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, miffed with syrup and honey, hopes to laugh with his family in a random tangent, stories of his boys, he's on the poor man's pod network, We're going to get more listeners for the Pinball Nerds Podcast. Coming to you from beautiful River Hibbert, Nova Scotia. Welcome back, Pinball Nerds, to episode 628 of your fifth favorite pinball podcast. My name's Orbital Albert, and if I sound different, don't adjust your radios, your stereos, your iPods. Okay, whatever you're listening to me on, that's right. I leveled up. I finally got a real microphone. Do I sound as good as Jeff Teolis of Pinball Profile? And by the way, welcome back, Jeff Teolis and Ryan C and Marty Robbins. Again, I've said this before and I'll say it again. I don't fully know how much Marty Robbins was included on the decision making, the bad decision making that was made by Damien at Haggis. And therefore, it's very hard for me to necessarily say whether or not he is free and clear of any fault. I don't know. But what I do know is he's been one of my favorite pinball content creators for a long time. And I think canceling people is dumb. So if I think canceling people is dumb, I'm not going to cancel Marty just because he may or may not have had any insider information about what was going on with Haggis. We don't know at this point. What we do know is he's back. And I love listening to Marty. I love listening to Jeff. I like Ryan C. You know, those three dudes, listen to those three dudes together. It was very nostalgic because my favorite pinball podcast for years and years and years. and those of you like Glenn the skateboarder and even Christopher Franchu who have had to endure 600 episodes of this stupid blog that sounds probably slightly less like a blog and more professional on my brand new microphone. Those people who have been listening to me from the start, you know that I was a simp from the very beginning for the final round. No, it wasn't called the final round. It was called... Okay, I can't do Marty's singing there at the start. Is that Marty? Just tell the truth, Jeff. Is that Marty? at the start. Anyways, the final round included the two dudes from Head to Head, and Head to Head for years was my favorite pinball podcast, so it was very nostalgic for me. I've gone off topic at the start of the show. Boy, did I miss everybody. I haven't been here for two weeks. I love you. I'm in love with you. I took some time off just to reset my head and reset my brain and really think about what type of content I want to do moving forward, and the one thing I know is that I want to be less divisive. Now, I have to apologize to you. Close your ears. You're about to hear Elwyn and Franchi bark like crazy because my oldest son, who recently moved out, is back home to drive us to Halifax today. That's right. We're going to be hanging out in good old Halifax today. So if you're in around the Halifax area and you want to maybe play some pinball, I might be hitting up Propeller Arcade later in the day. I might even go hit Chocolate Lake this morning. So hit me up. But if not, just enjoy the show, guys, because this is going to be probably the quickest show I've ever done because I've got to get on the road. But you know me, for the past almost decade, I have done a top five rad and one bad for every single solitary pinball release, and I wouldn't miss this one for the world. So excuse me. Okay, so number one, I got to thank, thank, thank the person that sent me this microphone. All I did was I mentioned on a show that I would love to have a new microphone. They said they had one sitting around they didn't use, and they fired me off. now if this is a microphone you just had sitting around that you didn't use it is a sure mv6 wow such an awesome mic it's got the mute button right on here it's got the headphone jack that i can plug in right here i love it i hope it sounds better i haven't tinkered at all with the settings so if there's any popping or anything i do apologize i will try to get rid of that in post very quickly but it is a new microphone to me i haven't tinkered around with it too much um i'm not even gonna say who sent it to me yet you all would know that person i haven't figured out quite how to thank them. And until I can figure out exactly like the most rad way on planet earth of thanking them, I'm just, I'm not even going to name their name. I'm going to keep it. You know what? A lot of people have said, sometimes Albert, you just got to shut up and just got to keep things to yourself. So for right now, I'm going to keep it to myself and we are going to get into the top five rad and the one bad, but all I can tell you guys is I've missed you. I love you. You're going to hear a better microphone for now on. I want to start doing video. I'm going to start amping up my YouTube channel. I want to start live streaming again. I'm going to pull out all my live streaming equipment and see if my best play field camera will actually work good or at least well enough to use for YouTube because I want to start recording all of my pinball podcasts. This may be the last pinball podcast that you ever hear from Orby that you can't actually watch me and see me, my hands going around like a weirdo and everything else and like almost hitting the microphone, which I didn't, thankfully. Am I too far away? Am I too close? I don't know. I've only ever used a snowball. I'm trying to watch Audacity, but hopefully it sounds good and hopefully you all are doing well. All right. Number five on my list is those brass powder-coated rails. I would say I like those. They're pretty decent. They're pretty cool. They definitely add a little je ne sais quoi. They're great. They're good. They're better than the sticker guys i wasn't gonna put the stickers number five is sticker gate becoming a thing i hope sticker gate kind of becomes a thing because yeah probably maybe don't mention in any of your advertising or any of your marketing that we added a sticker i don't care if it's a holographic sticker even if that sticker was signed by Keith Elwin i don't even think it's worth mentioning that you have this new sticker do you know what i mean so uh anyways so number five would be and And again, I don't think they're that great, but they didn't change up this one that much. It's a premium to a premium with some different art and stuff. So you know what I mean? Let's get into it. Number four, speaking of the artwork, is that movie artwork. Okay, so many of you guys will know, especially the longtime listeners, how much I love the Tragically Hip, a Canadian band here, probably the most Canadian of all the Canadian bands ever. and the tragically hip uh unfortunately gore downey the lead singer got um a brain tumor not trying to be a negative nancy or debbie downer but they got a brain tumor and um he ended up unfortunately passing away from it's coming of it and uh on his last show his last show that he ever did he wore this really cool Dick White hat white pants and a white t-shirt and the white t-shirt was the Jaws logo, the famous Steven Spielberg Jaws movie poster. And so that is always painted in my mind as something iconic, something epic, something incredible. And finally, the artwork of Jaws 50th recognizes that. And it is minimalistic It is I was going to say it like barren like a desert but it not But it is definitely a lot more that makes it is minimalistic It is it is I was going to say it like barren like a desert but it not But like it is definitely a lot more that makes it sound bad It's good. It's minimalistic. It's stoic. It definitely is jarring, a little jarring, especially with the red, but we'll get to that in a second. But I like it. I don't love it. Like I like the original better, but I get that if you're a hardcore, if you're a Steven Spielberg simp, If you're like a hardcore fan of Jaws, you're going to absolutely love this one. You're going to gravitate towards this one. And I think it was smart AF of Stern to do this. Sometimes I do talk about marketing fails on here on the show. But today I'm going to talk about a marketing W because, wow, Stern, you nailed it. You brought that is so nostalgic. People like people who are non pinball, people who don't care about the the new pinball art that's done on it. they would be scrolling through and they would see that artwork. The same way someone that doesn't like the CE art on Harry Potter, if you just love the movie art, those are the type of people who are going to love just the movie art that's on Jaws, right? So if you've only seen, if you've never read the book of Jaws, wow, all seven parts are great. No, I don't think Jaws, maybe it was a book first, but obviously the movie is more iconic and that's how people know it. And I think it was written by Steven Spielberg. So that all seems to make sense, if you will. But again, I like the artwork. I think it is fourth for a reason. I didn't put it near the top. I think that if that blood red wasn't there, I might have said the artwork was a little higher. I saw someone that did a trim level in turquoise. Now, maybe I just love teal and turquoise and aquamarine so much. Boy, I sound like a silly sailor like that, don't I? But I'm just telling you, I love those colors. so for me and I know it has nothing to do with the movie I just think that it's so pleasing and generous on the eyes to have and I'm looking around at my for any of you if you've seen like my interview with Jamie on the wormhole or or any of my live streams that I've done even for the pinball de jenny's uh this year that video I did the background of that it's teal and I believe that that teal would have just mellowed it out but here's the thing had they used the teal it would have been way less divisive and way less jarring and maybe more people would have bought it but we're going to talk about that in a second so number three and i don't care what anyone says i love shimmer i all that glitters is gold isn't that a saying all the glitters is gold come on i love glitter i love shimmer as much as the next guy i've said several times pardon me walt whitman oh all the glitters is gold thank you honey see guys retro ralph even said he loved it when I was doing a podcast before and Drop Target Danielle jumped in and helped me out. She is like my life. Who needs AI when you have a Drop Target Danielle? Am I right? So to all of you out there, husband, wife, all of you that have a supportive partner out there who helps you when you're doing pinball podcasting or pinball content or YouTube videos, give a shout out to your partner because they got to put up with a lot. Like it is 7.49 a.m. here. she's just out there making coffee and has to put up with me gibber-gabbing about pinball but let's get back into it okay so i do think that that play field that beautiful beautiful play field with the shimmer looks really good now it looks really good in the video we know sometimes when you see something that looks really horrible in a video it looks great in real life or vice versa i just hope it's stern are you listening don't make me do this top five rad and one bad don't make me do its turn. But I think that the shimmer and I think that the glitter that is on Golden Pond, that is inside, there's another beautiful movie reference for you, that is on that gorgeous play field for Jaws 50th, I really think it amps it up. Now, are you going to be moving your head left and right while you're nudging, playing in a tournament and seeing it and going, whoa, that's cool? Probably not. But do you not think that people are going to find the best lighting packages that really highlight that glitter? I think they will. Even if you have to turn down your Janos Kiss and turn up your exterior lights that you have or something like that, people will find a way to make that glitter just pop. And it is kind of neat because I think, you know, JJP's been sitting here for years just glittering it up. Imagine Elton John with no glitter. Would they even sold five? I don't know. No, I'm just kidding. I'm sure they would have still sold lots. The artwork package is gorgeous, but the glitter, so much glitter. It's awesome. But Stern's kind of like hold my beer we're doing glitter now watch out we got those glitter bombs you guys ever see the glitter bombs from mark rober if you're bored today go watch uh glitter bombs from mark rober and it's all about uh uh he's a science dude i watch a lot of science content but it's always for these porch pirates who are stealing your your um your thankfully i live out in the country that hasn't happened to us yet knock on wood where's my wood there we go i found some way over there um morning wood okay so we're trying to keep the show pg here number two on the list is and i know what you're gonna say wait didn't you say it was ugly it is ugly but two things can be true something can be ugly but still rad can it not be what about me i'm ugly af and i'd like to think i'm pretty rad maybe nobody else does anymore i had a couple months where i crashed out and i'm sorry but i'm trying to get back i'm trying to see it could take a whole year of redemption. Who knows? Who knows? Maybe doing a lot of interviews this year will help a little. I'd like to get back in people's good graces. And the people that still listen, well, thanks to you because there wasn't many of you left. So thank you so much. All right. Number two on the list is that red armor. Now I know what you're going to say. Wait, because I've seen a lot of you. I've seen it on Facebook. I've seen it on Pinside. You do not like the red armor. People have spoken for the most part. But remember, the people being negative, the people complaining, the people being rude usually shout the loudest and what does that tell you it means the thousands the tens of thousands of people who like how it pops how likes it i mean it's lipstick red i'm pretty sure still to this day the best-selling sports cards are candy apple red so why would you not if you want a sports car that color why you know i don't think the framing looks great but i think it still looks good and anyone who says that blue and red are not complementary colors well that's not very American. Oh, speaking of, shout out to my American brethren. I've said it before and I'll say it again. Even though I went on a little bit of an American rant, the rant wasn't against any particular Americans, other than maybe the people who voted for the Cheeto. But, you know, it was primarily against, because even the people who voted for him, they listened to my show, some of them, and that's okay. But the point is, he was being very, very rude and mean to Canada. It was threatening my son losing his job, and I kind of went off. I spiraled out a little. I'm going to be more common measured and say it now uh i hope that uh the tariffs don't get a ton of worse because it is making it challenging for multiple parts of my job other people's jobs friends and family members jobs pinball people's jobs it is tricky so i do hope at the very least there's some stabilization in the united states and uh come on canada the u.s we've been buds for hundreds of years can we go back to being buds so happy canada day that was three days ago to all my Canadian listeners and back there too 70 of my listeners Okay 70 of y are from the United States of America I half American My grandmother's from Texas. Okay, I am supposedly, according to her, this could be a Canadian fairy tale. I have seen the, it's very convincing. I have seen the family tree, but I'm apparently a direct descendant of Jesse James. That's right, the Jesse James. And then I know what you're thinking. Wait, is it the Jesse James who did that motorcycle show? will know and yes because apparently that same jesse james who married sandra bullock how did he do that wow he married up kind of like me right orby drop target danielle what's going on i don't know uh but jesse james maybe it's just a thing in our family he married up and if you ever saw jesse james and then his wife wow he married up as well like the gunslinger but i mean is it really a humble brag or a brag at all to say you're related to the man that single-handedly murdered the most number of people in his life? Probably not. Probably not. So anyways, going back to what I was saying, the red armor is very, very, very divisive. And I actually think this is a good thing. That's why it's rad. Wait, how could this be good? It's good because, listen to what I'm about to say. It's maybe the most important thing I've said possibly in years on this show. So yes, this is a conspiracy. No, I have not confirmed with anyone at Stern about this, nor have I asked anyone. But I wonder, I have to wonder if the people at Stern said, you know what? This red fits the theme, but it's going to be divisive. Very few people are going to want to get it. It's going to cause the LE owners to knock it mad. It's going to cause there to be FOMO because all of a sudden, I mean, if they made this thing look as good as they did with the Godzilla 70th or whatever it was, that Godzilla, I'm sorry, it looks better than the LE. And LE owners of Godzilla were rightfully annoyed and upset, especially with that foil happening on the cab and everything else. Now, at this point, when you're looking at this red armor, I think everybody can agree overall sitting right beside to a Jaws LE, there's no shot it's prettier. It doesn't have the mirrored back glass. It doesn't have tons of stuff that the LE has. So Stern is moving. Everybody else seems to think this is a marketing misstep or they think it was an art misstep or my mom works at an art gallery, so I know this is horrible art. don't you understand that if they made every pinball machine look better than the last that every ce owner would get upset and on top of that they would lose fomo now now that stern has shown us this that hey guys if we go back and we make another edition it will be a premium edition and it will not look better than the ce they will not get mirrored back glass they will not get foil on the cab that we will we will do it we'll throw some glitter we'll toss a little We'll power coat some of the return ramps, you know what I mean? But they're not going to make it look better. So I actually think this was super rad of Stern to do this because, first of all, 99% of us out there aren't at all interested in this, or like I would say maybe 95% of us. And again, maybe the people who dislike it are saying it louder. But 90% of the comments I've seen or more are that people just don't like how the color looks together. they're calling it a popsicle a rocket rocket popsicle my in my in-house instead of a ai for this type of expertise i actually do use a human who i'd rather always use a human come on over ai uh if someone if you ever hear pinball podcast and someone says they want ai art and pinball give your head a shake that's not what we want we want it to stay as handcrafted forever I tend to think a company that has Franchi working for them, like Spooky Pinball, I would be shocked. I would be shocked if someone who's so concerned with doing incredible art packages like Franchi would start using AI all of a sudden. I would be shocked. But I don't know. Maybe he already does. I highly doubt it, but maybe he does. I don't know. And if he does, I can damn well tell you that he would not let something like Derpy Frickin' Dragon get out. And that was my comment. That was my comment day one on Colin's kineticist thing. My whole thing is like I'm not offended that you used AI. I'm offended at the fact that the artist in your factory or wherever allowed that to get out. And then I'm even more offended that somehow, some way, the people there, no one saw that. Like I mean there's 20 instances and at least five or six of them are egregious. Like they're big. They're huge. you can see them. I understand that a lot of them you need to get out of jeweler's lip and you're trying to see if it's a difference between a freaking Charizard, Pika Melon, freaking PSA 9 or PSA 10. It's nearly impossible. No. For most of it, it is hard to see. But the Derpy Dragons right above the upper right flipper, it's like the size of a golf ball, right? You can see it. And once you see it, you can't unsee it. Now, that being said, does that mean I don't want companies to use AI? Of course not. I'd love you to use AI if it's bringing down the cost of a cabinet. I'd love you to use AI if it's automating stuff in your factory so that, again, the biggest cost of any pinball machine, it's not the art package. It's not the 10, 15, 20, maybe 30K you spend on the art package max. It's just not. The most expensive part is those hundreds of people slowly building it every day by hand. It is. It's not the wood. It's not the metal. When we're talking about BOM, you need to talk about the hundreds of man hours, hundreds that go into every pinball machine. And that's not just research and development design. I'm talking about every single part of the process, every single factory that every single part was made at before it got to Stern. Think about the hundreds of hours that go into every single part before it gets to Stern. So that's by far the most expensive part of a pinball machine. And if we can bring down those manufacturing costs that's the type of ai i'm okay to see in pinball if you're going to use ai in your art i don't ever want to know about it i shouldn't see it i should in no way shape or form be able to tell i shouldn't be able to put it look if you can't tell with the human eye and you have to put it through a filter and you go see i proved it's ai who cares but if the human eye can tell that's bad that's really bad on a fifteen thousand dollar toy like my wife and i you know sell nine small bags of coffee and $29 like large bags of coffee. And even for a $29 bag of coffee that you're going to get maybe 60 cups out of and most people drink a cup and a half, so you're maybe going to get 40 coffees out of it for $29. So you're paying like 75 cents a cup. I wouldn't even allow our packaging to go out. We don't even use AI or have not in any way, shape or form. Thankfully, my wife is the in-house graphic designer, but I would never even on a $9 coffee thing that's just going to be sitting in five or six stores and being sold at a couple of farmers markets and Christmas expos, I wouldn't even let something as bad as Derpy Dragon go. And I think that that was my whole thing was I'm not with the crew of people who are like, I hate old AI. Get off my lawn. Those are the same people. It's really annoying. They like don use a self You have to help people be employed No I want to go to the grocery store that has 90 self and hopefully they pass on those savings to me I don want to go to the grocery store that still pays a hundred different people to bag your food for you slowly and bring your food to your car. Remember that when people used to bag your food? I'm actually that old, guys. I'm going to be 45 this month. Is that wild? I'm going to be 45. I'm going to be halfway to 90. I don't feel it. I feel like maturity-wise, I'm around 25, to be honest. I've always been very, very immature for my age. So say my family, friends, and pretty much everyone who knows me. It's kind of a blessing and kind of a curse because I stay on top of the newest fads, the newest trends, what's happening in society, the zeitgeist, the dysphoria, whatever you call that. I like to know what's happening in music. I like to know what's happening in culture. I like to know what's happening in collectibles. So it's not just pinball that I cover. Pinball just happens to be my favorite by far. And I do apologize. There was an awesome pinball tournament. I know some people don't like talking about pinball tournaments. I'm going to do it for 30 seconds, okay? So pretend you can hear the Jeopardy theme song in your head. I'll be done talking about tournaments before that. But there was an awesome tournament that was actually won by the current New Brunswick pinball champion. Shout out. And that was at Tom MacArthur's house in St. John. I couldn't actually go to that. I was dealing with some tinnitus whenever allergies get really bad, which happened last week. And I take some allergy medication. It basically dries out like everywhere through my sinuses and stuff. And I have very bad tinnitus. So my tinnitus came back and I couldn't make it out to that pinball tournament. I have not played a pinball tournament for a couple of months. Thankfully, I believe the Hub City Flipout 2 is coming up in Moncton on July 12th, I believe. But check Facebook for that or message me if you live on the East Coast and I will give you all the deets. All right, there we go. we talked about tournament pinball fast and we finished it. You're now ready. I know what you're saying. Oh, by the way, if you hated that red armor, by the way, and say you're somewhere playing, all you do is you throw on your handy, tandy, uh, 3d glasses that they gave you. And with your 3d glasses, you'll easily be able to only see the blue and not the red, right? Like it filters out the red. So there you go. Excuse me. If you're on location and you don't like the red, I suspect in person, the red isn't as jarring, but to each and every content creator out there who made it sound like stern made a big mistake you wrong stern did this on purpose stern is smarter than you george gomez smarter than you george gomez knew if they did a really cool teal and they put in a frosted back glass and they went out and they made the you know they made it incredible if they if they made it look as good there was a lot of pushback after godzilla's 70th if they made it look way way way better and nobody and everybody agreed yeah it looks way better guess what not only would it sell a hell of a lot more not only would all the ceo's owners see it them out there further but all the people who in the future who currently are buying pros and premiums saying hey if they come out with a good c that holds its value i'll buy it well they just created fomo by making it red that blood red created more fomo than they could have by changing the price i'm serious i guess maybe if they put the price down to like four grand but even if they drop the price by five hundred dollars but they made it beautiful you'd still upset more ce owners than making it this you know polarizing red because the ce owners are actually laughing now going wow there's a better chance our ce's are going to hold value than this because this is this is so there's so few people who will find this beautiful and they know that so on the aftermarket it's probably going to be hard for it to hold its value so if you're going to go buy this make sure you damn well love the art and just keep it forever and it will, believe me, it will eventually go up. You have to have a little bit of diamond hands, but almost every pinball machine goes up over time. Believe me. Okay. Number one on the list. This is directly related to it. Let me have a sip of my little angry alpaca coffee here. Then I've got to get out the door. The fam is waiting for me, or at least three of us. Thankfully, Mr. Little Orby Jr. is going to be hanging out with Draco Franchi and Luna Tuna Elowen Agar today. Wow, I could see when I put the microphone in front of my face, or when I put the coffee cup in front of my face, it really affected the microphone, whereas with a directional it wouldn't. So I'm going to have to pay attention to which way my head is facing now. Derp the magic dragon lived upon the sea. He frolicked in the autumn's mist in a land called Hanalei. Okay, sorry. All right. Come on. What's one show without singing? What's one show without singing? All right. Damn. I don't know if it's just me, but that coffee has been getting better. All right. Maybe they're just refining. Laughing Fools refining their roasting, making it even better. It is fair trade. I don't think that makes it taste better. Maybe it makes me feel slightly better. It is eco-roasted. I love the environment, but, you know, I don't know what that means. I think they're just solar-powered. We here, too, are solar-powered as well. that's right you might be listening to the only pinball podcast that's powered by solar power in fact you know this time of the year i produce our little homestead here even with the air conditioning running from time to time our homestead produces 70 to 60 to 70 more power than we use that's right okay all right y'all don't care y'all don't care you just want to hear number one number one let me throw my notes against the wall okay you know what i used as notes, it was a Yuzu cheesecake bottom part because I sat there last night and ate the whole end of the cheesecake myself. Wow. All right. I'm trying to lose weight this summer. It's not working that well when you eat a whole cheesecake to yourself, but that's okay. So the number one thing is because of how uggo this machine is, and ugly to most people, not ugly to everybody, how jarring, how controversial it is, they will not sell 500 of these. I highly doubt they'll even sell 400. I mean, if I had to guess, I'd probably say, yeah, 400, 420 max. Probably 420 is exactly right. Maybe 419 and I'll buy the 420th right on New Year's Eve. Who knows? So here's the thing. When you limit it this much, eventually these will be the rarest. These will be far more rare than the LE for sure. And so therefore, these might actually in the long run, not six months down the road not nine months down the road but eventually these may hold their value the best now i have to get going because luna tuna elwyn art agar wants in over the child gate i think she wants to cuddle she wants to hang out who wouldn't want to cuddle with orby he's usually a pretty good guy or at least that's what i used to think guys i hope you like the show i hope the microphone worked well have yourself a wonderful july 4th and i will say this moving forward the number one thing i want to change about my show is i want to be less divisive and i want to go back to those first two or three hundred shows where everyone kept saying, oh, he's too positive. He's a shill. Before there was any other content creators, I was the main person. Everyone called a shill. They said he likes every game. And then maybe I got a little bit too critical. Well, hopefully I can find the happy medium and I can be kind but critical or be again. Until next time, Pimple Nerds, remember to eat, sleep and breathe. Steven Spielberg's Jaws. Don't eat the ball.