This week on the JBS Roundtable, our hosts have a very special guest coming in from... What's this? Hello? Coming across the desk, I have a breaking news bulletin. Emergency podcast to announce the upcoming Pinball Roundtable Awards. Coming soon! This has been Glenn Glenn Waechter with your JBS News Update. Stay tuned for our regular scheduled programming with Jamie, Ralph, and Cale on the JBS Roundtable. Ladies and gentlemen, retro Ralph Cale Hernandez, Jamie Birchall, emergency podcast. Right, boys? Yeah, we're catching people up. So here's let's explain what we're doing here today. It's 15 minutes. But with us, you never know. It could go longer. But we're just here to announce the pinball roundtable awards, gentlemen, that we're going to start. Get going. Here we go. We're really doing this. Yeah. I had no idea. I just woke up. I had no idea. Right. Well, I mean, in all fairness, Jamie, I think it's something that we all thought would. have been cool as like a casual thing like hey on the show we'll give our like top games and all the other categories of the year but then like why don't we just do it as an actual show right we'll we'll record something and have people vote i think it's going to be great it's a good it's a good idea so we've been working really hard behind the scenes kale right uh the three of us on the really hard round table awards and what we're just trying to do is we really with the direction the Twippies are taking, and good luck to Colin and crew and Bash Pinball and such. We thought we really wanted to honor the content creators as well and homebrew section. So we're reducing the categories from industry categories to homebrew and content creator to about 11. We're going to get those out soon. We're working on the voting side, right, Cale? Yeah, that's right. Yeah, I'm doing a little research and setting up some accounts, and that's going to be my end of it, the IT part of it. Yeah. Making sure everything is nice and secure. Make sure everybody's microphone and headphones work at the same time. Yeah, but it's going to be fun. And, you know, this is, you know, just I don't want any rumors to start. Like we're trying to compete with the Twippies. They're doing their thing. Theirs is more of like a black tie industry event. And we're the good times. We're going to celebrate the people. Have some fun. That's right. We're celebrating the people of pinball, and we're going to do some voting. And this is all going to happen very quickly because, like us, it's fast and loose, and it's going to be fun, and we're going to do the voting. Everybody's going to have a great time participating in that. And then we're going to do like an hour-long show, and that's it. And we're going to premiere that on Ralph's channel on Retro Ralph Live, right? I think so. I think that was what we decided on, right? Yeah, that's what we're going to do. We're deciding everything here, live. We're deciding here. We're going to premiere that on whatever. That's what I like about this, though. That's what I like about when we're all working together. We're just like, you know what? All right, that sounds pretty good, and then we go move on to the next thing. We just got to go fast, right? Like, boom, boom, boom. Let's get it done. We're getter done. This is the getter done award show. It is. And one of the cool things that Kale researched with the voting set is you can't hack it. it's not and it's going to be a simple popular vote right we're not doing a weighted system we're not doing any of that just one vote make it easy 11 categories get through the vote very quickly and uh then we're going to premiere it uh then we're going to produce a nice little show and uh then premiere it live on retro ralph we'll get you all the dates when the voting goes live and all these things in the next coming weeks and we'll make sure that uh you know people understand the time we got to have give people time to vote so we'll we'll make sure we're you'll fully know when the voting's open and then and then obviously there's gonna be a little bit of time for us to do some light production work we're not gonna like it's not gonna be crazy because it's not live and then but we'll the cool thing about it like what you said Jamie we're gonna premiere it so we'll be there watching it in the chat with you so we can talk to you as things are going so as you're reacting to whoever won we can react with you which is which is going to be fun, I think. Yep. Nice jean jacket, too, by the way. Yeah, well, as your wife pointed out, you stole my look. I did. But I switched it up today. I did a flannel underneath instead of a T-shirt. So the normal thing is T-shirt, jean jacket. But it's getting chilly in the desert, so we got a layer. We got a layer now. Anything else to add, gentlemen, as we veered off topic there for a second? Sorry about that. Do we want to talk about anything else? Is there anything else that's exciting news at the moment? I mean, there is the Walking Dead remaster, which we're going to stream. Do you want to do a little plug for Pin Pals coming over? Yeah, do a plug. And Rachel. Pin Pals and Rachel. Rachel's kind of a Pin Pal, too, I guess, because she's been on a couple episodes. She handled them when he got sick. She did an almost better job, so I'm a little worried about Kale losing his game. Oh, wow. To his wife. Yeah, so you've got The Walking Dead. Had some issues, but looking better now? Getting fixed? What happened there? Well, Kale made a recommendation to me when I was having this issue. So it was kind of crazy because I was like, you know what? I'll just unbox it, and I'll do just a stream to get some content out there because there's been no gameplay streams. And I unbox it, plug it in, boom, the game is locking up after a ball. You'd play a ball, the game would just freeze, lock up. So, of course, I messaged you guys, and Kale had recommended, hey, maybe just swap the CPU board with your Star Wars just to see if that resolves it real quick so you can get your stream going. What I did do instead of that as a first step, I reflashed the memory card. And then when I did that, the game was resetting less. But, I mean, I couldn't even get through a complete game before, so it would have been impossible to stream. So anyways, we got it somewhat operational. The stream was fun, but, yeah, there was like three or four times during the stream where the game either crashed or – And then sometimes when it would crash and reboot, it would think that the – I know I'm going to lose Jamie here. It would think the interlock switch was out, but it wouldn't respond to being in or out. So you had to reboot it again. And then usually after like two reboots, it would clear itself out. So it was really goofy ghost in the machine kind of shit. So we'll see. But I think the CPU board might be the main issue. So I'm going to swap that out, and we'll see. And I'll let people know if that resolved my problem. But it was kind of a bummer because we had to stop the stream several times during it, you know. But the game itself, I like the new version much better as far as, like, they've tweaked things that make for less of those, like, shitty drains that you just used to get on the old one. It's still hard. Like, still a bored game. Very clearly you're getting bored still from time to time. But I think it feels a lot better. I really do. I put about ten games on it at Eureka Heights last night, guys. Sorry. Oh, you both played it. And I put about 10. Put up 368. 368 million. Whoa. Yeah. So can you tell me, you guys have seen it in person. What are your thoughts? I mean, just a look of it. Oh, it looks good. But, you know, the complaints on the art and everything were bologna and cheese. It looks really good. I'll give you my perspective. I'm a fan of the show. I liked the dinginess of the original because that totally fit the theme but I also felt like the original is harder to play because it's so dark like it is so dark I felt like the vibrant colors a little bit have made it easier to find everything on the play field so like everything's very well lit up now there's might be some people that would go it's a little off the theme for not being as dark but I find it's actually makes it a little easier to play it but I could go either way, I like the art on the old one, on the playfield, being kind of dingy. The side art is just whatever, but it's not as big of a concern to me now seeing it in person than it was when everyone was freaking out. It looks pretty good. I liked it. At the end of the day, you put your two games if you have more than two games or three games, then it's in the middle and you don't see the shit anyway. You know when you're coming through the pops, Kale, when you're coming through the pops and that goes straight down the middle, they totally fix that. They totally fix that. Cool. They totally fixed that. Now, it still once in a while goes down the middle with that, but they fixed that. Don't you feel like the left drop used to be really hard on the original? It's a little easier. It's a little easier. It's a little easier. A little bit. Or it seems to be. I don't know. We might be just full of crap. Well, the other thing, too, the barn, you know when on the barn it holds the – You know how it magnetizes the ball and then sometimes it shoots it straight down the middle? It does still kind of do that, but I think that's just part of the game. Like, be ready, nudge a little bit, and you can kind of correct that. But I think that's intentional. I think that's supposed to be a hard thing when it shoots it back at you. I don't think it's supposed to be easy. But that still exists. For the most part, it shoots. I like those rollover targets they added, too. Those ones that light up. Yeah, they added a rollover target. On the skill shot. On the skill shot, yep. Those are cool, too. And they added a third one. I think there was only two before they added a third way down in the beginning. Yeah. When you come through, which is cool. It adds, you know, a little more. But the code is the same code, Cale. There's nothing different so far. And you can still see, you know, licensure, pending licensure approval. It's kind of weird. My biggest beef with it, I think, my biggest thing that I, and I don't know if this is the finished product. I kind of get where they were going creatively with it. I don't love that I have this big, big screen now. And they limited, so they made like, they letterboxed it sort of. So you've got these big bars in the top and the bottom that have your score display. And then it has like the walking dead, but really big. And then really big, your ball that you're on and everything. And so the animations look like, at least in their infancy, they look kind of cool, but you're only seeing them in this very small frame, and I just feel like they're using way too much of the screen for the scoring. They could either do that as a transparent overlay, or somehow it just feels like it takes away from this fact that you have this new screen, but I think the art direction was, hey, let's put it in the aspect ratio of a DMD-ish style, so it kind of still feels retro-ish maybe, and then the other weird thing that it does, it doesn't feel complete to me, and I don't know, Cale, if you've seen this yet, every now and then it will switch from this letterboxed modern thing to a simulated DMD-style look. But when it does that, it goes full screen. But then it goes back to the weird letterbox thing. So it feels like it's incomplete. Like they got it out, the Lyman Sheets rules and code are in there, but they're going to work on the animations. That's my perspective because I don't feel like it looks finished to me. I feel that way too. Yeah. Yeah. And this thing Serge pointed out, the drop targets, there's some progress stuff next to your score. And he commented on my video. He said, I think those things are supposed to light up to tell you what your progress is. And he's like, I was watching your stream, and they were never changing. So he's like, I can tell right away the animations aren't done. I mean, there's stuff that they just haven't even coded into the animation. Serge. But play-wise, I don't know, Jamie, what do you think? I felt like I had a good time on it, and it felt good. Like it felt a little bit better than the one I'm used to playing. Yeah, it definitely felt a little bit better. I had a Walking Dead LE in my house for a long time, and this one feels a little easier. Just a little easier, you know? Would you have yours pitched at, though? Because I was calling bullshit on your score a little bit. What's it pitched at? I have mine pitched at bat pitch. Where's yours pitched at? It's baby pitch, huh? 6'5 over there at Eureka. It might be. Did you just take it out of the box? Did anybody adjust it? No. They took an hour. When they get them at Eureka Heights, they tighten all the screws. That's the first thing they do. They pull it up. They tighten everything. They have to add the NIAC readers. You weren't paying attention. I got there at 3 o'clock yesterday. Did anybody touch those back leg levelers? Did anybody touch the back leg levelers? Yeah. Dude, you have no idea. You know he wasn't paying attention. Cale, you know he wasn't paying attention. You weren't paying attention. You know what? Are you going there today? No. Yeah, probably tonight. If I want you to take a picture and don't manipulate this shit, take the picture of the back legs and the bubble. I want to see where it is on both. Because I got mine steep. What do I just hold a leveler in my pocket? No. Jamie. Oh, there's a bubble on the thing. The bubble on the thing. That's not a good gauge of it, but I want to see it. I want to see it anyway. Yeah, send a photo. Picture of the bubble. Picture of the back legs. I want to see where those things are at. Post it on Instagram, and I'll add you as a collaborator. How about that? Because I'm calling bullshit. I think that thing's baby. It's 6'5". See, he's already setting up. Ladies and gentlemen, we announced a couple of weeks ago that me and him are going to be going head-to-head, Cale. Right? The teams need to be the same. And he's already whining that his pitch is higher. Look at him already setting up. Because I don't want you to have an unfair advantage. If you babysit it up baby style, I don't want it to be. The unfair advantage is that I'm just a better player. Hey, your score wasn't that much better than mine. I was like 200. I'm going to beat that score. It's all my mission is this whole weekend. I'm going to destroy that shit. Destroy it. It's a friendly competition, folks. Speaking of friendly competition and beating people's scores. Yes. Oh, yeah. Have any of you gotten? That's awesome. I'm going to go play. I don't have one. I got to go play. I got to go. I have to find one around The electric kale score you can get my badge Now you know before you could get Ralph badge Now you can get my badge That's so cool, man. And when I was at the bat the other day on Tuesday, Kale, like a couple people were like, hey, dude, I got your badge. Like, it was cool. Like, it was cool for people to – and I've had people message me and say, hey, I got the badge and stuff. So it's cool. I think it's a cool thing that they did. And anybody can participate. If you put up a score and you think it's good, you take a picture, you go to that website that Stern set up. It's right off the main site, and you can submit your score, and you can maybe get highlighted. It's pretty cool. To give them some props, boys, they did a good job because it wasn't hard to navigate through the Stern Insider Connect. I added a bunch of scores and had a blast doing it yesterday. There were about 15 of us just trying to get badges, and it was a blast. It's fun, man. badges as well. If you put up $400 million in a multiplayer game, so if you and Rachel and you and Rudy play and you put $400 million up on a Stern Insider Connect, you get a special badge. Oh, any game? $400 million? Yeah, but you've got to have multiplayer. You've got to have two players. Okay. And one of you has to put up $400 million. Does it have to be a co-op mode or just regular? Just have, you know, just not by yourself. and it's a cool little badge that they're running in december can i tell you guys something stupid i did during thanksgiving and i and i kind of forgot about it so i i don't usually you guys know i don't i don't drink a lot like i just don't like jamie you don't drink a lot right and kayla i don't think you drink at all right all right yeah so so thanksgiving stuffed with a ton of food i'm drinking my my my father-in-law likes to drink bourbon and when you don't have a high tolerance and you're drinking bourbon like you're gonna get you're gonna get kind of messed up fast so i'm feeling messed up i look at my phone you know it was downtime no one was it was like everyone was stuffed with turkey no one was communicating anymore everyone was like what zombie-ish i get this message saying stern's having this black friday sale or whatever like some kind of sale so i go on there and i bought a bunch of stuff like just i was like oh that looks cool blah blah and and then i get this box the other day like i really don't remember what i ordered and i get this big kim's like you got this big box from stern i was like i didn't order a big box like what would it be a big box she's like open it i want to see what the hell you got so i open it up and you know what i bought this is so i literally legitimately don't remember buying this you're never gonna guess it's stupid is it a pop bumper sign no it wasn't that expensive i wasn't going that crazy it was it was the cardboard gary stern i bought the cardboard are you kidding me so i'm pulling it on the box and and and then kim goes who's that guy and i'm like it's gary stir. And she's like, why do you want that? I was like, I didn't know I did. So sometimes you have a couple of drinks, you do stupid things. How does it show up? Is it folded? Or is it? Yeah, so he, like, I pulled it on the box and like his head popped out of the box. But he folded it over. It's so stupid. But now I have him over by, I'll take a picture and send it to you guys. I have him over by my scoreboard. He's like presenting the scoreboard. So he's in my garage now. There you go. Why I need that, I don't know. I don't even want to look what I paid for that. You know, down south, a lot of these southerners don't drink at Thanksgiving. Hmm. Really? Yeah. It's a strange thing. Some people don't drink at Thanksgiving. They don't drink at Christmas. But I think that's normal. Like it's customary not to? Yeah. It's customary not to. Isn't that weird? I always have a few pops at Thanksgiving and Christmas. I can't deal with all the different political people yelling at me without having a few pops. No, that's true. Yeah, luckily we got out of Thanksgiving with no political talk, like nothing. That's a miracle. Some guy was wearing a MAGA hat at ours. Anyway, that's it. Is there anything else you guys want to say? I don't know. We weren't going to do a roundtable. We were literally just going to do the pinball roundtable. I know, but we can't just not talk. I feel like we just want to – should we end it? Should we end it just because we gave people what they needed to know? I have a half an hour, so it's totally up to you guys. I don't care. Because, Cale, you guys put some pretty fun topics in there, but I don't want to – Yeah, do the – let's just keep going with it. It's like your morning – this is the first time we've done an early morning show. It's like the morning drive, right? Yeah. Yeah. the zoo the zoo with kale you wanna pick a topic yeah you had so many good ones in there the one that he put down what do you get a pinball person for Christmas oh yes you could get him a cardboard cut out of Gary Stern it's on sale right now you know what you could get him is a fucking t-shirt from the JBS show on Silverball Swag cause I haven't sold any you know to me that's a good question because it depends on what kind of pinball person if it's someone that you know like likes to tinker and repair things like i or even just a general player like i would get them that digital level i have because i can't tell you how many times like you know you play games you move them around a lot and they they will get out of whack quick and you'll know it because it won't it won't play well or the game the ball will be falling and it'll go to the right or the left because now it's not leveled anymore or the pitch isn't right I love that. It's a tool I use probably the most. I use that a lot. And the other thing that I use a ton of, but I don't know how you could gift someone this. That would have to be someone that had a little bit of technical abilities. But that Harbor Freight cart, man, I use that thing all the time to move my thing around, but you do have to modify it. But, man, I use that thing all the freaking time. Which level do you use, the climb? Remember the one that – I remember when you were doing the segment on the podcast to show your thing, the orange one? Yes. The orange one with the digital level on it? Yeah, it's a fine digital level. I think it's great. It's not even that expensive. I think it's like $30 or something. Yeah, and I have a link to it on our website, electricbattarcade.com. There's a tools link, and you'll see it's a big orange level. Yeah, any pinball fan would love that. Oh, that's cool. The pinball swag is great. I just ordered a Walt Wood T-shirt. Nice. I know. I got to get that. That shirt looks cool, actually. That shirt will sell more than a KBS show. So how do you know? Do they tell you when one sells? Yeah, you get like a spreadsheet once a month. Uh-huh. I'm doing great, guys. Right on. I feel like I want to have, like I have merch on my, there's merch on Retro Ralph. A long time ago I made this thing that looked like, it looks like a Stern shirt, but it has, which I don't really like anymore, but it has like my guy on it, and it says Retro Ralph instead of Stern Pinball. um i was selling a lot of that stuff when i was promoting that i had it but now that i don't talk about it no one buys it they see look at it though because youtube gives you metrics on like people look at stuff but they don't end up buying it but i but all my stuff is like three years old that's pretty cool on youtube like if you go to the electric bat youtube channel and you add a t-shirt it'll pop up to the right when you're on your force to use their vendors that's the thing low. Their vendors. I think it's Teespring, if I remember right. I can't remember who it is. Teespring. Yeah. You can't use silver ball swag. And you guys all know, like, that's not really a revenue generating thing. It's more of just a promotional tool. Like, you don't make a ton of money when you sell that stuff. I mean, you can, but then your shirts are going to be too expensive for people to even buy. But, yeah. I think I make, like, five bucks or something. Maybe five or two dollars and fifty cents or something, if someone buys one. Something like that. Big revenue maker. Yeah, it's definitely not a revenue generator. It's more of a get the word out, brand recognition kind of stuff. But I'm trying to think, what other tool, like what other cool, you know, Stern, I got a butt bag on Stern a little bit here. So their sizing on Stern stuff is way off, man. I could buy like a large shirt sometimes from Stern, and it looks like I could fit three people in that shirt. And then I could buy a medium sometimes, and it fits me good. But then I wash it, it's like I don't know the sweet spot. Like what their sizing is all inconsistent. I don't get the same thing. I usually wear an extra large, but I've gotten some extra larges from them that are like super tight. Yeah. Or sometimes they're tight. I know. I don't get what's going on. Well, yeah, man, that always sucks. And when you're getting, you know, your base shirt from like different vendors, it's tough. Yeah. But like, why can't everybody just everybody in China just agree on the size? I think that's the problem. I think sometimes when they're made in China, people in China tend to be more – they're not like Americans where we eat all this food. They don't overly consume shit. So their large is probably what a large should be, but it's just the sizing is all off. But I was going to ask you guys something. This is something that bugs me, but this might be like a weird Ralph thing. Do you guys hate some of these shirts? Some. They're like cardboard, dude. You put them on and it's like your nipples are chafed in five minutes of wearing it. I can't wear this shirt. I like it soft. It's got to be comfortable. All the bat shirts, they're comfortable. It feels good on my body. Rachel only orders 100% cotton. She likes natural fibers. See, no one wants chafed nipple. I mean, if you get chafed nipples, now that shirt is to wax your car, which no one does anymore. But it's like you're washing and waxing or you're like, you know what I mean? I don't know if you guys are the same with me on the scratchy shirts. Shirts? You don't like their shirts? No, no. Some of the Stern ones are okay, but they're even inconsistent. Sometimes their fabric between shirts is inconsistent. I don't get that. Just buy Electric Bat merchandise over at electricbat.com slash shop. You can even buy a gift card on there so people. Oh, that's cool. I didn't know you could do that. That's cool. Email it to a friend and they can buy some Bat merch. We should come up with one more gift idea. There's got to be another cool like – Well, so if you know your buddy has a certain game, just go to Marco Specialties and order them a rubber kit. I mean they'll definitely use it at some point. That's true. I accidentally put – you'll get a kick out of this, Cale. So when we were doing the stream, I had – I have a bag of those. They're the Marco rubbers that are the standard rubbers, which I think simulate – they're very similar to like the Stern ones I think, right? Or they might even be the ones that Stern buys, right? The ones that are PWR, pinball works. No, Stern, Stern does their own stuff. OK, so, you know, the PWR ones, you like those, right? Yeah. Yeah. So those are the ones I buy. Like I buy a big bag of them and I just have them on hand. Well, I had some because I hate that. Remember, I went through my phase where I was doing super bands and realized how terrible they are. Yeah. Well, I guess I had thrown some in that bag by accident. And when I was putting the and I should know because they're very obvious that they're super bands, but I was moving fast. and I threw the ones out on The Walking Dead and put those on thinking I was putting the PWR ones on. And I knew right away in the beginning of the stream, I was like, this is playing like total shit. He was bitching and moaning for like the first three games. But it's true, though. Those suck. Those super bands just do something different with the ball and the velocity and how they bounce. It's just very unnatural because it's that polyurethane. So anyways, I don't even know why I was telling that. But those are a good gift idea, just like Titan rubbers or the PWRs or something. Some people like those low bounce Titans. or maybe even the, what about the Hap ones? Those would be good, but I think those are hard to get. Oh, those like super bouncy ones? Didn't you put some on a couple of games? No, I never did it. Bob at Atomic likes them on his games. And then for SPF, which is I think coming up in January, you should come out, Ralph, the Starfighters Pinball Tournament. They use those super bouncy Hap rubbers for their tournament, and they probably keep them on there for regular play also. I have some here at the house that Bob gave me. I haven't installed them yet. But they're really bouncy, right? Like, that's the thing. The competition players will put them on sometimes to practice. I don't know. But, like, for example, like, tournaments will use it because they think it will, like, throw the players off. But, man, these players, especially the ones coming in. They can adjust. They're so good. Yeah, nothing stops them. I mean, you can do all this crazy stuff. They'll still blow up your machine and beat everybody else. Yeah. What about you, Jamie? You got any pinball gift ideas for people? No. No. Okay. I have one more. Oh, good. Thank you, Cale. Saving me. Yeah, and then we'll go to the next topic, which I think is really important to talk about. Betterhelp.com. You know, these holidays can be hard for a lot of people. And, you know, us pinball folks, they're crazy. So see if you can send your friend to betterhelp.com if they're having any issues. I actually – that's the online therapy thing. I did that for a portion of time. It actually worked out really good. But the thing is like – the other thing that's cool about it, I don't know if it's the same because this was years and years ago that I did it. But at the time, you could like talk with someone, and if you didn't jive, you could like move on to a different therapist. I think that's important. That's the best part. If you ever do that, that's the most important thing because don't give up on therapy because if you find someone that just you don't jive with, that's fine. It's like going to a doctor that you're not feeling. You just go to the next one. You will find someone that's good, and then it'll make – it works wonders, man. You sent me a link, Cal, for better health. What are you trying to say to me? What was that? Is that like just a referral code or what are you trying to do? We have to eat our own dog food here. Okay. So anyway, moving right along, we have to talk about how – Ralph trolled the whole internet. So I am, I'm at the tournament last Tuesday. Ralph's there. And somebody comes up to me and he's like, hey, have you seen this? I found it on Pennside. And it was an image of what looked like a Spike 3 display. And it said Transformers coming 2026, January, something like that at CES. And I was like, whoa, where'd that come from? He was like, I don't know. It just showed up on pin side. I was like, man, that's, that's extraordinary. Five minutes later, Ralph is like, Hey, did you see that AI video I made? And I was not knowing you had that conversation like right before Right And I was like no no it proves this whole we live in a simulation And I was like no what are you talking about And he shows me this He been playing with a what it called Sora Sora, yeah. And it's amazing. It's Ralph trying to break into Stern to find the new game, and it's Transformers. And so people have been taking that screen grab, like capturing a frame, and then it's been floating around jason knapp wrote about it don's pinball podcast i mean like you got everybody but it was weird it was like i just posted it and like did my when when went there went throughout my day right because it was in the morning i posted it yeah you know i started seeing you were sent after kale pointed it out i started seeing like holy crap don posted it someone in carrie's patreon was like is this real look at this but what's so crazy is it had sora like Sora doesn't let you generate stuff without watermarks all over it. And it rotates the watermark throughout the video. So someone, I mean, I guess you could have watched it fast and maybe not saw the millions of Sora watermarks. But some guy came at me and he's like, this is why AI is irresponsible. You did this, Retro Ralph. You did this. And I was like, hold on a minute. I was like, in my mind, the irresponsible thing was to watch it and just clip that one part and then say that this got leaked into the wild. But I don't know. Maybe I'm somewhat at fault. I don't know. But OK, so I'm the guy, right? It's not irresponsible. I mean, before I, you could just Photoshop anything. That's true. Yeah. I mean, so I didn't mean it as a leak. That wasn't the intent. The intent was, you know, you you have fun with it and go check out Ralph's Facebook or Instagram. He has other videos and they're like they're really funny and funny. yeah they're funny he got so addicted to it he he's spamming our chat with all these i was annoying myself though i do realize though after a while you can overdo something so i'm gonna limit my how many i do it but it is really fun because you can you can once you understand how the prompt works you can build like a really good storyboard and then and then the cool thing is like let's say you had an account uh kale and jamie you had an account i can make you characters in that video Like I could be like, hey, yeah, like I could I could be like Jamie's playing a pinball machine. Ralph gets pissed and body slams him. And it would do that. It would it would show me picking you up and body slamming you with your face. We should we should we should do a short. I should. Yeah. The only thing I don't like is the only way you can do that is to make your profile, I think, public. So that means that I think you're giving other people the ability to use your face. I have to check into that because that I that I don't like. I got to check that. I might be wrong, but people use my face. I don't care. It's beautiful. I do understand. Famous last words. My buddy, my buddy pointed out something really interesting to me. He's someone I work with. He's a very analytical dude. He's like, this is where I guess because he's he lives in Silicon Valley. And I guess there's like all these like consortiums and people getting together going like, look, we do need to be responsible with this because from like a litigation legal law perspective, like let's say someone committed some crime. And they wanted to. And it's not that good yet, but let's say it gets so good that someone could create a video that's, like, for their alibi. And no one could tell the difference because none of these companies right now have to put something digitally imprinted on the video. That's, like, some kind of meta tag that says, like, this is AI generated. So it's up to someone to be able to figure out whether the video is real or fake. So there's, like – Congress needs to pass that, like, if it's generated. Because I start seeing bear attacks on my – Who does? Congress. Congress. Oh, you want them to take. OK. Yeah, they're going to do a bang up job. All right. Here's the here's the thing that that issue is not new. That issue is not new. When I worked at a law firm years ago, we had a client that was in all kinds of trouble and he was a legit nut. But he was a rich nut and he was able to, you know, pay us a couple of hundred thousand dollars to try to defend him. and all his various crimes. And this is what got him. He came, just like you're saying, he came up with an alibi, some type of document that proved he was innocent in whatever he did. It wasn't a violent crime. It was some business-related thing. And so it was a piece of paper he brought in. So a lot of people probably don't even know this. the FBI found out that this was not an official document. It was something printed on his printer because every printer has, there's like a watermark in that they can tell which printer this came from. And it was like, it was something you can't see with, with the naked eye. They had to use some kind of instruments and it's like yellow dots and it's a pattern. That's interesting. Yeah. So that, I think that's the same kind of stuff. you're gonna need and and i really don't think it's gonna be congress pulling off something like this the the ai no it's gonna be the companies that make this stuff all together going like hey we it's too good now we're gonna have to have some way to identify that this is an ai video because i mean i've seen like i've seen like shih tzus eating ice cream i'm like it looks like it looks like my dog's eating ice cream right now what the hell's going on my instagram is full like bears attacking people and i'm like holy shit look at this bear and then it's like yeah i don't think that's real like there was one i saw the other day and i was like this is cruel like i'm not into like when people i get that people hunt whatever but this this to me is a cruel thing like and i thought it was real and i was i was like that's that's a messed up thing to do so it was like someone put it was fake it was ai it was like a bowl of those like super hot you know you can buy all those like super hot noodles on amazon and stuff like the noodle challenges They do them on like TikTok and stuff. So someone put that bowl out and like some wild animal ate it. And you hear the wild animal like screaming, like in pain or whatever. And I'm like, it sounds like the sound an animal might make. But it was fake. But I'm sitting here like, who would do this to a, like, that's just cruel. Like, why would you do that to an animal? Like, I could see. Anyways, I'm not a hunter, but. But this is, I mean, this is a different thing. This is, none of this is new. The AI generated video and photograph stuff is new, but none of it's new. we've been our own government's been doing it forever false flag operations um they're a whole um uh you know studios designed like fake weights that that influencers use like like uh fitness influencers they're they're fake weights they use crazy yeah like just the other day um oh last night rachel was watching some videos like oh look at look at this guy it's a guy that goes into gyms and he doesn't look really big but apparently some kind of competitive uh uh you know power lifter and he acts like he's a janitor and then he comes in and then lifts like a ton of weight everyone's shocked or something is that what but you can i mean you can see people's reactions it's all it's all scripted it's it's it has to be script if it's not like Even back when like candid camera type stuff, a lot of that stuff was scripted. So none of this is really new or any reason to be alarmed about it. It's all – it's just packaged differently. Just take it easy, people. Don't get all that fired up. The video of Ralph talking to the audience is absolutely hilarious, and let's just have some fun with it. Don't call him an AI asshole. it was only like one or two people everyone else thought it was funny and knew that it was fake obviously I think most people can look at it and go that's not real because clearly first of all you can see the external building is not Stern Pinball we all know what the headquarters looks like it's not I can't use Gary Stern face because he's not on the app and it won't let you use other people's faces if they're not on the app and it's just obvious right Like, anyway, I think it's very obvious. It was supposed to be funny. Ninety-nine percent of the people thought it was funny and moved on. But I guess someone – I was blown away at how good it looked. It looks pretty good. Yeah. And this is just the beginning. It's just going to get better. Do you remember, though, if you go back, just remember five years ago, I think it was, and I don't know why they used Will Smith. Do you remember it was like Will Smith eating, like, mac and cheese or something? And his fingers – AI couldn't do fingers. His fingers were all messed up. His mouth – it would be like he – Now they showed one that they just did the other day, and it literally looks completely 100% real. There's nothing that looks fake about it. It's mind-blowing. Now that we're on the topic of AI, I don't know if you guys heard this. On Stern released a video of the X-Men accessories that had been previously leaked, right? And there's a lady's voice introducing all of these items, the topper. What else? Art blades, maybe a shooter rod. I don't really pay attention to it. They didn't put the shooter rod in. I guess they are going to make one, but there's like, I don't know, some issue. I got delayed or something. Licensing. Anyway, so there was talk online about that sounds like an AI voice. Did you guys hear any of this? Yeah, I heard Canadian saying that it was a day I voice. I heard that, but the only thing in it that was weird to me, that was obvious, because I think it's someone that we know at Stern, but the one thing that was weird to me is, and I don't know why they didn't do this, there's definitely a break in there where someone's original voiceover was wrong and then they dubbed in the right part. I don't understand doing that. I would just have someone do a new take because it's very obvious that it's clipped and then they put in, because you could tell the tone is different. yeah i caught that right away but i was like whatever but but i still think that's like for stern just have them re-record the whole thing like it's a minute video or something to me that sounded like rebecca that's what i thought it was too is that not who it is well i i don't know i should message her and and find out but the the point is that where we are right now in time like people are going like they're going like oh oh they're using ai you know and this is And that's the scary point. I've told you guys this is going to be coming. Everybody's going to be suspecting everything is AI. And that's why, like we've said it over and over again, these companies, especially in this niche, this thing's small, like connect with people. This is why these companies needed a real spokesperson on camera telling folks about this. Because the message shouldn't be, oh, you know, Stern is using AI for marketing. That shouldn't even be the message. You know, that's why they need an actual real individuals. All these companies need that, like talking to people. They need real evangelists that have a connection, that have a human-to-human connection with people. Yeah, agreed. Like I love when Kyle does his tech school things because it's Kyle. You know him. You see him around. You might have known him in the earlier days at Marco. You know who he is. He's a known entity, and when you see those tech school videos, you expect to see him. Even though they have used other people at Stern, but you get to know him. It gives you now this personal connection to this person at Stern. Like, hey, Kyle's a cool dude. He's really knowledgeable. He doesn't need to – all you have to do is watch one of his videos, and you can see he's highly credible. You know what I mean? So it's like – And he loves doing what he's doing. And Spooky does this brilliantly, right? you know and jack danger does this brilliantly so we just need more of that because does he really does he you don't think jack does it good where's he been no jack's my boy and i'm not trying to call him out or anything but well like what has he done that's that's brilliant and i'm being serious like when he stepped down from designing and says like now i'm going to be more involved and social media. Am I missing some stuff? I thought I've seen a bunch of stuff. He started that one segment. It was like Ask Me Anything thing where you can send in questions. But I will agree I was kind of thinking we'd get hit with a lot of marketing stuff where it'd be very clear that they're making him the face. And I think that's what you're saying, right? It's like he's saying he is and that's what everyone says he was tasked to do. But I would expect to have seen a lot more of him already so that now we all feel like the face of stern is actually jack now like he's the social media guy and yeah i don't feel like i haven't i mean i'm i'm on social media a good bit i haven't seen him talking to us like i have i saw that thing where he's like asked me questions but i didn't see like any final output um you're right yeah damn it you're right because but i you know You know what I thought he was going to do? Sorry. I thought it was going to go full bore, man. I thought it was going to go to the point where he was going to pop in on stuff. Like, hey, I know Electric Bat has their Chewy thing. I'm going to just pop in. He'd be everywhere. They'd really make him the evangelist where he's all over the place. He's showing up at Stern Army events and surprising people. Then also that could be used as a way to solicit feedback because if you go to the bat on a night with a bunch of people, You know everyone's going to want to talk to him, give him feedback on games or whatever. Sure. So I agree with you, and that's not a bag on him. We don't know. He could be restricted in what he can do. Who knows? No, no bag on him at all. But I know for a fact he had plans to do more. I don't know what happened. Yeah. It does feel, I will say, not to bag on Stern too hard, but I do feel like this Walking Dead thing, since I bought one and it came and I've had the experience I've had, it's been a little weird. Like, it's weird to me to receive the last Stern game that I know about that got sent out into the wild with the pending license or approval was Bond. I just think at this stage of the game, I expect the pending license or approval stuff from like the small guys I wouldn expect that from Stern Like to me they the big dog in this and I would expect them to go It not ready yet Code wise we all know what you going to get Is a minimal viable playable game in the beginning We all kind of come to terms with that But I would expect the licensing stuff And everything to be in place I just think that's kind of weird This launch feels weird to me That there was no Stern video gameplay And then they got into the wild now Still it's still you i think you i think you were the first to stream it and yeah it is it is but i shouldn't be the first to stream you shouldn't be the first to stream jack jack should be the first to stream it yeah and and i don't know if it's a deal where like because he's an employee he can't be showing off this you know screw it fire him and make him a contractor you know i I mean, like, do something, you know? You shouldn't be, you know, somebody, you should not be the person doing this. And, you know, with this pending licensure approval stamp that's on top of this stuff, maybe it just shows that they're having to move too quickly. That's what it would say to me as a consumer. For some reason, I don't know why. But I think I'd be pissed, too. like part of me was trying to think like sometimes i had to take off the content creator hat and all that stuff and go if i was a person who this was the first game i ever bought like i'm new to the hobby i love walking dead and i bought this there was a couple things too that happened that i did tell gomez and he sort of responded i got the game took it out of the box this is the le none of the expression lights were working now they do have a setting buried in there to turn the expression lights on under accessories it's the only thing in there but it was off by default and like do you think the general person who doesn't know anything about pinball buys their first game is going to know enough to go into the menu and turn them on so now they bought this thing for 13,000 dollars and they're expecting all these bells and whistles i mean i bought a bond from game room goodies a used one and i got it at my house and uh at the time they were like hey we didn't shop it or anything so just it is what it is right he's like but it was fine it was in this dude's house I get it. The guy never connected it to Inside Connected, never had a code update. It was running the original pending license and approval code. A general person that's new to this doesn't know everything we know. So it's like that would be painful to me if I bought this thing for $13,000 and I'm like, my lights don't work. And depending on who you use for a distributor, some of them have support that they can help you. But if they don't, you're going astern and you're waiting until someone. And when I asked George, he seemed completely unaware of this as being default in the code. So it's just stuff like that. That feels rushed to me, like someone wasn't fully vetting this out or didn't take the time to test it fully before this one got out into the wild. And that one I don't understand from Stern being the big guys. That's just my opinion. The only thing I can think of, like, it's what you're buying, what I'm buying is these are commercial pieces of equipment, and you have to know what you're doing to operate them. Even in your own home, I think for everybody else, there's the Costco games. But you do it to start somewhere, right? But I guess that's the thing. It's kind of one of those hobbies where you have to dive in. You have to dive in. You have to do the research. It's not a hot tub, you know? But doesn't it bring up the question of where we are with pinball and accessibility? Like, I think it's really hard. We talked about this, Cale, one time. I think it's hard to make this hobby like a plug-and-play thing because it's a mechanical – like you said a million times, a steel ball bashing at stuff. Yeah, it's impossible. It's never going to be a hands-off thing. It's just not. Right, and I'm seeing more and more posts on – I don't hang out on Pinside, but I like our pinball on Reddit. But I'm seeing more and more posts with very simple stuff, and new owners have no idea what's going on. Like, why doesn't my flipper work? Or why isn't this switch working? And everybody's really nice in there and telling them, well, you have to put it in switch test mode. All of this stuff is very alien to a new buyer. And I don't know where the education needs to come from. I think, you know, probably need some more Kyle videos, need Jack, you know, educating people. But there's also this point of, well, people are still buying them. Yeah. You know, they're buying them until their flipper doesn't work or switch doesn't work and then, you know, move on. So I don't know. I mean, you just have to do your due diligence if you want to get into this hobby. Yeah. I think it was the same when I was doing the arcade restoration stuff. I'd have people go, should I buy my first game? And my first question I would always ask them, I'd be like, do you have curiosity to be hands-on and fix technical issues? And they would always be like, why? I go, because I can already tell by the way you're talking to me that you think you're going to move this old Tron game from this guy's house in your truck and bring it home. and you expect it to work, I go nine times out of 10, you're going to get it there. And it's something's going to be broken because it's a 40 plus year old thing that you just moved. So if they say, no, I don't feel comfortable with that. I was like, then I think you should get an emulator or something like that to enjoy arcade games that way. Because you're going to be working on CRT repair. I mean, you guys know you don't want to. You guys, even Rachel, when I talked to her, she's like, I don't really want to repair CRTs much anymore. I mean, it's a lot of work. so it's dangerous arcades like jamie and just have one machine with you and just be an arcade guy because i have no technical abilities whatsoever so what would you do if one of your has any have any of your home games ever broken all the time all the time uh i call up john and i see john come to my house because uh you know the sarcophagus lock on iron maiden's acting up You know what I mean? Yeah. I know several, and that's another thing, you know, find a qualified tech. I know several people have friends here in town, in the Valley, who have multiple, multiple machines. I'm talking about a dozen beautiful machines, and they don't take the lock bar off. Yeah. They call people. Yeah. Do you guys want to tackle one more of these? I have another podcast. I'm interviewing Foghorn, Lighthorn And Craft Brew Sally From the Pinball Junk Drawer Nice You don't think we could bang out one real quick Fast, rapid fire Let's do it at 11 Alright, what's the next one You gotta be five minutes I don't know, Cale, you pick it Because there's a lot of good ones there Are we excited about ACDC remaster? That's a rumor. Sure. Pick another one. What else we got? How about what rumored games of 2026 are we most excited about? I think that's a good one. Let's do that. Alright, Jamie, go. Mine's easy, Fallout. Mine's Sonic. Mine's either Back to the Future or Sonic. I'm leaning towards Sonic because I know the availability of Sonic is going to be there because JJP is making it. I'm just worried about Back to the Future because I don't think Dutch has the production capability to get enough of them into the hands of people that want them, and that's disappointing. I was watching Kaneda on his SMS this morning before we were getting ready while I was having technical issues, of course. Always. Always, dude. You know, I got an email the other day that says my favorite part of your show is when you have technical issues. I don't know if that was a nice comment or – anyway. Jack said that he's going to continue the CE model of not limiting CEs moving forward. I don't really – so like I – that doesn't – that doesn't affect me personally at all because I don't view these as like – I don't know because I came into the hobby right at the time when games started to not hold their value as much. Like I did buy my first game was the Jurassic Park and I was able to sell it for what I paid for it. But that was that was right when the hobby started taking this turn where they were pumping out so many games and it was over. And, you know, the the hardcore collectors get don't like that because they feel like, well, there's no like if I if I don't limit them, then what I have isn't as unique as if there was only 500 of them. So I can put myself into that mindset and understand why that would bother someone because everyone likes to have the thing that they know only a few people have. Right. That's like a cool thing to say. And it's cool to come over and kale, like come over and check this out. Like no one has this. So I don't know, like I think it fixes the fact that anybody can get one. But I think it does hurt the hardcore collector that wants to feel special about what they have. That's how that's how I would that's what I would say about that. Yeah, I think it's a good idea. And nobody knows better than Jack because he's looking at the books. You know, as long as these orders keep coming in for the CEs, why not? And he disclosed it from the get-go. I mean, these people that are buying the CEs aren't like, damn it, this thing's not limited. You know, you have three tiers, and this is great. I hope they keep doing this. You have three tiers you can buy, the arcade edition, which is reasonably priced. Yeah, pretty reasonably priced, yeah. Absolutely. And it's the exact same gameplay. So you can get your 10K version. You can get the other – what is it called? 12K. Is that the Wizard? It's the Wizard, right? Yeah, so Arcade Wizard Collector. Right. But I think Wizard was specifically for Potter, so I don't know what they're going to call it. Maybe it would be Limited CD, I guess it would be. It would be arcade-related to CE. And if you want the two lower-level versions that AI was used on the art, you can get those. Or if you want this amazing version, the CE with the MinaLima artwork. Yeah, it's beautiful. Glitter or whatever the hell else they put on there, it's available for you. What is that, 15K? Yeah, it's expensive. And I think it's great because the versions are all very different. you know it's uh and and that makes a you know makes a huge difference all right real quick what game are you looking forward to then you said fallout you said sonic and i said yeah i mean the other one if i had to have an honorable mention the one i'm really the one i really have high hopes for though that i'm like this one could be like this one could be the one that steals the year is halo like i think halo could be amazing and mark ritchie's not gonna have any, well, I don't know about any, he's going to have way less restrictions than he did on Pulp Fiction with Tarantino. So to me, he can go crazy. That could be awesome. I'm excited about that. Alright, boys. We've got to wrap it up. Pokemon I don't care about, but I still think it would be really cool on location for anybody. Kale Hernandez and Rachel Bess. Definitely. That's just the cash register for that. They're buying an ATM we actually we have two atms i know wait real quick john and i were uh doing you have spawned an entire thing with me and john and my porch visits with him and it is once a month he does his eureka heights earning report with me awesome okay and it's just for me right he just does it He does it the way Rachel does it. He goes from 10 down. But he makes me guess, right? And he goes, hey, next time you talk to Cale, ask him about the ATM and their earnings report. Literally the ATM itself. So that's my question that John Spates of Eureka Heights wants to know. Next time you do an earnings report, he wants that ATM right there in the earnings report. It would win every time. because ladies and gentlemen they have got it right next to the coins right where you get your coins so it's so brilliant and we have the one inside yucca also oh okay yeah well anyway yeah well the earnings i was thinking about that's for two machines so i don't i guess you have to count one or the other i don't know yeah you have to separate your adm but it would it would yeah it would beat out all of the pinball machines jesus all right all right boys ladies and gentlemen, this was supposed to be 15 minutes to five, 10 to 15 minutes. We gave everyone a little bit more. Before we go, quickly recap. Yes. Pinball Roundtable Awards. We're doing an award show. Pinball Roundtable Awards. We're going to do it. Keep in, you know, look at all of our social medias for updates. We're going to release voting and all that good stuff. and the categories. It's going to be a lot of fun. We're going to celebrate all the content creators, the homebrew, all of the stuff that should be spotlighted. Absolutely. Congratulations, boys. We've been thinking about this for about six months and I'm real excited about it. I can't wait for the Pinball Roundtable Awards. Stay tuned on Retro Ralph's YouTube channel for the live premiere event. We'll pump the hell out of it. You'll know. Don't worry about it. We're pumping it up. We'll pump it up. All right, boys. Thank you so much. Impromptu long roundtable. Thanks so much. It was great. Thanks. Have a good weekend. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Bye.