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Pinball Roundtable Part - 8 with Retro Ralph and Cale Hernandez - Episode 73

JBS Show·podcast_episode·1h 56m·held·Oct 7, 2025
View original

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.037

TL;DR

Jamie addresses media controversy; Electric Bat tournament recap; Pinball Expo 2025 anticipation.

Summary

In this Pinball Roundtable episode, Jamie Burchell addresses a media incident involving the closure of the Wormhole arcade in Houston, where his comments to a reporter about owners getting divorced were published without explicit consent, creating drama amplified by social media reposts. The hosts discuss the Electric Bat Arcade seventh-anniversary tournament featuring competitive play and strong streaming presence, with Nicholas Zachary winning the main event. Looking ahead to Pinball Expo 2025 in two weeks, they express curiosity about Predator, potential Spooky announcements (possibly Beetlejuice), Star Wars availability, and classic games in the vintage section.

Key Claims

  • A reporter from cron.com contacted Jamie about the Wormhole's closure and published a quote without explicit pre-publication consent, titling the article 'A Messy Divorce Could Be Game Over for a Houston Pinball Arcade.'

    high confidence · Jamie Burchell recounted the incident in detail during his public service announcement segment

  • Knapp Arcade at Naps Arcade reposted the cron.com article on his popular Facebook page, amplifying the story beyond the initial Houston bubble.

    high confidence · Jamie explained how the article spread after Knapp's repost, which Knapp subsequently removed

  • Electric Bat Arcade main tournament ran approximately 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. (or slightly later) on Saturday with 20 rounds of play, with finals on Sunday.

    high confidence · Cale Hernandez describing the tournament schedule

  • Nicholas Zachary won the Electric Bat main event on a tiebreaker against Mark Pearson in second place.

    high confidence · Cale providing final results

  • Bug from Spooky Pinball responded to Ralph suggesting Spooky is ready to announce or reveal something at Pinball Expo 2025.

    medium confidence · Ralph Baer recounting a social media exchange where Bug replied 'oh, we're ready' to Ralph's post about Spooky not announcing new games

  • Beetlejuice is rumored to be Spooky's next game announcement at Expo.

    medium confidence · Ralph noting the rumor has been circulating across multiple podcasts and forums but he cannot pinpoint original source

  • Evil Dead was Spooky's first game to be extremely reliable in operator locations, a departure from previous Spooky reliability concerns.

    high confidence · Cale Hernandez commenting on Evil Dead reliability compared to earlier Spooky titles

  • Pinball Expo 2025 is approximately two weeks away from the recording date.

    high confidence · Jamie asking 'two weeks away?' to confirm Expo timing

Notable Quotes

  • “Whether you like it or not, you are a public figure in this hobby. And if you ever talk to a reporter again, Jamie, know that it's always on the record.”

    Jamie Burchell @ ~04:30 — Key lesson about managing media interactions as a public figure in pinball community

  • “Don't read the comments. He told me this. Well, guess what, Cale? He tells us that a lot, and guess what I did? I went back to the NAP article and I read the comments.”

    Jamie Burchell @ ~06:45 — Humorous moment but reflects real community tension around divisive news stories

  • “There's kids involved. That's why. All right? There's children. I don't care if they're adult children or not, okay, because I've known them since they were little children, right?”

    Jamie Burchell @ ~08:15 — Jamie's stated reason for not publicly discussing the Wormhole situation or falling out with owners

  • “I would be frustrated too. So, you know, sometimes media picks up things and they don't think about like the impact it has on people.”

    Retro Ralph @ ~10:45 — Community empathy and validation of Jamie's frustration with media ethics

  • “Oh, we're ready. So I'm like, why would he do that unless they were going to do something there?”

    Retro Ralph (recounting Bug's response) @ ~32:20 — Evidence Ralph interprets as suggesting Spooky has an announcement planned for Expo

  • “They don't even need to bring that one out. All they need to do is, at Expo, release a 10-second trailer. It doesn't even show any gameplay. It just has to have Beetlejuice with the Spooky logo, and people go bananas.”

    Retro Ralph @ ~34:10 — Commentary on Spooky's marketing power and community FOMO dynamics

  • “Nicholas Vackery won this one. Well, congrats again. You should come out for the next one, Jamie.”

    Cale Hernandez @ ~25:30 — Tournament recap and invitation to Jamie to attend future events

Entities

Jamie BurchellpersonRetro RalphpersonCale HernandezpersonKnapp Arcadeperson[name withheld pending review]personMark PearsonpersonRay Dayperson

Signals

  • ?

    community_signal: Incident where Jamie Burchill's casual conversation with a reporter about Wormhole closure became an unapproved news article, subsequently amplified via social media (Naps Arcade Facebook repost), creating community drama and highlighting the challenge of managing public figure status in a niche hobby

    high · Jamie's detailed recounting of the cron.com article publication, reporter's justification ('didn't say off the record'), Jason Knapp's repost amplification, 139+ comments mostly from 'disgruntled divorce dudes'

  • ?

    event_signal: Electric Bat's seventh-anniversary tournament (third major tournament held there) generated strong competitive participation, professional streaming via two-rig Twitch setup with expert commentary, local player victory (Nicholas Zachary), and multiple events (classics, main event, pace match play) over three-day period

    high · Nicholas Zachary's come-from-behind tiebreaker victory, Ray Day's out-of-town attendance, multiple tournament formats, Spooky Pinball and Jackson Guitar prize donations, Jimmy John's food sponsorship

  • ?

    venue_signal: Electric Bat demonstrates sophisticated tournament infrastructure including real-time problem-reporting Discord channel with immediate staff response, multi-day logistics (setup/cleaning all week), professional streaming capability, and community engagement practices

    high · Ralph noting Discord reporting system with instant 'Captain' responses, Cale mentioning week-long preparation, Rachel's streaming support role, two concurrent Sunday tournaments

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Competitive players and operators acknowledge home court advantage as a real factor in tournament outcomes (mental, knowledge of machine behavior/quirks), but also credit individual player skill; local player victory does not indicate weak competition due to travel difficulty

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.350

0:00
This week, your ears are in good hands. Retro Ralph has his protected under his tournament gloves. And Cale Hernandez's hands are heavily moisturized. And Jamie Burchill's hands, well, they have some sticky fingers. Will our listeners stick around or slide off? Find out on the latest JBS Ground Table.
0:30
Hello and welcome to another edition of the Pinball Roundtable with my good friends, Kale Hernandez and Retro Ralph. Gentlemen, how are we? Number eight, I think. This is our eighth episode of the Pinball Roundtable. You're kidding me. Well, if you count the live, this would be nine, I think. Damn. We got to count that, right? Was the live the first one? Or the first one was from Stern, right? Well, you and June, did we count that one? Really? We have like 10 now. You're totally right. Yeah, I guess I have to go back and redo those numbers. Probably. Nobody cares. No, no. Does anybody care what... No one cares. No one cares what number you're on, unless it's a big number like 100 or something like that, but no one really cares. It's a rat. So, welcome back. We've got Expo in a couple of weeks. So, we thought... Why are your fingers sticky?
1:25
You know, I don't know. It says your fingers are sticky. What are you doing over there that your fingers are stuck? I give my content creators that work for me carte blanche. They can do whatever they want. They can say whatever they want. Well, what do they know that we don't know? I don't know. We don't want to know. You know, I got arrested for stealing when I was a kid, but that was a long, long, long, long time ago. You actually got caught? Yeah, I got pinched. Damn. They're trying to squeeze. They squeeze you. I got pinched. I didn't want to know that story. That story is so hilarious that one day I will share it because it is a doozy. And one day you're going to share a story with us, Cale. I saw that in the notes, though, about our nudist commune in Arizona. That's actually my story. He already left. Is that your story? No, the nudist colony is my story. It's a fast story. I thought he already left us because he's got a shiny new car, ladies and gentlemen. I don't know if you know this. but K.O. Hernandez has a new toy. Okay. I wonder if he heard our podcast because we were giving him crap for it a little bit. Did you hear it? Surge commented. No. Man, I've been so busy for the past three days.

“Home court advantages do exist. I mean, I think that's just a fact, whether it's mentally or you know how these games play, you know what the court's like, you know.”

Cale Hernandez @ ~27:15 — Discussion of competitive dynamics and local advantage in tournament play

  • “I love the RoboCop, original RoboCop movies, and I've never really spent a considerable amount of time on the Robocop. So I don't know. It could be a total junk game. But I want to play it.”

    Retro Ralph @ ~39:45 — Interest in exploring lesser-known classic games at Expo rather than focusing only on new releases

  • “sometimes I think you go to these shows, you get enamored with the new stuff, but it'd be cooler to go seek out the games that you just don't see very often, you know?”

    Retro Ralph @ ~41:00 — Philosophy about appreciating rare/classic games at trade shows vs. chasing new announcements

    • Serge
    person
    Bugperson
    Jamie Burchellperson
    Will McKinneyperson
    Tom Isaacperson
    Rachelperson
    Wormholevenue
    Electric Batvenue
    Spooky Pinballcompany
    Pinball Expo 2025event
    [name withheld pending review]company
    Evil Deadgame
    Predatorgame
    Star Warsgame
    Pin Palspodcast
    Electric Bat Arcadeorganization

    high · Cale and Ralph discussion of home court advantage; Ray Day's post-tournament comment that he 'missed the shots he needed to make'; comparison to Walt Wood's first-year dominance despite home court advantage

  • ?

    rumor_hype: Unconfirmed rumor that Spooky Pinball will announce or tease a new game at Pinball Expo 2025, with Beetlejuice mentioned as likely IP candidate; rumor sourced from Ralph's social media exchange with Bug who responded 'oh, we're ready' to suggestion that Spooky wouldn't announce anything

    medium · Ralph's recounting of Bug's cryptic response; Beetlejuice speculation based on prior IP discussions; assumption that a 10-second trailer would generate significant community hype

  • ?

    product_concern: Spooky Pinball's Evil Dead game represents a significant improvement in reliability compared to previous Spooky machines, with recent code update featuring video game mode; raises stakes for company's next release to maintain quality expectations

    high · Cale noting Evil Dead as 'first one that been extremely reliable' and operators' history of maintenance challenges; discussion of high expectations for next game due to Evil Dead's success

  • ?

    content_signal: Pin Pals podcast (Cale Hernandez + Serge) gaining recognition as authoritative voice on game rules and strategy; deep-dive commentary at Electric Bat tournament stream demonstrating educational value to pinball community

    high · Jamie describing Pin Pals as 'phenomenal' and 'my new favorite podcast'; references to learning Star Wars rules before release; Ray Day and Serge stream commentary on Scared Stiff and Walking Dead rules

  • ?

    community_signal: Shift in interest from solely focusing on new game announcements at Expo toward exploring rare/classic games that don't appear regularly at venues; vintage game room gaining traction as important Expo feature

    medium · Ralph expressing interest in Data East RoboCop and Gottlieb classics (Tales from the Crypt, Rescue 911) rather than just new releases; commentary about seeking out games 'you just don't see very often'

  • ?

    industry_signal: Pinball industry figures face pressure and scrutiny similar to broader entertainment/media personalities despite niche market size; social media amplification and public commentary create accountability mechanisms in small, tight-knit community

    high · Jamie's recognition of being a 'public figure in an incredibly niche market'; Janine's advice about media permanence; Kale's comment that everyone in hobby is celebrities; impact of Jason Knapp's Facebook repost

  • ?

    event_signal: Pinball Expo 2025 (two weeks away) expected to feature multiple attractions: new game announcements (Spooky, Star Wars variants, Predator gameplay opportunities), vintage game displays, competitive tournament play, and networking

    high · Ralph and Cale discussing Expo excitement; references to Spooky announcement potential; plans to explore vintage game room; multiple hosts planning to attend

  • $

    market_signal: Community FOMO around new game announcements drives significant interest and social media engagement; even unreleased teasers (e.g., 10-second Beetlejuice trailer) would generate substantial community excitement and discourse

    medium · Ralph's description of community going 'bananas' over a simple branded teaser; Spooky's strategic announcement planning; general discussion of announcement timing and media strategy

    • 2:40
    So I didn't get a chance to listen to it. Not yet. No, it's totally fine. We weren't giving you. You went on the flip side. I went on the flip side. And I got to say, see you on the flip side. All the good things. He let me do all the good things. it was really great. He had a good time. But we did say, you know, it's hard to hang out with Cale now because he's got a new friend, he's got a new toy, and he's been hanging out with Serge. We don't know the code as well, so we're like, you know, we can hang with Serge, but we can't talk to Serge at the same level that he possesses. I mean, that guy is a savant of rules. He really is. If you're not following, let's give him a plug. He doesn't need a plug from us because he's Kale Hernandez, but Pin Pals is my new favorite podcast. It's phenomenal. Bar none.
    3:33
    Done deal, pal. It's fantastic. I love it. What a great podcast. Thank you. I learned how to play Star Wars before it even was, like, available, which is pretty awesome. I tell you what, Surge is absolutely amazing. I was just watching the stream from Sunday from our finals for the big tournament at the Electric Bat, and him and Ray Day commentating and explaining Scared Stiff. Man, there are rules I had no idea. I mean, they do a deep dive live into Scared Stiff rules and Walking Dead. That is a must-watch. It is – you can go watch the VOD now on our Twitch channel, twitch.tv slash electricbatarcade. I watched – I was there most of the day. I had the sound down because it was NFL and Celtic and it was Sports Day. It's Sunday. But I did get to listen to the Dream Team, I called them, for a while. And they're fantastic. They did a great job. Go check that out. It's a must-watch. All right. We're going to start off with a public service announcement, okay? I'm going to speak my mind for like three minutes, and then I'll open the floor to you two if you have any questions for me. But I had to write all this down, so I don't screw this up. So bear with me, okay? But I would like to start out the podcast on a little bit of a more serious note because and clear the air maybe, if you will, on some recent events regarding my previous stomping ground, the wormhole, okay? So we're going to talk about that in a minute. Is that all right, boys? Yeah.
    5:14
    I don't know if you know this, but a few weeks ago, one of the owners of the wormhole posted a Facebook and Instagram, a thank you to the Houston community. It was very lovely, very well-written note. Their reasoning behind the post was really a thank you to the community that supported us, right? Later that day, I'm walking into a business meeting and waiting for a lunch, and I'm in the car, and I get an email from a reporter at cron.com, C-H-R-O-N.com. It's not even the Chronicle. It's an online newspaper, okay? And the reporter asked me why the wormhole had closed. They never mentioned writing a story, never mentioned quoting me. They just asked this one question. And like an idiot, that I am, Chet.
    6:04
    Okay. Or he could tell where this was going. I answered that question. Okay, I responded that the owners are getting a divorce. I have no idea of the future of the collection or the place. Right?
    6:18
    I click send. I go to my lunch. Okay. Just going about your day, right? Just going about my day. During lunch, I got an email back from the reporter. Okay, their exact words were, can I quote you? How long ago did you stop working with the wormhole and why? So I missed this email. Obviously, I'm on a client lunch. Jamie does work. And I got back to my car, and I get a text from a buddy with a cron.com article link. Uh-oh. Titled, and you'll love this one, boys, A Messy Divorce Could Be Game Over for a Houston Pinball Arcade. Yeah.
    7:00
    Okay? And Jeff was the only person quoted in the article. Jamie. Jamie fucking Burch. So I emailed the reporter right away. And I'm like, I didn't give you permission to be quoted.
    7:15
    What was I, 15 minutes late? I was out of lunch. And this is the response I got. I think you'll love this. Since I didn't respond in time and I was talking to a reporter and did not say off the record, and since this information is already public record dot dot dot dot bullshit bullshit basically tough shit okay so a few good days go by and there's not too much blowback from the cron.com one of the owners was pissed at me but the people that i'm so close with were okay and they understood my mistake and my lovely wife janine i'm gonna give janine a shout out And she gave me some really good advice. She said, whether you like it or not, you are a public figure in this hobby. And if you ever talk to a reporter again, Jamie, know that it's always on the record. So that's some good advice for everybody, right?
    8:07
    Okay. A few hours later, my phone blows up. Massive amount of IMs and texts. Naps Arcade, our friend Jason Knapp, reposted the article on his very, very popular Facebook page. Again, with that brilliant title that I mentioned before. So now this TMZ story from Kron.com, okay, that was locked in a small Houston little bubble, but not now. Now it's blown up, right? So let me set this record straight here. I'm not mad at Jason, right, for reposting this article. I spoke with him in length this morning, and I should have asked him immediately to take it down, because I don't think two weeks ago that that was a pinball story, nor do I still believe that today. So, for the record, Jason took down the post today.
    9:06
    And thank you, Jason. I appreciate it. Okay? A few days ago I did what Cale tells me never to do. Oh, no.
    9:15
    Okay? Okay. He tells me this all the time on the phone, guys. This is what Cale says. Don't read the comments. He told me this. Well, guess what, Cale? He tells us that a lot. He tells us that a lot, and guess what I did? I went back to the NAP article and I read the comments.
    9:33
    By the way, 139 comments. so not just the reach then yeah you know not just not cron.com now yeah so at least 75 percent of these posts maybe 80 that didn't do math but were made by disgruntled divorce dudes calling my friend a money grabber okay and reading these comments obviously made a mistake okay and i get pissed off all over again, right? But there were a few comments made by some lovely people, and I reached out to them privately to thank them for their support. A few friends that I thought were friends or people that I thought were friends had some things to say, and at least I know where I stand with them, okay? But lastly, you know, this has gone on, this conversation has gone on a little too long, longer than I wanted, so I want to have fun here at the roundtable, but I get asked this question, these two questions a lot, you know, why don't you talk about the wormhole and why don't you talk about the falling out you had? And I'm going to just address that real quick, boys. All right? Okay. There's kids involved. That's why. All right? There's children. I don't care if they're adult children or not, okay, because I've known them since they were little children, right? And I'm going to be damned if I ever say anything publicly bad about one of their parents, regardless of how I feel. and this will be the last time I even mention the word wormhole again.
    11:06
    All right, so gentlemen, thank you for letting me get this off my chest. I appreciate it. What are your thoughts, Ralph and Cale? Well, I think, you know, I get that. When something is personal to you like that and it becomes public, you know, sure, that could have been a very different story about just like wormholes closed and it didn't need the other details, but I think because it's so personal and it involved two other people that have nothing to do, like what they're dealing with had nothing to do with pinball, like I get it. I would be frustrated too. So, you know, sometimes media picks up things and they don't think about like the impact it has on people. And, you know, so sometimes you have to – and I'm not saying – by the way, I'm not saying Jason, like some of you guys cleared that up. Yeah, I like Jason, Ralph, okay? I have a very good relationship with Jason. We talked about that, yeah. We IM each other. We talk about bullshit. I like Jason. He's a Jersey man. Yeah. And, but I just disagree with him on this, on this. And so he was kind enough to take it down. But I will say, to bring some comedy to your story there with the time, and I'm not going to tell the story. I'm not going to tell it because it would, because I don't want to. It's been buried. So I had a situation that I was in. It was buried. Now that you bring it up. No, but you don't want to be able to find it. But it was, it was, it was something. And it's not something I'm super proud of, but it's not like I did anything bad. It was during a time where, remember when the housing market crashed?
    12:31
    Yeah. Oh, wait. Yeah, so I lived in California at that time, and this reporter went to me to ask me about a service that I had used to help me get out of this underwater house. And so I was just talking to her. But again, she didn't say we're on the record or anything. Right. And she goes, well, what do you think you're going to do? This is where I effed up. she goes what do you think you're gonna do you know now if you get out of this house then you can free yourself with these shackles and you have more free money and i was and i joked and at the time like the ipad was new and i was like i don't know probably take the kids to disneyland and get an ipad right and so the title i should i'll just pay i don't give a shit the title she came up with the fucking title was from bachelor pad to ipad and it was like it was And I was like, what the fuck? So I reach out to this lady. I'm like, dude. I was like, what is this? And you know what she did? She goes, I'm so sorry. I'm going to make this up to you. And so I get this thing in the mail the next day, and it's a $25 Starbucks gift card. It says, so sorry. Like, just so sorry this caused you so much, like, aggravation. Yeah. You know, won't happen next time. So when you're talking to a reporter, it is smart to say, like, look, what's on the record, what's off the record. And don't say anything you don't want them to put in an article because more likely than not, they're going to put it in anyway. So anyway, obviously, I wasn't dealing with Woodward or Bernstein. OK, I'm dealing with some potato head from Kron dot com that. But God only knows. Anyway, Gail, sorry to spend too much time on that. No, no, that's fine. I mean, we we all we just have to realize that we are we are celebrities in a in an incredibly niche market. very neat. No, I know. It's hard to say, right? Because I don't consider myself a celebrity, right? I have this massive imposter syndrome I joke about. Wait till you get back, though. Everyone's going to be stopping you every second. We are public figures, right? And if you did a search, she just did a search on me. She sees that I have a podcast. She sees that I have all these things. And she's just like, well, let me get this dumbass to say something. And I did. And so there it is. That's my statement. Yeah, but it's even different today because when there were newspapers, it mattered. You know, the headline, you had to write it, you had to go to print. Now they can write up an article on their phone and post it in two seconds, and they need, like Ralph was just talking about, that's a great, catchy headline. And, Jamie, your story, the headline is great, local divorce, runes, and arcades. You know, that brings clicks, and that's all they're looking for. That's really all they're looking for. So, man, that's just the world we live in. It is the world we live in, and fair enough to Jason because he said, you know, he admitted, because I didn't really read it. I just saw it was information on the wormhole, and I thought, you know, it's a popular place that closed down, and I think people wanted to hear it. I don't think if he knew the story, if I had told him. Dude, if he knew it was going to give you some angst, he wouldn't have done it. And I told him that today. I said, the fault is I should have came out to you two weeks ago and said, this is triggering me, dude. You've got to take this down. This isn't a pinball article. This is TMZ. If I would have done it, he would have taken it down. Totally. Yep. Jason's a great guy. He is. And, you know, two weeks ago, if we recorded, I wouldn't have said that. So I'm glad time has passed. It's like, hey, it's like when you go to send the text or the email when you're pissed, you need to not send that. Like I'm just saying, in general, that's good practice. Like you don't send that email. You might write it to be therapeutic to you, and then you read it to yourself. And usually 24 hours later, you're like, all right, I would have never sent that email or text, you know? Yeah. You never want to send stuff like that when you're mad, that's for sure. I've done a few of those recently, so we'll shake that off. We'll move on.
    16:36
    What's the first topic, man? What are we talking about? The first topic is can we start with the seventh anniversary tournament that just happened at the Electric Bat? And we talked about it in the beginning. But take me through the weekend. Yeah. I know you're exhausted. The poor guy took a nap.
    16:50
    Did you just wake up from all this? You can tell from my eyes and my hair sticking up. I literally just woke up 30 minutes ago to do this thing. Yeah. Rachel and I are wiped out. I bet. We took the day off. Yeah. And the only thing I'm doing today is this. Because you guys was the tournament.
    17:11
    Okay, so it was three, but you know it starts before that. The whole week before, we're there every day going through the machines, cleaning them, tightening things up, making sure everything functions, playing a lot of pinball. And then Friday we had an all classics tournament.
    17:32
    Multiple, I think it was like 20 rounds of pinball. um and yeah with the finals um and i actually have i want to let you guys know it's like a barber farm ralph right yeah and i'll get into that it would have been so great but yeah so uh friday classics uh mark pearson won it did he win shark nice mark the shark pearson mako mark he won that one. Second was Will McKinney, local hero. Third, Tom Isaac from Southern California. And then fourth, Faye Ashley.
    18:12
    And then we went Saturday. We went into the main event, 20 rounds, the pinball, all classics, moderns, everything. And that was stunning. And then the finals for that were on Sunday. So the top 16 went into Sunday. Local hero Nicholas Zachary won that, and it was a come-from-behind win.
    18:40
    Absolutely amazing. On a tiebreaker. Yeah, on a tiebreaker with Mark Pearson. So Mark Pearson ended up second in the main event. Third was Ty Bull. Dude, Ty. Ty did it. That's awesome. What a good dude he is. Ty's a good player and a good dude. And then fourth, John Finnegan from Tucson. And, man, that was really great. And then also there was another tournament on Sunday going along with the finals, and that was just a pace match play, which is a kind of cool way to play pinball where you only progress if you have a certain amount of points. That's kind of cool. Yeah, it's a cross between a knockout and a match play. John Schaapel won that one with Matt Jackson coming in second, Garrett Nelson third, and Pete Shatzer. Oh, Matt's going to be stoked. He was playing kind of rough for a couple weeks, and he was all bummed out, so he's probably on cloud nine right now. He was very happy. Pete Shatzer came in fourth. He flew in from Seattle. Had a lot of people from Seattle coming out.
    19:46
    Ray Day came out and played with us and did a lot of commentary with Serge on the stream. You can go back and watch that. Man, it was a ton of whopper points. everybody had a blast. Most importantly, at the end of it, Sunday, everybody was just there hanging out, having a great time. Thank you so much to Bug and the team at Spooky. They sent us a bunch of great prizes. We gave away two playfields. That's cool. Also, Jackson Guitar sent us a guitar to raffle off.
    20:22
    It was free. You didn't have to buy a raffle ticket. If you bought a ticket to the event, you were entered into winning a guitar. I thought I saw it. Did he give out a Texas Chainsaw Massacre? Did he send you one? Yep, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Scooby-Doo, and he also sent us a Looney Tunes play field that we're going to give away later on. How did you get Jimmy John's to sponsor you on Twist, Ralph? You didn't see it. Dude, Jimmy John's. I had to do like a quadruple ticket. Is Jimmy John's the Turkey Tom? I don't know. It's a sandwich. They make hot sandwiches. No, no, I know. It's Turkey Tom. It's like one of the things, like a number seven or something. I can remember now. Number seven is a veto.
    21:07
    Shut up. One of our local players works for them, and she got them to cater the event. So, yeah, that's how we got hooked up with all that. That's cool as hell, man. I mean, come on, dude. What other stream is getting a sponsor by a sandwich shop? I don't think so. That's pretty cool. Everyone loves that. Taco Bell is a lot of fun. Exploding. God bless that. Yeah, but it was a lot of work. Yeah, dude.
    21:35
    You know, I only set up the stream and what have you for the Sunday, which was cool because I actually got to play in the qualifying. And I didn't quite make it. I was a few spots down, but it was an absolute blast. So just being on your feet, standing on concrete for that long. I know. Anybody who's done a convention knows that. And the main event tournament went from, I think it was basically 10 to 10, 10 a.m. to 10 p.m., maybe a little bit later, maybe 10.30. Do people tailgate in the parking lot and stuff? Like, do they set up stuff? Does it get like that or not really? Well, yeah. There was a group out there that had a tent and had a trial. Oh, that's cool, man. Yeah. Dude, I have so much FOMO that I couldn't go. I'm so bummed that I couldn't go. My parents had this trip. I know, but my parents made this last-minute trip, and I was like, I was starting to get kind of almost irresponsible thoughts, like, well, maybe I could pop over there for a little while. Yeah. I can't. The right play in the tournament is like, oh, no, I start coming up with all sorts of weird ideas. Like, oh, I can drop them off at, you know, wherever. I don't know. Yeah. Are you going to do this? Are you going to do this annually?
    22:54
    This is the seventh one, isn't this? Or no? Well, this is the seventh year of electric batting. Oh, okay, right. Not the seventh one. But we haven't done it every year. I mean, because it wasn't until like three years ago, I think, when we opened up the big room, which would allow us to do big tournaments like this. So I think it's just the third one. Walt Wood won the first one. I can't remember who won the second one. And, you know, Nicholas Vackery won this one. Well, congrats again. You should come out for the next one, Jamie. That's what I'm thinking. We could do a whole weekend. Yeah. That's what I'm thinking. I don't know if I could play in it. Why?
    23:38
    I just choke like a chicken. Okay. It's for fun. I mean, just do it. I was there for an hour, you know.
    23:46
    But, no, congrats on that. It was great. Yeah, that's awesome, man. The Twitch stream is amazing. You need two rigs. We'll get Rachel on board, and it's going to be really great for the eighth anniversary tournament next year. You know what's crazy, Cale, that I sometimes pop into the Discord, and I didn't realize how many people report game problems. And I think I saw you do your little captain, like, what's up, we got it. I was like, holy crap, you were fixing it. I mean, I'm sure there was way more things you had to get ready in preparation, but that's a cool way. I like that everyone in the arcade is, I don't know if everyone uses that, but I know you have the board up there, but that's pretty cool. Yeah, most people are. Yeah, and it's great because we'll immediately get that notification and then go fix the game. Yeah, I like that. It's awesome. It's a good, cool way to do it. So do you think there was a home court advantage for your vocals against, you know, top player like Ray Day coming in? and do you think they hanged up to try to kick his ass? What do you think?
    24:49
    Yeah, so it is funny. Like when we found out Ray Day was coming, you know, everybody's like, just hand him the money, right? Right.
    24:58
    Home court advantages do exist. I mean, I think that's just a fact, whether it's mentally or you know how these games play, you know what the court's like, you know. That is a thing. but I mean, Walt Wood came in the first year and nobody even, I mean, really gave him any competition. So, um, and, and at the end, Ray Day even said he, it was his fault. He, we, I talked to him afterwards and he was just like, I missed the shots I needed to make, you know, that was all in my hands. Um, yeah. So, and, and everybody, yeah, everybody was proud is, you know, it was kind of like, uh, they were like protecting the home turf, you know, And we're ready, which is cool because this leaves a story open for next year. Who's going to come in from out of town and steal the glory, right? I love that you're doing this. It's absolutely fantastic. We had a big three-day tournament at the former joint. And, you know, people came over. But we always had Dallas versus Austin versus Houston, you know, because our state's so damn big. So we always had that local, you know, we wanted a local person to win. And that's what, especially for state, you know, we always want, we always root for the Estonians. So, all right, let's move on to Pinball Expo 2025. What are we, two weeks away? Yeah. Wow. Right? I mean, holy shit, right? I need to start packing.
    26:29
    I need to start. I might print some of those t-shirts that I, I made a t-shirt. Did I show you that? Yeah. Start a mode, right? Start a mode. It's a start a mode, and it's got the logo.
    26:40
    I don't remember. No, it's fine. I got a lot going on. I ignored that. Too much going on. He's on with Serge. He's got shit to do. So, anyway, what are you both looking forward to at Expo? What are we excited to see? What are we pumped about?
    26:57
    Who's going to go first? Go, Ralph. All right, you go first. I'll go. You go. All right, I'll go. And I'll go, I'll go.
    27:07
    Thanks for the way. Honestly, you know what, it's curiosity. There's a big curiosity for me. I really want to see how Predator plays. Yeah. Because despite all the, like, weirdness around the, and all that, I definitely want to, I want to play that game. And then the other thing that I'm really, there's this, can we talk about a rumor real quick? Because it's a pinball expo. We can talk about whatever the hell we want. Okay, it's a pinball expo rumor. And I don't know where I heard it because all of us, we listen to like every freaking podcast, right? So we're listening to so many of them that I can't remember who said it or even if I read it somewhere. But there's a rumor that, and I can see Spooky doing this, that they're going to either have a teaser or show something with their next game. And that's really smart of them if that's actually what they're going to do. And the only reason why I think there might be some validity to this rumor is because I posted a post about the podcast you and I did, Jamie. and I said, hey, my bad, I didn't mention Spooky. If you're there and you've never played Evil Dead, go check it out because you're going to really enjoy it. And then I said something like, I don't think they're going to be ready to announce anything new, so just I left it at that. And then Bug responds and goes, oh, we're ready. So I'm like, why would he do that? Like, I don't know, why would he do that unless they were going to do something there? So that could be kind of exciting because that'd be something that none of us really know much about other than we're pretty sure we know what the title is. I think Beetlejuice is the one that keeps coming up. I know that would be exciting. If they actually brought one out, that would be really cool. They don't even need to bring that one out. All they need to do is, at Expo, release a 10-second trailer. It doesn't even show any gameplay. It just has to have Beetlejuice with the Spooky logo, and people go bananas. But don't you think the stakes are high for them right now? I always think about your experience, Cale, with Spooky games, how you had a hard time keeping them running, and so they did, because of that, not because you didn't like Spooky, but because hey I gotta make money on these things and this Evil Dead was the first one that been extremely reliable think the stakes are kind of high like they packed a lot of stuff in the code was very well done there they just the new code update is super cool they just did there this little video game mode, and so, like, I feel like there's, there's got to be a lot of pressure, that this game has to be real good, because now the expectation is, like, you up the game with Evil Dead, so, so, I don't know, I did, there's excitement to me around what Spooky might do, and then I kind of want to see Predator. I obviously have already played Star Wars, so I kind of already know what to expect with that. But I always get excited to see how people react to new games. And then I'm actually really looking forward to this year, spending more time probably not on the newer games, but in that room from last year that had, like, all those really cool classics that I should have spent more time. You were in there, like, the whole time, Kale, or a lot. I was in there with Kale and Rachel a lot. We were playing that shit out of the Hankins. Yeah, I want to go check those out. Like, I think that. Rachel was cracking me up with, because one of them wasn't playing all that great, and she's like, that special Hankin feel. Do you remember that, K.O.? I don't know if you remember. She's like, oh, I love the Hankin touch. And we were just.
    30:15
    And I know this will, my last thing. I know this is dumb, and I don't even think the game is good, but there's a game that I, I love the RoboCop, original RoboCop movies, and I've never really spent a considerable amount of time on the Data East RoboCop. So I don't know. It could be a total junk game. But I want to play it. I want to see, like, what they did with that game. Yeah. Because I haven't really ever spent time with it. So I'm excited to check out some of those old, like – because some of those Data East games I actually like. Like, I like Rescue Died in One Wood. And I like – what's the one you guys had for a little while in the RKTX sector?
    30:45
    Well, that's a Gottlieb. No, sorry, Gottlieb. Tales from the Crypt. Yeah, like, I like those games. I mean, they're, like, goofy, but I like those. And then I definitely like the, yeah, I definitely want to put some time on, like, some of those Gottlieb games, like TXX Sector, Rescue 911. There's a couple other goofy ones. Sometimes I don't really love Haunted House with the multiple levels, but sometimes I like to play that. Phone Busters is weird, but kind of, like, goofy. So, yeah, I want to, you know, sometimes I think you go to these shows, you get enamored with the new stuff, but it'd be cooler to go seek out the games that you just don't see very often, you know? Well, that room right before you walk into the main halls is fantastic. Yeah. Yeah, it's the right. And then I'm excited to see everybody hang out with you guys and see what kind of trouble we can get into.
    31:30
    We'll get in trouble. And then we apparently have to bring bathing suits. I don't know. I don't know, Cale. Are you down with that, Jamie? Cale does a whole pool thing. He does. He goes to the pool. He does laps. Is the pool nice there? Oh, it's beautiful. Really? Every morning. I get up early. There's a gym down there. There's a pool that's heated. There's a jacuzzi. It's great. Is it a sauna, too? No sauna. Nope. You and I would do that one day. We'd be like, oh, sorry. I like to go first. We can't make it. What is it, a spitz? I like to go first, spitz, once in a while.
    32:06
    All right. That's it for me. That's for you. What about you, Cal? What are you excited about? Well, I have good news for Ralph because he will be able to play Predator before Expo because we're going to have one. Are you getting one? We're going to have one at the Bat on Sunday.
    32:25
    What? Yeah, at around like 5 o'clock. Is it only there for a certain amount of time? Yeah, Aaron, who created Fast Pinball, is going to bring one. He's going to come by and stop on his way to Chicago so everybody at the Bat can see this thing and play it. And, you know, we're going to get some video and photos. We're going to get the first shit out of that. That's awesome. Dude, I will film the ever-loving shit out of that game. Well, are you going to meet us? Yeah. So he's bringing it to the arcade? Yeah, Sunday at around like 5 o'clock. Oh, man, the night game. All right, I'll have to tell my wife I'm just going to escape for a little while. You have to. I got you. I think this is the first domestic showing, is it not? I've not heard of anything. I've not seen any of the place have it yet. Breaking news. Can you put a little breaking news banner down there? Dude, that's cool. I think. Yeah. How long do you think it'll be there? A couple hours? Yeah, a few hours. Aaron's a good dude. I got to hang with him at the Twippies, Ralph. We got to see him. Okay. Dude, that is cool, Cale. That's fantastic. I'm stoked on that. That'll be so fun. You heard it here first. All right. I'm better. No, it's so cool. I'm so jealous, dude. Jamie and I are here on Zoom calls. Miserable as shit on Zoom calls. I mean, I'm at his lunch, kissing ass, taking names, reporters writing stories about me, and this dude is getting right here on Sunday. That's right. That is so cool. All right, so does everyone know, like, all the bat regulars are going to be all up in that place, right? No, I just announced it right now. So whenever this comes out, they'll find out. Well, you'll text me, like, five minutes after and be like, drop it. I absolutely expect a pin pals with Serge and you going over the rules. Serge is coming. Yeah, yeah, Serge is coming. That's a must happen. I'm not trying to produce you. You know what you're doing, okay? This is the coolest news of, like, all week. I mean, I think it's only Monday. But, yeah, this is so awesome. It's going to be great. Wow. What if it sucks, though? What do you do? Well, if it sucks, it sucks. It's pinball. How bad can it be? It's that bad, right? Yeah. Some of them do suck, though. As far as Expo goes, I am looking forward. You know, people, the room that you guys are talking about, with all of the import games, Rob Burke's very rare games. Yeah. There is no place in the world that you can play something like this. And lots of people miss this room. Like, I had to, like, bring people to it. Go, like, no, this is the coolest stuff going on here. Yeah.
    35:10
    So, you know, and he even has those, like, cool, like, Sega, the old school Japanese Sega pinball machines that are half EM, half solid state. I mean, you just don't see those anywhere. Yeah. That is a must. And I hang out in that room a lot. He had a Varkon in there, and there's only like 70 of those made, and probably like only 30 of them maybe exist, maybe. And that game, it's not like traditional pinball, but it's a cool stand-up. That's a cool game to me. I don't know. I've always kind of dug that. It's a fun room. I really love it. I've got to hang out with the Bash Pinball Boys in that room too. Oh, nice. And I know we already, the buffet, I can't wait to wake up. We already talked about the pool, so I'm going to hit the pool in the morning and then head to the amazing buffet. Where's the buffet? Is it in the restaurant? It's in the restaurant. Oh, they put it in that restaurant. The breakfast buffet. I've never done that. Oh, it's fun. I got to crash with Rachel and Cale again. I was like their third little wheel.
    36:16
    And they let me hang. Yeah, great food. Really, really good. You guys always know. Dude, you guys always amaze me. You always know where the good food is at, always. You have to. They don't fuck around. They don't.
    36:31
    So what days are you going? Let's talk that out because, as you know. Well, hold on. I didn't talk about the main event, what I'm really excited about. Oh, please.
    36:42
    Well, of course, the reason Rachel and I never miss this one is because this is where everybody is. The people, you know, that's the big deal. actually getting to hang out with all these folks we talk to online, in person. That's the big thing. The coolest thing is going to be whether or not Stern is going to bring a remastered game. Yeah. I think they, you know, there's rumors that, oh, they won't bring it. I kind of think they have to because they have to have something big. You know, everybody, you know, we know everything about Star Wars. We've seen streams that they're showing up. They have to have something to show other than X-Men or D&D Topper. They have to make a statement. And I think you're going to see, you know, one or two copies of this remastered game. So like last year with Metallica and X-Men releasing, you think? I think, yeah. There's just some weird thing going on where it's not ready. You're going to see this thing. I think so too. I'm with you on that. We said that on the podcast when Jamie and I streamed. I'm like, they got it.
    37:56
    I don't think they're going to be able to do it. I think they're going to pull it off, man. Well, we'll see. I think it's going to be heavy Star Wars. What was before Star Wars? Kong.
    38:12
    You're going to see a ton of those in there. Again, carpet. We talked about that. I mean, Ralph, that carpet at the Stern is key, man. It's so great that they have these damn carpets. Oh, 100%. Right? Absolutely. And he tagged on dad's shoes for a little while. But they really – I did. They're not going to make a statement by just bringing Star Wars out. I mean, they're Stern. They're the biggest in the business. They have to make the statement. They want those – you remember when they showed Metallica at Expo So I haven't seen a line that long to play pinball probably ever.
    38:51
    Yeah, between that and Alice, that was the only time I've seen those big lines like that. Yeah, and Alice was only on two ball, remember? Yeah, you couldn't get a good feel for Alice. The one other thing that you can't miss is the homebrew section. I talked to some people that are organizing it, And this is going to be the biggest collection of home, biggest and best collection of homebrew machines in the entire world. You're going to see, and there are some people, I know Jake Danzig, local Arizona guy. We've got a special game he's bringing, right? He teased us this last week. Right. He has something very special lined up. This is the same guy that did the Dukes of Hazzard with his crew. I can't wait. I don't know anything about it, but I heard it is from people who have seen it that it is spectacular, and it is something truly different.
    39:49
    And the mothership is going to be playable this year, right? That wasn't playable last year. That's correct. That would be cool, too. I was talking to Ron Coon, and he was like, we're still coding it, like, right now. We're, like, 11,000, and they're still, like, coding it, so they're trying to get it all worked out. Well, you know, I talked to Glenn Wechter, who's our announcer, and he was part of the Saw team, and they're bringing something new. Oh, really? Yeah, I know what they're bringing, but I'm not allowed to say it.
    40:14
    And that's really cool because last year they significantly made that area bigger. Like it was a cool area, so I hope they even make it even – it sounds like they're going to. It's going to be even bigger this year. So that will be cool. It is. And Tony Hawk, they did a bunch of updates to Tony Hawk. He did. So that's going to be cool. Nick Neitzel, shout out to you. That's a pretty cool game, so I'm excited to play that again. I hope they bring the greatest showman that needs to be there. And I was talking to Ralph on the podcast, too, on his podcast, that I hope Fury Road makes it. And that was an uncle and his nephew at TPF, that one TPF homebrew, dude. It was. You had a key to turn it on. All these crazy loops. It is just amazing. And for people that have been to an expo and they go into the homebrew section, can I do a public service announcement for some of these guys? Absolutely. These games are not at the bat. They're not designed to be at the bat. They get 1,000 plays a day, okay? So give these guys and gals a little bit of a break, right? Yeah. When you see the hood up, it's because it's homebrew. Yeah, they're fixing it as they discover issues. They're trying their best, okay? So don't go on Pinside and say, God damn saw, broke.
    41:39
    Give them a break, man. They're busting their ass. They worked all year long for Expo. So that was the box art. Cool and different, yeah. What was the one last year? Was it a video game one? Was it Overwatch?
    41:55
    I never got to play it last year. There was that. Yeah, it looked cool. I didn't get a chance to play it because the line was so long, but it was beautiful. And then what's the one, was Overwatch, there was one that had, like, hydraulics that moved the play field. I don't know what one that was. I can't remember if that was Overwatch or something else. Right. I don't remember which one that was. There's the Pokemon guy, too. He now works for Barrels of Fun. So it's like, you know, there's opportunities for these homebrew guys and gals if they want to advance. I mean, how many stories do we hear from companies that a guy comes out with a homebrew and they're like, yes. And they get hired or whatever. And they get hired. Do you think that, because I saw, you know, obviously, like, Nick Neitzel got a job working with the electric playground. And do you think that, because I saw, like, it was Keith Elwin, it was George Gomez, and they were all, it was really cool to see them huddled around the Tony Hawk Pro Skater. They were having so much fun with it, but they were taking notes. Not notes, but they were, like, taking mental notes, you could tell. Yeah. Do you think they use it as a scouting opportunity, too? Like, do you think they really look at that and go, hmm, like, this guy's got some creative ideas. Why would they? I mean, I would. You know, always be learning. Always be, you know, no question. And the homebrew guys and gals bust their ass. They absolutely bust their butt. I know Cayman put a whitewood at TPF, and she runs the awesome pinball collective. And I think she's going to be at Expo as well, debuting her Whitewood. So, anyway, I'm excited. What I'm excited, because I only get two days, right? I keep bitching about this. But I only get two days. So I'm going to get there Wednesday afternoon, and I'm just going to party hardy until Friday morning. We're going to go to Logan Wednesday night, right? That's the plan? So we're thinking about, Kale, going to Logan Wednesday night. Okay. With Joe, and he's got cash for us. So he owes us some money. He owes us money because he's like, Star Wars isn't going to have the assets. Yeah. We all were like, we're getting 15 bucks here. Yeah, so that's a done deal. And he's buying us the first round. So that's fantastic. So we'll go see him. And we know that the Expo opens its doors on Thursday, right? The show floor is Thursday. The show floor. Okay. Wednesday, that bumper blast thing over at Interium, which I've gone to it once. You just kind of – it's kind of – I'm not going to. Does Spooky have a panel?
    44:32
    I think they do. Yeah, I think they do. Okay, so that's where – let me help them. That's where they do it. Yeah, there you go, Gale. If they haven't thought about – well, this is what you do.
    44:44
    And unlike Jamie, I think they should show – somehow show some parts of the game. Not the whole reveal, but you could get people, because the whole thing where they just show a logo, that's dead. Like, stop that. You know, they need to show something. They need to show it at their panel and at the same time drop it on socials. So it's like all of a sudden it's a blast and everybody's talking about it all at one time. That would be amazing if they did it like that. Because you're hitting people outside of Expo, too. Right. Right, all at once, everybody's going to be talking about it, commenting on their posts, sharing it, look at this. You know, because the thing is, it's not like Stern where they have to time the announcements, you know, to where they don't want to cannibalize the sale of their last game. They're done. Evil Dead sold out. That's it. They're done with that.
    45:43
    Now's the time to get people excited. It doesn't look like they have a panel. I'm looking at the schedule. I don't see one for them. There's making of Kong, making of Star Wars. There's Dwight's Let's Make a Deal thing.
    45:55
    Oh, what day is that? You're going to miss that, I think, Jamie. That's fun. I know it is fun. I think you're going to miss it. It's a blast, man. You've got to stay up. No, it's Friday. It's Friday night. I'm gone Friday morning. I'm stuck.
    46:13
    I could have missed it. I'm looking at it right now. It doesn't look like there's an event. I'm just going to say this right now. I don't give a shit what wedding or something I've got in 2026. Okay, I'm not going. Okay. Don't go.
    46:26
    You can't. I'm not going. You can't. You've got to say it now and be like, that's not happening. I'm saying it now. Okay, this is live, ladies and gentlemen. This is for people in my friend group and family that want to do something in October of 2026. And the answer is no.
    46:41
    Yeah. Can I comment that the schedule looks like someone did it? The schedule is very hard to read. I don't know who makes it, but no offense, but it needs to be like more legible. It's crazy. Certain things highlighted like my eyes. I can't even look at it. It's very confusing. And some stuff is bold font and sometimes not. It's very weird. Yeah. Anyway, I was going to ask if you're getting your media pass.
    47:07
    You know, I don't know. And you know what? I don't know. It's crazy. So what's crazy is when we applied for the media pass, Mason's like, what do I put for business. And I go, you put Retro Ralph LLC, because that's what we do every year. And he got the media pass and I didn't. So I'm the guy that's supposed to be on camera, but I can't be in the room. But the camera guy can. It makes no sense. I'm mad about this. I don't want to get upset. I'm going to get upset. And I'm going to say something that I don't mean. So I'm not going to say anything else. What does the media pass get you? All I want, and Jamie on the phone called me a prima donna i like the media pass so i can go in i i like the media pass so i can go in before all the people go in so i'll film like i'll know i'm gonna film certain segments and when it's quiet i can at least get like that shot yeah and then i do the busy stuff later but if i can't do that i don't worry about getting there first because there's many contact graders that literally go to their room at night and like upload i don't do that but i like to get the shot so i can kind to like take my time and it's not as hectic but no guess i can't this year no well you should just show up early and go i'm here to film and just walk in like you own the joint i mean all i have to say is i'm part of the round table and they'll be like oh oh dude so sorry there we go sorry yeah so we'll do that i'll try it i'll see what happens they'll be like i tried to get my you know i try i didn't even try for the media pass i just bought my one day because i'm only there for a day right I just spent the 50 bucks, but I guarantee you it's going to say James Virtual because there's nowhere to – it says you have to put your real name in, and my real name is James Virtual. So there won't be a badge that says Jamie. It'll just say James. I'm going to slap it. Hey, there's a cool session I didn't realize until just now. This is cool. Rachel is going to be on a panel with Emoto and Gieski talking about women in pinball work. That's cool, working in the industry. That's going to be a great one. When's that? Well, if you can read the schedule, which is very hard to read, it looks like it's Thursday. Hold on. That's Saturday, it looks like. No, it looks like it's Saturday. Because that one last year was really good. Rachel was fantastic in that one.
    49:26
    You know, okay, I'm excited about that one. And the other one that is like you can't miss, and I'm going to have to get there early because I want to be able to get a seat, is the panel about AI art with Ian, Johnny Trapp, Colin, Jack, Brian Allen. Yeah. Brad Albright, I think. Yeah. That is going to be amazing. And I wish it was longer than an hour, because that really should be an hour and a half, because I know those guys have a lot of things to say.
    50:01
    That's a definite don't miss. And somebody else was supposed to be on that, but they couldn't do it, right? And they brought in Kinesis. They brought in a lefty. Oh, I don't know. I didn't hear about that.
    50:14
    Can we talk about that? Well, we can, but I think the most important thing about going to see this panel, this is the bold new world, the brave new world of AI, using AI. We're going to see it everywhere, and this is the first real discussion with industry insiders about this movement. This is really an important thing.
    50:41
    But what is the – tell me what you know, Jamie. No, I'm not saying anything. Well, I don't know anything. I'm not saying anything. I know what you're talking about, but I don't know enough backstories, so I feel like you can get into trouble. So either do I. So I'm not talking about it. So I'm just having a go. Just being a wise ass. You know, this is why I get in trouble. See, now the listeners are like, what the hell, Jamie? No, Kineticis, they brought in the righty. Kineticis is coming in, and he's going to do a good job on that panel. So is it still Ian, right? Yeah. Yeah, it's still Ian. And who else? Ian, Brian Allen, Johnny Crabb, Colin, and Brad Albright. Brad Albright's a good dude. Have you gotten to meet Brad? I thought Jack was going to be on it. Jack Lanieri? He's not, but Rob isn't all that great about updating this, because, like, they have Joel from Flippin' Out as Jack. Oh, they changed it. They fixed him. He's now Joel again, but he was Jack for a little while. Okay. Well, I mean, Ralph is also on a panel. Let's give a shout-out to our boy Ralph. I mean, Cale, nobody asked me and you, but, you know, Ralph is on a panel with Joel. You know that if you do a panel, you still don't get a pass. So, yeah.
    51:56
    Sounds fun. Do you get anything for being on the panel? No. No, no. That's nice. There you go. I'm also volunteering with Project Pinball. I did their auction last year. I'm doing that again. That is so fun, and there's so many cool prizes, and it goes to a good cause, so definitely check that out. I'm going to be posting more about how you can participate in that auction, but that's going to be cool. Are they going to have that big cup thing again where the person gets to bash through it? Remember that last year? They threw one of the TNT twins through it or something. It was just so random. It's weird. But I saw that big-ass stack, and I was like, I just want to push it down so badly. It was so hard for my media. I'm shocked that no little kid was like, oh, look, and pushed the thing out of it as a kid. I would have pushed the thing down. But Project Pinball is an absolutely fantastic organization. The biggest troll, boys, I ever got into was when I interviewed the head of Project Pinball for the old podcast. And it's still on. You can see it. And a troll just had the biggest problem with them setting up a 5013C. He could not get over it. And I'm going back and forth and back and forth with this guy. And I realized, I finally texted him and texted and said, am I ever going to convince you that you're wrong, Mr. Bark? And he's like, no. And I go, do you think you're ever going to question, you know, convince me? And he's like, probably not. And I go, why don't we just drop this and have a go at that? Yeah, we'll just shut up then.
    53:26
    But it was like troll going back. We're just hammering each other. And I think Project Pinball is a fantastic organization. If you don't know what they do, they have pinball machines in NICUs and cancer centers and hospitals across the United States and the world for kids. while they're going through treatment, and Ronald McDonald House. Yep, Ronald McDonald House too, yep. So just an unbelievable organization. Yeah, we were here when Daniel brought one to the Children's Hospital in Phoenix, and, man, it was absolutely amazing. They have, you know, a lot of these kids are living there. Yeah. And they had a very, I was blown away. They had a whole, like, discovery center inside the hospital with instruments, a recording studio where they could do their own television show.
    54:24
    I mean, games, video games, and we brought in, I believe it was a Star Wars for the kids to play. A little hard for the kids, damn it, but it's a great game. We set it up as easy as possible. Yeah, and Mark Pearson goes over there and texts it. I don't know if he still does it. So that's so important to do, right? And that is so important because that's what they need, right? Because we all know pinball machines break, right? And, you know, if you have time, if you live near any city that has these and have tech abilities and want to go to these hospitals and tech these machines, please contact Project Pinball because that's the hardest part for them, right? It's not raising the funds. It's getting them tech so that Star Wars works at the local Phoenix hospital. Yeah. Yep. All right. What's next, boys? What do we have next here? I think we're fifth around because it was just spooky. Did we talk about spooky? I have one thing to say about spooky. Yeah. Bug's listening. I got one thing he needs to fix. All right. Do it. There's nothing wrong with the machine. at, and I'll message him about this, see if we can add some software.
    55:38
    And I'm sure Serge will talk about it on the next Pen Pals. During our tournament this weekend, we had, during qualifying, we had Evil Dead in the tournament, but only for a couple of rounds because one of the players found this exploit. I can't remember the name of the mode, but whatever it is, he kept looping that right ramp that feeds the right flipper.
    56:12
    But you can – you know, there's two right flippers. There's one hidden under where the screenshot would be. So all you have to do, you backhand the ramp. It feeds the flipper. But if you hold up the flipper, the upper flipper stops the ball perfectly. And then you just let it go, trap on the – let the upper flipper go, trap on the main flipper, the right flipper. And then repeat. Rinse and repeat. How long? He did it for like 45 minutes. I think they fixed it, Cale, because I looked at the – it's on their public beta. Is this – is the sound right? It said, right ramp unlights during Undying Love to prevent an exploit. I think they just fixed it. It's not in the public beta. Yeah, yeah. Because I heard about that, too. Yeah, so I think he's already on it. So that's cool. Awesome. Yeah, I figured, I mean, yeah. You should launch the, I don't know how, I never played with, I did start playing with their beta code, but obviously the way I play mine at home is not going to be how it gets played at the bat. I don't know if beta for them means it could have stability issues, but I'm really excited for people at the bat to see it because there's the wizard mode they put in there is, like, ridiculously cool. It's, like, crazy, crazy cool. And then they put that video mode in, which is, like, this 70s-style, like, action game where it's, like, a side-scrolling. It almost looks like a side-scrolling game that was, like, maybe Atari. It's not Atari because it's better graphics than that. Like Contra? Side-scroll? Yeah, yeah. Like Contra. Yeah, so it's side-scroll. so you're like, you're Bruce and you're going through this world and like, you have your chainsaw and you have to hit like the action buttons to like saw people and then you move your, I think it's your left flipper to move up and down, it's very cool, like they, I'm pretty I don't know, I'm pretty pumped that they are putting this much into a game because I thought it was great, the code wise even before that, but they keep putting more stuff in so I don know they turned a corner it feels like it feels like they really like doing some cool shit Their stock is definitely trading high and I hope Beetlejuice is a banger Have we heard anything about our friend Don from Don Fembo Podcast Did he announce anything? I'm not going to talk about. He works there now. I don't know what he's doing. I don't know. I didn't sign up for Patreon. Sorry, Don. I know. I'm not into Patreon. I have too many patrons.
    58:35
    I'm getting so many messages from people. So even people like other podcasters, is this true? Is Spooky stupid? Oh, boy. Don is such a dumbass. Oh, boy. Why don't people like Don? I'm like, what the fuck?
    58:56
    I'm like, Don's nice, Don. Don is great. He's a nice guy. I mean, if Spooky found something. Is this true, though? Is this what happened? Can we set it up? Okay, no, it is definitely true because he went live. He bought, like, he went live from the house he bought in Benton, Wisconsin. Like, he went live from it, and I'm sure he didn't, like, go rent the house. He bought the house. And so it's kind of cool. And then I saw there was, like, a post he made where he was using the forklift. He was joking, like, oh, I'm the forklift operator now at Spooky, and he was loading Eagle Deads into, like, a truck and stuff. But I think the people that don't, someone that's saying that might not know that Don, he's a pretty creative guy. He's got a 3D printer farm. He makes all these. I mean, you guys, don't you have his bucket in your jaws? Yeah. He designs a lot of stuff. So I can see where. That's what I was about to say. If everybody, if you just go by his wild public persona, like, I mean, I've actually hung out with Don one-on-one. I mean, he's a brilliant guy, and he's incredibly creative. and I think he's perfect he's a perfect fit for a pinball company he's had a great relationship with them for a while right Ralph? I mean he's had a good relationship with them I don't think Benton I think Benton's only like an hour from where he was living prior so I know he would go up there a lot I think he built some really strong relationships with the whole team so you know I'm sure they hung out a lot and they're probably talking and maybe they're like hey man you have a lot of cool ideas Why don't you come work for us? So I think he's still doing his day gig, though. Of course.
    60:38
    Yeah, because I think he's a traveling doctor or something. Yeah, like there's not that much money in pinball to take care of that. He does very well for himself. He's got to keep the day job. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, you know, I also heard he was selling all his other machines, too. So I don't know. You know, I didn't listen to Patreon. Just release that. Don't do this behind the paywall crap. Come on, dude. This is big news. I know. I wouldn't have put that news personally behind a paywall because that's a cool thing. Like, that's a cool thing. Yeah. Get that. I heard another thing. I don't know if this is true. I'm going to ask you guys because I don't even know. I heard this. Does Erica's pinball journey work for Stern now?
    61:19
    Is that true? I haven't heard anything. No. I heard she has some gig with Stern. I know she does. She has. She's great. She's awesome. Erica is awesome.
    61:31
    Yeah. Erica's great, but I think she's coming here with Aaron on the way to Chicago. I believe so. I believe she's actually coming with the Predator machine.
    61:46
    Even better. You're going to hang out with Erica and the Predator. She was going to let me borrow her P3, but I have to get back to her on that. I think she was like, I can bring you my P3, and you can just loan it for a little while. I was like, all right, because I want to check out a P3 at my house. If she's offering, so she offered to bring you a P3 and you haven't gone back to her? No, no, we just kept, like, we were texting and it just, like, you know how it goes. Like, we weren't, we just haven't connected yet, but we will. Connect, make that happen, because I think Ralph would love a P3. But isn't a P3, like, 800 pounds or something? Like, how am I? Yeah, you're going to need some help. I haven't heard. They're not 800. They're heavy. Oh, it's heavy as shit.
    62:26
    It almost broke our hydraulic. damn thing. Well, you guys had that ghetto-ass freaking one I have from Harbor Freight. From Harbor Freight? Those things are a piece of shit. They're a piece of shit, but for my house, I'm still on my first one, and I move machines around a lot, and it hasn't broken. Well, you know, if you need something heavier duty, you can call Zach and get an Escalera. Dude, that thing is so pimp. I want that thing. It's amazing. It's absolutely amazing. Are you moving stairs? It's super expensive, though. I don't think the guy... Is the guy still making them? because that thing is so freaking cool. Yeah, it's great. How heavy is the Escalera? Doesn't it have, like, gyroscopes? Like, it balances itself and shit? Like, it's crazy, that thing. The one I used one time at the Louisville, Zach let me borrow it, to move a stack of glass on a pallet. We're talking hundreds and hundreds of pounds. Yeah. And, I mean, that thing's like a forklift. I mean, it just, it lifted. This didn't have any kind of gyroscope. I mean, it was, like, stable. I made that up, I think. Yeah, it had like four wheels. I mean, it's basically like a, you know, a forklift pallet jack type thing. It was great. That's awesome. I did a reel with Erin Winnick Anthony back a couple years ago where we were talking about the Harbor Freight, and she's like, show people how you move machines at the place. And I was like, okay. So the fucking thing broke in the middle of the reel. Like hydrocarbon fluid was like all over the place. getting all over the place.
    64:00
    That's why this is a piece of crap, okay? It's a coffin mover. It's a piece of shit, but we go through one a year, but for $400, it's not a bad game. But it's a cool hack for someone that just wants it at home, is only going to move games every now and then. Like, it's not a bad hack for that. You have to, like, hack the handle. I don't want to go too deep into it because Jamie will leave his body, but you have to, like. No, you do. You have to hack the handle. It's a whole pain in the ass. Then you, once in a while, it'll make it come up. In the first six months, it works great. It's got an over-under. Mine's going strong still, but... Yeah. Yeah, we'll see. All right, well, good luck with that. You guys want to talk about... I know Spike 3 was a topic, but I don't know if we want to get into it too much. I did play with the HDMI out, so I know how it works, but it's not actually that... Can I get a Diet Coke? Yeah, yeah, do your thing. I have to get a Diet Coke for this. It's because it's a technical topic, so that's why he's leaving. All right, that's why I'm leaving. But I was going to ask about the HDMI out, Cale. Do you think if you, say, 10 years from now, this is for like five people. The HDMI out is really a waste of freaking time, Stern. Okay? Why? If it costs you any money. Because there's like eight people that are going to use it.
    65:13
    No, but wouldn't you use it all the time? Oh, because you like to move it around. Oh, yeah. You can use it. You can't use it. Kale can't use it unless he's doing an individual game stream. Oh, because you need to move games around too much. Right? Yeah. It's probably cooler for, like, a studio setting at home. Hold on. But it works pretty good. So it's got, like, you know how on the Spike 3 it's got a right HDMI port, and that one's accessory for the topper, and the left one gives you HDMI out. It routes the audio and the video out that HDMI cable. The only thing you have to do is you just lower the main game volume. So if you're going to stream, you're just getting the feed directly from the game. And then because Star Wars has the John Williams soundtrack, there's a – and I know Stern's done this on other games – there's a streamer-friendly mode, which gives you, like – it's not a great soundtrack. I streamed it the other day and showed people what it sounds like. But it's Star Wars-esque, so you don't get, like, a copyright claim. But the thing is, what I just learned is John Williams with Star Wars, you won't – he lets you – I didn't get – so when I pulled it up, because my stream did both the Streamer Friendly and John Williams. It caught it, but it says you can still monetize this video. But I have had things in the past where I've streamed, like, an arcade game or something that had some kind of copyrighted music. And I don't know, maybe YouTube doesn't do this anymore. But the content ID caught that it was, and then it shut my stream down because I saw concurrent viewers, and it was like... Wow, a live stream? Yeah, it was going down and down and down and down, and then it just shut it off. Wow. Yeah, so I don't think they do that anymore, though. But they're trying to prevent, like, let's say I wanted to spin up a 24-hour YouTube channel that just streamed, like, some band's entire album. I think that's what they're looking for. Or if you tried to stream, like, a movie that, you know, how people do those, like, hacks of movies, like, that kind of stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it didn't shut it down. And it didn't copyright claim me either. Can I ask you a technical question, Cal? Absolutely. What if, say, five years from now, you've got a bunch of Spike Threes in there, right? And you've got your Star Wars, and you left an HDMI out with a long cord, and you put it to an Axsoon.
    67:31
    Right. And that gets really expensive, though, right? You know, we're not talking money. Let's say money, no object. This is Cale Hernandez. Okay? Yeah. So then you have that extra axon, and you would hook it up for just the Spike 3. That could work. So you wouldn't even need the extra camera, the third camera on your rig. You wouldn't need the third camera. Oh, that would be cool. You know, I'm going to one-up your idea, Jamie. If you had a row of Spike 3s, you'd take all the HDMI outs and put them into an HDMI switcher, and then put one axon, and then you could just switch the games. And if you've got a Wi-Fi switcher, you could just do it from your phone and go, all right, we're doing Star Wars. That would be cheaper, yeah. That's a brilliant move, an absolutely brilliant move for eight people in the world. But it's pretty cool. Like 10 years from now when there's a ton of Spike 3s, it might make sense, though. But right now it's not going to probably make any sense. No.
    68:30
    That's just not a feature I'm going to ever use. Yeah. But I think the coolest thing about it is at conventions or even on an arcade where you want to show off a machine, you could mount a monitor to the top of the back box. Yeah, that'd be cool as hell. Actually showing what's on the display because that's when we set up the booth at Expo many years ago and Stern debuted the Black Knight. Jim Sheard who made those little boards that allowed you to get HDMI out of the Spike 2's that's what they used it for. Like a spectator screen. Right and so it's like and that was very cool because you could see what was going on on a big monitor that was above you know the pinball machine and they need to do that for Star Wars. You know they show off the clips you know Have it to where, like, people aren't, like, huddled around trying to see what's going on on the display there. Do you think they'll do that at Expo? Because that seems like that would be a missed opportunity if they didn't. Like, because it would be a cool thing to show. To showcase that you can do it. Yeah. But not only that, to your point, it's kind of a cool spectator thing because now you can look at the scores of the players playing. I think that would be cool. Exactly. Yeah, that would be nice. Did they also fix the streaming where the score can be seen?
    69:55
    You know what I mean? Like when Kale's got a stream Godzilla It's tiny The scores are tiny On the bottom side I don't know that the scores are Bigger but Instead of worrying about HDMI out let's get A streamer Like a streamer display mode That makes it better for game capture Yes That can be cool How about that? The only company that's ever done that is Spooky.
    70:28
    What do you mean? So on TNA, actually, your scores are on those digital displays, right? And then they updated the code to where you can actually show them on the LCD. Oh, that's cool. And they did that for streamers, so, you know, for competition and stuff. That's cool. So the only other thing I'll say about Spike 3, and I do have an open line with Gomez about this. He's saying the dev team at Stern is saying there is no problem, or they don't think there's a problem. But I was having the Wi-Fi was a little flaky on my Spike 3, and this is where I'm going to get. I promise it will be only 60 seconds. So they're using a Raspberry Pi CPU module for the processor, and there's no Wi-Fi antenna. There is one built in, but there's no antenna hooked up to it. So I'm going to play with that. I bought a kit antenna for the module they're using, the Pi Module 4, I think. I'm going to test it out because the signal strength of my Spike 2 is way better than Spike 3. And they were like, well, we need more data from you to really validate what you're seeing. But I'm going to hook up the antenna, and then I'm going to send Gomez the output and see what he says. That's cool. It might not matter for you guys because if a game updates and it takes a day versus taking a half hour, you might not even care. That's a huge deal for us It would be But I don't want anybody listening to this To think that there's a major problem I'm talking with them, I'm working with them They're trying to figure it out So I don't want anyone to think the Wi-Fi is shit We're trying to figure that out That's all they're going to get out of the clip Ralph said the Wi-Fi is shit Pretty much And George has a new mic Did he say anything about the mic? I wasn't mentioning the mic He's like FJ me He's like, oh, wow, okay. Ouch. He's like, I'll let him know. Plenty of needs to do, Mike. Him and Robert. So are we doing a roundtable at Expo? That is the topic for discussion, sir. We need two things we need to happen. We would need to say yes to it, the three of us, and then we would need a spot to go to. And I was thinking empower. Well, if you remember, when we did the live stream at the bat, I had all of that running off of a couple battery packs. So we don't technically need power if I bring battery packs, but power would be good if we could. You know, Wi-Fi could be an issue. There's a good spot right near Stern if a moto would let us use it. Kale would have to pull some strings with a moto. She's got to pull strings with a moto. We can jump on her Wi-Fi. I don't think we'll have a problem finding a place to do it. You think someone will let us do it? Yeah, for sure. Then let's do it live from the – absolutely. Thursday night, here's what we do. Thursday night is the media mixer. I say we stop by, say hi, and then come back and around 8 or 9 o'clock Chicago time do the live roundtable on Thursday night. Do you guys think we can fit that all in, you think? I'm down. I want to do it. Oh, yeah. We could fit that in. That would be a blast, dude. Do we have an extra mic in case someone wants to sit with us or just the three of us? Yeah, we should have an extra headset because we could put four on the roadcast. right? Yeah. Would that be cool? Yeah, let's do it. Awesome. All right, well, done deal. Live roundtable. Parts should be where is going to be determined. We'll figure it out. Someone's going to say, hey, if you've got a booth and you want the roundtable at it, shoot us an email at pinballroundtable.com. I don't even have that email, by the way. There is a vendor I know would probably let us do it, but I don't want to say it. But there is one that I have in mind that I think would let us if we were really like we couldn't find one. There's one definitely that will. But, yeah. And they have a cool booth. Hey, did you work on your room situation?
    74:20
    What do you mean? Is Carrie staying with you? That's what I want to know. I actually talked to Carrie today. We were talking about the Raspberry Colting the past hostage thing. Yeah. And, no, he's not staying with me. But, yeah. I don't know where he's staying. That's a missed opportunity. I don't have a place to stay Wednesday night. Jamie and I talked about this. And I'm going to reveal, so Jamie has a problem with his digestive system, correct? I have Crohn's disease. It's not a problem. It's a fucking disease. It's not like I woke up one day and went, you know what I like? Crohn's. No, I know that. I didn't know if you wanted to tell people that. It doesn't matter. I'm the fattest Crohn's guy on the planet. I have the weirdest digestive system. I probably have a problem. I need to probably see a doctor. So, like, I don't want to room with Carrie, and then I got, like, to massively take the worst dump ever, and then I'm explosively, like, going. You know what I mean? I don't want to. Like, you know, that's just awkward. I don't want to do that. It's nothing against Carrie, but Carrie wouldn't want to do that. I'm just saying, sometimes my stomach starts churning, and I don't know what's going to happen. So I escape for a little while. You don't see me for, like, a minute. I wonder why Carrie asked you. That's just the funniest thing in the world for me, right, is that Carrie's like, hey, Ralph, you want to room together? And I know Kerry fairly well. Like, I've known him for several years. No, I love Kerry. But I don't – I'm weird. Like, I wouldn't necessarily ask Kerry, but he asked me, and I'm – you know, Kerry, I appreciate that you would want a room with me, but there's many reasons why you wouldn't want a room with me. You would do is you say, oh, dude, I only have a king. That's the move. Well, actually, I think I only have a king. I don't know, actually. So you say I only have a king, and then he says, well, I don't mind. No, no, that I'm not doing. No, no, I'm not doing that. You sleep with your head at my feet. No, I'm not doing that.
    76:12
    Or whatever you do. This would be a Warren winner. Would you do it? No. I'm staying with Joe Cervino on Wednesday night. You guys are sharing a king? We're sharing a king and we're going to spoon. Joe looks very spoonable. And I can't wait to see him. Oh.
    76:30
    You're rooming with Joe? Now, here's my issue, right? So you are sharing a bed with him? Are you being serious or you're not sharing a bed? Hold on a second. I'm going to tell you. Okay. I originally, before I got called to a wedding, had the hotel from Thursday night to Sunday. But now I can't use that because I – so then I called the hotel and tried to get Wednesday and Thursday and get it switched, and it sold out. Right? So, Joe, I was bitching about it on Colin's Discord channel. The Canassus has a Discord channel for content creators. You should join, both of you. It's really a fun Discord. I commented earlier. I just said I said looking forward to seeing you guys at Expo. I don't go on the Discord channel. I don't go on it. Well, you're advertising the thing, and you don't even use it. I don't really go on Discord very often. I just get alerts. I don't either. You know? and um but anyway uh i was joking that i don't have a room now for thursday night and joe is graciously putting me up for when for wednesday night so i'm gonna spoon with joe what a what a great guy and then i'm gonna come back to the renaissance on thursday when i can check in there and then john from eureka heights and taylor buckley are taking my room uh thursday friday Saturday and Sunday. Okay. There you go. So they're coming up. They'll take my place. You guys can hang with those two clowns. So what else we got? We're at an hour and 17. I don't have anything else. Nothing? Nothing. Come on. I got nothing for you. Jamie, you always have something. I really don't. What about the auxiliary topics? We had like 65 topics for the show. But I mean, some of them might be long. They were really long. Let me see if they were any good. Let me see. Where are they? I mean, who wrote the churro comma?
    78:33
    That was Cale. It definitely wasn't me. I didn't write that. I mean, we're not going to talk about that. What does it say? Can you, like, make a one-hander out of a churro?
    78:43
    That's definitely you. He put that in to make sure we're reading. That's to make sure we're reading. You know what I mean? Because it didn't make sense. It was in the middle of all these other topics. What does that mean? here's the other topics in between it Chicago Expo preview and why carpet is important, I wrote that and then mixed feelings on Star Wars but why, we can talk about Star Wars and then in between the mixed feeling on Star Wars is could you use Churro as a one hitter can you I mean I think you probably could I probably could but you probably could I'm not a big Churro guy alright let's And with Star Wars, right? Because I think it's getting some unnecessary flack. I mean, and it's going to be delivered to Eureka tomorrow, and you already have yours. I already have it, yeah. Is the back getting one?
    79:37
    Yeah, you guys are getting one, right? Star Wars? Yeah, it'll be – it's shipped already. It should be here Friday. Oh, cool. So you'll have it there. Okay, that's cool. So we'll all have to play that before X-Men. We're going to head over to Game Room Goodies. Ralph, you know those boys there, Aaron and the whole family. I love that guy. They're going to give me a call as soon as it comes in, and we're going to set it up.
    80:01
    And if you're in Arizona and you want a Star Wars, get in touch with Aaron at Game Room Goodies, GameRoomGoodies.com. Yeah.
    80:10
    I don't know why. You know, it's weird, man. I think sometimes it depends on who and where you look about what the criticism is. some people criticize the high-end product because they look at some of these other games coming out, and they've, oh, man, $13,000, that's really expensive. And they start comparing and contrasting to what they could get by, like, Bears of Fun or Spooky. You know, and they start going, oh, well, you know, there's a lot more. They seem to be packing a lot more in.
    80:39
    So there's that, but that's not a gameplay argument. That's more of, like, I don't like the armor, or I think there should be more toys in it or whatever. So I don't know. We could talk about all that, but I think if I'm looking at it from a purely gameplay perspective, that kind of goes into what you guys covered, right, Cale? Where it's like certain people don't like certain kinds of layouts of games or they want their shots to be more of an Elwynn style, so they like Elwynn games.
    81:07
    I'm having a lot of fun with it. My only thing that I'm having an issue with with it, and this is kind of a – everyone's talking about this issue, is the Death Star shot. So it's just really tight, and sometimes the ball is rejecting out of it. And last night I played a game where all I did, I was like, I'm playing the game, and all I'm going to do is go for the Death Star shot. And there were times where it went right into the Death Star. It was in the Death Star. It wasn't rattling, and it came out, and it never locked it in. The first shot lowers the little door, and then the next shot's supposed to lock the ball. But it's weird because I noticed I don't have enough, like, you know how people put slow-mo cameras and really try to figure out what's going on? I didn't do any of that. but if you hit it dead on and it's going the right speed and everything, it seems to work fine, but it does reject it. It probably rejects it more than I would like. So maybe they'll come out with a fix for that or something. And that shot is interesting because you can backhand it from the left flipper, although I'm finding I'm better at shooting at it from the right flipper. But there's that Jedi shot that has the buck. That one you can backhand really easy, actually. You can backhand it. Once you get it, you can easily backhand that shot. and that shot's important because it sets up your Hoth multiball. I'm really enjoying it. I don't know. Are you playing it a lot? Yeah, it's all I've been playing. When I get a new game, though, in all fairness, I just start playing it as much as I can to learn it and stuff. I'm impressed with how much they packed into it already. Like, Ray Day did. The one thing about it, and I know, like, Surge understands code way better than I do, but I'm noticing it's a game that the way they lit the shots and the C-3PO call-outs, you know what you need to do. So there's clearly, like, side paths you can go and do other things, but if you're trying to play and progress through the modes, it's very obvious. And I like that because that makes it easier to learn the code. Maybe not the advanced stuff like Surge can do, but that's what I'm liking about it. I like that it seems easier to pick up. How cool is the, on the Premium and LE model, the 4-save? Is it really cool? I'm having a ton of issues. I need someone like Serge to get me to understand how I use the force save, because when you do get it and you use it, it's badass. Like, if you use it the right way. It looks completely badass, doesn't it? It'll swing. Like, let's say the ball's, like, going out your left out lane and you hit it in time. The magnet will shoot it over. Like, it'll shoot it back over and back into place. So that's cool. and then if you grab it when it's going down the middle, it like sucks it into like the middle of the two flippers and then throws it up. That's very cool. It's actually really cool, but I can't – I must not be doing it right because I don't know how to do it consistently. But that's probably a me problem and not a game problem. Yeah, I'll tell you something funny. You know, before Raymond got here for the tournament this weekend, he was like, do you have your Star Wars yet? I was like, no, you know, it's shipped, but it's going to be here next week. And I was like, Ralph has one. And so, you know, we were running it through our head. And I know if I, like, begged Ralph. I would have done it. He would have done it. Yeah. And I would come pick it up and then talk to Zach, and I'd be like, I'll talk you up on the stream. I know we could have worked it out, but, you know, I decided I had so much going on. Yeah. I mean, how many players did you have at the tournament? for the main event, a little over 80. That's huge. Yeah. 20 rounds. We got a lot of traffic through that whole weekend, though. Yeah. So how could you expect to go drive, you know, 45 minutes or whatever rounds away? But that would have been pretty cool to have Ray there playing his own coded game. That's what I wanted to see. Yeah. That would have been cool. Exactly. And him commenting on it. Yeah. But it is, it's very unfortunate because the one thing who everybody I've talked to that has played it, all they say is that Death Star shot. It's unfortunate. It seems like a main event. That's where you want to put the balls for a big multi-ball, and that seems to be a hard shot to make or just get it locked in, get it to work properly. But you know, if it isn't Stern, I mean, somebody's going to find some kind of mod to get that thing working properly. I would say, though, like after I initially, when I first started, when I only played it like ten times, I was like, oh, that shot's really, really hard. Once I have it, now I have it dialed in from the right flipper. Like I can pretty much hit it consistently now. So now it's just more about am I going to get a reject or not. You know, that's a bummer, man, when you're playing real well and all of a sudden you're like setting yourself up for that multi-ball and you get a reject and something happens, like it goes wild and you drain by accident or something. You know, it happens, though, right? It happened to me. It's kind of pinball. It happened to me on Iron Maiden. I had one shot left for Cyborg multiball, right? And I put it in the Cyborg multiball, and then it rejected right down the middle. I know. It sucks when it happens, man. And then the game over. And that was my last ball. I was like, mother of fair. There goes Cyborg. But, yeah, hopefully they fix it with code. Because you know how the pin side works. You know, there's one little issue. Well, I think it's going to take more than code. I think it's the mechanical issue. Oh, you do? Yeah, yeah. It's not code. It's definitely a mechanical, for sure. But for right now, I mean, there's other multiballs you can go for, right, Ralph? Yeah, yeah. But here's the one thing I'm wondering. Like, it'll be interesting when you guys get the Pro, because these were the first ones off the line. I mean, they could have maybe fixed it already. I don't know. But they haven't publicly said anything, I don't think, about it, at least not that I saw. But it's not, like, so bad that it's tons and tons of rejects, at least not on my copy. But it does happen, and it's frustrating when it happens. But I'm enjoying it otherwise. Like, they packed a lot of clips in it, and I don't even think they have all of them really in yet. But the clips are cool. Like, there's some cool moments already kind of, like, coded in. So I'm digging it. I know there are people that are saying, like, oh, you know, some of them like the 2017 one better. I really like this one better than the 2017 one, but that's just my opinion. I haven heard anyone say they like 2017 better so that strange But I can wait to play it It dropping at Eureka tomorrow so we got ours tomorrow Are you going to stream it No Oh man it be cool if you streamed it so I could see Well I just talk to you about how it plays. Because is it a pro or is it a premium? It's a pro. Okay. I do like the jump ramp, though. The jump ramp thing is actually really cool. I think I will miss that a little bit on the pro, but I haven't played the pro. It's always a jump ramp on the throw, right? So it's not down. It's just always up, right? I believe so. It is kind of cool when, like, you hit it and then it goes up. But, I mean, I guess it's always up. The force is just like. It's like in Jaws when you hit the life preserver thing. I can't remember. Life ring, whatever. That's fine. I'll live. It's the same as, what is it, Foo Fighters.
    88:12
    Well, Foo Fighters has the cool. What's that feature on Foo Fighters? That's badass. That's the thing where the post comes up. The post comes up, but on the pro, the post doesn't come up. Right. Oh, you know what? I don't think I've ever played. You don't have a pro, but there's pro. Isn't yours a premium? Yeah, we have a pro, but the important part about that ball save, and I saw a lot of people during the tournament not doing it, and Ray and I even commented on it, on the pro, even though you don't have the dead post that pops the ball back into play, when you have the ball save lit on that left out lane, on the pro still hold up your left flipper because you get like a couple of million extra points for doing that. Oh, nice. I didn't know that. All right. Yeah. That's good to know. I think you guys will like it. I'm curious. That is one thing I want to – I really want to see what you guys think of the game. I'm very excited about Star Wars. Yeah, I'm totally pumped up. I can't wait to play it. And the fact that you guys are also going to be playing a Predator on Sunday night is pretty bad. I did not know this. This is like – Seriously jealous. This is the beginning of the podcast. Oh, no, dude. I'm not going to be able to go. Oh, because I'm hosting the or I'm filming. They're flying. Roth Rills is flying me to Nashville to cover the Buckfest. Buckfest 20. Oh, how cool is that? You know what you just motivated me to do? Sunday, it's over. I'm taking an earlier flight home so I can go to the bat and check it out. So what time do you think that is? Like five? Yeah, they said they were going to have a set up at five o'clock or show up at five. I'm going to figure it out. I'm going. I'm figuring it out. BuckFest is great. I am so excited for BuckFest. This is going to be cool. Yeah. Do you think we'll hear anything about Halo? Do you think we will? No. Do you think? No.
    89:57
    I'm personally excited. I know, Jamie, you said you didn't care about Halo, but I'm kind of excited to see what happens with that. I am super stoked about Halo. Yes. I am too. Yeah, this thing is going to be badass. Do you have any knowledge about it? No. absolutely nothing about it, but just think about what this team did with Pulp Fiction. Now they have Tim Sexton there. So they have another pinball guy, a guy with pinball experience, and you have Mark Ritchie who originally, when he first did the drawings for Pulp Fiction, it was a normal machine with ramps and all kinds of stuff. And now, you know, and Quentin Tarantino didn't want that. He wanted a more retro feel. So now Mark gets to do a full-on modern-style pinball machine. And, I mean, they'll throw everything into this. I mean, can you imagine the artwork? It's going to be, like, dark and halo-y. And then as soon as you put your quarters in it, that music's going to come on. That was a theme song. Jamie, how are you not getting pumped? Yeah, this is going to be great. I just was more of a Call of Duty dude than I was a Halo dude.
    91:11
    Blue versus red, come on. It's too much. I just didn't like it. I'm going to play it. I bet you it's awesome. Do you think there will be any other surprises at Expo? Do you think there will be anything else that we're like, holy shit? I mean, there's a couple of potential surprises, but do you think anyone else will have anything else?
    91:30
    I mean, there's talk about a Big Bang Bar, right? Right. Would they bring us or Raza? But I'm sorry, but, like, who cares? Yeah, I don't care about Big Bang Bar either. We've all seen Big Bang Bar. You know, you have to – I don't think a remake is going to excite people. If you want to show somebody something at Expo, it has to be something new. For example, like the Alice game. That was something new.
    91:57
    So I don't know if Raza's ready, but I think that would get people excited. Oh, yeah. That would be cool. Yeah, I told Ralph this too. I got to play Raza in 2021, it was, at the Houston Arcade Expo. And it broke. But I think what was really cool, because you know Barrels of Fun, you know how Barrels of Fun has the other small LCD screen? Yeah. In the back. That's from the lock bar. Those are from the lock bar. Those are from the Raza lock bar. Those are touch screens. Yeah. You can't touch them. You know? Yeah. No, you're not going to touch it on June. Well, what about – I haven't – I've been so busy, I haven't been keeping up with any kind of media, any kind of news. What about Big Trouble in Little China? Oh, yeah, that's supposed to be there, I think, right? That's the homebrew, right? That looks pretty fantastic. Yeah, that looks great. That looks like a crazy – I mean, they've got a lot of people involved in that project. That thing looks like it's almost like a mass-produced thing. So that would be really cool. Man, these homebrews are just looking incredible. Yeah, they're killing it. And, you know, shout out to Marco Specialties. They have a homebrew kit. If you are a homebrewer, you could go and buy a whole kit. And I showed that off on one of the – Yeah, you did. We were all together, right? That was really cool. That was incredible. So there they go. I still am holding hope that we're going to get some bit of a teaser on Back to the Future.
    93:31
    Yeah, I don't think so. That'd be cool if they did, though. I think they're going to try to, you know. I just don't even care, man.
    93:39
    Is it because of who's making it? Like, you think it's just not going to be available? Well, first of all, I mean, it's going to take them 10 years to build all of them.
    93:49
    I mean, they're not good for operators. They're just not reliable. Yeah. You know, I mean, there were people even at the tournament talking about how they wished they could one day in their life find a Big Lebowski that actually 100% worked properly. It took two years for us to get our Big Lebowski working perfectly. Wow. To be able to be played in a tournament. Years. And that's just me as an operator. I'm not excited. I know collectors are very excited about it. Because that's a theme that resonates with Ralph. And that's a theme that resonates with a lot of us, you know, gray hairs. Back to the Future is pretty badass, right? Do you guys remember, so when Back to the Future 2 came out, and you went to the theater to see it. This was pre-internet. You know, there's no spoilers. You watch it, and it ends, and it says, to be continued. Yeah. Man, you had to wait three years. Yes, we freaked out. But they had already, they shot them together. It wasn't years. Maybe it was a year between them, I think. Yeah, it wasn't too long. But they shot them together, and this was the whole plan. That gave me, like, chills when I saw it. I was like, oh, they're going to make a third one. Because then they ended it on, like, a super cliffhanger, too, because that was so cool. And I don't feel like you can get that kind of excitement out of a movie anymore, because everyone shares and makes everything.
    95:13
    But I still am holding out hope that we can get something from that. It made me think about that, man. That excited me as a kid. When that thing happened, I was like, holy shit, this movie is free. Yeah, there can be no more Blair Witch moments, you know. I know. Everything's spoiled by the internet. It's garbage. I mean, do you remember Blair Witch? People literally thought it was a real movie for a pretty significant period of time. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. And I remember the internet was around when Blair Witch, but it was nothing like it is now with all the Facebook and social media. So I, being the nerd I am, I found some, like, message boards where people were chatting about it. So I knew the whole deal. So after the movie, you know, the lights come on. They're like, you know, what happened to these people? And I was the one spoiling it going, you know, this was, it was a scripted film, you know. You're that guy. So I was in film school when that movie came out, and I lived in L.A., and we all went to see it together as, like, students. and we went out for pizza after, and we were like, oh, my gosh, that real movie is so crazy. We thought it was real, and then soon after, I think it was our professor or something, he's like, nah, dude, that was all fake. But that's the magic of it. It worked. It got you excited. It pulled you into it. They filmed that mostly in Orlando. That was UCF, University of Central Florida. I lived in Orlando at the time, and the makers of that machine were film students at UCF. Yeah, and then they shoot it for like $10,000 and then make like a million bucks. Yeah, they shot it for nothing. Well, and remember, like all the cameras, there was no video stabilization, so it added to that like effect that this could be real because this is really some dude with a camcorder or whatever. It was – that was cool, man. That was a cool moment. Yeah, I don't know if we're going to get to those anymore.
    97:01
    I know we have to wrap up. Can I show my product real quick? Yeah, let's do – this is a segment, ladies and gentlemen, of occasionally – We show, it's our product showcase, and this is the Rodecaster Duo. Oh, is this new? It's just the two-person. It's just the two-mic one. Shit, I don't know if I can lift it up without knocking my, I can't lift it up. It's white. I got the white one. Are you using it right now? I'm using it right now. But you also have the other one. Yeah, the reason why I got this, I put one on my rig, on my camera, on my rig for streaming, because now I can really control things a lot better. I had a mixer. I had like a little, it was a smaller mixer. I can't remember the brand. It was like a tiny one. But this gives me so much more power. Now I have my theme music, like, programmed onto one of the pads. It's helping a lot. So it's cool because it's more footprint. Something that George Gomez should buy. It's not expensive. Dude, all he'd need is this and the headset you're wearing, and he'd sound great. That's it. That's all you need. And everyone at Stern could use it. Ralph. Everyone. Yeah, so that's my thing. Rob Burke, when he does his podcast. Yeah, I'm using the RODECaster Pro 2 right now. And when I was shopping for stuff like that, for years, Rachel and I, when we were streaming or doing our podcast, we just used the interface.
    98:25
    Because a lot of videos were like, oh, the RODECaster is too complicated. It is not. Setting up everything, it walks you through it. And Lizard is good on it. If you don't know anything, Lizard will set you up. It's dummy proof, yeah. You know, there's a friend of mine does a businesswoman's podcast and not pinball related. And they came to me and these two ladies said, what do I need? The first thing I said is the Rodecaster and then these Audio Technicas for them. Yeah. You know, I said they're stupid proof. You walk around, you do this, it doesn't even matter. And you sound really good. So, yeah, there you go. Did you also see that Rodecaster, that Rode now has a, they're trying to go up against the YoloBox. Did you see that? No. Really? So they have a new thing, but it doesn't have a screen on it. Oh, yes. I know what you're talking about. Is it a phone or an iPad? It's broadcasting hardware. So let's say Cale got rid of his Mac. Yeah. He could buy this new Rode caster, and then the HDMI out would go into his big screen that he has.
    99:43
    And then all the inputs or something. You just have a keyboard and mouse attached to it. So there's no screen, but it has all the HDMI inputs that a YoloBox would have. It has sliders. It's a portable television studio. It's pricey. It's $1,000. It's cheaper than the YoloBox. The YoloBox is only $2,000. So, yeah, I'm liking the YoloBox a lot. We can talk about that maybe another time. But I do really like the YoloBox, especially the extreme one. Now I can stream 4K. No problem. It looks beautiful. You can zoom into the play field. You see it all in great, like, 4K detail. It's pretty cool. I absolutely love it. All right, Cale, what is your product, sir? My product, I'm wearing them right now, and it is the Meta glasses, the Ray-Ban glasses. Have you seen him do this? I have a pair of them. I love them. They're so great. I don't use them enough, though. Yeah. He showed me the eyes when we were at the back. It's badass, right? It is so cool. Go ahead. I'm sorry. I'm geeking out because they're really cool. Yeah, they're so cool. And if you just buy them off the shelf without prescription lenses, I think they're like $300. Of course, I got the prescription lenses in there.
    101:00
    But it is so cool to be able to. And I've been using them a lot to show people what it's like to run an arcade, like me going around collecting tokens. Oh, you're doing that on your – oh, those reels are coming from those? Those are cool when you're, like, emptying the coin boxes and stuff from certain games. That's cool. That's so cool. And that's very cool. And also playing pinball. You can make very cool clips of – you know, I use them when I'm playing a tournament. Yeah. And so it is very cool. So I think it's a great tool to show people how cool – because the view you get when you're playing pinball, like when you nudge the machine, there's a slight shake, right? And so it really brings the viewer into the feeling of what it's like to play pinball. And, yeah, so I've been using it a lot. It's a lot of fun. It's great for social media stuff. Yeah, big plus. Check them out. That is really cool. And they just released new ones, too, that, like, is it where you can see? It has a display, right? It has a display inside or something, right? That's the one I want. Yeah, I don't know what those are like. But what's also cool is you can listen to music and podcasts.
    102:12
    I don't keep them on all the time because the battery life is not that great because, I mean, there's a battery somewhere in this thing.
    102:21
    So I keep them off most of the time unless I'm using them. But if you keep it on and keep the AI stuff on, it's kind of creepy. You can just go, hey, Meta, what am I looking at? And it will tell you. So I was at, Rachel and I were searching stuff for mocktails to get like a mocktail menu going on at the electric bat. Look at Ralph. These look great. Mine are kind of reflective, though. You must have something different in yours. Oh, I bought the super expensive lenses. I don't think mine are too big for my face, though. I kind of look like I'm rocking Warby Parker. I went with the smaller ones. I think I need to get the smaller ones because I think they're too big for my face. Yeah, yeah. But anyhow, Rachel and I went to the liquor store to look at, you know, they have these mocktail liquors. And to get a mocktail program going on at the Bat Bar. And, you know, I'm just like, hey, Meadow, what am I looking at? And it tells you. And I was like, give me a list of recipes I can use making these. and it's oh it's amazing that's good and the list shows up on your phone yeah yeah there's an app there's a meta ai app that you use this is fantastic i can't wait for apple you'd use this a lot i think for like really content yeah because you do a lot more of the instagram stuff i feel like for instagram it's pretty cool and and because you can stream directly to instagram with them which is cool too yes okay there's a couple of downsides um the battery life is not that great. With the new model that just came out like last week, it doubles the battery life and gives you a higher definition camera. If you can find the, I think these are second generation or something like that. If you can find these at a discount, they're great too. You can see my videos on Instagram and Facebook. But you do have to think about the battery life on these bad boys. And also, it only lets you record, I think, a five-minute clip. Do you know, Ralph? It is limited, but I can't remember now. I want to say you're right on five, but I can't remember. Or it might be three. But you can stream on Instagram or Facebook until the battery dies. Yep. Yeah. That's pretty cool. Yeah, they're cool as hell. I didn't know you were using them. I thought, like, a lot of those clips you were doing with the camera, but that's cool that you're doing those. They look good. Yeah, it's like a video game. You're seeing my view of what I'm doing. It's like VR arcade or something. It's like I'm peeking out on it when I was up there a couple of weeks ago, and it is pretty badass. It's a really cool technology, so there you go, Meta. Way to go. I don't have any voice. I didn't know I was supposed to do one. Yeah, but before we go on to you, I did want to say, you know, people that are, like, creeped out by these, Whenever somebody's recording, there is a light flashing, so you know. Yeah, you can't cover it because it knows that you covered the light. Exactly. So you can't take – there's no, like, sneaky, I'm going to catch this person saying something screwed up, you know. Okay. Yeah. That's good. Now I'm going to buy it and use these more. You kind of inspired me. I'm going to use them more because there's probably some cool little clips I could make in my garage with some of the games I have with them. I've got to do more of that. For sure. Or just put them on while you're playing pinball. Make some clips. Dude, the guy's an expert. He lives 45 minutes away from you. Use this guy right here. Okay? I know. I'm excited about Sunday. I got to remember to change my flight. I am absolutely changing my flight because the event's done on Sundays. I've got to check this out. It's a private thing. Yeah. It'll be cool to see everyone else's reaction, too.
    106:04
    It's such a cool environment there because everyone genuinely, like, loves pinball. So it's cool to see their reaction to a game. Yeah. I don't have a product, boys, so we'll just move on. But I did want to give a quick shout-out again to the boys at Eureka.
    106:20
    I was talking to John the other day, and they have a very similar dynamic to Rachel and Kale, where his partner, Taylor, is very similar to Rachel where they just go and fix everything, right? They just are unbelievable. They just have the uncanny ability to fix things, right? And John doesn't fix – he fixes things, but not to the ability of you and Rachel and Taylor. But what he is doing is really – John is doing is what you do, Cale. And it is – well, which you especially did when you started the bat was you see someone playing, you walk up to them, and you talk to them about pinball, okay? And then you start getting them for Tuesday night. You don't need to do that anymore. You've got 100-plus people on Tuesday night. I still do it. You know, I think that is such a phenomenal thing in our community. When you have that person who loves this community so goddamn much that they go up to random strangers and they say, you've got to come to the bat on Tuesday because you're unlike anything you've ever seen. You've got to come to league on Wednesdays at Eureka Heights because here's what we're going to do. So Eureka is in the process of emulating or stealing, whichever one you want, of a lot of things that you're doing, Kale. So I just wanted to give you a quick shout-out, man, because you guys are just fucking killing it. And I think anyone that doesn't listen to the electric bat, they're giving you all this free information on how to start an arcade. And not only to start an arcade, let's say you have an arcade that might be not doing as well. Start doing what these guys are doing, man. I'm telling you, if you build it, they will come. and if you build it the right way, it's going to be lifelong. And that's what I love about this fucking community so, so much. Yeah, thank you. Well, Cale, I don't know if you'll remember his name, and I always get it wrong. I know his name because I know him. His name is Andrew, but he's always on your guys'. He always has questions for the mailbag thing, and it's like New Mexico retro gamer maybe. He's started routing games through the knowledge that you guys gave him, and he's actually doing pretty well with it. It's small right now, but he's so excited about it. That still blows me away.
    108:45
    The whole thing was just a bunch of happy, a series of happy accidents. And to find out, we've been doing this podcast for long enough now that it's built some traction. And we're hearing from people all over the world that are starting to operate because of us. That's so cool. That just blows our mind. And that makes us very happy. It's so awesome, dude. Well, that was our mission. That was our mission from the get-go. But to hear that it's actually happening. I mean, there are guys in Europe who are now in literally villages. Because of you. And bringing pinball to places that might not have had it. You know? So that's pretty cool. That is wild. It's so great. Congratulations on that. And, of course, Cale has multiple podcasts now. So you can't. He's on so many podcasts, we can't even link them all. I can't. We can't even get them on ours.
    109:38
    So tell me something. How do you consume pen pals? Do you listen or do you watch? Okay. I do both personally, but. I listen, and it's a mistake, okay? Because what happens is I go on these hour-long walks, and if pen pal is available, it's my first go-to. No shit. I mean, it really is. I fucking love it. And it takes away from the walk because I can't see what he's writing on the screen. So I stopped using, on my 3.5-mile walk, stopped listening. And I've now, at night, when I'm just chilling and Janine goes to bed, I watch Pimp Pals with Serge. I'm at 1.5 speed, though. I'm still a 1.5 speeder.
    110:24
    Yeah. How do you do that? When you listen to a podcast or watch it, do you speed it up or normal speed? Oh, I have to do normal speed. I don't like it. Because I want to hear somebody's real voice. And even if it takes a while for them to get it out, I don't care. I've got time. I've got 1.5. I sound great on 1.5. I can't listen to myself on normal. But at 1.5, I fucking sound great. Well, you know, I was just asking because Serge does a lot of demonstrations in the video.
    110:55
    I was listening, but then when I realized that, like I was kind of doing both, and I realize, oh, wow, I'd get a lot more out of it if I watched it. So I do tend to watch them usually. But if I'm walking or something, then it's audio only. Well, I know this sounds like an infomercial for Cale. It's not. He's just great. He's doing some great things. And just keep it going, brother. We really appreciate it. And this will be my second expo. I'm totally excited. Last year it was a little annoying walking. I was their third wheel, okay? It's fair. I was. I globbed onto their asses pretty quickly. and the amount of people that stop them, it's uncomfortable for me. And there's this funny little story. I'm going to leave it with this, right? We walk through, and I'm third wheel just hanging out with Rachel and Gail, and somebody comes up to them and wants to take their picture. And so I go, hey, give me the phone. I'll take your picture, okay? The first thing I did was turn around and did the picture of myself. Did I tell the story already? But anyway, the first thing I did, I go, are you ready? And I flipped it, and I took a picture of myself smiling, just like, hey.
    112:02
    Right? That's awesome. And then I took a picture of Rachel and Gail. Six months go by. I totally forget that I even did that. And I get an IM from the dude who was going through his picture, and he said, did you do this? That is awesome. The funniest part is that was MN Retro Gamer. No way. Yeah, Ralph was just talking about it. That's Andrew. You'll meet him. He hangs out with us at Expo all the time. Like, Andrew's part of the little crew that I usually hang out with. You'll know it was Andrew. I just did it because I'm a wiseass and I thought it was funny to me because nobody knows who I am. So I thought it was just – let me just take pictures of that. But, gents, I can't wait. Two weeks away, Expo. We're going to nail it. I'm only there two days. It doesn't matter. We're going to make the best of it, and you guys are going to have a hell of an expo. If you're not going to expo, go, right? I'm trying to get Ralph to go to Houston Arcade. Can we spend one minute on the Houston Arcade real quick? Okay, Kim's going to kill me in like 60 seconds, but yeah. One minute.
    113:07
    I heard Cale and Rachel tell me that that was one of their favorite shows when they worked at Marco. Am I right on that? Rachel actually never went. I did. Oh, okay. And I did it. Yeah, I've been twice. I've worked that show twice. There is no other show even close to the Houston Arcade Expo. Okay.
    113:29
    Yeah. No, he's absolutely right. Ian Jacoby came, did an entire article on Nudge with it. It is in November. You can still get tickets at HoustonArcadeExpo.com. It is absolutely my favorite show. I'm not even streaming. I am not streaming a thing. I'm not streaming the space of the open. All I'm doing is partying and hanging out with my friends at the Houston Arcade Expo. Okay? And I can't be more excited. November 14th, 15th, and 16th.
    113:58
    There you go. Last year, Wen Chung. This year, To Be Determined. We might come because Rachel's never seen it. And the reason this show is so different, Keith Christensen started this show. And it did not start as, like, some type of arcade show. It started as his birthday. Yeah. Oh, wow. No, he did. And it still has that feel. It is a giant party. We're like, Expo's more like an industry convention. Yeah. This is a gigantic party with entertainment, and that's the focus. The focus is the party. It's not the games. It's hanging out with people. Yeah, okay. That sounds cool. And listening to music and listening to live music. As many pinball games as you want, and his collection is fantastic as well, okay? But it's live music, DJ. Scott Denise, he's coming this year, I heard, and he's going to DJ.
    114:57
    Tim Kitchro goes, and he gets up there and does his – He's on fire. He does all his shit, and it's fantastic. It's a really great show. I hope you go.
    115:09
    This is a VIP. What's the VIP chill room with free drinks and snacks? What's that? There's a VIP chill room. They have a VIP chill room? So, yeah, every time I go in there, those fuckers eat all the snacks. There's nothing left for me. And there's never any Diet Cokes in there. So, come on, Keith, help me out, all right? This year. Let's go. I just gave you a good plug, dude. I don't even need a media pass. I just want to go. I'll take one. Yeah, we'll get pizza. There's three of them that get some media passes. Yeah. All right, boys, two hours. Thank you so, so much. I can't wait to hang with you in two weeks. It's going to be an absolute blast. And anything else you want to plug? Anything?
    115:51
    No. Come to the Electric Manor. Come play with us. Absolutely. Boys, God bless you. Thanks, guys. Thank you, everyone. Really appreciate you. We'll see you live on the floor, place to be determined, in less than two weeks. Bye. Right. Thanks for joining us.
    116:10
    Stop.