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 gonna get more listeners, Welcome back Pinball Nerds to episode 600.5 of your fifth favorite pinball podcast. My name is Orville Elbert and on today's show we're going to be talking all about Stern's new teaser video, the announcement. It is legit. the rumors were true. Dungeons and Dragons is here from Stern Pinball. Now, we didn't see much. This is kind of their I don't even want to call it a teaser video. I suppose they do tease a little tiny bit of what the animations are going to look like and something that was pointed out by the dote himself, the most degenerate of all the degenerates, Joe Chervino, over there at Pinball Degenerates. He said, no, the dragon does not eat the ball, but it looks like it might spit it out. Now, that could just be in the animation. We haven't actually seen the real mech yet, have we? I don't think. So that looks really cool. Like, any dragon that's, like, firing out. Didn't Scott Denisey do Final Destination or something like that, and the tank shot the balls at you really quickly? So I think that's really cool. That's really fun. It reminds me of the Yagov shot in F-14, the shot where it shoots it, you know, hurdles it back at you really hard. I guess the other shot that does that is the Rocky shot, Rocky Raccoon. Rocket, Rocky Raccoon. I think Rocky Raccoon is a song. Rocket Raccoon from Guardians of the Galaxy. Let me first say, if I haven't said it by now, thank you, thank you, thank you to each and every single solitary person that came on the Santa Orby show. I was a little drunk. I got a little drunker than I thought I would. I had a great time. Thank you to everyone who came on the show. thank you to everyone who on the show before, after, and during in the DMs or whether it be a phone call, every single solitary person who took the time and the energy to thank me. And as I'm saying that, I remember that Mr. Christopher Franchi actually took the time and energy to send me a really cool voicemail. So I'm going to, while I bring that up on Facebook here, oh excuse me while i bring this up on facebook here let me also just say to anyone who didn't go listen um you got to go back if you're only okay listen i get when i'm just calling like some of my friends and stuff who aren't really pinball media there's not that much juiciness there but go back and listen to my interview with like uh colin from the kineticist that was great uh got actually more information there about the twippies and such than i thought possible you can speed through the in-between stuff when I'm just talking or whatever and and you know you can just use the fast forward function to go to like definitely you gotta gotta if you're only gonna listen to like three or four I'm trying to think Josh Roop from Loser Kid that was really interesting I accidentally was more serious about it than I actually thought I would be um who else who else uh Glenn the Skateboarder was there thank you so much Glenn for coming on of course um I tried to call a couple people I really wanted to get through to Ray Day didn't quite I get through to Ray Day. Who else? It was a great time. I got to talk to Ryan Barry, of course, all the way over there in Australia. And Happy New Year to Ryan Barry and his rad partner, Kimba. Happy, happy, happy New Year. You know why it's Happy New Year? It's Happy New Year because in Australia, they are exactly, well, where Ryan is, is exactly 12 hours ahead of me. which means instead of being 3 p.m., it's 3 a.m. So he's probably partied out. He probably played a whole bunch of pinball. I don't have my Bluetooth plugged in. I don't have my Bluetooth on me right now. So I'm going to turn the volume up on here, and I hope you all can hear this as good as possible. It's just a quick 20 seconds from Mr. Franchi. Thank you so much. I thought Franchi might send me a message. Whether or not I got an audio message was something I not only did not ask for, but I just genuinely was surprised and really appreciated it. So then I felt bad. I thought, why didn't you try calling Franchi on New Year's Eve? And I should have. Not New Year's, sorry, Christmas Eve when I did my, I guess it was December 20th, but my ho-ho-ho Merry Christmas. And that being said, every one of you pinball nerds out there listening, imagine Orbeez, warm arms. It's starting to sound weird, but just imagine I'm giving you a big hug for Christmas. And listen, if you're like Ron from Slam Tilt, and hugs make you uncomfortable, just imagine I gave you a high five. And if even touching people makes you weirded out, just imagine I gave you a head nod. The Orby head nod. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Happy New Year. Merry Christmas. Thanks for listening. Some of y'all are hate listeners. Some of my hate listeners have left because I've been so measured and been so calm and down to earth. Okay, I'm still not calm or down to earth, but let's be honest. I haven't lost my temper in a very, very, very long time. like I did with the infamous, now infamous or famous? I think it's infamous. I don't think it's famous. The now infamous Stern rant. I call it the Upper Decker incident. The Upper Decker incident. And as an ordained Judas priest, I was thinking about this. For all the reasons I should be ashamed for that stupid podcast, the number one reason I should be ashamed is because I am literally an ordained Judas priest. And part of my ordainment was promising that I would take the oath to chill. And that was not being chill. Was that being chill? Of course it wasn't. Let me try to move Franchi in here, and hopefully this is loud enough. You know, back in the day, we only got 120 episodes of the classic 1966 Batman TV show. Yeah, we have to endure 600 episodes of the Pinball Nerds podcast. Life just isn't fair. Oh, but hey, you know, hey, congrats on 600 there, Orby. Way to go, buddy. Yeah. That was the most Franchi. That was the most Franchi congratulations I think I've ever heard. So, Mr. Franchi, thank you so much for that. Hopefully you guys could hear that clear. You know what? I will vow. I can see it was a little bit low on the microphone. I will try to compress it slightly, but I will vow. I will vow to play that again with the audio properly. Not only is Hayden sleeping, my oldest son who has the Bluetooth that I use for recording, but he is up in his room sleeping and I think the speaker's in there so I'm not going to go wake him up on New Year's Eve. My guy worked till 5.30 a.m. this morning, went to bed probably around 7.30. He'll be getting up soon for New Year's but I do not want to... New Year's for a 19-year-old dude is like... I know some people out there say New Year's isn't that important of a holiday. They're wrong, okay? Because when you're 19 years old, New Year's is better than probably everything but Christmas and your birthday. You know what I mean? New Year's is solidly number three, because when you're 19 and your girlfriend wants you to take her out for dinner and write her poetry and get her flowers, you're jealous of all your single buddies who get to go party that night. But when you're 19, New Year's is when you get to go out and party, you get to go out and have fun, you get to go out and get phone numbers, I guess. Nowadays, they get Instagrams. I've been whispering ever since I mentioned Hayden was sleeping, haven't I? All right, so imagine Homer. and he's so excited he just got free donuts for life. He's going, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, and he's spinning around on the ground, okay, spinning around on the ground going in circles. He's the most stoked, the most excited. It'd be like Norm from Cheers finding out he's getting beers for life, okay. It'd be like Kramer from Seinfeld finding out he's getting Kenny Rogers chicken for life. It'd be like Orby finding out he was, you know, oh, geez, just not getting the best cheeseburger on planet Earth, but imagine if I got to hang out with Randy Bobandy from the Trailer Park Boys and have a cheeseburger. Hayden actually met him last year. I went to go see him do a comedy show, and the only thing he could find to get signed in the restaurant was a little milk creamer. So I have a very, very, very rotten milk creamer signed to Orby from Randy Bobandy. It's probably very curdled now. No, I think we left it in the fridge, actually, thankfully. but if I ever run out of cream, I know where it is. No, but I was running around like Homer on the ground when I found out that Stern invited me. You, you're not invited. Okay, sorry. Definitely, definitely should not sing Alanis and never in that key. You, you're not alone. You're uninvited. slightly better but still super cringy didn't warm up my voice and I'm just getting over like I don't know I think it was like the Norwalk virus or something like literally right around Christmas drop targeting y'all started to feel sick and then the next thing you know hurry up Hayden's down and out and then yesterday morning poor little Orby Jr. started to get the old stomach flu or whatever the heck it was it was like we all it was like we all took turns one a day getting sicker and sicker And then last night I felt it coming on. Now I doubled up on my zinc, my vitamin D, you know, all the good stuff, all the stuff, the turmeric, all the things that help your immune system. I did it all today. I did it all. Even fasted until 2 p.m., getting crazy. had a wild awesome smoothie with blackberries which are like the highest amount of fiber with the lowest amount of sugar of all the berries so I was just trying to like clean up my system and get healthy and my voice is just barely working well enough to be talking to you meow it's definitely not working well enough to be singing I'm not even a good singer with a background track definitely not good if not but you know what no one bought my x-men 49 not one of you mother freaking listen turds. You're supposed to be a listener, but if you don't, if someone doesn't buy this, X-Men 49, you're a listen turd. No, I did just get a Mickey Mantle. Let me look over here. I did just get my Mickey Mantle back. If you're at all interested in baseball and serious collectibles, I have it right now for $1,250 Canadian. I would drop that to $1,000 Canadian or $750 US shipped, insured. Obviously, I would insure that kind of value. The closest one to it, there is one PSA 5. It's Mickey Mantle's second last year playing, 1958. His only Tops card that he had that year. Beautiful card. I could be wrong. He might have had a Hall of Fame or a hitting record card or something. But the only card that I know of from that year that I can find on eBay. And it's at a PSA 5. This is a real big boy. I don't normally get big boys. Thankfully, this was traded to me from Ed from Halifax for my Guardians of the Galaxy. I've been waiting like six months to get this back. Vintage takes forever to get back from PSA. So I did recently get it back over the Christmas holidays. And anyways, originally I was going to price it closer to about $850. And then I looked and looked and looked. And there's several sales over $900 for way worse graded cards and cards that don't look. The color's not nearly as good. So for people who don't know, with vintage cards, PSA, the grade from PSA or whomever you're grading with does matter, but almost as important is, because you can have two PSA 5s, one that's not centered and has bad coloring, but it happens to have sharp corners, who cares? And then you can have another one like mine that has decent corners is not centered as good but wow the color is just brilliant It just pops Like this thing has never seen one second of daylight since 1950s Like, whenever it was printed, the year before 1958, so 1957. Gorgeous card. I also want to give Ed a little bonus once I sell this bad boy, so help me out. Help Ed out. I'm hopefully going to give him at least 10 if not 15% of it which would be a good chunk of the profit I was hoping to get from one of the two cards I got from him I knew that would grade well I thought this would grade a 3 or a 4 and be like a $400 card maybe at max I actually thought it would come back authentic because it was in a very very very thick case from the 80s and those thick cases from the 80s quite frequently squish the card so much that they have to say it's authentic because they can tell you it's a real card but they can't tell if it's been trimmed or squished or if someone's trying to make it look better. So anyways, long story short, I've gone off topic. What else would you guys expect? Thank you, thank you, thank you to Stern for inviting me. I do appreciate it. I'm not going to lie. I did not email them back that I was not going until just moments ago. I let Zach Sharp over there and the marketing department know that I would not be coming. I did thank them profusely. I'm not, you know, I didn't sign an NDA or anything, but I'm not going to read the whole email. But basically, they told us they were going to cop us a really nice meal. Even if it's pizza in your Chicago, it can still be a really, really nice meal. Is it Giordano's? Is that the one that is? No. Am I confused? Anyways, there's multiple really good, incredible pizza places that I would love to try there. But here's the thing. There's many reasons why I'm not going. And oh, I don't know if you guys ever saw this. Many of you listening probably at least heard about it. well, maybe not heard about it, but either saw it in real time or just if you're not a fan of him, you don't listen to Canada, or Chris from Canada's Pinball Podcast, he actually offered, whether or not he was half kidding and half in jest, which he might have been, he seemed pretty open and honest that he was serious, though. He offered to pay for my entire trip from start to finish travel and entertainment, or sorry, travel expenses, or at least toss me $500 towards it. now there's multiple multiple reasons which we're not going to get into all them today there's multiple reasons why I am absolutely uninterested in that number one if I do go I want to go I would prefer to go if possible on my own dime or maybe maybe maybe more like what Kerry Hardy was saying uh on my patrons dime because then you're providing a service and when when Kerry Hardy goes and it wasn't Stern's money or it isn't JJP's money then he's more apt to be open and honest about what he saw. And I believe that Kerry Hardy has such a big presence in the pinball community. When he goes to an event like this, he's providing a service. He's basically doing marketing. He's doing advertising. If your product is complete crap, he's going to call you out on it, which he should. But at the same time, he doesn't owe anything to Stern after this or JJP or anyone else. He only owes it to his patrons, to his fans, to his truest, biggest fans who support him financially and want to see him succeed and want to hear his unfiltered, unfettered truth. And this is part of the reason why I think I'm going to start a Patreon next year. I said for a very, very, very long time, if you guys financially support me, I won't do Patreon. And you know what? I did get so many donations this year. I have to start by thanking all of the tribespeople, Ian, all the tribesmen, all the tribeswomen, all the tribe members. Thank you, thank you, thank you so much. and outside of that I know Aaron from Fast Pinball was so kind I know Ray Day gave me a really rad late Christmas early Christmas birthday present so I could take Drop Target Danielle out for like a rad meal when we were there and treat ourselves for people who maybe three times a year we have a meal in around the $80 to $100 range that's not something we do all the time so that was just incredible It's not lost on me that I'm sure it was more for drop target Danielle. She's a lot more tolerable than me, right? But, hey, you never know. Everybody, Merry Christmas. Happy New Year. Thank you for everything. If I had to make a list of reasons I don't want to go, number one would be financially I can't afford it. Number two would be I can't financially afford it because Stern told us very, very, very late with like less than two weeks to be able to try to look for – it wasn't quite less than two weeks. It was probably right around two weeks. But it was a very, very, very nice Christmas present for me. I was extremely stoked. And you know what? I'm not even going to, like, I'm not even going to diss them or, like, try to request or ask. I did not ask in my response to them to pay for it. I don't want them to pay for it. I don't think they should have to. My response to them in the email was as simple as this. If next time you could do one of two things, A, please let us know further in advance. because if I had known even 7 to 10 days before that, with about three weeks to a month's notice, I can book for way cheaper, and I can find a way somehow, some way between. You know me. I eat, sleep, and breathe pinball. I will get there. I will make it to Stern. Stern is the mecca of pinball. I want to go see Stern. There's no other factory I'd rather check out. Now, maybe if you said I got to do all the other factories in comparison, maybe, but even then, I'm like, I don't know. Jack Danger, Keith Alloyne. Come on. Can you imagine working at Stern? Even if I lived in the Chicago area, which maybe dropped target. Maybe not. But let's just say I did it. My little fantasy. And I moved to Schaumburg. And I lived in the cheapest... I don't even know if I could afford the cheapest, crappiest house in Schaumburg. I'd probably have to live in a small little studio or bachelor apartment. And I just kept applying at Stern. I applied to work in the kitchen. I applied to work in the bathroom or be a janitor. And I applied to like work at maybe, I don't know, maybe, maybe, maybe be a tour guide. I think I'd be okay at that. I think I'd be pretty good at that. But maybe eventually work my way up to tour guide. But if some way, somehow, I could work at Stern. And you're just sitting there and you go for your lunch. And you open up your He-Man lunch pail. And all of a sudden, Keith Elwin comes and sits down beside you because it's the only spot left. And he's like, oh, no, I've got to sit with Orby again. No, I'm just kidding. But wouldn't that be so cool? Like that literally, like if I got a job at Stern and I was just able to clean their toilets and make sure no one was doing any naughty upper deckers, that would literally be my dream job. Like some people want to work for NASA and go to the moon. Other people want to be trillionaires. Other people want to like, I don't know, I already have a small company. So that was kind of my dream for years. And that's still going well. It's not getting huge. We're not getting bought out by any major companies anytime soon, but I'm still very, very, very excited to be part of it. And I don't want to seem like I'm not appreciative of Stern inviting me, because I certainly am. However, it sort of feels like, well, for instance, when you invited Kaneda, he got his flight paid. Didn't they get a limo bus? I was told there was strippers. No, I'm just kidding. That part was totally a joke. But no, they had a limo. They went to Logan Arcade. They were given lots of money for tokens. Maybe I'm confusing this with JJP now, but both with JJP and Stern, the two I weren't invited to, the two I really wanted to be invited to, where I feel like all the other content creators were going, that's where I wanted to go. I wanted to go to meet Kale and Rachel. I don't remember if they, I don't know if they're going to this one. I doubt they are. They're probably very busy, and it's on a Tuesday, and you've got to pay for your own stuff. So I don't fault a single solitary content creator for not going this time. At the same time, if I lived within probably five-hour drive, maybe six hours, honestly, I probably would drive to Stern for it this time. If I lived within like a $200 to $300 flight, I would probably do it. Even if I had to pay for a hotel or beg Raymond Davidson if I can sleep under his air hockey table. I don't even know why I just said air hockey table. I thought it was funnier than pinball table. he probably doesn't have air hockey. Why would he? It's obviously a bubble checks. Come on. No, come on. This man, he has a, I can see it right now. Ray Day. Oh, happy birthday to Ray Day. He just had his birthday, by the way. And my guy must love Skittles because like his fam, it looked like his fam there made him a Skittles cake. So happy birthday to you. I've already sang once on the show. I'm already past my top total amount of times that I can sing. but I just wonder if before the podcast started you googled what type of food makes the largest crinkling noise and you found that chocolate is the one that makes the most amount of background crinkle I'm just kidding, I'm just kidding, come on you gotta go out of 2024 with a bang Drop Target Danielle and I are chilling at home tonight believe it or not we're gonna split like two or three ciders and then I have one beer, I have one IPA that I'm having the reason I'm not partying like a rockstar tonight and this is part of the other reason why I'm not going to stern is I'm actually trying something really hard I'm attempting to do a 7 day fast I've only done the 7 day fast once in my life before it was about 6 years ago I've done probably 15 to 20 3 day fasts those aren't too too bad I've done 2 maybe 5 day fasts those are pretty tough You're very, very, very low energy for a couple of those days. But here's what I can tell you. The best chance of you actually completing day one of fasting, which is the hardest, believe it or not, the hormone that makes you hungry starts to go away, depending on how many carbohydrates you have in your liver and many other factors. Anyways, why the hell am I fasting? That's for me to know and you to not ever find out. But no, I mean, basically, I'm doing it a little bit for health. I'm doing a little bit for weight loss. I'm doing it a little bit to reset my relationship with sugar and my insulin dependence because, let's be honest, I ate way too many cheeseburgers. I had way too many, people say I ate too many chocolate bars. And I also had way too many, I probably drank way too much craft beer for a couple weeks. So I need to do a full reset. as many of you listeners know, I usually take a month off of social media, so you won't be seeing any famous Orby live streams during January, or probably not, even though I was already thinking about tomorrow doing a polar bear swim in New Brunswick and live streaming that, because if I backflipped for the first day of the year, everyone who said that I wasn't going to do a backflip, I don't know if they would let me, because you're backflipping off of like a big red like box into like a hole in the pond's ice, so it's not into the ocean, don't worry, I wouldn't do that, swimming in the ocean in salt water is much more dangerous, way more currents, other issues. I probably want to have a wetsuit for that. This is just in a freshwater pond, so it will be cold, but it won't be too cold, right? But no, I'm probably going to be taking a month off. Whether or not you'll have another show from me, you will. You will. I don't want to be like, well, I might go away. No, I'm going to be back because I got to talk more about D&D, especially if Zach sharp takes me up on uh my advice which was if you can't do it for this one please try for the next one if possible to do a live stream or some type of like media you can put it doesn't have to be live if you're worried about things going wrong but what i would suggest is while you have the media there live in person just have someone streaming that so that and yes you'd have to do like a key encode or something and probably one jerky person would share that live stream later but who cares it sounds like it's all on the same day of the release it's the same day the distro are going to see their stuff. Apparently they're getting invited there. So anyways, who knows? I would love for that to happen. I did beg, pretty much beg Stern and say, please parlay my invitation. Part of the reason why I didn't message them back today and part of the reason why I'm not going isn just because airplane tickets are from the cheapest I could find on Expedia from Moncton to Chicago with one stop in Toronto was there and back if I stayed for four or five days And if somehow someway Jack Danger let me sleep on his couch or if Gary Stern said fine, Orby, you can sleep under my desk, or if somehow, someway, I was going to call him Seth Rogen, but isn't it Seth? Who's the new guy? The new guy, Seth from, the new guy. He's been there like three years. He just did a really cool interview on Loser Kid, by the way. Shout out to Josh and Scott. That was really good. We did learn quite a bit there about Stern. And I think he's actually doing a really good job for the most part in the position. Of course, pricing would be still the main thing maybe most people are talking about. But let's just back up the... Beep, beep, beep. Let's just back up the truck for a second here and go back to why else I'm not attending Stern and why I don't want anyone to give me any money. Part of it is because it's D&D. And look, twice in my life, twice in my life, once I got to a party, I'm putting that in brackets, early. I got to a buddy of mine's party early. And it was like on a Sunday night when we were, I don't know, it was like Canada Day or something like that. One of these like get-togethers. But he always had his like nerd, like, and I am a nerd. I am a nerd. I am a pinball nerd. I do like sci-fi. But I'm not like D&D level nerd. That's kind of like Magic the Gathering and D&D level nerd is like just like one level up from me, you know? Like I'm one level or two down from that. I even have tried playing Pokemon before but I have never ever ever tried D&D I have respect for it I think it's neat, I think it's interesting I love roleplaying just as long as it's in the bedroom what I don't necessarily love is roleplaying that I'm in a dungeon without with my male friends that seems less fun to me I'd be willing to try it, I've never done it I've played Munchkin, it's kind of a roleplaying game a little bit, like an entry level, or exploding kittens. That's not really role-playing. It's more of just, yeah. Anyways. The reason I waited till today to tell y'all that I got invited was because if everyone had pulled the wool over Orby's eyes and it was actually Pokemon, you gotta catch them all. Including, imagine going... And then, if it was any Elowen, even King Kong or whatever, I would be like, yeah, let me look up the flights, let me see. I'd be like, maybe. I'm sorry, D&D, I'm like a 2 or 3 out of 10 excited for, probably a 2. If I had to be honest, y'all paying for my flight, I'm like a 10 excited for it. You pay for Orby's flight, he's like a 10 excited. No, I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. Jersey Jack, please, do not invite me to Harry Potter if there's not a single mech that interacts with the ball. Y'all got to go back and look at Woz and be like, whoa. why was it that Orbital Alboron one of his first of 600 shows specifically said not only that Wizard of Oz was maybe the most beautiful pin he'd ever seen, it had more mechs than 10 sterns combined and definitely it had back then I mean like what was coming out then like Game of Thrones that sort of had one toy so like Wizard of Oz was just like killing it and that's more of what we wanted to see with like Avatar and definitely what we want want to see with Harry Potter. Like, if you have the, if you have them playing Quidditch, and the balls aren't actually going through the rings, the balls are just hitting near the rings, then the rings are lighting up like a ball went through it. I'm not saying go back to the drawing board, but like, you've got to find one toy that interacts with the ball. You've got to. You've got to. Okay, let's not JJP it up. This is Stern's day. I want to give Stern their due. I'm excited to see D&D. I'm even more excited to cover it now knowing that I was invited and I'll be even more excited and so will many other content creators be excited if we have some way, shape, or form to feel like we're involved in it. If you cannot include us in a live stream that day, if you cannot find one lackey in the marketing department that will just hold a phone and watch and show basically what all the other content creators are getting to see there live, if you can't do that, you shouldn't be a lackey, then hire Orby. Orby will be your lackey who will do your live streams. But no, if it, and in the future, Stern, if you say, you go, you know what, it's not really fair that Kaneda, who's a multi, multi, multi billionaire. In fact, one time he was bragging about selling more than one lot of Transformers than I paid for my entire house. If you feel bad about paying for his first class ticket and his meals and his limo and his limo bus and, and, and everything else that was done for him and all the other content creators at the last show, why don't you just say for a select few content creators who have never got to go to Stern, who we've never invited in the past, we may pay for their travel and entertainment. Because if you said something like that, I think that the industry would understand, hey, like, you know, Vic's got to go there from Vic PC. What is it? The VP, sorry, virtual pins and Kong's got to go there from Kong's R Us. But Orby has committed his entire life to pinball. Pretty much watched every live stream big tournament in the last 10 years. Tried to attempt to qualify for Ontario for seven years straight. Never got higher than 26th or 27th, I think. Tried to qualify multiple years in a row for New Brunswick. Finally ended up not only qualifying, as I did several years in a row, but winning it. I'd love to come to Stern. It would probably be, now that I'm happily married and my children are older and stuff like that, I mean, I guess other than like the day one of my children get married, if they ever choose to, like other than that day or maybe having a grandkid born again, if they choose to, like going to Stern, it's right up there. It'd be right up there. Now, would I rather do it at Expo when there's tons of other pinball? Like I want to kind of nail two birds with one stone. I want to go do the Stern tour when it's like, I know it sounds silly. Why would you want to do it at Expo when you have to wait in a long lineup? and I want to go to Expo, A, I've wanted to go to Expo ever since I got into pinball, B, I want to play in the tournament there real, real, real bad, love the setup, love the format of the flip out tournament, and then I also want to go to it so I can see people like, well, I know even Ryan Barry's hoping to come down next year, and tons of other pinball people, and even tribe members I haven't met, so I kind of want to do two birds with one stone, especially if I'm spending my own money. Like, 0 to 10, how fun does it sound? Say Stern released, well, I don't know, say they released Pokemon this summer, and I get to go check and be one of the first people to go check out Pokemon the same week as or leading up to, say, Expo or something like that. You know what I mean? That would just be incredible, because A, I'd get to tour Stern. B, I'd get to be part of the media release for a pinball machine I actually love and want to own. C, I'd already be going there for a week anyways. D, I'd get to see tons of other people who are coming from far away. And then also, I'd like to go to Chicago proper and go see downtown and uptown. Do they have uptown there? I don't know. See, that's what I'm saying. I've got to uptown funk it up. Uptown funk it up. Uptown funk it up. All right. Three singing in one show. Probably time to wrap it up, nerds. Absolutely love you guys. Very excited for it. I'll tell you what. I was maybe only like a one or two excited for D&D, and then I saw that teaser video and it got me. And then Joe showed the ball being shot out of the Charizard's mouth there and I thought, oh, okay. If you think about this as kind of like Pokemon-ish because he got the Charizard, right? They kind of got the little Pikachu. Pikachu! And then they... No, no, I'm excited for Pokemon. I'm also excited for Harry Potter. I'm also excited for Back to the Future. I'm also excited for Goonies. If any of those I was invited to and I had enough time to find my way there for a fair price, I'd be in. I'd be sold. I would do it. In a heartbeat, I would do it. Shout out to Foghorn Leghorn and Craft Brew Sally. I saw they put out a Christmas episode, which is queued up. I'm a couple podcasts back. I'm not going to lie. I usually catch up on them all. I typically listen to a lot of them when Drop Target Danielle's at work or the boys are at school or work. Everybody was off for a week there. Hayden's just gone back to work now. So Owen's gone to enjoy New Year's with his girlfriend and his friends. But anywhere you are, no matter where you are around the world, let's count it down with Orby. 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 4, 3, 2, 1, 0. Bonne fête à la New Year. How do you say that? How do you say Happy New Year? okay there you go there's my french happy new year but seriously like here's some goals for me i know this is kind of like this is the part where i always say to franchi you're dismissed if you want i don't have any pinball news to give you i will talk maybe a little bit about my favorite and least favorite things of the year uh by far far far my favorite thing of the year bar none was winning the new brunswick pinball championship it wasn't just the day i won it that was great but it was like it was like the intensity of thinking i had my flight worked out i had everything worked out perfectly and then all of a sudden you know the the airline goes bankrupt and i basically have a mental lapse and uh a mental breakdown and i basically i don't know like i remember shaking and my voice was like twitching and like danielle was just like go you need to go it doesn't matter how much it costs you need to go and then my dad threw in 500 to help cover a little bit of the gas money and like two nights of me staying in the hotel and then like and then the generous viewers like you all the listeners all the people listening were so kind I think I ended up getting like 1300 and donos for that trip plus 500 for my dad so I got like 1800 bucks back for it honestly that covered probably a rate in about half my trip so I had half my trip completely covered because of that. Would I do a trip that long again, like 15, 16 days in the car? I'm not sure. Maybe it was only 12 or 13, but it felt very long. I had a great time, got to catch up with tons of friends and family, got to do the whole thing with my son. Our relationship has positively changed forever. He doesn't hate rock music as much anymore. I don't hate rap music as much as I used to. So there's that. That's good. Hayden even got me a Mac Miller vinyl record for Christmas, which is so cool. I myself, or actually I shouldn't say that, with my money, my Christmas money, my gift money from my pops, from my dad, I did get the brand new Billie Eilish album. I think it's called Hit Me Hard and Soft. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge. Wow, birds of a feather from that album is incredible. And I don't care what you say, if you guys think she's for kids or whatever. I don't care. Billie Eilish. Probably Artist of the Year for me. I'm going to give her Solo Artist of the Year. My favorite band of the year was The Beaches. So we got one Canadian, one American. It's all girls. It was the year of the women, 2024. Chapel Roan was killing it. Chapel's probably the best live performance of the year was Chapel's Tiny Desk performance. If you've never heard of Chapel Roan, but you absolutely love synth pop from the 80s and you really like uh like incredible vocal performances she kind of mixes in this like yodeling type countryish style that's blended with like synth pop so it's just oh i love it um some people don't hayden can't really doesn't like her owen's somewhere in the middle i absolutely love her probably her tiny desk performance was the best if you just type Chapel Roan and Tiny Desk into YouTube and watch that it's just like musically her singing and that was probably the best of the year Billy Eilish's Tiny Desk would have maybe probably been second but Wow what else happened this year what else what else was really rad well what when I came back from that trip I got to interview Zyron Silvers that was so awesome showed it to Zyron and his dad who I know listens as well Oh I owe those people all their coffee as well as their Pinball Nerds podcast trading cards What the F is going on with that? Franchi was kind enough to send me those 50 signed cards. Now that he doesn't sign as often, those probably are even higher in value. Those have got to be included. Zyron did a rap at the end, which was so cool. Thank you Mr. Silvers. Silvers? I'm saying it. I'm sorry, Zyron. I'm probably remembering it wrong. But, yes, had such an overall great year. I really, really enjoyed the release of X-Men. Since then, there's been some faux pas, we'll say, some niche niches that have happened. It sounds like Kyle Kyle Spiteri over there at Stern, he's done a really good job making a new tutorial video, which I'm sure if I were Jack Danger, I'd be like, oh, thank you. my final Christmas present came in because I know Jack, just from me being in chat with him for so many years, he is a perfectionist. And he wanted X-Men to be the best it could possibly be. And because it was put out a bit earlier, like Jack tried to step up when he was asked by Stern to present his baby, his newest baby, a little bit early. He did his best and presented the best he could, but it wasn't like 100% ready for primetime. And these fixes that we're seeing in this tutorial now, these are the same fixes that would have been done of course behind the scenes and fixed before release so I still have full faith in X-Men I love Jack Danger can't wait to see what he's working on right now which we'll probably see you know next year maybe well next year with today being tomorrow and you know probably in 2026 I'm guessing but maybe late 2025 I don't know can't wait to see what Keith Elwin is doing next every single game I play on Jaws I love it more and you heard it right here I think I've said I think I have said this that I had this sneaking suspicion but I'll say it right here I like Jaws better than Godzilla just saying I wouldn't be shocked if Jaws is ranked better than Godzilla in the next year or two I wouldn't be shocked I don't know if it will be I think they'll be very tied I think it could almost be like uh Hulk Colgan and Randy Macho Man Savage. I remember back for years, like, Randy Macho Man Savage was winning, and then didn't they have Elizabeth, the girl? Even the girl went back and forth. The one guy would be winning for a while, so she'd go with that winner. Then the other guy was better at wrestling, so then she would go with him for a bit. So I think it's going to be like that. And I think, honestly, almost any pin put out by Keith Ellin moving forward, there's a very good chance it could also be wrestling. I wouldn't be shocked if in the year 2030 I wouldn't be shocked if about five years from today I was doing podcast number 1111 for you saying guys can you believe that five of the top 10 pins in the top 10 on pin side are Keith Elwins and the other five are Jack Danger's no I don't know about that but like you know I wouldn't be shocked if Jack Danger's got a couple in those top 10s I also wouldn't be shocked if honestly but like five maybe even six at one point of the top 10 pins were Elowen's. I can't remember the last time he didn't put out a banger. How about never? Maybe, maybe, maybe just a slight banger was AIQ. It's at least a slight banger, if not a full banger. You know what I'm saying? Too much bangers. Too much bangers, too much singing, too much Boku, too much chocolate. Y'all have too much chocolate? I had too much chocolate. I was getting gut rot, heartburn, and my Randy Bobandy belly just expanded like Pinocchio's nose there. Another burp, burp, burp, burp over Christmas holidays. But I had a wonderful time. It's been great. Danielle's done a really cool job helping out with Elowen and Franchi and walking them more often. And she's even been feeding the chickens for me in the morning sometimes. And it's just nice. We're both off. We're both relaxing. The kids have been off. We've got to catch up on watching some movies we hadn't seen all together this year. It's kind of funny when you have a very busy, very socially active and sport active 16-year-old and a very socially active 19-year-old who works all the time. You don't get all four of you all together that often. And I'll tell you what, the last two weeks have shown me more than anything, more important than winning any pinball tournament or even winning the province of New Brunswick, more important than me getting to go to Stern for a tour, and yes, even more important than Orby having a single solitary pinball machine in his arcade right now, which we did clean up today. It is looking better, but there is not a pin in there. By the end of 2025, there will be a pin in there, guaranteed, even if it's just a lesser expensive EM or something. But the most important thing and the best thing for me was the quality time that I got with my family. I got to catch up on chatting with lots of friends more over these holidays. I got to send out Christmas messages. If I miss sending you a Christmas message or inviting you, I do apologize. But Merry Christmas. Happy holidays to everybody. moving forward for 2025 I want to continue doing uh you know where I'm I'm not only I would say the first 300 shows of like so like half of my shows were overwhelmingly positive hardly ever called anyone out hardly ever was critical of companies was more so just of a pinball blog and then you know show 300 to show especially 493 so for about 200 episodes there I was a lot I kind of flipped, you know, the pendulum swang. And I was way hypercritical of pinball companies, hypercritical of other podcasters, hypercritical of basically everything. And honestly, I wasn't going through like the happiest time of my life. I didn't know what I wanted to do as a career. I wasn't sure where I was going with the podcast. And it wasn't my best work. It wasn't. And I think that was kind of before, after, and during COVID on my break there. So that was like a tough time for everybody. But I think in the last year, especially since I went and got a therapist, did some therapy in the summertime. My therapist has worked very hard to teach me to be my own best friend, and that's probably the best advice I can give to all of you. Go easy on yourself. We're always our world's, ourselves' biggest critic. Have yourself an awesome year. Spend more time with family and friends. Don't prioritize your bank balance or working more often. Don't prioritize buying pinball machines just to have them. Prioritize buying pinball machines because you love them. You're going to play them with family and friends, or you're going to even just play them by yourself and get better at it. But don't prioritize attempting to make money off every pinball machine you buy. That will make you less happy. Don't prioritize going to every single solitary pinball tournament or every single solitary expo. You will get burned out. They won't be as special when you actually get to it. Okay, if you're a top 10 pinball, like, okay, obviously like Jared August or something, he's got to go to all these big tournaments. But I'm saying if you're just a normie like me and you're ranked like out of the top few hundred, you know pick and choose your favorite ones and that way it's more special and try to align them with times when you can like like I said hit two burns with one stone hopefully when I go to Chicago I get to check out Chicago I get to see all the other I'd like to maybe check out the other factories there and if I was on Stern's Dime or even invited by Stern would I really feel comfortable going to check out multiple other factories in around that area probably not but anyways I've gone on way too long thank you so much for everybody for listening this year Keep in mind, I have not asked for any donations, nor am I today, please. I don't want anyone to donate money for me to go to Stern. It would actually be a nightmare for me to have to, like, drive for three and a half hours through a mountain range, to sit in a security lineup for three hours, to get on an airplane in the middle of a winter storm, to possibly being grounded in Toronto, to then having to worry about, like, ice on the wings, because I know they're supposed to have a big, like, the next three or four days. Like, the launch is only a week today, right? so if I was flying in even two days earlier one day early I'd have to worry about ice on the wings and there was already are there's multiple plane accidents in the last week surprisingly uh and unfortunately I feel bad for everyone affected in that including all the people at Halifax at the Halifax airport excuse me a plane landed but it didn't have its landing gear down a fire started there was smoke everywhere and the plane was on fire and thankfully no one got injured thankfully no one got injured everyone's fine but yeah I just I between that and my negative of time flying last time, it honestly would be a nightmare for me. I'd probably have to leave here at 3.30 or 4 a.m. I probably wouldn't stop. I wouldn't be able to get to like O'Hare Airport until, while I was looking at all the layovers and everything, if I was trying to go the same day, impossible. With Toronto and layovers and everything, just impossible. Maybe if I paid for like the highest height, like Air Can or something, and I didn't fly Porter. But anyways, it was going to be $1,300 to get there, $600 to get back, plus $200 a night for two, three, I'm not going for one day. I'm not flying all the way there and back. I'm not spending two and a half grand for one day. Like two and a half grand Canadian, I know Canadian is not worth the same as American, but that's like 1800 bucks American or 1700 bucks American. I am not spending that much on going to Stern for one day to help them advertise their product. Especially, come on, I have an honors, at least in one semester, in marketing. I have a degree in marketing from Funshaw College in London, Ontario. Come on, you're going to bring in a marketing specialist like me and not even, you're just going to give me pizza for dinner, even if it is good Chicago pizza? Come on. No, I'm just kidding. I love you, Stern. Shout out to everyone there. It was my advice. I have no one to get mad at because it was my advice to say, hey, in a future launch, now that you've invited a whole bunch of the important people, why don't you just invite everybody, blanket so no one feels left out, and invite everybody to come and just say, yeah, but you got to pay your own airfare. Maybe we'll cover dinner. And that's exactly what they did. And so Stern, are you listening? I think they are. They were listening to me. So I can't be mad they didn't offer travel when I was the one who said that. But I'm very excited to see people's reactions to D&D. I feel like we're kind of like too cool. Like we're kind of like too cool for school in the pinball community. I think many of the pinball podcasters are going to like too cool it, if that makes sense. Like, oh, it's D&D. And yeah, I kind of get it. But I'm just excited. New pinball day to me is a good day. Any new... Okay, maybe not a pinball adventure's new pinball day, but anyone short of them and Home Pin, I get pretty soaked. So get ready for it. I plan on being the first pinball podcaster to tell you, and I do this every time, when the video comes out that actually shows us the shots, the toys, the mechs, you're going to get a top five rad and one bad, or an initial oppressions, depending on how little or how much we see. And I do that before I listen to any other content creators talk about it. I do that before I go on to Pinside. I do that before I go onto Facebook or before I get any other information, any text messages, anything. I do that first. And you know why I do that first? So mine is unfiltered. Because I know me, I don't have a good enough filter. If I heard, you know, one of the other podcasters say something I really agreed with or something I really disagreed with, I would feel like I had to state that on the show. and I just I want to give you an unfiltered unfettered straight up Orby uh review and so that's what you're going to get here on the show when that happens I've gone way over time I don't even know what I'm talking about anymore I will be back with a few shows but then I might take a little break and come back say like I don't know uh geez the 7th the 7th is the day the pin actually comes out oh my gosh I will have not eaten for seven days by then oh no hangry Albert is angry. Albert is, oh no. I'll try to be, guys, if I am unkind to D&D, just remember, it's not because they didn't pay for my flight. It's not because they didn't grab my hotel. It's not because I didn't get a personal invite to hang out in Gary Stern office and use his personal bathroom. The real reason why is because I'm probably hangry from not eating for a long time, or I've failed and I'm just very happy and I'm just sitting here eating chocolate bars like...