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 Myth of syrup and honey, hopes to laugh with his family And a random tangent, stories of his boys He's on the poor man's pod network We're gonna get more listeners Welcome back, Pinball Nerds, to episode 651 of your fifth favorite pinball podcast. My name's Orbital Albert, and I'm really excited today to have Aaron of Fast Pinball. Welcome to the show, Aaron. How are you doing today? I'm still waking up it's coffee to the brain time of the day so I'm working my way through my wife brews coffee laced with cinnamon and it's working its way into my brain right now so we're going to see how well my voice works when my brain's at about 60% so I'm really looking forward to this man I've listened to your podcast for a long time you're my get chores done podcast and it's a lot of yard work and shop cleaning and stuff like that so I'm super stoked to be here wow thanks Aaron I've been told before one of my buddies Mike Dimas of Pinball Shenanigans he says I'm his favorite podcast not even pinball podcast his favorite podcast to fall asleep to he said I go on so many tangents he can't keep up and it just puts his brain to sleep for some reason and I thought I'll take that as a compliment as long as you're listening I don't care if you're doing the chores you're cutting the lawn you're doing the dishes whatever you're doing you know working on the fast boards you got to be in the background if I'm at least mildly entertaining that's good enough for me. So what I wanted to do is a lot of people in the industry know you and they know Fast Pinball, of course. Give us like the Coles Notes version. I don't want to spend like too much time at the start. Give us just like the fast, if you will, update. That's my dad pun of the day. Give us the fast update on just, you know, how you guys got started and where you are now and maybe like what companies you have worked with or do work with or like I'm just I guess part of the question I want you to answer is like what percentage of your boards are going to homebrews now and which percentage are like going to pinball companies and just that kind of thing. If you can just give us a little bit of info on all that. Okay. So that's like 15 questions in one. I know. Okay. I'll start just as a quick primer for those who don't know. Like Dave Beecher and I started Fast Pinball like a whole bunch of years ago. I, you know, I think it would write stuff down before I get into interviews. I think it's been like 10 years or so, a little more than 10 years. I had a real estate software company for a long time, which was this business I started to pay bills while I was putting on concerts and putting out records in Seattle many, many lifetimes ago. And the software thing kept going, and then married an awesome woman, had some awesome kids. Life kicked in, and that became work, work. and there got to be a point where you know you need that kind of you know creative new learning stimulation thing and dave beecher and i had met through our local arcade pinball collector community in the northwest up here in the seattle washington area and uh dave is an incredible engineer he's the guy that thinks like at the electronic level so for someone like me who's going hey i got this crazy idea of what i think would be super cool um he's going okay yeah i think we can do that or i've got this thing i'd love to see people use how can we turn that into something i go hold on a sec let me think of something so it's this just fantastic relationship and uh a lot of that started off way way back doing like you know a lot of the homebrew stuff um we came around and just started like you know i with my software career i'm like a platform builder so applying that to hardware was like a new fun challenge and uh just like anything i we started fast pinball to like build pinball machines i built zero full pinball machines myself, but created a platform to do it. So every time I get kind of like, ho-hum, I wish I'd built a full machine yet, somebody will punch me in the arm and go like, dude, you helped build a lot of these things. And of course, in Aaron's style, I go, oh, no, I just was a tiny bit. They're like, yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever. But you're here with us. You're excited. You're encouraging and motivating. And can you tell I'm on the high of like Pinball Explore right now? Like it's this huge recharge of batteries. You get to see all the homebrew guys and stuff like that. anyways i think i'm gonna be one-upping you on the tangents today so i got fresh coffee to the brain and hey that's okay i love it but so like uh the homebrew stuff was the big uh starting point there but we designed it to be like a commercial grade system like you know to go into real games um dave does engineering and and and projects way beyond the scope of pinball so pinball is almost a fun kind of thing to work on and uh what we've had the good fortune of is like a lot of people who have started using our product have either gone on to work at major pinball companies or started pinball companies. And at the same time, others who we've gotten to know over the years have since transitioned over to using our hardware. And we feel so fortunate to be a part of like so many great projects. So to answer your question about like who's using our hardware these days, it's obviously like tons of homebrewers are using it. Barrels of Fun is using it. They've been using it in their game since they started. So Labyrinth, Dune, Side Note, which is my favorite game right now. I can't stop playing it. I'm not doing my work because there's a Dune sitting here with me now. And then the new Winchester game. And Pinball Brothers recently just changed to our platform. So the Predator games that you got to play at Pinball Expo are running our hardware. Then the Funhouse remake. and even back to the Fathom remake that Haggis had done before they'd gone under was also ready to go electronics on that so it's been a blast I mean we love being kind of in the background supporting creative people building pinball and our goal is just to make sure that whatever awesome ideas people want to take and market are like designed to be stable and reliable and run for 50 years you know and I say 50 years because I probably won't live longer than 50 years so after that it's on somebody else to take care of it but that's so cool well yeah no that answers the question i guess um i'm just wondering like let's say you were to walk through expo and there's no there's no harm no foul if someone you know uses their own software or something but like am i am i wrong to guess that like 50 or more of the people out there doing homebrew are using fast by now i i don't know exactly i would say that like if you look at the numbers of like um the the games that are coming to shows, um, it's, it's probably at least half that. Right. Um, I think, I think I kind of lose track sometime because, um, there'll be times where we come to shows and there's a game full dress, complete and playable, uh, that I've never even seen before. Um, the most recent example I can think of that, uh, was, uh, the Tony Hawk pro skater game that Nick Neitzel did. He had, uh, he bought some hardware from us and then disappeared off to work on it. And then we get to expo. I see he's bringing in the game and I'm playing this full featured complete game. that's running our hardware in it. So that's been the thing that, you know, Dave and I talk about that's changed over the years is there was a point in time where we knew every single project that was using our stuff, or even every single project in homebrew. And now it's turned into their stuff that somebody bought years ago and life happened and delays came in and then they pop up with a finished game later on. I love talking about how Nate and Justin, who made the Mad Max pinball machine, Mad Max Fury Road, they had started that project I think when Justin was in high school and finished it after he graduated from college so um time wow you know it it homebrew goes the way it goes you know and I think that um so back to your question I'd say that there's it's probably more than 50% these days and um more coming and growing uh we're yeah there's gonna be there's gonna be more for sure that's so cool so a lot of people know of course about uh now i i had heard a while ago a long time ago years ago that barrels of fun was using fast but until you just said it again i totally forgot so thanks for letting me know about that and i i i have to do a mini tiny little side tangent here because you're one of only a couple hundred people on planet earth who have played the winchester mystery house and you have to say it like that um i i'm just curious what just give us a really quick like a quick a quick review on what you liked uh what you loved and uh you know i guess just overall your thoughts and views of uh playing winchester i i was so impressed um i think that what the barrels crew makes in pinball um it's a term floating around i i don't know who came up with originally, but they create a cinematic pinball. It's this pinball that you're not playing. A lot of pinball to me kind of feels like you're walking up and playing an SNL episode where there's all these different sketches and they all kind of weave together with a bunch of common cast of characters. A Barrels of Fun game is like you're watching a film and there's so much depth. Everything is being set up in a way to have a payoff in a certain meaningful way. So that's to me what I expect when I walk up to a Barrels of Fun game. so going up to Winchester was just like alright let's see how this goes and Carl's an incredible designer and incredible player that melds together super super well so I think that like when I first maybe not the first time, there was a point where I was standing around because I couldn't wait in another two hour line to play, I was standing up there and Carl was there and some of the other Brails guys were there and I think my comment to him was something to the effect of like F you this game is awesome I had this feeling of like I'm angry. I can't take this game home with me right now. And I think that that's something that, um, you know, to have pinball, I mean, we're all into pinball for all different reasons and stuff, but there's something special when something makes you feel something, you know? And I think that was the feeling of like knowing the passion of everybody at barrels and what they're into about bringing stories to life. Like the Winchester thing, like for anyone who hasn't looked up and investigated that whole storyline is it's insane. It's wild. It's, it's, It's literally madness. And to apply that to a pinball form, I was like, I can't wait to see what happens. And I think that that's the part that anybody who hasn't had a chance to play Winchester, I mean, go and play it. It's like I loved it because all the shots were right where I wanted them to be. Like you look at a play field that's got tons of stuff on there and you think, how's this all going to work? And it just does. I mean, it's something that's super, super special. So it's a bummer that it's sold out so quick. And I do think, but at the same time, it's like David David Van Es of Barrel says, it's like, this is the gift to the collectors. You know, this is something that's special. It's limited. And I think even Carl said that, like, you know, the success of Winchester opens up the opportunity to take some risks with some other fun IPs to create some new designs on. Maybe they don't need to be a multiple thousands game run. but the idea that you can come up with a good pinball experience on some, you know, more unusual IPs is like super exciting. Yeah, I think you're right. It's we, we, everybody, everybody in the pinball community agrees that Carl D'Python Anghelo, you know, being a designer is huge and that, that really gives it credibility that helps it have better flow of course. And we all knew that, but I still don't think any of us, I mean, I said, I didn't think Winchester would sell it till Christmas. If not, I know lots of other pinball podcasters thought, oh yeah, it's a cute game, it's got good flow, like yeah, it might eventually sell out. But we thought with it not being like even Dune or Labyrinth level, you know, themes, we thought it would take a long, long, long time to sell out. So I'm very happy for them. I can't wait to go play it. I'm even more stoked to hear that Fast is helping out them just, you know, do such a great job. And between everybody from, you know, I got to mention my boy Jeff over there from Dirty Pool. He's done a killer job. I personally am not that much of a sound nerd so I didn't notice while watching live streams of Dune but I can say this after watching his live streams and him explaining how he's made the sound better and implemented it with the music and everything else I was like okay now I'm getting it and then as soon as I heard Winchester I was like this is incredible it is actually scary just that the dude's voice and then all the sounds and everything else I would not play that in a 200 year old farmhouse Okay, I think it's like 120 years old, but I would not play this here by myself in my arcade, like with the lights turned off, you know, with the dogs gone, because I'd be too afraid. But I think the other point that I was getting to in the Longabout way is that we had no expectations. So my expectations for so many, you know, for say, I'll say nothing against American Pinball, but my expectations for Hot Wheels were I was a massive Hot Wheels guy growing up. I wanted to see the loop-to-loop. I wanted to see the car wash. I had that color-changing car wash. You know, I wanted to see just some of those different things. I didn't think necessarily they would have a color-changing ball. I wanted one, but I didn't think they really would. But, like, I thought at the very least there would be a couple loops. You know, I guess my expectations in my head were so big that when I saw it, I was kind of like, wait, there's no jump ramp. We already have a jump, you know. And so I think the expectations for Winchester were nothing. So nobody was disappointed. and at the same time they were pleasantly surprised. And that's why I think expectations are sometimes everything, right? Well, for sure. Let's get back into this crazy trip that you did. I looked on a map. You did not take, like, as the crow flies, you didn't go straight. You didn't even go close to straight. It looks like you did, like, a happy, like, a smiley face. Like, you almost did an upside-down, like, letter N. like you almost took the longest possible route to get to pinball expo but maybe give everybody some highlights of your trip explained i know you were traveling with erica of erica's pinball journey maybe explain how that all came about and what you were doing i know among your travels you were picking up some homebrews you were showing off uh predator to the electric bat but just give us some highlights of your trip there and back and explain to us why you decided to make yourself go on the road like how many days in total all that kind of stuff okay so i'll take it back um i have let's see, I've taken, I don't even know, like six years now. Well, it's like I'm getting some feedback here. I got to turn this off. Hold on. All right. We'll assume what I'm saying sounds good. I have done this Pinball Expo road trip six years now, and every year it's the last year. I think that the goal was always to say like, hey, if you're going to go and build a homebrew machine and you want to take it to the Expo, like if you can get it ready and get it set up somewhere along the way, I'll pick it up. I'll take it. And it's a tradition that's kept happening. And so this year, the the length of the trip was really dictated by like who kind of raised their hand and said they wanted to take a game. And so we're based out of the northwest. I'm about 45 minutes, an hour south of Seattle. And so when we had looked at the routing, there were some games down to the Bay Area. There was Mad Max was down almost San Diego, down on Riverside. and then the other thing I really wanted to do on this trip was like visit the electric bat we had just received the predator game here at the shop and so you know I knew we wanted to take that out to expose so there were more games for people to play but what we as like faster super into is like I want to know what like operators think of the hardware you know I want to see the games get out into a public setting with people who play a lot of pinball and just beat the crap out of them you know and we're not so like when we take a game on location we're not so concerned about like what do you think of the theme how does the sound sound like i want to be like how do those flippers feel like you know how how well did it hold up all night and all that kind of stuff and so that was that was part of the goal there for going down and uh meeting kale and rachel and everybody else down there at the bat um and it just made for a fun trip because like you mentioned in the beginning like um erica came me this year from Erica Fence and Erica Pinball Journey And each year before this I had a different person go out on the road with me And I'm fortunate enough that like people think that riding a cross country in a truck with me is something they want to do. It's also a cheat sheet or sorry, it's like a cheat code fast track effort to making lifelong friends. And so Eric and I had known each other a little bit from some interview stuff we'd done at shows. But through she'd contacted a moto about wanting to do like a drive out to Expo. And she said, you should call Aaron, like follow along with their trip. And in the end, it came one of the guys was going to come with me. That was going to pick up along the way. Couldn't come. But but what it suggests, Eric, is she's like, let me follow along. I said, why don't you just ride with us? Like there's room in the truck. Like, you know, we'll go with that. and um and so she ended up flying up here like staying the first night with my family here up in gig harbor um we uh we did a uh a play session we took the predator game out to uh locust arcade here or locust brewing uh harbor harbor side or harbor arcade um here in gig harbor and had like a play session where basically we played for a while um buttoned everything up put in the trailer then left the next morning. And it's such a, I hate using words like this, but it's such a special thing now in my life that like being able to go get everything all boxed up, bundled up, throw it in the trailer and then drive. And it's a really fun time to be kind of like focused on a simple task of like transportation, but at the same time, be able to have a real life, interactive podcast that goes 3,000 some miles. I talk about how Eric and I got on the road. Side note, we got on the road like seven hours late because one of our customers needed a whole bunch of electronics. I said, Erica, you're going to learn how to program boards. Not only did she sit here and program boards with me, but then, as you might have seen in some of the footage, she was filming it at the same time, making content of her working on boards up here at Fast HQ. It was cool. We got everything all done and got out the door and stuff like that but um uh that road trip it was like you know days long and many days long and we didn't turn on the music or podcast like the whole time so we just kind of got to talk get to know each other talk about pinball talk about these big grandioso ideas that we want to do um but to me that's like what the trip is about it's like let's just be in it let's be on this pinball road trip and i'm always i'm always surprised and I shouldn't maybe be anymore having it been six years now, but the people that meet me at Expo and they're like, oh my God, I can't believe like, you know, I've been following along with the drive and stuff, which I think is hilarious. That was so fun. But there's also stuff too where like, I think it was last year, the pinball junk junker guys had been like asking for a certain beer they wanted brought out from the West coast. And it was by the time I looked for it last year, it was sold out. This year I happened to like stop by one of the places and they had a bunch of it and the uh the the guy running the the the tap room there was like you know he was like uh super impressed at the the beers i was picking and recommended some others and i told him how i was taking it out to craft brew sally who has this podcast and it was very very fun to like you know load up a bunch of beer to you know run across state lines bring them out to expo and then share that with pinball friends um but yeah so anyways roundabout topic um the the journey was super badass um when we finally did get down to the bat um it was the goal with taking the games to the bat was to say like um let's have like a four hour like predator playing session and then we got to get on the road and get going and so we got into town around three o'clock um took a nap like got recovered we got up to the bat about four o'clock um and sure enough along the way the keys to predator disappeared so in my first introduction kayla and rachel was like hi can we drill this lockout. And I'm super embarrassed and I felt bad. And they were like, dude, this happens all the time. We got it. So drilled the locks out, got everything set up. But as we're getting set up there for this 5 o'clock playtime to start, people are milling in. A lot of people were coming in who'd been following along already or had known the game was coming and wanted to meet us. And come 5 o'clock, they had a sign-up sheet loaded with people, four-player games back to back to back. And so 5 o'clock hits, people are playing the game. It was going really well. fast forward to like nine o'clock, there's still a line to play. And, uh, and that was cool. And then, uh, it got to be 10 o'clock and I'm like, I gotta go to bed. I have like a really long drive tomorrow. So I asked, uh, Kaylin Rachel, I said like, Hey, if you guys are down to like strap this up and have it all ready to be picked up on, you know, high-speed pickup tomorrow morning, I'll leave it here and we'll go to bed. So by like 10, 30 years or so, like, you know, we were on our way and it was funny. Rachel goes like, yeah, I'm totally down to like, keep playing it here, but I'm going on a hike tomorrow so Cale can wrap it up. And Cale's like, dude, I got this. So we left eventually, and when we came in the next morning to pick it up, it was off the floor, like in the office. And Cale and Rachel were in the office, and I was expecting Rachel to be gone. And I went in and I said, you know, hey, I thought you were on a hike. And she says, I have questions. And I guess they played until like almost one o'clock. And she's like, we played that game. We had a lot of people who I guess were coming off work and wanted to play so they left it going pretty late and she's like this game had like no flipper fake like you know we get brand new games in here from other manufacturers and eventually after like non-stop constant play eventually like you'll feel some fatigue there and so there was almost this like what exactly are you doing here kind of questions and you know it's that's just kind of our goal is like fast it's like make the games rad and like don't worry about the hardware and so i think that that was i was really proud of that was to see someone like you know rachel who knows arcades and knows operating incredibly well, but had those deeper questions about platform and how things run and operate. So that whole experience at the bat, and thank you to everybody down there that was super supportive and super kind, that's the kind of experience that we want to do more on these road trips in the future, is take games out for this in-person play experience. Go there for a four-hour pop-up and play the game super hard and then get on the road and go to the next spot. So maybe there'll be more road trips in the future. uh rachel and kale are very very very uh you know they're i don't want to say tough but they're very honest about the reliability of the pinball machines at their arcade and that's why i think they won you know first place in the twippies last year because not just are they entertaining and fun but also honest so i'm sure that if rachel thought at all like hey you know just wanted to let you know after a couple hours we really noticed there's a severe flipper fade and you know you I might want to work on this, this, or this. But instead, she skipped her hike just to tell you how awesome Fast was working for them. And I know I heard as well on their podcast that just like people, I think Kale probably stayed later and people just kept coming at like, you know, 1231. And they were like, I got to go home. I'm sorry. So that sounds really cool. And I did want to thank you as well for bringing Craft Beer Sally and Foghorn Leghorn, the Pliny the Elder. because before I was Bert, sorry, before I was Orby, the Pimmel Nerds podcast guy, I was Bert the Craft Beer Nerd. And so I hosted a Rogers TV show called the Craft Brew Bros. And basically I was huge into craft beer. And multiple times, multiple times, I got to like one of these cool craft beer bars in either Toronto or Ottawa or even Montreal. And they were like, oh, no, we had Pliny until like three days ago at Solda. And I was like, oh, that's part of the reason why I'm here today. and yeah so it's very very sought after the fact that you got that for them sometimes being a pinball podcaster is a little thankless now recently i did get patreon and i'm feeling thanked a lot more but i'll tell you what if the only thing i if i get all the way to expo next year and you happen to get it doesn't even have to be planning the elder but really any especially for me any west coast beers that are like good ipas from decent breweries or sours i'm even more into sours now than i am those if you happen to bring some i've already promised everyone i'm 100 percent going next to expo uh thanks to all my patreon so i've it's been a lifelong dream for me and a lot of times people go well why didn't you go this year why don't you go this year because i mean long story short it's just it would be such a dent in our disposable income being really a primarily one income family um you know now next year thankfully my son's going off to university i'm gonna at least at the very least uh start hustling with i don't know if i'll go I wouldn't get a full-time job, but at least something part-time. Sure. And long story short, as we sell the farm, I can go fill up Orby's Arcade again, get a much smaller house with, like, a two-bedroom with an arcade. And I honestly have told a lot of my pinball friends, and I'll tell you as well, I'm hoping next year, 100%, no matter what, I'll be there. And if you happen to bring an extra Pliny, I wouldn't fault you for it. So that's really cool. We'll do a last call before we get on the road to be like, all right, I'm, I'm, I'm filling up a, a box of brew. What am I getting? And I, I loved how even the brewmaster guy was like, Oh, plenty of the other, like, here, you need to get this. I don't remember what it was. He had me, he just loading up my box with these other ones next, next door to that. And then he gave me like some one that was crafted specifically for him, the guy, Bob there, it had his label on it. And then one that his daughter like conceived, it was like a blueberries or strawberry. I can't remember what it was. The label looked like it was from strawberry shortcake um and he's like take this one too these are on me like give them to your friend and stuff like that so so yeah that's that's a new fun part of the journey is uh running beers across state lines wow it's honestly plenty is was the number one most sought after beer for a very very very long time a lot of canadian homebrewers uh speaking of homebrewing they would actually bring that across the border and then they would purposely pour it very gently to try to attain a tiny bit of the yeast at the bottom and then basically turn that little tiny bit into yeast into a full yeast so they can make their own version of it um and oh wow yeah other than day of the dark lord the the double and triple dark lord day of the dark lord it's like a triple stout that comes out from i think an ohio brewery uh other than that beer sells out like the whole event sells out in like eight to ten seconds but pliny's probably number two in the world that people are most sought after i would say at least you know i haven't been as much in the craft beer world but let's come back to my favorite home brewing part i'm curious uh this i i said this on my interview uh with joe chervino and i think i repeat it with glenn so i gotta do it here i gotta ask you this question just be open and honest every other pinball podcast that i listened to said that by far the winner of the show was the winchester mystery house and i said winchester seems great it seems incredible it's the the one pinball machine there i want to play more than any of the others however by far i think the winner of the show was the homebrew section that seemed to have the most excitement that i mean even if you look at carrie hardy's video uh he did a he you know he did he did stop by barrels of fun for a little and check out the game and that game probably got the most airwaves but he did like an hour and a half just on how exciting the homebrew section it is and it feels like every single expo from here on out the homebrew section is just going to grow and grow and grow and I really I love to see this do you do you agree with me do you think perhaps if it's okay if you don't maybe you think it's a tie I'm just curious do you agree with me that perhaps the homebrew section may have even beat out Winchester or came darn tootin close I mean I think that's I think it's a different experience okay so like the idea of like you know a commercial pinball company bringing their games out to have people play them is one thing. That's a very different objective. Man, this is totally like the dad getting asked which of your kids you love most kind of thing. I think that the objective of getting people to play games like Winchester or Predator or Funhouse Remakes, when we brought them out to shows, it was just about get people playing the game. The Homer thing is a whole different beast. I think that I've got to give huge props to Emoto and the whole Marcos crew and everything like that. And Rob Burke for all the support he's given all the homebrew stuff over the years um let's let's say this that like I'm a this is always cheesy to say but it's like I'm a very visionary kind of thinker like I can see it like it's real okay and the challenge I've always had with you know exhibit and experience kind of stuff is like what I picture it to be and what it ends up being is there's quite a delta there okay and that goes all the way back to one of the first years when we were at Pimble Expo where we we drive out all these games we get it set up and I had this vision of like all these cool games all over the place. And it looked like all of our workshops with playfields up and like people working on things. And it wasn't what I had initially pictured, but that even back then the experience was incredible because a lot of people came up saying, I've never seen underneath a pinball machine before. You know, I'm like, you're at a pinball show. Like what the hell? But I think that from the early days all the way to now, it's like we're getting closer and closer and closer to that fantastical, like almost like three ring circus this exhibit experience kind of thing that I always felt like the homebrew experience should be. And I think that, you know, with everything that Emoto does with like, I mean, she's picking specific backdrops and things like that to match certain games and stuff. Our goal with the homebrew space at Expo is basically a celebration of like all the hard work it takes to go into building a pinball machine. And it's usually like, you know, one-offs or teams or, you know, partnerships or small teams building these games. and it's not only just the effort of getting the game built to whatever degree and get it to a show playable but it's also and i don't like i don't ever want to like minimize this but it's like the effort it takes to even get to the show and that goes back to like why i'm willing to like drive stuff out in a trailer it's hard to get time off work time away from families going to expo is expensive i mean it's like we pulled like homebrew users years ago it's like how much does it cost you to get your game to expo and it's like by the time you factor in either shipping or gas transporting or hotel rooms it's like a couple thousand dollars like it's not uh it's not a a privilege to get to uh take your homebrew game to a show it's it's a whole it's a whole different depth of effort you know so that's why like you know there was a video that i posted at one point it was like i think it was saturday night um after the award ceremonies that happened um in the home brew space, which I'm not a fan of homebrew awards, you know, picking who's better, who's worse, that kind of thing. Okay. But I got to say that like the way that Joe Kamikow and like, you know, his whole crew did an awards experience was basically a bunch of veterans. You know, I can't remember all the names. Larry Dumar was there at Boone. Like, oh my gosh, I'm totally spacing out on names. They were big people in pinball history. Yeah, exactly. All these veterans and stuff. And so they went around and gave a bunch of, let's call them like acknowledgements, like kind of fun categories of different, like you're the, you're the, you're the, I don't know, the, the most exciting, but never doable IP or things like that. Just some fun stuff. And what I think was, and then they eventually had their kind of top three picks of the homebrews. But what it did for the whole homebrew community kind of hanging out there was kind of just said, hey, we're all here kind of acknowledging all the hard work everybody did. and and even um allison uh nick's new wife uh they worked on the the uh uh tony hawk game together um she turned to me at one point he goes you don't hate the awards anymore do you and i said you know i'm warm enough to it this is cool and and so i think that that was where like again like all that effort uh to get everybody there and the acknowledgments of all that hard work and stuff like that um really kind of came together in that whole little award ceremony thing but by by i think it was like saturday night it was like all the work was done all the tasks and awards and stuff like that were over and um and at that point like the dj like plugged in some some audio equipment and just turned the music on and i posted a video walk around of like all the homebrews being played they turned the lights down and the whole convention center and people are just dancing around the homebrew space all the games getting played it was incredible it was so fun come on such a vibe it was very very cool so in a big roundabout way like i think that um you know know I am so fortunate that I get to go and be a part of these things And so much of it is like, you know, our relationship with the Marcos crew and everything that they do to support Homebrew really makes it so that I can just kind of show up and do the crazy stuff that I do and add to in a way that, you know, isn't. I guess what they expect me to do, I get there and I do the best I can to like, you know, accent all their hard work. But man, it's it's like a circus rolls into town. Everything gets set up and like, you know, the whole experience happens and then it all gets torn down and we're on the next show. So I can understand how picking and choosing awards kind of feels like an exercise in favoritism or just maybe someone picks, you know, maybe they're they're voting for their favorite theme, not maybe how hard the machine was changed. and then it gets complicated between did you, you know, is it an all original or is it just a re-theme and that can get complicated. So I understand that. I am glad to hear though that you're saying they did it better this year and that really works because that gives me a perfect pivot for my next question. So not just like Expo but also for TPF or for MGC or really any of these arcade shows, pinball shows, what can they do to make it you know more welcoming and how can they get more homebrewers to come like what is expo done right what could maybe some other places do better and just overall we we want to really see homebrewers be celebrated like this so what could other shows you know it sounds like rob berg did a lot of help with like the homebrewers and making sure that they were paid attention to and they had lots of space it sounds like a moto did a great job like promoting everybody and helping with the backdrops and just getting it all done and with through with marco specialties there but moving forward if you you know i don't know if rob berg's gonna listen to this and it sounds like it doesn't matter because he's got a down pat but if any of the people from like you know uh what's that pinball on the beach if all these different shows i know you haven't been to all of them but like what are the things that really helps us celebrate the homebrewers that will allow them to expand and be have a bigger presence at more shows so like our our home show is the Northwest Pinball Show in June every year. And so it's a not-for-profit show. Like it's very, you know, it's all run by volunteers. I think last year we had like 500 some games. So our experience as Fast in our own backyard up here had been like, you know, so many of the people that are building and making games are really involved in the community. And therefore they're already kind of, they have that built-in like, you know, early access to show floor, you know, being able to load their games in. And since they're loading in their games, They have time to work on them and stuff like that. And really what became clear a few years into this stuff was there really wasn't a category that fit good for homebrew. You know, you're not just a person donating a game to get a free pass where they put your game out in the hall somewhere and people can play it. And you're not really a vendor because, like, you're not, like, running a booth sort of thing. So I kind of looked at, like, what the Northwest show experience was like for the homebrew guys. And then we looked at, okay, what would that look like nationally? And so we've kind of focused on like, we picked like four shows to say, it could be like focus on these four shows and really dial things in there. And then maybe there's a model that proliferates off the other shows. But that was between the Northwest Show, TPF, Southern Fried Gaming Expo, and then Pinball Expo out in Chicago. So really what I pushed for with all the different events was that we needed to have the homebrewers have passes like their vendors. And the big deal was, for one, they need that peace of mind to know that my game got beat to heck all day long. I'm exhausted. I'm going to get up early in the morning tomorrow and go in early and tune my game up a little bit. Fix that part that broke or change some code or something like that. So that was a big improvement overall was to be able to say, okay, if you want to have a good experience for the homebrewers, let them just kind of walk into an experience where we've kind of thought about the stuff they didn't think about because i mean you're doing the best you can't even get to even getting to the show uh so if you can come in and be like okay here's your vendor passes like or sorry your homebrew passes that get you in and get you access to working in your games then if you're rushing to get something onto a pallet to ship it or like get it on a truck to start driving you know that you do have some of that uh access and time with your game so that part was a big one and then um again, credit to Emoto and stuff like that too. Like, you know, we try to do like the little breakfast where there's like, you know, breakfast sandwiches and coffee and stuff like that down there in the homebrew space so that you do get up and you skip the hotel buffet breakfast because you want to work on your game, but there's something to snack on so you don't hit the blood sugar crash in the afternoon or something. So really trying to like, you know, take care of the things that the homebrewers like may not think of themselves. And I think that on top of that, The other angle has been, you know, I've been doing these talks, these making pinball, making friends talks, you know, for a bunch of shows now. And it's such a cool thing to get to do because there was a time where you'd go to a show and there's like three other homebrewers there. So that fits nice on a little panel in front of a stage and we all sit up there and go, you know, I use MPF and I'm using Fast and I'm using Fusion 360. You know, it's the same topics like over and over, you know. but the challenge now is that's going to be so many people that we've kind of changed up the format so that we can get more time with more people and quick introductions and and so I think that that's where like the idea of trying to show off like who are the new people that brought a new game or highlighting some other unique part of like what's actually at Expo that year that's the fun part for me because I can just get up on stage and like you know bring we just kind of flip through slides so you guys we skip through slides like there's some of the games that people you are more familiar with that at the show we want to highlight those but then i kind of hand pick like a handful of like newcomers or like things like that that um haven't been interviewed and been a part of x or events and stuff before and very selfishly i i like to pick the people that like i don't know super well so i can get like get to know them like on stage in front of everybody else um and so that whole experience is super fun so it's really trying to say like get your you know get your show or get your game to the show and just be a part of the experience and and i think that we've kind of created this like operation that lets people you know bring their game and get all immersed in it and just really have some fun and it's uh it's it is such a privilege to be a part of any of that stuff for sure wow it's so cool well i don't want to speak for everybody but i i you know and i should have reached out i did want to give you a big thank you as well to many of my long-term listeners they will know that you and fast reached out and did actually sponsor my big trip back to uh pin masters and nationals and i always wanted to have you on after that then i didn't do interviews for a long time again i just started doing interviews honestly just uh and i don't know why i stopped for so long because the interview is great like i only have to talk for like 30 seconds and then someone else talks for three or four minutes it's great or if it's easy i think it's easy yes thank you um so but you're you're welcome i mean like like that I remember so specifically that day was like I was out mowing the lawn and you're talking about like kind of getting beat up by some people about like the way you were addressing something and it just kind of hit me as like you know I've been on the receiving side of like you know kind of getting picked on online and things like that and it just sucks and I think that like you know when I looked at you know what would be if I was in your shoes like what would I just love and And being able to be supportive to you and stuff like that and get you to the show. And that was the one you went with your son and like stayed some hotels along the way and things like that. Like, yeah, that's just like, I mean, as as you may hear, it's like I love that that engaging in-person experience. A lot of that, too, is like with family and stuff like any time you can like roll pinball and family together. That's pretty awesome. You know, it's like one of my kids went on to he's studying engineering now at the Naval Academy. And he learned engineering out of fast HQ here. Like he was running a lot of printers and stuff like that. So the idea of like getting to do things with your kids, I mean that, that we have a small window as like parents before they're like off on their own and living their lives. And we, you know, look for any chance we can to spend meaningful time with them. So I don't know, man, I felt like I almost got baited into that one. It was like, Oh man, this guy's getting beat up by people online about certain crap. Like he wants to go on a road trip with this kid. He wants to go play pinball. It's like, that's something I would love to help out with so I'm really glad that that worked out and that you got to do it well thank you so much you you you and one other and I I don't want to say for sure I believe it maybe was uh Antonio Verdesco but I could be wrong I'd have to check I know he was a big donator this year as well but you guys both helped me out and the funny part was I didn't need any help I wasn't going to ask anyone for any money and like a week before I was supposed to go the discount airline here in Canada went bankrupt and they refused to give us any of our money back and all the flights were too expensive anywhere else. So I was supposed to be gone from my house for like four days. I ended up being gone for 15 days. I thought I was going to have to drive for an hour and a half to the Halifax airport. I ended up driving for 21 and a half hours to Wisconsin, driving through parts of Ontario I've never even driven through, even though I've been from Ontario my whole life. And just like you said with Erica, how it's such a bonding experience when you're driving with someone across the Canada, my oldest son Hayden and I have had like such a better relationship since then. and also just like you said with your son and with like with our kids we don't know how long we're going to have them around of course the following year uh earlier this year he moved out with his buddy and now they're both moving to alberta together which i don't know how well you know canada geography but it's it's much closer to you than it is to me put it that way it's it's very close to the rocky mountains right so it's much closer to you guys than it is to me but um so and i had no clue and honestly i think we bonded so much on that trip That's awesome. Which is, by the very end of the trip, he would listen to just a little bit of rock and roll. He found a couple punk rock bands he didn't hate. There you go. And I kind of sort of found a couple hip hopper rappers that I don't dislike as much as I thought. So we kind of moved the needle a little bit on each other's music. And now when we get together and, you know, hang out, it's fine. Because I know the two or three indie rock musicians he doesn't hate. So I can get away with a couple. And he knows which ones I like. So it's such a cool thing. It's the time spent. I think that's the big thing is like, you know, we need, you know, so many of the best friendships I have and like greatest relationships have really stemmed from like getting to just have time together. You know, it doesn't need to be like an event to do. It's just like noodling around. Like, I think that's why I've made so many friends through this pinball stuff is like half the time we're just noodling around, like making things or figuring stuff out or solving problems. and that's the time where you get that just general like in-person experience even if it's remote and virtual and stuff like that too just getting to spend time together um is so important so like you said like that road trip with the kid is like fantastic like i think that that's uh that's the kind of thing that uh you always want to find the ways to work that in even on the road trip back uh erica rode out with me and then on the way back i was on my own and so i lined that up with like you know we stopped by um you know i saw josh root from loser kid he gave me a place to crash actually a place to do shout out too yeah yeah the the trip was way longer than i did laundry math for so i was like hey i'd love to uh crash your place and can i borrow your washing machine and then uh i i i stayed the next night with uh barry joe burman out in like boulder city uh near uh las vegas where i dropped off the mad max game and then i got the chance to like uh meet my son jackson uh for dinner uh the next night and man it's like there's just it was one of those things as a dad where it's like you know eventually your kids go off to college and i was always looking forward to that point to you know i told my kids when you go to college i can embrace being poor like reset the clocks you appreciate everything so much more and i always look forward as a dad to get the point where it's like i can take my son out for like you know a nice dinner eat some eat a steak that kind of thing you know and uh it was just so wonderful to see his face hear about school and stuff like that and like and feed the kid he's like he's a fun kid to feed so that's random blah blah blah no this is really this is honestly this is i i like i'm sure you didn't listen to like my first 100 episodes please don't go back and listen to them but I honestly did a lot more stuff about being a dad because my kids were much younger and unlike most of my friends who like they're you know they were like oh how did you get your kids to play pinball I'm like mine are begging me like they want to play more and more and more mind you if there's sports to go play with their friends or like a cool concert to go to that's more important but I never had to like bribe my kids as far as like hey I'll I'll take you out to dinner tomorrow if you play pinball dad tonight they're like dad are we gonna play or what like you know they wanted to go to the pinball tournaments so i was always lucky that way and uh that is super rad i mean like like i mean like the dad stuff i mean it's like even as i go to like these i speak at some of these like technical events and stuff like that around the region or like manufacturing things or something like that and it always kind of like the people that know me it's in my mind they're like sitting there with a timer going waiting until somebody like brings up dad topics and i you know i throw out the unsolicited dad advice and i kind of joke about it but then it becomes like, you know, total strangers and stuff. I'm just meeting, it does delve into like, you know, being a parent and stuff like that a lot too. But you're right. I mean, like to get kids playing games, like, you know, we do the Northwest Pinball Show volunteer appreciation party at my house, you know, Fast HQ here for the last few years. And we drag pinball machines outside and it's basically just a big barbecue picnic kind of thing that we've done for the last few years. And it's awesome. But as I post pictures of this stuff, my kids and their friends, as they get graduation parties or birthday parties, it's always kind of like, hey, can we drag some machines out? And in fact, like this evening, we're hosting like a, my youngest son's water polo player and they have a team dinner here tonight. And again, it becomes kind of this like, I know you just got back from the show and the shop's kind of a mess, but can we turn on some of the machines? Because all my friends want to come and play them. And I mean, dude, I will stay up all night and clean up the shop so that people can come and play pinball. Like that's something I can definitely solve. So kids playing pinball, like they love it it's it's definitely a new experience for sure wow that i'm sure for you you're like your son comes up and says okay the whole team's gonna be here tonight what is it okay if we pull out a couple pinball machines you're like inside you're like don't panic don't panic hell yes let's go you know like you're so stoked just that try play it cool yeah you got to be oh yeah no problem i can do that now only uh because it's water polo you're gonna have water world You're going to have Avatar. And I don't even know. There's probably a third water-themed. I think there's a sailboat EM. No, I'm just kidding. That would be fun, though. Are you? They're getting what's turned on. I think this, my friend Brian left a bunch of games here when he moved to Paris. So tonight's lineup is going to be Stern Star Trek, Attack from Mars, Big Lebowski, Labyrinth, Dune, and Predator. Those are the games that are going to be lined up for the kids to play tonight. Wow. That's an incredible lineup. as an ordained Judas priest I approve awesome alright so this is a side note I only have two more questions for you I like to keep these things under an hour and I know that you're very busy there because you've got a party tonight now so you're even more busy than I thought you were but I'm just curious do you play many pinball tournaments do you consider yourself like pretty good at pinball or are you more just you play it for fun you're more of like you're more of a moment maker less of a point taker kind of guy or like do you play tournaments once in a while as well okay so um i would say i definitely started in the category of like i like to make and build and create more than i play right and then what i've learned is um you know as i've gotten to know more and more pinball players and stuff like that like you know when people come to town um you know my friend ernie silverberg will come into town it's like oh there's a reason to get together and go out and play pinball tonight we reach out to some friends we go and play um and it's funny to me like one of the times we were out recently, I guess for a timeline, it was like John Wick had just come out and we're like playing that and yeah, I'm blowing it up and I'm feeling like, you know, a rock star. And one of my buddies is like, I didn't know you were good at pinball. I'm like, first off, I was like, well, wait, hold on. Like, Hey, like, yeah, but, but it really reminded me that like most of the time I spend playing pinball up until that point was really like, I'm testing emulation of original ROMs on new fast hardware. Like how do these flippers feel? How do these mechs go? So I like thinking of timing and feel So it like the idea of like shooting a game over and over and over again you know you definitely find the shots and stuff So I think that um that time it almost like a karate kid thing You know, it's like, I'm out here painting fences and like, like sanding floors all of a sudden, like I can fight. And so again, I'm gonna say I'm not a super good player, but I have started like playing tournaments and stuff. So like, I'll joke with tournament players. It's like, well, now that I'm a tournament player and it's like, I've played like five tournaments and they're the Wednesday night, little things, um, up here in the Northwest, my friend, uh, Sean Irby is a really good player. He did the A-Ball Beyond homebrew game. There was a point in time where we realized that we both worked from home kind of by ourselves during the day. So we started spending, like, Wednesdays together. Like, he would come down here and work out of, you know, my workspace. And then we'd go across the bridge and go play at the Triple Knock. We would play the Wednesday night tournaments and stuff. And so, you know, I was very anxious about, like, you know, all the stress of tournaments and all that kind of crap. and what I learned is that like it's not that big of a deal um I think if you go in there with attitude or like try to be cool it's like not gonna land well but if you do it like I do it I go in there going what's up I barely played any tournaments please help me not look stupid and they're like oh buddy we got you man like you know don't don't shoot your extra balls and like you know all the little tournamenty rules and stuff um but I'll tell you it's been fantastic to meet more pinball people because the Venn diagram of pinball, it's like you got tournament players on one side and home brewers on the other. And it's starting to overlap more, you know, and we're seeing a lot more really good pinball players designing or starting to design like pinball machines. So learning what the play dynamic is has been incredibly useful for me for like insights and things like that, or even improvements that we want to make and the guidance that we give people for like, how you should write rules for your games or consider... One of the little ones that came up was you should... I mentioned it to somebody. It was my big brain idea. It's something that I think everybody does or started doing. Things like if a ball is kicked out of the shooter lane ready for the next player to start, you should disable the tilt until the ball leaves the shooter lane so that if the last player swings the game way out of whack and you want to slide it back to its original position that it's not going to tilt. Things like that. I looked at that and was like, oh my god, everybody needs to know this incredibly important thing. And I think I mentioned it to the barrels guys and they're like, yeah, we already do that. So, whatever. But the experience of going and playing in tournaments, I've never done a tournament that was beyond a one-nighter match play elimination sort of thing. One that ends in the same night and is you know 20 30 40 people or so but um the locust arcade or locust cider brewing like uh arcade place here that uh justin and sam run um it's new here in the town i live in and so i've been going out to all the events that they have there just to get bodies on location and more and more people are coming there um so the tournament itself is definitely something i'm more and more interested in and hopefully it makes me a better player that's awesome it's what i want everyone to know like a lot of times people think that i think some people who love pinball but maybe don't love tournaments or especially if they're people like you that live in a very pinball uh extent of like the northwest is probably like the biggest hotbed for incredible players um i think zyron silvers lives up up in that area somewhere you know like that direction at least i'm probably wrong but i think that direction because i know he goes to uh one of the big tournaments up there and it's just such a hotbed that like if you were to come play out here at the fundy flippers tournament in monkton or fredericton or halifax or something like people would be like wow who's this guy he knows he knows he knows that's called a shooter lane like you know what i mean like i'm not even just i'm kind of just being facetious but like like out here for the most part i think i think i think most of the world uh who are into pinball and they've never played a pinball tournament, they watch a big tournament on Twitch and they think it's really serious and it's very sullen and it's very quiet and everyone has to know the rules and yada yada yada. Half the tournaments that I go to people are joking around. Yes, you don't go up and just run and take someone's ball or something. Don't be stupid. No, don't be stupid, but we're there for a year. Act like you're at a cocktail party or you're at some event. If you busted in the Kool-Aid man or were obnoxious, that would be obnoxious at a pinball tournament or dinner party or like whatever, you know? So go in there with the idea that like, hey, this is somebody else's experience and I'm just a fly on the wall. And I think that's advice I've given to people already is like, if you're curious about tournament play, know that it's basically in most cases, like a bar with some structure around the play. So if you decided you want to go to the bar, hang out, be social, but not play the tournament, you can just go and kind of feel it out. And you'll see that like, oh man, I feel left out now. I want to play. I think that once people see that it's not super, militant and very high stress. I think that just being a fly on the wall for the first experience is a really good idea. And then eventually like you're going to, I mean, I don't know what tournaments cost everywhere. I think the one that we played at cross the bridge was like $5 or something. It's not, not that much money. So it's like you give up one, you know, I don't even know what beers cost these days. It's like $9 or something. So maybe almost half a beer to be able to play in a tournament or something like that. Like that's a, that's a good investment. And I think also too, it's a good connection with the community and a reason to meet new people. stuff and i think that's that's the big thing i tell people with pinballs it's like it's a conduit for like new friendships and connections and stuff and again like everybody's into different aspects of things like i never thought that like um i would ever play in tournaments because i just seemed like i don't have room for that in my life and when you merge that into oh we want to hang out one night and we're going to get dinner with some friends and then we're going to roll over and play this tournament it's just it's just another reason to spend time together so yeah and and the other thing is too the only i could see some people getting turned off like if your very first time going to expo you you probably really shouldn't play in a tournament that could take two or three days and oh definitely not you definitely don't want to be you know like if you go to expo every single year maybe sure uh but again you don't want to start with your first tournament being a big tournament i'm think of another content creator that i'm buddies with their very first tournament had 84 players and it was some of the top players in the state and they live in the state one of the top three states with the most number of ifa tournaments and the highest ranked players and they were like i would it was a three strikes tournament i was out in three strikes and i went home and i was like why did i drive two hours of this and i was like well why did you go to such a big like go to a five dollar wednesday night like just joking around don't go to a hundred person tournament for your first one so anyways we're getting close to that hour mark I want to, I have, it's kind of a two-part question, but you're used to that by now. Most of mine are. Let's go. So number one is just any homebrews that maybe you feel haven't got enough of a shout-out already, that haven't been mentioned much that you wanted to shout-out, that were, say, at Expo this year or any other shows, go ahead and do that. And then the part two is how easy is it to get started homebrewing? If you've never homebrewed before, where do you get started? Like, is there a particular YouTube link? Is there like a Reddit? Is there a pin side area? Like how do you get into homebrewing your first time? So, all right. Let's see. The first question as far as games that haven't gotten enough attention yet, that's a really hard answer. I think that everybody's games are like, you know, they're getting fans. People are liking, you know, some of the more veteran games have been around a few years. They have their own fans and stuff like that. And then the surprising games that pop up that people haven't seen before, that's fun too but I what I want to say as far as like getting people the right attention to homebrew games is it used to be more focused on like we're just bringing whatever like project we're working on whitewood game like to a show just to see what happens when people play it and I think the barbs got raised so high in homebrew where it's like these full dressed you know games look like commercial games what I definitely want to encourage people to do more of and this is kind of how homebrew feeds on itself is like bring your early stuff bring the white wood with sharpies written on it I mean that was how TNA started you know it was like very very raw very like this is the idea I'm working on you know and there are a few games that come like that but I think that I would encourage more people to bring your projects that you're working on and because you've got a captive audience of all the people that have literally been there right where you are at some point in their design process um let them come and give you feedback and show you that like hey that that shot you're doing right here that's gonna be a problem you got to fix this i had the same thing in my game you know so i guess um to highlight stuff i want i want to highlight the in progress games the stuff where it's like i'm working out ideas i'm workshopping stuff and i want all the homebrewers not to be intimidated and afraid of like bringing their work in progress into public, look at it as like free in-depth feedback from some of the most experienced people in homebrew who are more than willing to spend, you know, 15, 20, 30, whatever hour long time with you giving feedback and stuff. So I would definitely want to highlight the works in progress. And it's free. And then I'd say as far as like getting started, there's a lot of different ways. I mean, like, obviously like, you know, selfless plug, like fast pinball, I think is like the best way to go and make homebrew pinball. we've definitely focused on making the the gap between I want to do this and I've got stuff flipping as small as possible because what we try to do with projects that people are building in homebrew is like you want to build momentum okay like we're all busy we've got lives jobs spouses kids all that kind of stuff so the idea of fitting in a project around that people don't want to like have to you know research and and and solve too many things they want to get to the fun part more quickly. So that's really been our focus. And there's been projects like, like Ernie Silverberg has his Trident pinball business, which is basically taking like our electronics and pairing it with like a, a, a play field that's cut with the lower third taken care of and a box of like, you know, troughs and flipper max and all that kind of stuff where if you take one of his kits paired with our electronics, he even ships like a computer with MPF, the mission pinball framework side note, mission pinball framework is an open source Python based pinball. game framework that anyone can download and use to build in their game, no matter what hardware you use. He's got it paired with his kit and with our hardware. So if you kind of follow the instructions, our goal is to make it like as accessible as possible to get from, I just bought a bunch of stuff to this game is flipping as quickly as possible. So, you know, Ernie has got his Trident Pinball Discord. We have our Fast Pinball Discord and that Fast Pinball Discord is, or sorry, Fast Pinball Slack. We're moving towards Discord here eventually. But that Slack channel is like limited to people that actually own hardware. And I got a lot of crap about that in the beginning about it being exclusive and limited access. And that was 100 percent the goal, because we know that like anybody that's in there has electronics and has, you know, has fast forwards. And the support we can give them is very specific. But I also love seeing the the new people helping the newer people, because, you know, there was a question they just learned in their pinball journey. And they want to be able to be the first one to answer it because, you know, they know the answer now. So the support end of things, once you get into homebrew, no matter what community or what vector brings you into it, selfishly, all the homebrewers want you to make a game because we want to play it. So anything that we can do to encourage you to make and build and create your project, like it's there. So I'd say get in there any way that you can. Obviously, I think that the fast way is the best way to go. But I really love what Ernie's done, too, with the kit stuff. And I think that, yeah, come and spend some time. like at any homebrew exhibit at any show and just talk to people. And I think that's one of the things I try to do in these pinball talks that I do is really show that like these people I'm talking to up here on stage are just like us, you know, don't be intimidated if like, you know, you really want to meet the people that made the Mad Max game and you want to go and talk to them. It's like, go talk to them. They're super cool. So, so yeah, I don't know. I can't remember what I was answering. Hey, that's like me on almost every show, my friend. I know. I'm not, I'm not worried about it, man. You've made it, My goal with interviews, I do, is always to make people feel super comfortable. And, like, I feel super comfortable here, man. Good. Well, thank you so much for coming on the show today. I did want to give you a second if you have anyone you want to give a shout-out to. Or, of course, your own company. Like, tell people where to go if they'd like to purchase a fast board. If there's anything you forgot that you didn't mention about fast or homebrewing or any other shout-outs to anyone that you want to give, go ahead and do that now. The floor is yours, Aaron. All right. So obviously my company is Fast Pinball. You go to FastPinball.com and see what we're all about. Check out our docs. Check out all the hardware and stuff like that. I want to shout out and again, I'm coming off the high of like the whole pinball expo thing. So, you know, the whole Marcos crew putting on that that great booth this year that won best of best booth of show was pretty incredible. And, you know, Rob Burke and Bridget and everybody over there have been so supportive for homebrew for quite a while now. So I always like to shout out to them, you know, and to all the homebrewers that brought stuff out. It's it's a huge effort. It's a lot of time, a lot of energy. I mean, I think that anybody who made the effort to be there, I hope that the experience was super good. And based on the smiles and everything I saw at the show, it was definitely a big part of that. And then I guess just general, like, you know, shout out to the crew back at home. You know, Dave Beecher, Eli Kurtz, you know, Brian Madden over off in Paris who does our docs and stuff like that. But, like, I have the privilege of working with, like, brilliant people all day long making cool stuff. and I am forever grateful to everybody that we meet that chips in in any way, shape or form. And so, yeah, pinball's cool. Go make pinball. Thanks so much, Aaron. All I will say before I let you go is that I just came up with this while chatting with you, but if someday, somehow, probably not for my first expo, I think that would be a little overwhelming for me, but after I've got one or two expos under my belt, I do think it'd be really cool if I could find a, if you're still doing this in four or five, If there's a 10th anniversary of Aaron traveling to Expo, if I could find a cheap flight to Vancouver, B.C., and how far south are you of that? A couple hours drive, I'm assuming? I think it's about three hours or something. That's nothing. Those are rookie numbers. That's rookie numbers. I was a driving instructor for three years. I spent 50 hours a week in the car, maybe 60 hours a week at Christmas and summer. That's nothing. Someday, maybe, after I've got my first Expo under my belt, if you're still doing this and one year if you if if your backup doesn't make it and your backup backup can't go and erica's unavailable to go and no one else can go maybe i'll fly out there and drive with you because i i have seen you know i i grew up in southwestern ontario only about an hour and a half from detroit so i've been to you know point i've done quite a few places up and around there i've obviously been to chicago now or at least driven through it i haven't really i've been to schaumburg for the full experience but coming back from wisconsin i got to at least drive through it and say I've been there. I've been to New York. I've been to Las Vegas, but I've never been to California. I've never been to Seattle. Portlandia was my favorite show for like a decade. Everything's weirder there in Portlandia. I've got to go check it out. I'm hearing it's getting scary weird in some parts, but that's neither here nor there. The point is you'll know where we should go and not go. That would be so cool. That would be honestly a dream come true if, I don't know, a couple years down the road I got to do that trip with you someday. Probably won't happen, but that would be really cool. and I know me personally I am a fence sitter sometimes I'll just say this if I was given the opportunity and I only got to choose next year going in blind could I go see the entire homebrew section or miss the homebrew section but get to play the newest pinball machine that was out I would always choose the homebrew section so I'll leave it at that Aaron thank you so much for being here today have yourself a rad day and say it with me if you know it until next time pinball nerds remember to eat, sleep, and breathe Steve. Fast pinball.