry Potter, the fifth book or something was coming out, or the fourth book, and my wife was rereading through them, So I just grabbed the very first Harry Potter book, and within about 10 minutes, Danielle had fell asleep. So I said, goodnight to her, and I left, and I went out into the living room, and I couldn't put down this book, and I read all of Harry Potter 1. And by the time, you know, and then I fell asleep. It's a very short book, the first one. And the next morning, I said, I have to read number 2. Where's number 2? And she's like, well, I don't have it right now. I think it's either at my parents' house, or I lent it to a friend. So we went to the library and I got book number two and I read all of book number two in about two or three hours. It is, you know, number two is quite a bit longer. And within a year, I was a hardcore, hardcore Harry Potter nerd, fan, whatever, to the point of I can remember just a few years later when I was a driving instructor. I think Hayden might have been two or three years old. The seventh Harry Potter book was coming out. and if you do the math from when Harry Potter starts school in relation to when the first book comes out, Harry Potter was actually born in the same year as me, 1980. The only difference is I was born on July 30th and he was born on July 31st. So, you know, Harry Potter, I'm a day older than Harry Potter. So I also have a giant scar. For those of you who have hung out with me in person, You can't see it really well on Facebook, but in person, you know, like or through any type of video unless you were zoomed up on my eyebrow. But you can actually see a lightning shaped scar that goes back and forth and back and forth through my right eyebrow on my right forehead, the same place as Harry. and that's actually from being at a Steve-O concert where a guy that had his arms held behind his back for starting a fight in the crowd was being walked out by security and I may or may not have said some tough guy words to him because I thought he couldn't get out and he immediately threw both of the security guards to the ground picked me up in the air and slammed my head into the corner of a brick wall where I needed very many stitches up and down my face and bled a lot. And that much blood in your eyes, it actually hurts more than the cut because a whole bunch of fat was popping out as well. But anyways, I've gone way off topic. What else would you expect, guys? Long story short, I'm a massive Harry Potter fan. And look, am I magical like him? Wait till you see me play pinball, maybe. No, probably not. Definitely not. I cannot remember rules for the life of me, but I would say I'll give it to myself. I'm probably a bit of a magical nudger. I'm pretty magic with the old school EMs, some of the tap passes and drop catches and stuff. I would say it looks like magic when you're watching it on livestream anyways. And nudging, I think I'm close to magical nudger. I'm definitely magical in many other parts of my life that we're not going to get into on today's podcast. But I'm pretty magical in the kitchen. I can make some bomb-ass dope foods, whether it be butter chicken, French toast with our own Hummingbird Homestead maple syrups, or any of that kind of wonderful stuff. You should see me with a debit card at McDonald's. I can buy, I usually buy, family of four, you think I'm just buying four Happy Meals? Uh-uh. I always get one for Elwynn. now I know there's a lot of sodium in those fries so I element only gets uh our dog only gets about half of the uh you know a small fry and uh but I do give her most of the cheeseburger I might have a bite or two of the cheeseburger because if you're going to McDonald's you gotta have a bite of a cheeseburger at least a bite or two right and I always get myself the McNugget Happy Meal uh to dip in Hummingbird Homestead honey which just amps it up like McNuggets with uh regular honey yeah it's a you know McDonald's honey whatever they call honey whatever that stuff is they put in the package it's like a six out of ten if you're hungry you're on the road you got to go it's certainly not healthy but it is quick and it's inexpensive but if you amp that up with some like it doesn't have to be my honey guys it could be any honey from like a local you know a local super probably expensive uh place and I'm sure even in grocery stores they have more local honey nowadays you don't have to go and buy mankua honey from like New Zealand or something like that but yeah, amps it up, amps it up. So am I magical with a debit card? Apparently so. I can make money disappear. Gone. Just like that. Magical. Let's get back to Harry Potter. I am a massive Harry Potter fan. I've read through the books now no less than four times and I think the Triwizard Tournament I read like six times. I do need to go through them and reread them again. I've seen all of the movies at least three times. I think the first movie and probably the last two movies, which are kind of like a part, like seven and eight are kind of like a part one, part two, right? Is it, is it that? Anyways, I am a massive Harry Potter fan and I'm telling you right now whether I have to go sell my blood and move to the United States of America, where here in Canada they just give you cookies for blood. That's why sometimes I have to go for plasma. but when you get to the United States apparently they give you money I don't know how much it is I don't know if it's like 5 bucks or like 20 bucks I don't know how much blood I gotta give and how often but I will do something to get that Harry Potter pinball machine so for those of you who have been living under a pinball machine and might not may not know that Joe Kamikow his official account said that Jersey Jack pinball has got the license for Harry Potter now as we all know typically kamikau works with uh you know works with stern so a lot of us find it quite unusual not just that he would say that another company which as far as i know he's you know he likes to i know he likes to throw i've heard him mentioned back to the future and tease back to the future before and we haven't seen that happen and of course uh the mural in his garage which has, I believe, James Bond and one of the other pins that got done. Was it the Beatles? I'm just trying to think right now. But the third one that, and two of the three of them have got made, the third one that hadn't got made, of course, had Doc Brown in it and had the DeLorean, I believe. And so we all expect that he's at least trying to get the license for Back to the Future, and we all expect that he is at least trying to get the license, but it sounds like he either posted that because he was angry because he found out that officially J.J.P. got it, or he's doing that to just throw shade, or he's doing that as like a market test to see how excited he gets people, or maybe he's just screwing with all of us. I don't know. But if Harry Potter pinball comes out, wow, wow, wowza, I can't wait for it. Like, don't screw it up. Whoever gets Harry Potter, just all I ask.
person
Zach McCarthyperson
Escher Lefkoffperson
Jeff Teolisperson
Stern Pinballcompany
American Pinballcompany
Spooky Pinballcompany
Mike Castlemanperson
Orbeez Arcadevenue
IE Pinballcompany
Colorado Pinball Collectiveorganization
Triple Drainperson
David Fixperson

competitive_signal: Z-Mac (Zach McCarthy) and Escher Lefkoff are emerging as elite Pin Clash performers, with both having won tournaments previously; seeding reflects competitive hierarchy

high · Orbital Albert announcing Zach McCarthy's second Pin Clash victory and noting both finalists have won previously; describes them as 'hands down incredible players'

  • ?

    licensing_signal: Possibility that JK Rowling's recent controversial statements may have reduced competing brand interest in Harry Potter IP, potentially opening pathway for pinball manufacturers to acquire rights

    medium · Orbital Albert speculating that fewer brands wanting to work with Rowling 'because of disgusting things she's said' might create opportunity for pinball to secure license

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Orbital Albert proposes ambitious multi-game strategy for Harry Potter IP, suggesting 7 separate machines (one per book) with different designers and art packages to extend product lifecycle

    medium · Extended discussion of potential release strategies, mentioning possibility of pairing different designer assignments (Elowen, Jack Danger, Borg) to separate game designs

  • ?

    content_signal: Pin Clash revealed significant variation in streamer equipment quality and technical setup; experienced streamers (Snow Galvin, Mike Castleman) produced superior output compared to infrequent streamers

    high · Orbital Albert comparing Snow Galvin's professional audio and streaming setup to Steven Bowden's equipment issues, noting different streaming experience levels and audio knowledge

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Observation that Steven Bowden's primary strength is commentary quality rather than live event presentation; Dave Fix potentially better suited for major machine launch events

    medium · Orbital Albert noting Steven excels at commentary but wasn't ideal for Deadflip launch; contrasting with Dave Fix's superior sales/presentation abilities for live events

  • ?

    collector_signal: Hypothetical multi-game Harry Potter release strategy would create extreme FOMO and collecting pressure, potentially requiring purchase of 20+ different machine variants across Pro/Premium/LE tiers

    medium · Orbital Albert describing scenario where hardcore collectors would need all 7 LEs minimum, creating 'super milking it' potential with 21 different machines available

  • ?

    venue_signal: Orbital Albert's personal arcade (Orbeez Arcade) has maximum capacity of 7 pinball machines, limiting his ability to acquire hypothetical multi-game Harry Potter series

    high · Orbital Albert stating 'the maximum pins I can fit in Orbeez Arcade is seven' while discussing potential Harry Potter game releases

    • 11:49
    I'm sorry. I really hope it doesn't go to American Pinball. I'm sorry. I really really really hope that like I would probably even be okay with like CGC getting it or maybe even possibly Pinball Brothers but like please don't let it go to AP Spooky I don't know if Spooky got it they would just make like every single character would just be you know a little inner orbit you know there'd be like 47 inner orbits with it no I do hope that Stern or JJP get it there's disadvantages and advantages to both if JJP gets it, hopefully, maybe, possibly, probably there would be more toys if they're going to head back the direction of Wizard of Oz.
    12:30
    If it ended up going to Stern, I actually think there's a better chance that they would do My Hope, and this is just as like, the maximum pins I can fit in Orbeez Arcade is seven.
    12:41
    It's seven books, not eight. What the hell kind of Harry Potter nerd am I that I don't even know? But maybe it's because the movie's broken to two at the I believe because the last book was pretty long the last few books were getting a little bit long in the tooth there it's almost like one of Orby's podcasts it's horrible you're like when's it gonna end just bring it home bro you know what I mean that's what that's what I was saying to uh the um the good old JK there the now uh the now almost semi-canceled JK and maybe that's the only reason that there is hope so many less brands want to work with JK Rowling now because some of the disgusting things she's said in the more recent years um because of all of those things maybe there is an opening for pinball and i really hope pinball gets done and i hope best case scenario for me probably sorry jjp even though that you're a close second if stern got it and for somehow some way stern really wanted to milk it like they wanted to milk it worse than the tanks wanted to get to melt those cows in Galactic Tank Force to get the best ice cream in the universe, right? If they wanted it that bad, if they did seven pins, and let's say, to the best of my knowledge, if they tried to rotate back and forth, and they released, like, there would be two ways they could do it. They could either release, you know, a pro, a premium, and an LE, all with different art packages, and hopefully mechanically at least a couple, one or two things differential in each one, for movies 1, 2, and 3. And then they could release again a Pro, Premium, and an LE for movies 3, 4, and 5.
    14:25
    Or sorry, movies 4, 5, and 6. And then for number 7, they could release like a Super SLE. And they could keep us on the hook for like the next decade. Just every year to year and a half, they release a new one. and but they only released like one model of it right that's the one option or of course what what would be more realistic is they would release the pro premium and le at the same time but just with mostly different art packages right primarily different art packages maybe a couple different call outs that sort of thing that's another option and then they released the super le a couple of years later being movie seven or book seven i guess depending on whether they're going to see that's the thing are they going to do movies are they going to do books are they going to do animated cartoon are they going to do comic books the comic book part of it right I'm trying to think right now I can't even think of or are they just going to follow you know the regular uh maybe like a video game or I know after Pokemon Go came out I think that you know the the second most popular ever one was like something to do with uh Harry Potter Wizards Go or Harry Potter Go or something like that they call it something different I think it was called wizards unite actually and it was an okay game but they could model it after that who knows maybe getting the actual rights for the movie clips is too expensive it probably is to be honest mind you if you were to do seven movies if you were to do seven games i know there's tons of people out there like probably pissed right now going what the hell are you saying just put it all into one game i just think it's too much you have to remember we're talking about some of these books were like weren't they like a thousand pages so you like it's hard enough to it'd be hard enough to put one book all into one game, like a thousand pages. I mean, if you were to write the entire comic book for Galactic Tank Force, it would be like five pages max. And this is what I'm saying, like, can you really take a thousand, can you take seven books that some of them, you know, some of them are very short. You could probably put maybe, maybe you could put one, two, and three into a game. I don't know. But I really hope that they do it that way. And I know a lot of people are saying, what are you talking about? I just think it'd be neat if like the first Say like the first three were worked on by like Elowen, and then the next three were done by Jack Danger, and then maybe the Super LE was done by, you know, like whatever. Like maybe they go back to Elowen or maybe, who knows, right? They use a different, they go back to Borg. Maybe they use Borg for the Super LE. I don't know. Or even, now this is even cutting it harder. if they were going to do all three trims. This is probably the least likely, even the one, the one though that I think would be the greatest so I could get the pro of every model. If they, if every single book was just, they came out with a pro, premium, and an LE. That's super milking it. Now you would have like 20,
    17:10
    you'd have 20, 21 different pins that you could own. And there would be some Harry Potter fans that are so hardcore, they would have to have the pro, premium, and LE of every single model, or at least the LE of every single model. That would be seven LEs you'd have to have, right? I would probably have the seven pros, of course, myself. But I just, I don't know what's going to happen. More than likely, if it does come out, it'll just be one machine.
    17:36
    This, of all the, if you were going to pull out all of the brakes, so to speak, or use all the magic under glass, so to speak, this is the game you do it with. This is the game you're going to use magnets. This is the game you've got to see floating. I talked about years ago on the podcast how there would have to be a hoverboard, either as like a bash toy mech that could spin that was actually hovering using magnets or something like that, you know, like to a degree of at least it appears that it's floating. You would obviously have to have this with some type of Quidditch and, you know, using, I don't know, like the Alohomora. Wait, that might be opening a door. I don't remember any of the spells, guys. I am a Harry Potter nerd, but I don't remember a lot of the individual stuff. I am going to go through and read it again. But I would be over-the-top ecstatic if they did come out with a Harry Potter, and I hope they do it justice. If J.J.P. got it, of course we would want Eric Minier to get it. And again, the most likely thing to come out is there's just one pin, and maybe, say, three levels. And if that happens, I will be okay with it. The only way I would really be angry is if like Pinball Adventures or like Home Pin got it. I would probably start crying. And, you know, other than that, I'll just be happy there's more pinball in the world. I'll try to be positive about it. My expectations are going to be through the roof. So all of us Harry Potter nerds, just like if and when we have. And I don't know. I don't know if this is confirmed at this point. I don't think it is. I just listened to Triple Drain talk about it yesterday. and they seem to be kind of where I am. Like, yeah, most likely it's coming. Like, it probably is, but we don't know why. Like, why the heck Joe Kamikau took down that post a couple hours later and then I guess he was agreeing with it and saying it is true on there. So we don't know for sure. Nobody knows for sure. I'm not going to believe it until I see at least a picture or at least hear an official thing from a pinball company.
    19:40
    Who knows? But I've got to move on because I've got some pinball podcasters to call it at the end of this thing. And I've also got to talk a little bit about something in a way I don't want to talk about. And that, of course, is Pin Clash. So Pin Clash is, for the most part, I believe it's an annual or like maybe biannual event by Carl D'Angelo of IE Pinball on Twitch. And it's a really cool event. I think he did start it during the pandemic, during COVID, when we're all stuck at homes. We had something to watch. So thank you, Carl, for that. And I can say this. If you haven't heard of Mike Gate, long story short, Steve Bowden's mic was topping out a lot and didn't sound great and was cutting out a lot and kind of sounded gargley. Or the best way to explain it is like, if you're underwater, it kind of sounds like he was scuba diving. Pretty bad. And I'm not going to lie, I'm not going to lie, I don't want people to say I'm just taking Carl's side because I love Ping Clash and I love IE Pinball.
    20:44
    It was pretty bad. It got to the point, even though I've said numerous times that Stephen Bowden, say what you will about a rules developer, I have no clue because I haven't got to play Raza, I haven't got to play Galactic Tank Force, I have no clue how he is as a rules developer. I have called him previously one of the nicest guys in pinball I love the what he does with fun fun uh fun with bonus and you know all the commitment he's had for years to posting pinball content on there but of all the things he does I would say commentary I think he's the best at he is just great now maybe not so much with a launch of the pinball machine like at dead flip I didn't think necessarily he was the best person I thought Dave Fix would have done a better job kind of selling the pins and and and that for a live event but But, and where is Dave Fix? Where in the world is Mr. Dave Fix? Seems like he's pulled his mustache up, pulled his big hat down, and he's kind of like hiding out. Because Dave Fix, you said you were going to come on the show. Haven't heard back. I'd love to have you on the show. I got to have Chris on to talk all things Galactic Tank Force. But here's another open invite to Mr. Dave Fix. I'd love to have you on the show. I do have two guests lined up coming up. I feel bad for both of those dudes or dudettes. I don't want to give it away. Could be guys or gals. I don't know. But I have two people lined up that I'm very excited to speak with, and I had to push one back due to related to some issues I'm going to talk about near the end of the podcast. But let's get back to Mike Gates. So he, I forget the brand name of the mic that Steve Bowden had there, but he had a very good high-end mic in front of him. I don't know if it was a Yeti or like, it was like better than my snowball that I'm talking to you through right now.
    22:29
    I don't know what it was. but wow, it was making Jeff Teoles in chat like pest. I've never seen him that upset before, I don't think. Or, you know, he wasn't like necessarily yelling and screaming, but he was pretty stern about, hey guys, shut up. Like, and it did keep happening. The problem was as new people came into chat, new people would be like oh maybe no one told him Maybe it just happened Maybe it just went gargly right now And they were like trying to help out and they being nice They like oh just to let you know And then people like me in chat who had been in chat for four hours of listening to it this way, or at least the first three hours, I went in and out. And what I would do is I would quite often just, I would mute it, but I was still watching chat. So I was, you know, with my family watching, I think we watched an episode of Mandalorian and I just had the laptop on my lap and I was watching Pin Clash, but I could still see in chat that people were putting like mic issues, audio issues, and then Jeff was getting mad like, yeah, we get it, we're working on it, we're trying, we'll try between rounds, right? Because obviously while you're in the middle of commentating a ping clash match, you can't go in and change the mic levels. So all the tips that people were giving in chat, Jeff knows, you know, he works at a radio station, Mr. Teolis there, he knows way more about all that audio type of stuff than I do, or probably 99% of us armchair warriors in chat that we're trying to like, oh, you got to try this, and you got to sit back further from the mic, and you got to, what it probably most likely was, and a few people said this, it probably was most likely that his internet was not perfect, and because of that, basically, you know, they were running into all these issues with his mic, when you're just downloading direct to your laptop from your mic, you're going to choose how good of quality that's coming out at, when it's coming through Twitch, and then it has to also go through, like, the... Remember, they had to try to have three different audio levels all mixed together, right? The two commentators in two different spots, and Snow Galvin was the other one. Her mic was working awesome. She sounded great. She is just incredible doing commentary as well, but I want to finish talking about Mic Gate before I go on to really applauding them, because I think overall, Pink Flash was just run spectacularly, and at some point, it's not that it wasn't because of the mic, because I did go back and listen once in a while between watching shows with the fam or running around doing dishes. Whenever I could, I would have the mic turned on, but part of the reason I was okay with having the mic turned off was because it was getting annoying not just even listening to him, but then it was also getting annoying being in chat seeing everybody, so I ended up just closing the chat so I couldn't see the chat and just doing full screen for Pinglash for most of the time I was watching. And so I was less engaged with it because I wasn't talking to people in chat because I couldn't stand just watching people spamming. And to any of you jerks in chat who you said it several times and you knew they had tried to fix it, that wasn't cool. Like, that was not rad at all. I'm not going to say, okay, maybe you're not like a big jerky face, but you're a big beef jerky face. And you and I got beef now. You know who you were. There was at least one or two of you I saw repeatedly just, you know, anyways. Mike Gate is all to say that somewhere, and I don't think a ton of people who would have watched weren't watching because of that, but it could have affected the numbers a little. Carl, I know Carl is a sweetheart. Carl was doing everything within his power. Carl did absolutely nothing wrong. He was trying to fix it. I'm sure that they were, like, between him and Jeff and Steve, and they were trying to do everything they could. And to Steve's credit, he just kept plowing through it. Like, he just, Steve just commentaried like he normally commentaries, you know. He was not sitting there, like, being apologetic every two seconds, which that's something I don't think he needs to be apologetic for because he's trying his damnedest to he can see the chat too he knows that he's trying to get it fixed so to all you haters out there they did get it fixed and I don't know when they got it fixed it wasn't for the first few hours that I was listening at least when I went back it still wasn't working well but by the end did Steve's mic ever sound nearly as good as Snow's no but also remember Steve is not a full-time streamer um snow is part of the colorado pinball collective on twitch and i've watched literally hundreds of hours well maybe hundreds but like i've i've seen dozens of their stream out there she she is a good streamer she really understands audio and audio levels it it might it looked to me like steve was way way way too close like right now i'm sitting about two feet back and i have my gain at like or whatever it is i don't even understand this stuff very much but i have it like 75% and then I have the advantage of putting it through a compressor before I release it which is I don't edit it all but I do put it through a compressor which kind of evens out the highs and the lows a little bit and anyways overall it was awesome huge huge congrats to both Snow uh as well as Steve as well as Jeff as well as Carl to everybody else behind the scenes who helped it was very well run it was very well organized yes some of the streamers equipment wasn't as good as some of the other streamers some people just streamed literally to make it into ping clash other streamers like uh i know mike congratulations to mike in uh ottawa of course of the pinballers mike castleman um his his setup looked incredible but he streams all the time but to other people who don't stream very often it wouldn't have looked as good um i do want to give a huge giant, spoiler alert, if you haven't watched it, pause now, jump forward two minutes, but I'm sure most of you have at least heard who's won by now, Mr. Z-Mac, also known as Zach McCarthy, but he does pinball streaming under Z-Mac on Twitch, and I think that's just kind of like his nickname, so hopefully, Zach, that's cool that I call you that, but congratulations to Zach, he did win for a second time, I believe, that was his second time and Escher um so Escher and Zach have both Escher Lefkoff and Zach McCarthy have both uh won previously the other two ping clashes ironically which they are both just absolutely hands down incredible players uh obviously the seating was done very well because Escher was seated number two and Zach was seated number one so congratulations again uh you know just formulating all the rules and how to figure out who just i i cannot believe how much work goes into this for just a one-day tournament where for the most part you know like i know that there is sponsors and stuff but for the most part i'm sure this is a labor of love for carl and to any of you who were kind of like mean jerks in chat i want to see you create a better event than pin clash yourself and even then even if carl was in in uh or or or any of the other awesome people who worked on this event were in the chat and you had some issues with your audio they wouldn't have been jerks so just everybody chill out you know this is not a multi-billion dollar industry this is not the the nfl this is not the the nhl speaking of the nhl my oilers are gone but dry sidle you killed it. He had like the most goals in the NHL playoffs so far and most points before they went out. So cheers to Drysaddle and Conor McDavid and the entire team over there. You did an awesome job. We made it. We almost made it. We almost made it. The LA... No, wait. Who took us out? Vegas Knights took us out. That's right. So anyways, I've gone off topic too much. The top four, I want to give a shout out to the top four, of course. ZMAC had to play Raymond Davidson, Ray Day himself from right here on the Poor Man's Pinball Network on the Ray Ray Show, of course.
    30:11
    Shout out to both Raymond and Rachel, of course. And Escher Lefkoff was playing Tim McCool. Now, Tim McCool, I didn't know leading into this, but he was a great player. He was a pleasure to watch. I was kind of shocked because Tim had to get through some really good players. He beat out Tate Nahorniak, who is... Who's the other Nahorniak? Luke, who was playing in that. So that's his brother. the entire Nahorniak family apparently can play pinball not just Luke so that was cool to see we had the likes of Robert Byers of course top row pinball he went out in the second round against Escher didn't think he would beat Escher but good job Robert getting that far cheers to Neil Graff Tom Graff just accepted my friend request or sent me a friend request I forget but just a couple days ago so shout out Tom talks he's got something to say and what he's saying is that Neil Graff got to the second round third round as I'm looking further and then Neil Graff of course ran into the wall the beast that is Ray Day uh so Neil Graff getting to that third round there cheers to Neil you guys will anyone watching anyone that happened to be there with me in chat I did say it is it is in the chat record I did say I believe in the first hour that um I thought Escher Lefkoff, Zach McCarthy, Z-Mac, Raymond Davidson and Neil Graff. They were the four dudes I was cheering for. And I really did, in my heart of hearts, think that Escher would maybe take this one down and ZMAC would get second, which that I didn't put in chat. I should have put in chat, I guess. But I was cheering on Neil Graff. It was really cool to see him get there to the round of eight. And I'm sure that's going to help with his ranking some more, even though he's already doing well. And Ray Day and Craig Poulin, that should be the other person in that round, Craig Poulin and Rick Demme. I don't know too much about you guys, but congratulations on getting to the third round as well. So, Pin Clash overall went well. Mike Gate was what it was. Let's just all try to be a little bit more loving, kind, and generous. When people are doing things out of the kindness of their heart, you know, Steve Bowden's mic wasn't that awesome. Just get over it. You're provided free content. It costs you nothing to go on Twitch and watch. And instead of complaining, go and make a better event yourself. That's what I always say. So, there's no freaking way I could do anything half that good. so I'm going to be the last person to complain. You know what I mean? So how are we doing on time here? Let's take a little look. Okay, 30 minutes. I want to try to keep today well under an hour so I'm going to move, move, move right along to the 2.0 hype train. Choo-choo! Get out your train tickets.
    32:51
    What was the Rick and Morty episode with the train guy and he would rip your arms off if you didn't have the tickets or something? I don't know. Tickets please, guys. the tickets please guy yeah anyways uh tickets please hop on the hype train get on here with orbital albert choo-choo choo-choo chabuga choo-choo uh we are going full straight through the train station at a 88 miles per hour this might as well be back to the future three with the speed at which we are coming down the tracks because i'm telling you right now listen is stern sitting there just shaking in their old booties like oh my god what are we gonna do the 2.0 hype reigns are coming no i don't think so i don't think they're quite you know when they got the you know gary stern told us last year they had like 5 000 pins on weight i'm sure they've got that down in half by now or at least close to that but who knows who knows with all these good pins coming out recently but 2.0 so last year we had uh the two padretti padretti gaming i believe came out with the 2.0 kit for Funhaus and the tournament director for New Brunswick in the province next to me that I play in the Fundy Flippers with very often who's actually, he's speaking of Pedretti Gaming, I believe he's like out in Italy or he was at the Leaning Tower of Pisa, is that Greece? He's somewhere over there in Europe, so shout out to Tom over there on an awesome vacation. Looks like great fun. I probably will not be able to make the next pinball tournament, but I'm going to talk about why in a second. So let's go back to Pedretti. They came out with Funhaus, and Tom actually got it, and he loves playing it. And he says it brings so much more value to the game. A lot of people out there who have, and now the new Pedretti Gaming is Whirlwind 2.0.
    34:39
    Now, I know some people did not like the video. It was a little bit controversial. What everyone can agree about is that Mark Silk did an incredible job, an incredible job doing all the vocals in it and doing all the call-outs and you know all that kind of stuff some i think it was on i don't know if it was eclectic gamers or if it was on the pinball show but somewhere wait didn't the pinball show put that behind a pay wall or something so i think it must have been on eclectic gamers um dennis creasel was talking about uh the 2.0 and how it didn't really make sense and stuff, and I was like, yeah, but in comparison to Galactic Tank Force, Whirlwind 2.0 doesn't make a lot of sense to me, and I'm not the sharpest tool in the goat shed, okay, I'm just not, but I'll tell you what, I'll tell you what, I'll tell you what, Jethro, I'll tell you what, it doesn't make sense to me, because he is a down south, okay, I'll stop with my jibber jabber mixed accents there, I'm probably not very good at accents, I need some help doing accents and I need some vocal coach lessons, I'll tell you that. But it's basically a down south guy who chases tornadoes through Tornado Alley. And he chases tornadoes and basically he, of course, when you're doing long hours chasing tornadoes in the car and they could come at any time of the day, you're going to need coffee and donuts. That's the thing you're going to need. Everyone's like, oh, you talk too much about coffee. I'm like, hey, it's not me talking about coffee. It was Mark Silk talking about coffee. it was the crazy guy from down south talking about coffee it's not me, I haven't even mentioned the word coffee today no coffee for me, actually I probably had one too many coffees before I started this show anyways, okay, the artwork is a little bit silly it's not Christopher Franchi level artwork I don't think, I wouldn't say it's Zombie Yeti it's definitely not Zombie Yeti level artwork but it's good, I think it's good I don't think it's great, I think it's better than most American Pinball art packages, but like obviously Galactic Tank Force excluded.
    36:47
    But, man oh man, it looks like it changes the whole game. So if you're someone who currently owns a Whirlwind or you currently own a Funhouse, I think just spending a couple thousand bucks in today's market with how expensive even a Stern Pro has got now, but to just spend less than half of that and be able to completely change your name and put in an LCD screen with, you know, like, it's crazy. The inner art blades, I think, really amp up the look of it.
    37:18
    Is this like a new back glass? I don't think there's a new back glass, but you get the LCD screen, you know, you get all the improvements. And here's the thing is, you get to keep the old game. So, you know, you have two games in one. And for those of you who absolutely love the old game of Whirlwind, which I do, Whirlwind is such a fun game. It's that perfect balance of like, I can understand the rules. I know what I'm supposed to do. It's just really, really hard to do it, right? So you can, it's just like a, you know, I would say it has deeper code than Medieval Madness or Attack from Mars, certainly. But it's one of those rules that you can understand what you have to do, but actually doing it is incredibly hard. And that gives it replayability. So it's not like the old Whirlwind wasn't fun. But of course, if you update the rules, and then you kind of throw a cool, funny storyline behind it, which, look, is this like the best story of all time? Is this? No. But can everybody quite clearly, quite easily understand, okay, this dude needs to get lots of coffee and donuts. He needs the sugar rush from the donuts. He needs the, and sugar and donuts, I'm sorry, coffee and donuts are like the two main things that we sell at the Angry Alpaca Cafe. And so, you know, I totally get it. And they're the two things that I love. If it wasn't for donuts, I'd probably be like Michael Phelps level thin. No. I don't know why I thought of him first. Maybe because I was just looking at one of his sports cards last night, which he's actually dressed up. Well, they put like a dude in a dog mask, and it's called Michael Yelps. But anyways, that's neither here nor there. That's a Sports Illustrated for Kid card that I'm hopefully sending away soon. So would I go out and buy a Whirlwind just to get this? No. But if I found a Whirlwind in around the same price as another pin I liked about as much as Whirlwind, but I knew that I could maybe spend a couple thousand and get this upgraded, I would be much more likely to get it. And if I were going to buy a Whirlwind or if I were going to buy a Funhaus, I would always look for one with the 2.0 kit installed because I hear it's pretty comprehensive to get it done. So I'm a highly non-technical person and I would just, I would, I mean like, I'm just going to say this to Tom right now. if you're ever thinking about selling Funhaus 2.0, I love Funhaus even more than Whirlwind. So Funhaus 2.0 would be even more fun. And even though, what's his name? Super Creepy, whatever the guy's name in it. I was going to say Charlie. It's not Charlie. Whoever it is in Funhaus 2.0, he's really creepy. But I would absolutely love to get that game now that it has two games in one. Because here's the main thing is, even if you're not getting the two games in one to save thousands and thousands of dollars, which is the main argument why getting a P3 Multimorphic is like, probably the best argument for a P3 Multimorphic is how much space you're going to save, right? As opposed to having like five pinball machines, you could literally just live in a one-bedroom apartment or something, or you could just only take up a small amount of space in one of your rooms, and you could have like, you know, ten pins, five pins, whatever. and just have different things you can put in and out. Well, this is the same argument that you would make with, say, Fathom 2.0, that you could have the most gorgeous machine on the planet, Fathom, from Haggis, right?
    40:42
    You're basically getting two games in one. And I've heard great things about Marty's rule set. And if you bought it and you didn't have access to the classic rule set, that would be upsetting. And so you've kind of got two games in one. so therefore you know when you're buying any game that has two games in one you know you're you have a better chance at a selling your pinball machine quicker if you ever do want to sell it and be enjoying the pinball machine better while you have it right and also it's going to hold its value better and you're going to get much higher money for it if you have a fun host with 2.0 installed and working, it's going to sell for drastically more probably than even a funhouse in way, you know, way better condition than maybe your funhouse. So rather than just remodding the whole thing or say, you know, not remodding, but like, like, rather than getting a new play field and doing all the different things you can to, you know, making it perfect, you can literally just get the 2.0 kit and you've increased the value better than any other mod you could possibly get and people say mods don't make you money but i think the 2.0 kits are the one mod that will make you money and look are distributors shivering in their little their little mucklucks i don't think so you know i don't think so but i would be thinking about it and i'd be shocked you know i personally don't have any distro friends that i talk to but i would be shocked if they they are going to like be like oh yeah that's awesome because the amount of money that they're going to get from Pedretti, even if they are allowed to sell them, is going to be substantially, it's going to be like the money they make off a topper almost, as opposed to money they'll make off even their cheapest other pinball machine. So I don't think you're going to hear, you know, distros really pushing these 2.0 kits, but from strictly a collectible standpoint, it is a win, win. Now I haven't played it yet. The animations look decent, not incredible, but not horrible, not Stern level Foo Fighters animations, or even Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, or even Hot wheels but the animations look decent and they seem fun and the callouts have done by mr mark so you know those are going to be top freaking notch and it seems humorous which it should be so it takes kind of a dry kind of boring theme like whirlwind it's not dry or boring it's not because it's got though it is kind of fun because it's got the the wind thing on top and the coolest part of the pedretti 2.0 is actually what happens from what i understand in the wizard mode and Maybe I'm not supposed to talk about this yet, guys, but in the wizard mode for the 2.0, when the fan turns on and you're in wizard mode, it actually mists water into there. And so it's like a misted water that's coming out into your face while you're playing. Isn't that cool? Not. Okay, I'm just joking. That doesn't happen. But they should do something with the fan. They should do something. Make the fan go forwards or backwards. I don't know. There should be something with the fan topper that changes somehow. But I don't know. I don't even know all the parts of it. I would like to hear an interview with the people, like an in-depth interview with either the coder.
    43:42
    Hey, can you imagine, can you imagine, it was still a very good video. I did watch it like 10 times. Go watch it on YouTube if you haven't. I'm sure most of you have. Can you imagine, though, if, you know, like Zach and Greg got to do like a, whatever, videoette or a vinaigrette or whatever they call it, like a vignette, whatever, a small video package for the 2.0, how much? I mean, it was still very good, but it would have been that much better. And especially if you were, it was kind of funny and they were making jokes at it, but I would actually like to hear, just like we did in like, say, Pulp Fiction, I would like to hear the rules designer and the coder talk about the main changes in the game and how it's better or how it's worse or how it's different. You know, is there more, is there actual like wizard modes? Is there more multi-balls? Is there, like, I would like to hear the actual changes. And I think as 2.0 kits continue to evolve, I think we're going to see even mechanical changes start happening more and more often where there's one mech that you can install on the machine that's different and you're going to see more, you know, different sculpts probably being added and not just art blades. Now you're going to be talking about maybe a different back glass that you add. Does that already happen? I think it happens. I'm not sure. So anyways, I think that the 2.0 hype train is through the roof. you're going to start seeing more companies come out and think about the amount of time, energy and money you need to start a pinball company versus the time, money and energy you need to start a company that just upgrades old pins to 2.0. Do I think it's going to start happening to like EMs tomorrow? Of course not. Maybe someday, probably not. God forbid I don't want to ever see an EM upgraded with an LCD screen that would just be like Spanish. Can you imagine and Spanish eyes are like Harlem Globetrotters. Now with an, I guess Harlem Globetrotters would be kind of cool when you rip the spinner to see the guy do like a, you know, a weird, silly, uh, off a trampoline backwards dunk or something. I don't know. I just gone I gone crazy now but no I think they going to stick with solid states for a while But if you were thinking about starting a pinball company or if you already own a pinball company I would pivot into maybe at least partially on the side doing 2 kits Because 2.0 kits, I'm guessing, have to be, what, five times easier, at least four times easier, probably three times, maybe four or five times less money to start that type of company. So the barriers to entry are so significantly smaller to start a 2.0 company. I would like to see more of them come out there. because think about how many different pinball machines don't end up, you know, being basically not taken care of, abandoned. It's better for the environment. 2.0 kits use a hell of a lot more, you know.
    46:20
    And we're not all tree huggers out there, but we can agree that if something is good for the environment and it costs about half the price or less of even a new pro, and you could argue that you could turn a pinball machine into basically a premium with this kit, I would say that at 2.0, Whirlwind is definitely a premium version of it. It doesn't, you know, it's not a pro version of it. So anyways, I've gone on too much about the 2.0.
    46:45
    The show's gone off the rails. What else would you expect from the Orbiter? Frickin' Orbiter, Albert. All right, here we go.
    46:54
    The last thing that I did want to talk about is there is going to be some changes to the show coming up. personally I had one really really really good thing happen drop target and I when we moved out here our whole goal and I'm not going to go too much into the personal side of it even though I have to share a couple things for it to even make sense when we moved out here we wanted to live with no mortgage we wanted to live with no debt we wanted to have no money on any credit cards the only debt that we had when we moved out here was our car loan that we were our lease on our car that we were still paying off we had no we didn't have that much money in savings accounts i think that after i bought my like 15 grand in pinball machines and moved out here and paid off all of our previous debts and the fees for the house and moving across the country i think we were left with like i don't know 14 grand or something like that was after we had bought furniture for the house and everything but anyways which you'd think would be enough but we've also had to spend get this $62,000 on fixing up the house because as you can imagine when you buy an $80,000 farmhouse that's 120 years old in the middle of the country that needs a lot of work it's going to cost more than you think so we've spent a hell of a lot more than we wanted to and then between that and COVID when my wife who's a substitute teacher had nowhere to work and nothing to do for like nine months and it was a very hard time to go out and get a new job especially here where there's not very many jobs that aren't having to do with either tourism or hospitality or school or like basically jobs that are customer facing or people facing. You know, I wouldn't say that school kids are customers per se, even though the government might look at them that way sometimes, but we don't, right? So we had very little income and we ended up maxing out all of our credit cards. Then we end up even taking a little bit of loans and this and that and the other thing. And when you guys heard me in the last six months practically begging for you to buy some freaking coffee, it's because I was broke. And I was relying on this and my collectible income to get us by. So it was actually kind of good that through COVID I bought a shit ton of comic books and sports cards because I was doing up to three shows a month in Moncton in my top month. Well, the one shows every other month, so it would be like two shows a month and three shows a month. Plus, I was doing a bi-monthly show down in Halifax. And so, like, hopefully the tax man's not listening, but I think I've sold somewhere in around $7,000 in comic books and collectibles since, like, last, I don't know, last fall sometime. So, anyways, that really, I know $7,000 doesn't seem like much, but because I wasn't replacing the comic books, and, like, that's basically, it wasn't pure profit because I had to buy them, and some of them I was taking a loss on, but it was sustaining it was paying our bills enough for us to just barely keep our head above water just barely make our minimum payments on our credit cards just barely have enough money for the kids for school for clothing believe it or not i hadn't bought a pair of jeans since post-covid since the first year we moved here and like i literally was my jeans were falling apart so bad when they fell down under my hips and i tried to pull them up i ripped just below the belt loop Like I was down to no pairs of jeans. I was down to one ripped pair of shoes. Like I was down to like, like we had very little money. So thank God now that Danielle has had her new job for enough years recently. Big round of applause.
    50:25
    Where's my Christopher Franchi soundboard when I need it? I need those canned applause, Franchi. Come on, send them in here. My wife and I just recently got a home equity line of credit, which I bragged about being mortgage free, blah, blah, blah. Well, it's no good to be mortgage free and not have a low interest way to borrow money if you're always maxed out on your credit cards paying sometimes as high as 18.99%, which actualized interest rate is like twice that. It's almost paying 40%. So like if you're paying 40% interest per year because you're not paying down the balance, if you're paying 40% on a $15,000 credit card, even though it is Canadian, which I know the Americanos think is rinky dinks, it is worth like 30% less, I think, or 25% less. But don't quote me on that. I haven't checked recently. I haven't got down to the States in a while. I'm excited to go to some more shows now, now that I have some more money. But anyways, the point is that we don't have to worry about money for quite some time. Because the second we got our money in from the HELOC, we took substantially less than they offered us. Our house, oh, by the way, our $80,000 house is now worth three times that at $239,000. So that was what the appraisal, we had to get an appraisal done to get approved by the bank and everything. So anyways, I've gotten too far off topic. That is to say, please, please, please expect to see me at Expo this year, bitches, or be becoming. It's going to be awesome. I'm so excited. I plan on going to Expo. I plan on going to TPF and I might even go to Indisc. Can you hear me out there in California? I feel like in a past life, if that's even true, I lived in California and I was probably like a surfer dude, bro. So that's like I've never got to try surfing in my life. I've done tons of snowboarding against my doctor and surgeons. I've been told because I've smashed the right side of my face in so bad and it caved in that those bones will never grow back. So I'm not really supposed to do snowboarding. I'm definitely not allowed in the snowboard park. I'm not supposed to be in a skateboard park, even though I've broke those rules a couple times. I do avoid skateboarding and snowboarding for the most part nowadays because even last year, just walking down at the good old beach in Joggins, I broke my wrist just falling from whatever. I slid across some black rocks with seaweed, and I ended up breaking my left, well, not my wrist actually. I think it's called a boxer's break, but a bone in my left hand. It took like six or seven minutes to repair because I'm no spring chicken. I'm in my 40s now. But one thing I want to try, which I can do, is surfing because surfing, you fall into water. water, good old H2O. Am I right? So that's not going to hurt as bad as even falling onto hard ice, or definitely not as bad as falling into a skate park. So I think that my wrist is doing much better, and I'm as excited as I am to play an indisc, I'm just excited to go to California.
    53:15
    California love. Okay, that was Tupac is Disappointed in Heaven. That was horrible. That was the one big piece of news, so that happened. And I've had less episodes in the last few weeks, not only because there's barely any pinball news, but also primarily because we were working really hard. We had to jump through a lot of hoops. The second we got that, we paid off all of our high-interest cards. We paid off our car, so we own our car out right now. We own everything out right, and we have still some money to spare, but we only took a small portion of the money they offered us. You can take up to 80% of the value of your house. we chose to take significantly less than that, which we can change that if we need to in the future. Long story short, personal pinball news, I'm looking for a pinball machine. I have been for about 10 days now. I haven't found one that I like or love enough to buy. I'm either going to get a new in box, new in box Foo Fighters, or I would prefer a gently, hopefully gently played at an expo, or is it Pinsonatti's coming up? There's something coming up in the Northeast that's close enough to me that I could perhaps drive home with a pinball machine. If I could get a floor model that had everything. Because I guess the first time that you buy a new in-box pinball machine, there's a whole bunch of things that could go wrong that you might have to fix or work on and that sort of thing. And honestly, I'm so bad at that stuff that I'm a little nervous about that. so I might even possibly consider driving up to Player One Amusements in good old Tirana and using a vehicle to drive back here with maybe a floor model of a Foo Fighters Pro. So I've got it down to I think I'm either going to get Foo Fighters Pro or only because I love the theme so freaking much, possibly a Stranger Things, but I haven't played it yet and I'd have to play it first and I'm committed to not buying a pinball machine until I at least play Stranger Things. I'm probably the last pinball podcast or two I've not played Stranger Things. Or I'm still considering Jurassic Park Pro because there's not one but two within an hour of me. I happen to know the owners of both of them. And I still love playing Jurassic Park. I mean, I think that I like Foo Fighters better.
    55:32
    I'm guessing that I probably won't like Stranger Things better than Jurassic Park just because of the pin side ratings. Oh, my phone is ringing. What are the chances of that? No one ever calls me, and then I try to do a pinball podcast, and right as I'm doing it, somebody calls me. Hopefully they don't leave any personal information on the old answering machine, because then I'll have to just go, la, la, la, la, la, and talk through it. But probably just a freaking telemarketer after all that. Am I right? But anyways, that was some good personal news. The other piece of personal news that I got that was really good is that we're going to be taking over a cafe in the Tatamagoosh. I love saying that town. Beautiful little beach town along the north shore of Nova Scotia, about an hour or 45 minutes away from where my wife works on Saturdays at the Angry Alpaca Cafe at the Pug's Wash Market. So I am busy every Saturday for the next, like, I think I looked, it's like 17 Saturdays until October 31st. And we can't really take a weekend off, although when Hayden is done working for the year in September, I should be able to get him to cover a Saturday for me when it's less busy. Because, of course, we're very busy July and August, but we're not that busy kind of, you know, typically at the other markets anyways in the fall and the spring. So I'm really sorry, but I'm not going to be going to the C&E pinball event if it happens this year in Toronto, which I was really hoping to get to. I won't be able to. I haven't heard about it yet, so I don't know if that's running again this year. I hope it does, though, because it looked fun last year. And I'm not going to be able to get down there to, I'm not going to be able to get down there to the beast run by Jeff Teolis in Buffalo. I think at the old Pocketeer Billiards location, I think in the past it's had, I think that's possibly where the Buffalo Pinball guys, like Nick and Kevin, where they ran the Buffalo Pinball Open many years ago. But there's supposed to be, I think, three or four different tournaments at this all at one time. So that's really rad. I wish I could have gone to that. I also really wanted to go to Yagpin out in Edmonton. I was on the verge of buying a ticket for it when we had this opportunity kind of slapped us in the face. And that's part of the reason why I haven't chatted with you guys for so long, is because Danielle and I have been working. And I'm a lazy dude. I don't like working this much. I'm not going to lie to you guys. I'm pretty, pretty freaking lazy. I pride myself on being pretty lazy. For the most part, I like to hustle. I have to hustle, you know, when I have to hustle. But if you were told, a lot of you guys are like 40 hours a week or more people, okay? And so you're sitting there going, what a douche. This guy's saying how hard he has to work. Well, I'm just, I'm kind of a semi-retired, you know, part pinball podcaster, part stay-at-home dad. You know, I give 110% with the staying home with dad. I give a good 60% to my pinball podcasting. I give 100% the days I'm having to do a pinball podcast, but the rest of the days, maybe I'm not so good at doing social media updates and reaching out to other pinball people, I guess. I'm not really super great at that, but I give a pretty good commitment to pinball podcasting. I'd say, yeah, it might even be 75%. However, when it comes to working on a market day, when I have those opportunities to work maybe 10, 15 days a year, I go 110%. and I'm not usually if anything I'm told that I'm like the hardest working dude like at the show yeah so yeah my okay that's a lie my wife is always harder working than me but I can sometimes get second you know we do hustle very hard you know me I'm a people person I'm a chatty Kathy I like to get out there and just talk to everybody I probably introduce about a hundred of our 400 to 500 customers per Saturday to pinball by mentioning pinball in some way shape or form or they'll mention it because I'm quite often wearing pinball shirts or a pinball hoodie like I was in the video. So we just got the, I put the video up on Albert Agar. If you didn't see it in your feed, just type in good old Albert Agar into Facebook and add me to Facebook if you don't have me. And if you do have me, watch the video of me walking through the grain elevator. You can even skip to 30 seconds in when I start giving the tour. But my idea was to always have a collectibles cafe so it i'm gonna have a small thing of hockey cards kind of at the side and i do have one box of like four dollar comics but other than that i have mostly graded and higher end comics all the way through the uh the whole place and then i have a whole bunch of records that i have up there um i also have there's there's random other collectibles like some funko pops and there's some star wars toys and there's a couple other small collectible type things but for the most part it's just like it's just a fun background I don't actually think I'll sell that many comics I don't think I'll sell that many sports cards um most people there are tourists coming from believe it or not on terrible I mean Ontario where a lot of my friends are from a lot of the other guests will be from or tourists will be from Quebec they'll be speaking French and they'll love the fact that they can get a maple bacon um and then the third the third big new thing that came out which is related to this is my son owen just got made it hundreds and hundreds of kids and i wouldn't even doubt if it was up to a thousand or more kids all the way across the province who are 18 years old or younger had to submit for something they have here in the province that's advertised very well that a lot of people know about called the minister's entrepreneurship award and the minister of whatever something like workplace whatever one of the ministers what some high government official came up with this and then they have eight different people who vote on which of these companies is worthwhile to ask to submit like a like a like a further plan and owen was chosen of one of the couple dozen kids who had to put through the further plan and then owen's idea was chosen for the top eight and the top eight got like a free stay at like a killer hotel we were like penthouse like 15th floor downtown halifax gorgeous view beautiful Hampton Inn, free breakfast, and this just wasn't like, you know when you go to some hotels, you get the crappy free breakfast, like here's cereal, here's a bagel, no, no, no, no, there was like eggs, toast, bacon, sausages, they got the, you know, they didn't have quite the omelet chef, like we used to get back at Archie's in London, but they had like the waffle guy, you know, and he'd make sure that you're doing your waffle thing right, and you spray it down for you before you, anyways, so that was cool, we got the free unlimited breakfast, we got to stay over in Halifax, we had a great time, and Owen did not win only the top three people and I'm not going to have any I'm not going to be upset about it all the other contestants still got $200 cash they didn't get the $1,000 but he did a great job, he went up there and he killed it again to those of you who have me personally on Facebook, you can go watch his entire 4 minute spiel there if you're so inclined he did a great job I couldn't have been more proud of him He was really nervous for it, which, you know, every kid would be. But we still had a great time on the trip to Halifax. And what made it even better was when we walked into my favorite pinball arcade on the East Coast. Other than maybe Zero's. No, no, no. It is my favorite arcade. Just because there's so much craft beer there.
    62:59
    Propeller Brewing Arcade in the basement of Propeller Brewing right across from the Citadel in downtown Halifax. we walked in and I couldn't believe it they had just got in the last few days I hadn't even seen a Facebook post Godzilla and I have never ever ever got to try Godzilla now I'm not gonna lie and I'm sorry if any of the propeller guys are listening I know at least one of the guys who works on their machines listens fairly often when I got over there I saw the for the first time in my life, I've never seen a $2 pinball machine. And not only was it $2, but they didn't have the deal, which most pinball machines out here have, where you buy, if you buy two, you get the third one free, or at the very least they have, if you buy three, you get the fourth one free. And a lot of the dollar machines and tons of the arcades out here on the East Coast, and even back in Ontario, they would have where, like if you, I think they have them in the States, I don't know, but like if you put in two bucks, you get the third one for free. So that's the way it is at, you know, at all the machines. When I go to play at like Spin It Records in Moncton, I believe, I think the zeros, the more modern machines, of course, you can't do that with an EM or something, but EMs, I'm so good. I just play forever. I don't need the extra credits.
    64:15
    I better stop patting my own back. And the next time I go to play an EM, it's just going to be Hostball, hostball, hostball, hostball, hostball. Wait, is that five? I think that's five. So, anyways, I was already happier than a frickin' pig in shit just getting that HELOC last week and knowing that we're, God forbid, looking up there, you mom in the sky, hopefully never going to be broke again, or at least certainly not have to use credit cards ever again. I mean, we're still equally broke, we just have less high interest bad debt and more good debt. That's like at 6%, not 18. But anyways, I was already in a great mood. And then to see that, I was like, wow. And then I stepped up with my five loonies I had just got from after getting a beer, my five loonies, and I didn't even have enough for Danielle and Oni to play.
    65:03
    I had to go get an extra loonie from Danielle. So it was $6 for us to play. And I'll tell you what. I'll tell you what, boy. I'll tell you what right now. Everybody else says how long playing Godzilla is and how. And I knew Pinklash was coming up. So that's obviously the main machine for Pin Clash was Godzilla. So I should have actually watched Pin Clash first, then went and played Godzilla for my first time. But I had an incredible time, but I had two right out lanes and a straight down the middle that I could not have slap saved. On my first game, I think I only got, I don't know, like 70 million or something, or maybe even less. but then on my second and third time playing it Owen won, Owen beat us all in the very first game Danielle did pretty good too we all did okay but none of us did great we all had pretty fast balls two of my balls were horrible but I had one good ball where I lit her up for quite a while the shots feel great, it is a fun game it must have been the premium because they had the building that did go up and down I never got the bridge to break everyone was like, oh I love the bridge, I love the bridge I even said, oh, I love the bridge. I want to see the bridge break. I don't know how you make the bridge break. I should know that by now, I guess, but I had no clue. The animations were great. And if anyone is listening from Propeller, I'm okay with the $2, but you've got to turn down that sound. The sound was, like, turned on full, and it was, like, topping out, and it was cutting a lot. The sound was worse than, like, Steve Bowden's mic at Pin Clash, okay? That's how you know your mic's bad. Too soon? Maybe? Too soon? Sorry. I'm sorry. I'm a bad person. I can't help it I try to be good but I'm a bad person overall I'm sorry so Pin Clash was a riot Halifax was a riot Godzilla was a riot like I kept going back to that even though there's other machines there are at least one or two machines there I hadn't played since the last time I've been a propeller I kept going back to Godzilla and I did get my hands on to it eventually and get like 300 million or something like that I can't even remember I'm not gonna lie I was a couple beers in by the time we got there and I was a couple more beers in by the time we left. And then once I got the beer to go to enjoy on the beautiful, oh my God, if you're ever in Halifax, look, listen, if you don't want to grab a beer to go because you're afraid of like getting in trouble or something, fine. But all you do is you get yourself either a beautiful iced tea, you drink the iced tea, you pour your beer in there, 90% of beer looks basically the same color as freaking iced tea, or you just grow a pair. You know, that's, see, that's sexist. I don't want to, I think that's sexist. I don't know. I think it is. No, don't grow a pear. Just either choose to, uh, be wild, be wild. Just get a live, live life a little crazy. I think I can say those things. Uh, and just walk up and down the shore with a beautiful can of craft beer and the Harbor front. It's so incredible. I like to grab a couple to go and there's all these places and things to do all the way up and down the shore. Uh, we rented those, uh, one of those scooter things, as a driving instructor, I can neither confirm nor deny I possibly stole Owen's scooter for a bit, because I had had quite a few vapes and a lot of beer, but the good news is, I drove very slow and controlled, if I did, if I did, but there's maybe or maybe not video evidence, I had a hell of a time on those electric it an electric scooter guys if you ever going to drive any vehicle ever other than maybe Mario Kart after a couple beers an electric scooter with a maximum speed of 10 kilometers an hour which is like 6 miles an hour in an area with not very many people, going very slow, that's the time to drive inebriated. Or maybe bumper cars at Canada's Wonderland or whatever the hell you guys got down there, Cedar Point, Disney World, Universal, all those awesome places. I want to go to that Harry Potter Universal place I've gone off topic, I've talked way way way too long you guys are probably wishing I would just talk more about coffee now that I've gone off topic and talked so much about other stuff but I'm not going to talk about coffee, you know why? because I don't want to we only have two bags blended right now and we've got to start at two new cafes this weekend so I don't want you to buy any coffee online I do want to give a shout out to Don from Don's Pinball Podcast not only has his recent episodes been incredible I mean, all of his episodes were great. Like, literally, I told Don, or I think I said on the show, I said it to someone somewhere at some point, that after I heard Don's first show, I went, wow, this man did his first show ever of his solo pinball podcast, and it was better than any show that I've done. and I don't necessarily mean his opinions were better than mine because he's still kind of formulating his, figuring out like his groove. You know, he's not quite Stella, but he's got to get his groove back for like, is he, you know, where is he going to fall in line? How much tournament pinball will he talk about? Will he have guests? Will he not have guests? Is it going to be, it seems to be more vlog style, which I actually really love because since Coast to Coast Pinball has been gone, I've really been missing more of that type daily vlog type stuff. and uh yeah so i'm just really really excited about all the good things that are happening if you do have an opinion on what type of pinball machine i should get for my first new new and i'm not even going to say new in box because if i were to find like a very if i could find a very good price that was like you have to remember i'm still half dutch even though we have access to more money than i ever fathomed would be possible um i do want a stern pro uh i do want a stern pro or possibly even a home edition. And, like, I wouldn't snub the comic art version of Star Wars. I also wouldn't snub Jack Danger's rookie card, so to speak. I know that he didn't really, you know, it's playing at home pin or whatever, but I wouldn't snub that. I got to play that at my buddy Dylan's house, and I absolutely love that. So, and then I have some friends back in London who I might be mentioning. It could be possible. Of course, you know, I can't fit a pinball machine in the Corolla, which why would you now that it's paid off? Yeah, we only had to get to a quarter million kilometers to pay this sucker off, but she's paid off now. So it feels great. I feel like I'm a new man. I feel like I've got a new lease on life. Ironically, just like many of you listening, when you have access to a little bit more money, it's because you worked your butt off and you worked hard. And I will not be able to come home and see everybody who I promised I would come home and see this spring or this summer. however my dad is getting married on i don't know like the first week in september i think september 6th or 3rd or i don't know he's getting married like the start of september and i do have to come home for a week for that uh i will find someone to cover my cafe spot but i'm excited to see everybody i'm sorry for some episodes in the past talking too much about coffee i promise to cut that down if not possibly possibly exclude that oh and the only thing i forgot to talk about is these two pinball podcasters I got to call out now I'll start by calling out the easy one first because this wasn't a big mistake but it definitely was a mistake and you know I love you Dave Mr. David Dennis of several Silver Ball Chronicles fame they were doing Wayne Nines I believe the last episode was incredible make sure you go over to the pinball network and take a listen to the most recent one with Dave or Mr. David Dennis as you know him, but I like to call him Dave because we're buds. And Mr. Ron Howlett, awesome dude, also co-host, of course, of Slam Tilt over there with my buddy Bruce. And Bruce, don't you even, I know Bruce has just been waiting for me to contact him to get him on the show. He's, you're, I would love to have Bruce Nightingale on this show. I kind of want to wait to meet him in person and do the interview in person, but now that I got a little more money kicking, I might be able to head down to the good old Rochester Pinball Collective there. Is that what it is? The RPC? The old RPC, I think it is. Don't ask me the address. I don't know it. Go listen to Slam Tilt. They'll tell you a couple times. But I can't wait to go meet Bruce for the very first time in person, Ron in person, now that I can go down there. But I've got to call out Dave Dennis. This man, like this man, in my eyes, he's never made a single mistake on a single show. I know you get some whiny people writing in later, oh, I know in the fourth year of the third month of the ninth moon, you said that so-and-so's pinball machine, you know, and they have some little tiny error that he made. No, no. This is the most well-researched pinball podcast on the planet. If David Dennis couldn't find it, it doesn't exist, okay? So, but he did kind of say something. Maybe he was being tongue-in-cheek, possibly, but I don't think so. I think he was being serious. He said because of where he lives in rural, and I normally can't say that word right, but I practiced before this podcast started, okay? Rural, pretty close. Rural, don't keep saying it because then it starts to sound weird. You keep saying it. Rural Canada. He doesn't live in rural Canada. David Dennis lives in Fredericton. If y'all just type in Fredericton and hit the image button on Google, or sorry, you might have to type Fredericton, New Brunswick or Fredericton, Canada. I don't know. There's probably more Frederictons. I'm guessing it's the largest one. It's the only one I've ever heard of. now look is it a striving metropolitist no could you even call it a city kind of I think there's like a hundred thousand people that live there but it's the capital of New Brunswick it's either the biggest or the second biggest town I think actually St. John has more people down there where our fearless leader Tom lives but it's one of the biggest cities in the east coast it's like it's bigger than I think any town in all Nova Scotia other than Halifax. So, and where David Dennis specifically lives is like the most suburbia of most suburbia, suburbia. And, you know, it's surrounded by, you know, what you would think is a typical, a beautiful big suburban house, but you know, a typical suburb when you're talking about, I think anywhere in North America. So he does not live rural. When I'm thinking rural, because he mentioned how he lived rural Canada. When I'm thinking rural, look where Orby lives. type River Hebert into Google Images or Hummingbird Homestead, which is actually Google has that as our, if you type Hummingbird Homestead in, you hit the images button, you'll see that my closest neighbor is not only more than three football fields away, but also a full pond away. And my closest neighbor has no one living there. It's an old garage that used to be used to fix cars. And then my next neighbor is finally, these people bought a house and they're fixing it up, which is great, but they're down there, like, I don't even know, like a kilometer away, maybe three quarters of a kilometer, which is probably like half a mile away. My next neighbor's going the other direction, even further. You have to go by, like, I don't know, probably three kilometers of woods, a cemetery, you know, we're talking two miles away from my closest neighbor on my right. My closest neighbor on my left is a little less, but then across the road, only a couple hundred meters away, which I'm guessing is like 400 feet away, 500 feet away. I have, you know, a neighbor across the road, but I, you know, I, I, I'm rural. Okay. We have to truck in our water. We, we don't even have water here. We have a septic tank and we have to truck in our water. This is like, we have to bring our water from like half an hour away. This is rural. We get to see, well, Danielle and Hayden almost hit a bear coming back from Spring Hill in the market on Saturday. So, and then I see bald eagles like i'm looking at the eagle's nest i can see the nest in the tree right now but he's not there or she but we have like you know i'm rural we have deer deer got to our apple trees again this year and we have we made the fences even higher hayden and i went and stabilized them and use extra trees to put up the fences even higher around our food forest and um anyways i've talked way too much about personal stuff i gotta call it one more pinball podcaster and then i gotta I had to talk way too long today.
    77:17
    I did have a lot of stuff. This was kind of three little miniature, you know, we had to talk about three different issues here. So this was, you know, it's kind of three podcasts in one, if you think about that. It was like three 25-minute podcasts.
    77:29
    Hey, you can press stop and play or re-upload or go again anytime you like. So that's more up to you. Anyways, the other pinball podcaster I got to call, and Dave, I love you. I'm kind of just half kidding, But we all know that you live in basically what's considered a big city in this neck of the woods. But I love you, bro. I love you, dude. I love you. No heat.
    77:50
    So no beef. No beef. I have no beef with Dave Dennis. I don't want Dave Dennis to have beef with because I've seen this man. Before he was a pinball nerd, he was a paintball nerd, like a hardcore, hardcore paintball dude. He was even in a paintball documentary, which he sent me the link for and I got to watch, which if he's ever going to post that, maybe he won't post it on his regular, but maybe he'd post it for his Patreon people. I don't know. That would be cool. I'm sure they would like to see that. I found it very interesting seeing Dave being more... I'm not going to say he was hyper-aggressive, but he isn't the mild-mannered Dave Dennis you know from Silver Ball Chronicles. He's more the, like, I'm going to shoot you down with my paintball gun, dude. But anyways, the other pinball podcaster I have to call out, my other non-callout callout, is Ken Cromwell. Now, he's not just a pinball podcaster, but he's also the marketing and communications director over there at Jersey Jack Pinball. And although I usually get to applaud everything Ken Cromwell does, I am a massive fan of Special One Lit. I've listened to the two new episodes back. And even though those guys talk even less about pinball than me sometimes, I absolutely love it. I'm a huge, giant Steve Beattie fan. I think he's kind of like my spirit animal. he's probably the dude of all pinball podcasting i feel like the most akin to like we we get along the best um he was on there and he was on the special lit pinball podcast and he was talking about foraging save it or drain it for one of their most well-known episodes now they used to do save it or drain it having to do with pinball but i think now that ken works in pinball it's a little tricky because he doesn't want to say anything bad about any of the other pinball companies but he also doesn't want to stop pinball podcasting so they have to do save it or drain it Not with pinball now, usually, from what I understand, or at least the last few episodes, right? So I loved the episode, Ken. I loved the episode, Bill, Steve, you guys all killed it. But when they were talking about foraging, Ken was like, are you talking about going through the woods and walking through the woods? And he was like, hell no! And I was like, Ken, what do you mean? He's like, nah, me going walking through the forest, not going to happen. I'm like, walking through the forest is healthy for you. it's substantially more healthy than walking on a flat sidewalk or a flat road. In fact, when you go hiking, it's far better to go hiking on a path that hasn't been all pushed down to rubble. It's far better to go off the beaten path, as the term goes, and walk on roots and have to do bounding where you're jumping over trees and you're getting over valleys and hills and you're going up and you're going down.
    80:29
    All of the type of walking we do nowadays inside of malls and inside of work buildings, inside of houses that's nice and flat. The bones in our feet were not meant for that. So if you don't constantly do stuff like jumping up and down, you don't have to go out and buy a freaking trampoline, but I just mean like, you know, like when you're going down that last stair in the morning, you know, maybe jump that last stair. Like if you're not, now if you're someone with like literally like osteoporosis or something, don't start like jumping up and down all the time. But what I'm saying is walking through the forest not only gives you copious amounts of vitamin D, which most, especially people in North America, are very, very, very low on. Not only does it give you tons of vitamin D from the sun, but it also allows your lungs to get cardio, which we were meant to do for hours and hours and hours a day, which we hardly ever do anymore. But it also allows you to forage and look for free food. And every ounce of food that you bring into your house means hours you don't have to spend far away from your family working at some shitty job you hate, right? So last year alone, I think just from foraging here, I brought in somewhere around 15 pounds. Oh boy, low battery. I've talked too long.
    81:38
    I brought in somewhere around 15 pounds of blueberries. We were able to make blueberry smoothies, blueberry pies, blueberry muffins, blueberry scones, blueberry pancakes. We were able to like, when you add just a small handful of blueberries to any meal that you have, like no matter what it is, you're getting all of your polyphenols, all of your antioxidants, huge amounts of nutrition tons of vitamins all at once and those vitamins are coming in in the form that your body prefers it where they're able to absorb a much higher percentage than they would in just a multivitamin or some other supplement you have in a drink or a daily greens or any of that other bullshit out there that's like just instead just you should be eating that like better you know what i mean and it's funny because like ken was talking about it was such disdain and I think that Bill also like threw it out I believe I'd have to go back and listen but it's just like walking in the forest like I go I call it sunbathing I call it forest bathing it's not just being in the sun I can go out on my front homestead patio right now and just sit in the sun I can do that which I do I do that quite often we'll listen to a pinball podcast because the wi-fi works up to like 10 feet within my house so I'll go out there and I'll throw the stick or throw the frisbee for elowen or i'll just suntan or if while i'm playing fortnight quite often i'll just go outside and take my shirt off like we don't have mosquitoes yet here even though we have no cms so i can go outside and get some sun i like to get as much vitamin d as possible it's terrific for your health it also feels nice it's fun it's enjoyable it's why people sunbathe right but if you go to the forest not only does the smell of the oxygen smell better but you're getting such higher amounts of oxygen, you're actually over-oxygenating your blood further than you would just being somewhere else. So that's terrifically good for your lungs. It's really good for detoxifying your body. It's also just like it's good for your muscles to get out there and be walking through the forest. And it's also really good for your brain to be having to see things that are far away and close. And that's part of the reason why so many people have to wear glasses, so many people need corrective lenses, so many people need to get laser eye surgeries, because we spend too much time looking at things really close to our face and like 10 feet away from us looking at a big giant screen. Our eyes were meant to be constantly looking at things far away and looking at things close. So when you're walking through the forest, you're looking up, okay, what's coming up here? Oh, geez, where's that root? I have to watch that to not step on it. And it's better for your brain. It's better for your body. And it's definitely better for you spiritually. Anytime I'm in a bit of a funk, I got a little bit of the Mondays, you know what I mean? and I go walk through the forest for even 20 minutes, just 20 minutes of walking through the forest, I almost always come out in a better mood. First of all, I never bring my cell phone to the forest, so you can't get distracted. You won't hear, oh, or whatever. I don't know, I think that was the ICQ update, but you won't hear any Messenger updates. You won't hear any Facebook updates or Instagram or Twitter or email or work or phone call or anything. Like, if you can possibly do it. Now, I don't want someone to go out in the forest and get lost and out of their phone and blame it on me. You can put your phone in your pocket and just turn the power off or turn off notifications. You can even set it up so if it's an emergency phone call from your babysitter, your landlord, your boss, it will work, right? But I'm saying for the most part, when you're out there, there's no television. There's no cars driving by. There's no one working. There's no noises.
    84:58
    It's the first time you won't have ear pollution. If you're out there and it's nighttime, you won't have any light pollution. And it's just good for your soul to get out in the woods. So would I drain it or save it? I know Steve Beattie didn't ask me, but I'll tell you what. I'll tell you what, boy. I would save it. I would totally save walking through the forest. And everybody out there, literally, like, if you don't do any exercising, don't just go out and do, like, a 10-mile hike or something. I'm not suggesting that. Baby steps, yes, maybe if you have problems with your ankles, your knees, your hips, your back, yes, maybe start on forest paths that are perhaps flat and don't have roots everywhere. but once you get going for a while I think that you will find it fun and enjoyable of course do all the safe stuff with going out there bring a compass I don't do it here at the forest at my own house because I know this like you know I'm not going gallivanting if I am going for a large tour because there's over 100 acres back there of forest and woods and trees and everything else you know and there's a cool river which I like to follow once in a while but if I'm doing that But if I'm just staying on the two or three paths for the most part that are in my back woods here or just looking around back there, I don't. But be safe. But go have fun. Go off in the woods. I've talked way too long. And for all of you who said, man, this guy talked way too much about personal stuff today. I wish he had just talked more about pinball. You might get your wish. Because I've been waiting and wanting to wondering what I should do with Patreon for a very, very, very long time. and I think I've decided what I'm going to do is keep 100% of all of my pinball content right here on the Poor Men's Pinball Network for free, available to everybody. But I think I might do a monthly podcast completely not about pinball. And what it would do is by me having this other podcast to talk about all the other stuff happening in my life and also tell some cool stories about stuff that I've gone through that's non-pinball related in the past. By me having that creative outlet, it will cause me to go off topic less often on this pinball podcast. And I can say stuff like, oh, oh, if you want to hear the end of that story, you're going to have to go listen to it over on Behind the Paywall. And look, I know that there are pinball podcasts far more successful than me that only have a few patrons. So I don't expect to get many. In fact, my goal for the first month of doing patron will be just to get five. However, I'm waiting to finish the artwork on some of my pinball nerds podcast trading cards. I'm working on the one for Glenn the Skateboarder right now I'm going to get Tim's out next after that they're both getting their own custom auto cards they're both going to have 50 cards each they have to sign I'm sorry Tim and Glenn your lion man and the skateboarder's wrists are going to be sore for a day or two I'm sorry you'll have to schedule it you know well after or before a pinball tournament I don't want to affect your pinball tournament playing skills you know but they are going to have 50 cards each one in each pack of autographed And I want to give the very, very, very first thing for any of the patrons as an opportunity to buy some of the Pinball Nerds podcast trading cards. So these are all things I'm working on. I'm sorry they've taken so frickin' long. I'm working on it. They're looking good. If Danielle and I weren't both working a crazy amount of hours right now to open not one, but two cafes this weekend, including serving Owen's Mega Melt, so his grilled cheeses, which is if I didn't mention that company earlier I should have his mega melt company is basically just like an extension of our cafes for now but someday he hopes to have a food truck with gourmet grilled cheese including his best seller or at least best tasting one because we haven't got to sell them yet which is his mega melt with bacon well uh so it's the the maple mega melt with bacon So it's a maple bacon grilled cheese with gouda, which is how you pronounce it in Dutch, but I'll just say gouda for you common folk or of the non-Dutch ascent, of course. And mega melt, it has half cheddar from the Mastown Market and half mild gouda cheese.
    89:03
    And they're melted and fried separately, then combined together on the grill with bacon in the middle. and the bacon actually comes from the Tadamagush, what do you call that? Meat market? I don't know, there's a name for it. Butchers, it comes from the Tadamagush butchers. So we're using all local people and then of course that one comes on cheesy bread from our own and we're still working on figuring out where it's going to be but from a local store here for now anyways. So really excited for that. We've got, you're not going to hear from me as much this summer. If there's pinball news, I'll be here. I'll do a show. I also have two interviews lined up for the next two weeks, so probably look for me about once a week over the next two weeks. Other than that, I'm going to try to knock you off topic as much as I did today. I just had so much to update you guys with and tell you about. Think about it. Three of my last four shows have all been interviews, so you've only actually heard me go very much off topic and talk about what's happening in my life like once in the past two months. So I have done a hell of a lot of interviews this year, perhaps more than anyone else. So when it comes to, I was originally going to put just the interviews behind Patreon and have decided not to do that because that's like half my shows nowadays. And I just, I don't want to have any pinball content behind a paywall. And honestly, I just, my show's not good enough to have anything behind a paywall. It's just not. I know it's not. If I was way better at this and, you know, I could stay on topic better and I had no ums, no yas, I was edited, I had background soundtracks. If I had a witty co-host I could make jokes with constantly. Maybe, maybe, maybe I could decide to put it behind a paywall, even though I don't like that. I don't want to do that. I don't want to have it behind a paywall. I'm going to choose not to have it behind a paywall. I'm also choosing not to do any coffee sales or advertisements for now. So please don't go buy any angry alpaca coffee because we don't have much. And frankly, if you do order something, it would be very hard for me to get it out to you in a timely fashion because we're getting slammed. We have also a collectibles show this weekend. So We have three events on one day. We're going to be already a little bit thin trying to get stuff for three events into a car and a show. And frankly, I just wanted to just take this time and energy to thank absolutely every person who did buy any coffee or supported me just by listening and pat yourself on the back through getting through a meandering off-topic episode like no other. I love you. Have yourselves a wonderful day. Until next time, say it with me, Pimble Nerds. remember to eat, sleep, and breathe Orbital Albert's Pinball.