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PNP Ep. 555- American NOW Threatens To SUE Yet Another Podcaster

Poor Man's Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·held·Feb 15, 2024
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.033

TL;DR

American Pinball allegedly threatens lawsuit against unnamed podcaster; Orbital Albert hints at evidence but delays reveal.

Summary

Orbital Albert (host of Poor Man's A A Pinball Podcast, episode 555) discusses American Pinball threatening legal action against pinball podcasters, with claims that another podcaster (hinted to be different from Zach Menny of The The The Pinball Show) has received cease-and-desist threats. The episode contains extensive tangential commentary about homesteading, Ian Harrower's new cocktail YouTube channel (The Tidehouse), New Brunswick championship tournament results, and community politics, but the core legal threat allegation remains unverified hearsay with promised evidence to be revealed later in the show.

Key Claims

  • American Pinball (via David Fix) has threatened to sue at least one pinball podcaster over unspecified issues

    medium confidence · Orbital Albert claims to have receipts/proof from a pinball content creator who reached out to him; he distinguishes this from Zach Menny's situation on The The The Pinball Show

  • The The The Pinball Show recently (days before this episode) hinted that Zach Menny may have been threatened with a lawsuit by American Pinball, but details were paywalled at $15 CAD/month

    medium confidence · Orbital Albert references The The The Pinball Show (Zach and Dennis) mentioning someone 'may be getting sued' behind their paywall; he hasn't listened to confirm but infers Zach Menny was the subject

  • Orbital Albert speculates (unfounded conspiracy theory) that Canadian J.J.P.'s Kaneda may have made a deal with Jersey Jack after meeting with Jack Guarnieri, causing him to soften criticism of Elton John

    low confidence · Orbital Albert explicitly labels this as speculation and an 'Albert theory' with no receipts; based on Kaneda's repeated denials of any deal or unblocking from Jersey Jack Pinball

  • Orbital Albert won the New Brunswick Provincial Championships primarily because he listened to the Drew and Ian Show episode 2 the morning of the competition

    low confidence · Self-reported by Orbital Albert as motivation/hype boost; he had previously claimed the win was due to facing his son in the final

  • Ian Harrower has launched a new YouTube channel called 'The Tidehouse' featuring cocktail tutorial content, with at least 6 videos already published

    high confidence · Orbital Albert watched The Tidehouse videos directly and described specific content (Clover Club cocktail tutorial with ~32 views); he encouraged listeners to support the channel

Notable Quotes

  • “American Pinball threatens to sue yet another pinball podcaster... I have the receipts to prove it.”

    Orbital Albert @ Early in episode (approx. 5-10 min mark) — Central claim of the episode; framed as factual but later admits he hasn't personally seen American Pinball's receipts, only hearsay from a content creator

  • “I'm not suggesting that American Pinball did threaten to sue Zach. I'm suggesting that another pinball podcaster besides him is suggesting that they were threatened.”

    Orbital Albert @ Mid-episode clarification — Critical distinction: Orbital Albert is reporting secondhand hearsay from an unnamed podcaster, not direct knowledge of Zach Menny's situation

  • “tortuous interference... It's a word that's thrown around a lot, but without getting too much into the legal part of it here, because we're here to nerd out about pinball and not the law.”

    Orbital Albert @ Discussion of legal terminology from The Pinball Show — References legal term Dennis (from The Pinball Show) used; Orbital Albert admits the term is rarely actually used in court and is difficult to prove

  • “If the shots in the pinball machine are poor, that cannot be fixed, okay? But if the shots in the thing are poor...”

    Orbital Albert @ Mid-episode discussion of Elton John criticism — Commentary on Jersey Jack Elton John design philosophy; interrupted by his son Hayden passing him coffee

  • “Ian and Drew are back, baby. That's right. Ian and Drew are back.”

    Orbital Albert @ Mid-episode discussing Drew and Ian Show episode 2 — Enthusiastic endorsement of the reformed Drew and Ian Show podcast; claims it motivated his tournament win

  • “The real reason why I won the New Brunswick Pinball Championships was due to Ian and Drew. Because those effers... got me so hyped up.”

    Orbital Albert @ Post-tournament reflection — Revision of earlier claim about why he won; now attributes victory to motivational hype from Drew and Ian Show episode 2

  • “Go back and listen to it fully listen to it plug it in your ear holes I proclaim it right now... this is the first time in years if not a year and a half where it really felt like Ian and Drew were back together in their full form.”

Entities

Orbital AlbertpersonAmerican PinballcompanyDavid FixpersonThe Pinball Showpodcast[name withheld pending review]personDennispersonKaneda (Canadian J.J.P. host)person

Signals

  • ?

    industry_signal: American Pinball allegedly making legal threats against multiple pinball podcasters; pattern suggests escalating tension between manufacturer and media/community figures

    medium · Orbital Albert reports secondhand claim of legal threat from unnamed podcaster; references separate threat to Zach Menny reported on The Pinball Show; both unverified hearsay

  • ?

    community_signal: Orbital Albert speculates (without evidence) about potential deal between Jersey Jack and Kaneda following their meeting, allegedly softening Kaneda's public criticism of Elton John

    low · Orbital Albert explicitly labels as unfounded conspiracy theory; bases theory on Kaneda's repeated denials (which he interprets as suspicious); admits having no receipts

  • ?

    content_signal: Drew and Ian Show reformed with episode 2 receiving strong praise; described as their best collaborative work in significant time; motivating community engagement

    high · Orbital Albert attended recent episode 2 directly; enthusiastic endorsement; claims episode motivated his tournament victory; calls it best work in 'years if not a year and a half'

  • ?

    content_signal: Ian Haberman launches new YouTube channel 'The Tidehouse' for cocktail/beverage content; represents creator diversification beyond pinball

    high · Orbital Albert reviewed The Tidehouse directly; 6 videos already published; cited specific video (Clover Club tutorial); encouraged listener support

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Orbital Albert won New Brunswick Provincial Championships January 20th; son Hayden finished #2; tournament format involved father-son matchup in final

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.360

0:00
We'll be right back. Pinball Nerds Podcast. Coming to you from beautiful River Higgins, Nova Scotia.
0:42
Welcome back Pinball Nerds to episode 555 of your fifth favorite pinball podcast. My name is Orville Albert and don't adjust your speakers, you heard it correctly. This is episode 555. That's right, I'm halfway to my goal of 1,100, you know, and 11, I don't know, are we halfway to that? I think so. I do want to humbly apologize if you can hear baby chickens in the background. I have nowhere else right now in my house I can record. Elowen can't stand the baby chickens, so she is up sleeping in my bedroom. I don't really, you know, I don't mess with, I'm not going to go record in one of my son's bedrooms. That's kind of like their own private spot, right? I thought about going for a bath and bringing you all in there and recording, and then I thought, wow, having three laptops and a cell phone as well as, you know, a microphone all there just to record right beside the water, probably not very safe. So I'm just here in Orby's studio, of course, 200 feet underground, five feet away from basically the living room, or I guess the dining room, where we have our baby chickens. And you can probably hear them in the background, which I apologize for.
2:00
Unfortunately, when I went to go play the New Brunswick Provincial Championships, we did lose our second last chicken. So we RIP to our second last chicken of our 15 now. Over four and a half years, we've barely bought, we've maybe bought like eggs six times, you know. When they've stopped laying, we've ran out of eggs in January, February. But anyways, Betsy can't be by herself. Yes, we named her after myoma. And Betsy can't be by herself. Of course, chickens have to be in a flock. If you know someone who has one chicken, you should maybe let them know that they need some friends with them. In fact, just having two chickens isn't a good idea. Ideally, you would have three or more. So we got four. Many of you know here on the homestead, my least favorite part was having to cull our flock. If you don't know what that is, it's a nice way of saying I had to eliminate all of the males when we got unsexed eggs before, which, you know, they're never sexed in the egg. But quite often, if you wanted to have, you know, eggs to eat, you would just get female chickens. But, of course, we wanted to raise them ourselves. so this time what we did is we got two or three day old sexed females and so we have four brand new heirloom chickens all ready to lay eggs for us in about six to eight weeks but unfortunately because it's like minus I think it's minus 14 with the wind chill here and good old noviskosh today so she's cold and because of that they need to be indoors they need to be in a brooder which is what they're in which is it's got lots of heat and it's got lots of light and it's got lots of water and it's got lots of food, but it's also very loud and annoying. And so I now have to sleep with earplugs when I choose to sleep downstairs, when and if, or if I've had a couple too many beers and I know I'm going to be snoring, chopping logs more than quicker, you know, better than Paul Bunyan, then I have to sleep down here. So alas, you've tuned in, you've waited to hear. I had several, you know, possible show titles for today, but the one that probably is going to clickbait you the best since we're going to be talking so much about clickbaiting today. I thought I would clickbait y'all, and it's not even clickbait because it is true. It is absolutely 100% true. I have the receipts to prove it. American Pinball threatens to sue yet another pinball podcaster. So as many of you know, and when I say yet another pinball podcaster, I'm not suggesting. Many of you know on the pinball show just a couple days ago with, of course, Zach Many and Dennis. They chatted about how, and they, you know, kind of clickbaited a little, possibly, we don't know because I haven't listened to it, so maybe it is true, but they mentioned, of course, in the show about how someone may be getting sued by Dave Fix and American Pinball, and that Zach Many may have been that person. Of course, you need to pay to go behind the paywall, and because I'm not going to pay $15 Canadian a month, which, for the record, is three times more than I pay for my Netflix, Zach. If you had a lower tier, I would strongly consider it. In fact, one of my upcoming shows, I'm going to be supporting five other pinball creators by joining their Patreons, and I'd love for it to be the pinball show, because I listen to the pinball show every single week. In fact, Craig Bobby is perhaps my favorite segment of any pinball show, or even YouTube channel, to be honest. So cheers to Craig Bobby, my fellow friend there. Craig Bobby actually gave me a little tiny, tiny bit of content, and we're going to talk about that later as well, which was kind of cool, because Craig Bobby doesn't normally help create content, of course, for the Pinball Nerds podcast, since we had him on about a year and a half ago, I believe. Maybe two years ago. Coming up to two years ago, probably soon. So have to have Craig Bobby on again, but go over there and listen to the Pinball Show if you haven't, but all you need to know is that Zach Menny, at least inferred, I've got to be careful what words I use here. I don't want to be the third pinball podcaster, possibly, maybe, perhaps, maybe somewhere in Minecraft. Can I say in Minecraft? That's what they do on Twitch. Whenever they're talking about drugs or alcohol, they're like, oh yeah, I love doing black tar heroin in Minecraft. Oh, I love, you know, whatever, blank type of pornography or something in Minecraft, right? So let's just say in Minecraft, in Minecraft, Zach Many may or may not have been threatened to being sued by American Pinball in Minecraft and real life, because I have the receipts, but in Minecraft also, probably, because in some Minecraft world, it, you know, it is an alternate dimension of the dimension we're in now. Maybe, right? Possibly? Perhaps? Hopefully? All right, I've lost everybody who doesn't play Minecraft. Let's just talk about American Pinball here for a second. I wanted today's, I honestly, until the pinball show came out, today's show was supposed to be called American Pinball Swims Upstream. Kind of clever, definitely not as clickbaity as what I had to, you know, unfortunately, the title is American Pinball Threatens to Sue Yet Another Pinball Podcaster. So I just want to be clear, I'm not suggesting that American Pinball did threaten to sue Zach. I'm suggesting that another pinball podcaster besides him is suggesting that they were threatened. Now, I haven't seen the receipts from American Pinballer David Fix. I only have the receipts from me talking to said pinball creator, who is soon, like 10 seconds into the pinball show, I knew, I knew without a doubt, due to the words that Dennis uses, tortuous interference, I can't remember. It's some legal term that I've only heard before, and I had to Google it and look it up and it's very rarely actually used in court. It would have to be some spectacular type of proof you would have. It's a word that's thrown around a lot, but without getting too much into the legal part of it here, because we're here to nerd out about pinball and not the law, all right? My mom did say I would make an excellent lawyer for years and I was like, yeah, mom, if I could handle going to school for an extra eight years, I want to get the hell out of high school and be done. Mind you, I did go back for marketing three years later, and that was probably the best decision I've ever made in my life, getting to graduate from one of the top business colleges in all of Canada, doing business marketing. It has forever helped my life and enriched my life. Plus, I'm not going to lie, college was probably the biggest freaking party I've ever been to. And people would say to me, Albert, listen, you were partying until 4 a.m. last night. How the hell did you make it to that 8 a.m. class? Because that was the thing. My mom taught me to give 100% when partying and 100% when working. And that's what I did. Like, even my professor saw me at a legendary pinball bar in London, Ontario, the night before I had an Excel.

Orbital Albert @ Drew and Ian Show endorsement section — Strong endorsement of the reformed podcast; suggests it represents the pair's best work in significant time

  • “I feel like when Jack Guarnieri... it's almost like, you know when you ask someone a question if something's true and they say like two or three times back it's not true? ... probably three, four, five times, Kaneda had to say... no, no, Ken Cromwell and I... no.”

    Orbital Albert @ Conspiracy theory section — Speculative reasoning for alleged Jersey Jack / Kaneda deal; uses repeated denials as evidence of likely truth (reverse psychology logic)

    • Jack Guarnieri
    person
    [name withheld pending review]person
    [name withheld pending review]person
    Drewperson
    [name withheld pending review]person
    Jersey Jack Pinballcompany
    Elton Johngame
    Poor Man's Pinball Podcastpodcast
    New Brunswick Provincial Championshipsevent
    Ryan Barryperson
    Danielle (Drop Target Danielle)person
    Haydenperson
    [name withheld pending review]youtube_channel
    Pinball Shenaniganscontent_creator
    Cosmic Collectibles Co.company

    high · Orbital Albert reported directly; his son Hayden appears in episode and is confirmed as #2 finisher; Nationals mentioned as upcoming event

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Community division on Jersey Jack Elton John: Kaneda criticized shot layout and mechanics as poor; Orbital Albert contradicts this, praising aesthetic and gameplay, comparing favorably to Star Trek (Stern)

    medium · Orbital Albert calls Elton John 'prettiest machine perhaps ever built in history'; compares positively to his owned Flash Gordon and Future Spa; notes recent flipper improvements made shots 'snap' more like Stern

  • ?

    regulatory_signal: Orbital Albert concerned about potential cease-and-desist from music artists for on-air shoutouts/support; expresses willingness to comply if contacted by rights holders

    medium · Discussion of Lorde shoutout from previous episode; Orbital Albert uncertain if mentioning artists is 'possibly illegal'; states he'd comply with cease-and-desist; notes hasn't advertised commercial products since November

  • ?

    venue_signal: Drew operates arcade with 10+ pinball machines ('Poor Man's Arcade' or similar name); venue serves as content location for Drew and Ian Show

    medium · Orbital Albert mentions Drew has 'somewhere past 10 Incredible Pins'; Drew and Ian Show recorded in basement arcade location; suggests Drew may need to rename arcade due to collection growth

  • ?

    community_signal: Orbital Albert planning to support 5 pinball content creators via Patreon; considering The Pinball Show if pricing reduced; currently supports The Tidehouse (Ian's new channel)

    high · Explicit statement about supporting 5 creators; suggests $15 CAD/month Pinball Show tier is barrier to entry; actively promoting Ian's Tidehouse channel to listeners

  • $

    market_signal: The Pinball Show behind $15 CAD/month paywall; Orbital Albert notes this is 3x Netflix cost; creates access barrier preventing him from consuming paywalled content about American Pinball legal threat

    high · Orbital Albert explicitly states paywall cost and comparison to Netflix; unable to access details of Zach Menny legal threat story due to paywall; speculation inferred instead

    • 8:43
    A professor who knew me from school knew I had an Excel, like Microsoft Excel, end of semester, end of term practical test at like 9 a.m. in the morning, like 100 questions. and he saw me at like 3 a.m. outside a call the office, you know, partying it up. And he's like, what the hell are you doing here, Albert? I'm like, you don't understand. Instead of like 12 beers, I only had nine tonight, sir. I think it was Mr. Sloan. He was actually in another punk rock band, which is pretty cool to have one of your professors in a punk rock band that played locally. So shout out to Professor Sloan there. But I do have the proof. I am going to talk more about which pinball podcaster, to the extent of the knowledge I can give you, I am going to save that for the end of the show, guys. Sorry, y'all didn't vote for me in the Twippies, so no one can be mad at me for throwing shit at the end of the show. Shoot, I wasn't supposed to swear this year. I'm trying not to. Can I have one like that awesome show that gets one F-bomber? I'm sorry, I'm trying to make sure that this is like workplace safe content, but let's be honest, it's probably never going to be. But I'm trying, I'm trying. All right, so some other stuff I do want to talk about on today's show before we talk about the American pinball. and I don't want to be a negative Nancy or Debbie Downer and talk about all this pinball drama. But when it comes out that the biggest possible content creator as far as, you know, I would say number of views and listens goes between straight down the middle of pinball show, all the work Zach and Greg do, all the hard work they do over there, doing an awesome job promoting pinball. And then, of course, I'm guessing the pinball show probably gets the most listens nowadays, especially with Canada's pinball podcast being behind the paywall. And I don't know what's going on with Zinio Caneda. I don't know what's going on with that guy. This guy is like head over heels in love. It's like, if I was going to be a big conspiracy guy, which I try not to divvy into that stuff too much, but if I was a big conspiracy guy, I literally feel like when Jack Winary, and again, warning, warning, hot content, this is just a theory, an Albert theory, okay? This is not real truth. I don't have receipts for this one. I do have receipts for American Pinball, at least someone saying that they were being threatened to be sued. I don't have any receipts right now with this situation with Canadian J.J.P. But I feel like because it's almost like, you know when you ask someone a question if something's true and they say like two or three times back it's not true? So you say like, oh man, did you like party too hard last night or something? You look really hungover today at work or something, you know, to a co-worker. and they'll be like, no, I definitely didn't. No way, no. How did I party too hard last night? Not at all. I was home by night. You know, you can tell when someone says back to you, you know, really harshly, they three, four times say to you no. Well, probably three, four, five times, Kaneda had to say on his last Saturday morning or Saturday afternoon spooktacular, whatever it is, he went on about how, no, no, Ken Cromwell and I, like Ken didn't re-add me to Facebook. No, they haven't unblocked me. No, I don't have a deal. No, I haven't talked to anyone there. No. And it's like he almost said it so many times. It's like, I'm just in the back of my head. This is probably not true. This is probably not true. This is just where my head goes. Because, yeah, I'm a strange dude. I like a lot of conspiracy stuff. You are listening to the sloppiest pinball network, of course, here on the Poor Men's Pinball Network. You are listening to probably the sloppiest show on the sloppiest network. So thank you for that. but without a doubt he kept saying how no I'm not being paid no I'm not a shill no I'm not friends with Ken Cromwell now no I don't have a deal with Jersey Jack no I'm banned from their Facebook page and I was like whoa when he met with Jack Guarneri and he did that really nice interview where they seemed like besties did Jack perhaps say like hey dude if you could loosen up a little bit on Elton John and just like chill the F out a little bit maybe and I don't know what the promise in return would be maybe it would be like hey, maybe a year from now, maybe we can unblock you. Maybe a year from now, other people, Kent Cromwell or other people from Jersey Jack may wish to start coming on your show. And hey, maybe you're not going to get banned from pinball expos anymore. Maybe you could just go a little bit easier. And maybe he didn't even say go easier. Maybe he just said, and I have no clue because Jack O'Nerry seems totally above board. So I don't think anything nefarious is happening here. But maybe something that Jack said to Kaneda hit him in the right spot. And eventually Kaneda went, you know what? maybe I'm going after the wrong companies. Maybe spending all my time and energy going after, you know, companies making mediocre products doesn't make sense. Maybe I need to start pumping up companies like Jersey Jack that are making incredible pinball machines like Elton John. And while Kaneda was going off on Elton John not being spectacular, not having cool mechs, not seeming like a fun pin at all, I was the one here saying that it is the prettiest machine perhaps ever built in history. And that's coming from a guy who owned, even according to Jeff Teol, is the most beautiful Flash Gordon on the planet. We all know how gorgeous that machine is. Thank you, Mike Dimas. Shout out from Pinball Shenanigans for making that beautiful machine even nicer than it already was. And, of course, I've already owned Future Spa. Have you seen the artwork on Future Spa? Come on. Like, you know, so plus it also shoots as well as a Steve Ritchie, which many of you know for years and years and years, my favorite pin was Stern's Star Trek, and many say, you know, Elton John has shot similar to that. Of course, we know what the new board set or whatever the hell they did over, I don't know if they were, like, you know, high-fiving the pinball gods, or they were, you know, they were thanking, I don't know what they did, but over there they fixed something in the pin, so now the flippers work more like a Stern, they got a little more snap to them, they got a little bit more pop, right? So, I've probably gone off topic here. but this is the last all to say in my in my head I felt like there's some type of conspiracy between or or like some maybe it isn't even a conspiracy maybe it's like I said maybe it's just that simple that maybe Jack was like yo could you just chill a little bit on our company because like we make a pretty good product uh the price is high yes the price is high and and you know Chris you know to give him this tiny little nugget of credit I sometimes and maybe a bit too quick to call him a Debbie Downer or a negative Nancy, but to give him one little tiny bit of props here, if I could give him the smallest little bit of props, is that at least he's saying that it is too expensive. And I guess, I think in his chat I said the one thing, and this is an easy thing to change. People tell you this all the time. If the shots in the pinball machine are poor, that cannot be fixed, okay? But if the shots in the thing are poor, oh, good morning Hayden, how's it going bud? Can you pass me that coffee over there? The Meow Cup? Sorry, my throat's a little dry and I forgot my coffee over there by where I was playing Fortnite. Thanks, bud.
    15:36
    See, you guys say I don't interview people, but there's the world's quickest interview by, can I at least very quickly just say, congratulations to the number two player in all new runs with the championships. There you go. Alright, world's quickest interview by Hayden and he also passed me a coffee, so that's awesome. I will talk a little bit about the Nationals later, but I do want to just interject here for a second and be honest with you guys for a second and apologize. Two things I messed up on the last show. Number one, I lied about the real reason why I won the New Brunswick Pinball Championships, and it wasn't just because I got to go against my son in the final round, which made me be far less nervous, because I would have been almost as happy, if not perhaps more, if he had won than even me. The real reason I won was because the morning of the morning of January 20th, when all of us pinball nerds all across North America, and soon after that, the entire world, were going to play for our local championships.
    16:36
    Drew and Ian of the Poor Man's Pinball Podcast released episode number two of the Drew and Ian show. And I downloaded it. And although I did enjoy episode one, episode one, they were kind of like in Drew's arcade, hanging out in the basement. I forget the name of his arcade. I think he has a cool name for it. Probably just the Poor Man's Arcade. I don't know. Or probably the formerly Poor Man's Arcade, now that Drew's got, like, I don't know, Drew, somewhere past, like, 10 Incredible Pins. Like, how poor are you? You're, like, you might need to re-change it to, well, it's called the Drew and Ian Show, so it's already been changed from Poor Man's Pinball Podcast. There you go. But the Drew and Ian Show, wow, this was, like, the comeback that I think maybe a lot of us here, a lot of us tribe members and just people who love Ian and Drew and kind of miss their older content. this is the first time in years if not I don't know a year and a half where it really felt like Ian and Drew were back together in their full form if for some freaking reason which you probably didn't because you're already here on this network but if for some reason you missed the Ian and Drew show too or for you know for some reason you already listened to it but maybe you're like me maybe sometimes you're only half listening go back and listen to it fully listen to it plug it in your ear holes I proclaim it right now the real reason why I won the New Brunswick Pinball Championships was due to Ian and Drew. Because those effers, oh, I can't swear anymore this year, but I want to.
    17:58
    I spilled Derek's show moment yellow card. These guys got me so hyped up. And that was my first thought was, tomorrow, I don't even care if I win this time B, my pinball podcast title is going to be Ian and Drew are back, baby. That's right. Ian and Drew are back. And that's not only that. Oh my gosh, I'm going to have to look this up later. But Drew has got a brand new project that is not, I repeat, not related to pinball. That's really interesting that I want to talk about that I should probably talk about right now, or I'm probably perhaps going to forget it. But I'm probably getting too close to the mic. Here, I moved the mic back. Okay, Ian and Drew, I absolutely love you guys. You're back in full form. please, please come back with the show and more regularity would be the only thing I would like it sounded great, they were funny as hell they were sharp, you can tell these guys are real legitimate Ellen, come on up here, good girl sit down, sit down, don't knock over dad's coffee angry alpaca will get angry with you angry at him alright, so Ian Haberman however you say it Ian, formerly, well, not formerly, of the Poor Man's Pimple podcast, but currently of the Ian and Drew show, the new and reformed, you know, back to it, their new show, their second podcast, if you will, which I believe is, you know, maybe even, I'm not going to say better than their old show, but I would say like, yeah, kind of like maybe, again, I don't want to say better, but it's definitely new. It's different. It's improved. And I think, yeah, it's better. So I'll just, you heard it here first. Now, Ian is working on a new side project. We all know how much Ian loves cocktails, beers, drinks, hanging out at the bar. In some pinball podcasts, even back in the day, these fellows would be talking about, you know, same with me. I'd talk about crap beer or homesteading or other shit I'd show. Crap! That's what this is where. Other stuff I nerd out on about on the show almost as much as pinball. Well, Drew and Ian back in the day would always be talking about what you're drinking. That's how they always started the show. Well, to the answer of what you're drinking, Ian started his own YouTube channel called The Tidehouse. Okay, so Tidehouse, like T-I-E-D, and then house the regular way you spell it. The Tidehouse, but go check it out.
    20:23
    He has six videos up already, and I hate that when someone goes, oh, check out my new channel, and you go there, and it's just like a two-minute introductory, and you're like, well, I know you're introducing the channel, but what the hell is the video actually going to look like? Well, Ian already has six up there. I most recently watched for Valentine's Day. What did I watch? Oh, I watched the, and it does have the most views. I watched the Impress Your Valentine Step-by-Step Guide to Crafting the... Here you go, Ian. I had to click on it. Oh, oh, oh.
    20:53
    Listen to the sweet sound of this man. He's got this cool music playing in the background. Ian looks the most hipster I've ever seen him. I'm not going to lie. He's got the suspenders. He's got the shirt with the three little buttons in the front without the collar. You know, the hipster bartender look. I love it. He's looking good. He's looking sharp. The beard is finally manicured. He's got this side camera for the cocktail. Oh, my God. You know how in pinball streaming they have the side panel where the play field would be? Well, Ian doing his bartending stuff, doing the Tidehouse stuff, He's got it on the side here. I love it. It's got this cool ambient music playing in the background. The lighting is kind of dim and perfect, you know. So anyways, but the video that I watched that I loved, that I'm like two ingredients short of being able to make here at home, but I did think about making with my wonderful Valentine. Shout out to Drop Target Danielle. We had a wonderful night last night. We didn't do anything too crazy.
    21:57
    It was a snow day here, unfortunately. The fourth snow day now, which normally I wouldn't mind, but a lot of times substitute teachers do not get paid for snow days, and we've had four now in the past two weeks. So thankfully our power stayed on and everybody was safe, and I feel sorry for Kate Breton in Newfoundland who got like four and a half feet of snow, but we survived here. The power didn't go out. Shout out to Doug Parsons down there in Halifax. He probably had many days of shoveling snow to at least get his car out. I don't know. Doesn't sound like it would have been fun down there in Halifax, but thankfully here we avoided most of it. But how am I the only comment? So Drew releases two days ago, 32 views. But this is how to impress your Valentine. Step-by-step guide to crafting the irresistible Clover Club cocktail. And it comes out like a beautiful, impressive, like pinky red hue. So go watch the whole video. It's really cool. Make sure you watch, excuse me, like 32 people watch this video. I'm only one of only three people who like it. So not only go over to the Tide House, go watch every video because they're interesting or at least watch the one or two you're most interested in for now and bookmark save like the other ones and then what you should also do is you know write a comment you know it doesn't have to be nor do I think it should be pinball related to be related to the video but if you thought the video was cool write that if you liked the side camera if you thought he looked like a freaking hipster and his beard is a legend then tell the guy, you know what I mean? So anyways, Ian has supported me, Ian helped invite me over here, I believe with Rue, you know, I've got to assume they talked about it before I was invited here over to the channel, and thank them so much for doing that, I will forever shout out anything you guys are involved in or part of, and I really just, I was impressed by it. So I know this, like I actually have thought about maybe getting back more into doing cocktails, not just craft beer all the time. And if I were going to do, and he even, Ian even replied and said he's going to be doing some more craft beer stuff as well. So no matter if you like craft beer, cocktails, you know, anything like that, get over there, support your boy at the Tide House. All right, let's get back into talking about a little bit of pinball here. Before I do that, I'm going to do the tiniest little bit of house cleaning, cleaning, clean your teeth. You clean your teeth. Okay, here we go. Housecleaning, Ryan Barry. Shout out to now, who is now officially my Australian pin turn. What does that mean to be my Australian pin turn? Well, it means, first of all, if I F up, and I F'd up, I'm sorry Australians, probably there's zero Australians listening to me right now, they're mad, because on the last show I mentioned that Lord's Royals song, okay, that I even chimed in and sang a bit of, which I think I already did on the show, so it was actually kind of lame in retrospect. that. After I did, I was like, I think I sang, but when you've done 555 shows, it's hard to remember which other artists or bands you've featured on the show, okay? And apparently, maybe I should be featuring no other bands, because from what I understand, it's possibly illegal and I could get in trouble. However, I mean, if I get a cease and desist from one of these bands and they say, hey, I don't want you to shout out and support my show, and I don't want you to further my music, I'll say, okay, I apologize, I'm sorry, and I'll take down the podcast if I have to, right? I mean, I make hardly, I haven't even advertised for a single solitary product or service on the show as far as I can remember since last November. So, I mean, I think it would be very, very, very, oh, I guess Cosmic Collectibles I mentioned, if you could, and well, I'm mentioning it again. Cosmic Collectibles Co., my other side hustle that I'm doing right now. If you are at all interested in comics, sports cards, non-sports cards, wacky packages, garbage pail kids, Funko Pops, figurines, like Star Wars toys, like anything that's collectible related, even getting into, you know, like I have the first edition of Harry Potter, the Canadian first edition, on my table right now for about 50 bucks.
    25:56
    Hayden? Elwynn's at the door. Sorry guys, I can see Elwynn at the door so we just had to let her in. She's gone for her morning poop. If you ever wondered what was inside her butthole, you could find out because it'd be on her front lawn. No, I'm just kidding. She's actually pretty good. We trained her to run over to the neighbors and poop in the yard. No, we didn't specifically train her to do that, but she's smart. She's kind of prissy. She's smart. She goes, hey, I'm not going to dookie here. We're just going to sit there and no one's going to clean up. I'm going to run over this field with two feet tall stuff. Why am I talking to the doctor? Okay, so Ryan Barry, let me know. that Lorde is from New Zealand, not from Australia, as reported on the La Show. So I am so sorry. Ryan Barry and all my Aussie friends over there, Rorden, Ryan Say, Marty Robbins, even all the workers at Haggis. I'm so, so sorry for all the workers at Haggis. I probably ruined your day. I effed up. I said that Lorde was from Australia, and she's quite clearly a Kiwi. If you listen to the accent and the differential there, come on. If you're from Canada or the United States, and you listen to someone from Australia and New Zealand, and you think that they sound even close, F you, brah. They're totally different. No, I'm just kidding. If you listen to somebody, that'd be like saying, if you listen to somebody who lives in Newfoundland, and you listen to someone who lives in Toronto, you think they don't sound identical? What's the matter with you? Okay, now they definitely, if you couldn't tell the difference between someone from Newfoundland and Toronto, then there's probably a problem. But honestly, to me, maybe it's just because I'm a Canadian jerk, but Aussies and Newsies, Aussies and Newsies, they sound the same. But maybe before I report a certain music artist is from a certain country, I should double check. But again, sloppy show, sloppy research, who knows? Sometimes, you know, sometimes I'm right. But Ryan, doing his best job pin-turning, and he's now been officially hired as my Australian pin-turn, has let me know. So thank you, Ryan, for that. And the next time there's a big show or a big tournament, Ryan's going to report to me on that. He might even possibly do some audio and or maybe video content for me if I ask really nicely and possibly send him a promo pack of the pre-pinball nerds trading cards or something like that. Maybe some coffee, maybe some tea, maybe even some maple syrup, which I have to be honest, I don't want to be a negative Nancy, but it looks like I'm going to get a lot of less maple syrup this year. I took a look at my long-term 30-day forecast, and it appears that the number one week for me to gather maple syrup is going to be the week that I'm gone to the Nationals. Well, poor me. Now, did I bring this up just to cry about losing out on maybe like eight gallons of the most delicious maple syrup on the planet? Perhaps. I'll say perhaps. Today's show should just be called Perhaps. Because to me it is the most beautiful. No, because like eight gallons, what's that going to put you down? Like maybe 15 bucks a gallon, so 100 bucks or something if you got a bulk. Or if you bought it in big giant four gallon things, right? 120 bucks, maybe something like that. In U.S. doll hairs or even Australian, it'd probably be, you know, I don't know, 30% less, right? So maybe 80, 90 bucks. I don't care about the 80, 90 bucks, I'm out. I care about the fact that I've already ordered all my new equipment for this year. I care about the fact that there's the pride and joy, and every time I make crepes, pancakes, French toast, waffles, Belgian waffles, what's that other thing you make with French toast and ham and eggs? The Monte Cristo. I think it's called the Monte Cristo. Whenever you're making anything like that, oh, butter tarts, butter tarts. Making butter tarts here on the homestead with our own maple syrup, and I can, like, I can 100% taste the difference between our maple syrup and other people's maple syrup. come at me maybe I'll do a blind taste test someday on Facebook just for fun so if you don't have me personally on Facebook go ahead and add me under Albert Agar especially if you like a rad person and you happen to also like craft beer or like sometimes I talk about foodie stuff and travel and just it mostly I not going to lie it mostly pinball and coffee But there's a little bit of that other stuff in there. So speaking of pin turns, TPF is coming up. And also because of Nationals, because honestly, I did plan on trying to head up TPF. I really did. Even if not playing the tournaments, I really wanted to go to TPF. But because of the fact that it's looking like nationals is going to cost me at least a couple thousand dollars, there's almost a 0% chance that I'll be heading to TPF. So to all my Texas friends and everyone down there in the South, I love you. I'm in love with you. I'd love to play pinball with you someday. I'd love to high five you. I'm not quite Ron Howlett. I will take the odd hug. But like if you hold on for longer than about five seconds or your hands get any lower than my hips, I will smack you. It will happen, okay? No, I'm just kidding. Depending on who it is, I'll either smack you or I'll say, a little longer, please. No, I'm just kidding. Usually, I'm probably the people making people feel awkward during a hug. So, I'm not really worried about that. I do like hugs. For the most part. All right. So, I am looking for a pin turn. If you think you have what it takes, what does that mean, you have what it takes? First of all, I would like someone who's going to be at the TPF for ideally as many days as possible. If you're only going for, like, Saturday afternoon for two hours or something, it's going to be hard for you to be my pin turn. What do I want next? I need you to be comfortable approaching and talking to other people in pinball. I'm not going to necessarily make you go up to, like, Keith Elwin right after he wins the tournament or something, or Jack Danger right while he's in the middle of showcasing, you know, I don't know, like, he's doing a live stream on Foo Fighters, like, showing people a new wizard mode they added or something. I don't know. Right? No, I don't expect that, but I would like you to be able to at least be able to be comfortable speaking and talking to other people. I know a former tribe member, and I have to make sure to say that, former tribe member here, Chris Grosner, also known as Chris the Pintern. When he was pinterning for me on the show, he was down at TPF, and he actually got one of the first ever interviews with Damien from Haggis. That is still back there over on the Pinball Nerds podcast, so you're more than welcome to type that into Google. I'm sure you can find it by just typing Pinball Nerds Podcast Haggis Pinball, probably. It would be on the front page, I'm pretty sure. If not, you really want to fire me off a message on the Pinball Nerds Podcast Facebook page, and I'll just send you back a link. I can find it in about 30 seconds. I went back and listened to it a while ago. I'm going to be honest. Not everything Damien said there has came true, but I'm trying to keep the show positive. I'm trying to be a positive Polly. I want to be a positive Polly. So I'm not going to talk about Agus right now because we're not sure what's happening. But that's all I'll say. Perhaps we're not sure what's happening. I don't want to get sued. Come on.
    32:56
    Yeah. So if someone would like to be a pinter for me, I would absolutely love that. Absolutely love that. Another thing I wanted to talk about is that I most recently, in fact, part of the reason why you didn't get a show from me last week is I thought, well, anyone who wanted to hear from me probably, I mean, most of the people, a lot of the people who listen to this show, know about Don's Pinball Podcast, because I've had him here on the show. Also because of some of the drama he was in last year, of course, which thankfully, you know, we don't talk about. That's what I do love. I love that we went through, Don and I talked for two hours, or just short of two hours, but I think with the bumper or whatever, like it was right around two hours. And we did not even talk about any of the negative pinball drama happening with any content creators at any point in two hours, which I thought that was really cool. I was open to it. If Don brought it up and was comfortable, I would have, you know, gently tippy-toed around it as I'm trying to do and be a positive force in pinball and all that kind of stuff, right? And because I know words do matter. Sometimes I come on the show and I'm just like, ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma, you know, and you just talk. And it's like, no, words do matter. I get that only between, you know, 500 to 1,000 people listen to most of my shows. But at the same time, those, a lot of these people who do listen to my show are like the hardcore pinball people that, like, it's not necessarily that I want to impress those people, but I want to impress upon them that I primarily want to be a positive force in pinball, and therefore don't want to spend a large portion of my show talking about things that I find are negative in pinball, because pinball has done so much for me. Pinball has possibly been the most positive force in my entire life, and honestly, I don't know where I'd be without pinball. To be 100% legit, I don't know where I would be. But speaking of, getting to be on Don's Pinball Podcast for Episode 100 was a freaking treat. This guy got to Episode 100 in just a little over a year, which is a blistering pace. I think that's even ahead of my first year. I believe it took me like a year and a half to get to Episode 100. Now, did it slow down by the year seven, year eight? Yes, of course. Of course. And maybe it will for Don. Maybe it won't. Who knows? Don, this is a challenge to you now. I challenge you to see if you can beat me. Not that it really matters. but I think it'd be really rad. Let's see, Don, who can get to episode 1,000 first. I think Don's going to be in this hobby for the next two, three, four decades. Myself as well. I think we're both in it to win it. We both eat, sleep, breathe pinball. We're both a little bit weird. We're both a little eccentric. His show is what my show could be if I was more well-spoken. Of course, he is a doctor. So, you know, he is someone who constantly is, you know, speaking with people. And, you know, he's good at that. He's great at it. In fact, I have an awesome doctor, don't get me wrong, but man, if my doctor was Dr. Don, I'd just be like, yeah, bro. Like, oh, yeah, like, my elbow hurts a little from pinball, and I would just make an excuse to get an appointment just to talk to Don. Because, like, that's how rad that dude is. So, anyways, Don, as you know, I brought it up on the show. I brought it up before. I haven't officially announced a date, nor do I know if I'm even going to do the fifth annual Nerdies. I probably will. I'm not sure where. I'm not sure when. I was going to try to do them, like, between the Twippies and the D-Jenny's. but the Twippies already happened which we have to talk about and then the Jennies are coming up this Sunday, February the 18th drop target Danielle's birthday so I will be out of town in Charlottetown, thank God the kids are staying home to hold down the fort and everything but I will be out of town I will be gone to Seven's Pinball-O-Rama as well as on a sleigh ride do do do do it's too late for Christmas songs. Do-do-do the one horse open sleigh. Anyways, we're going to be going on a winter fest, whatever. If you do happen to live in Charlottetown and you're listening to this, I am going to be there for a couple days. If you guys want to meet up and go for a really nice hangout or a really nice meal, maybe go down to Hop Yard. I know they're having a tap takeover from Tatamagush Brewing Company and also, I think, Lone Star. So, you know, if you love craft beer, or you love pinball, or you just want to hang out, or if you want to come with to Seven's Pinball-O-Rama, hit me up. I'm sure even though it's Danielle's birthday, she would be down with at least, you know, hanging out with some other pinball nerds for a couple hours. So that would be fun. It's also like their big winter fest. So if you live in Fredericton or Moncton or Halifax and you were considering maybe going away this weekend, this would be a great weekend to go to Charlottetown because they're having this awesome, like, old school and the weather's going to be perfect. It's going to be rain around zero degrees, so you can still go cross-country skiing, you can go snowshoeing, it's not going to be windy, there's not going to be much wind chill, it's going to be super sunny, and yes, it does cost $50 to go over Canada's longest bridge to get to the tiniest little province of PEI, but who cares? That's part of the fun, alright? That's part of the fun. And whether or not you're like me, and you like to smash a vape or possibly a craft beer while going over the bridge, it doesn't matter. No, I would not do that. That's not legal. I would perhaps do that in Minecraft. And that's the only time I would do such a thing because it's very illegal. And you know me. I follow the straight and narrow. So go listen to Don's Pinball Podcast, episode 100. He's probably like on episode 111 by now. This guy does more episodes than the Loser Kids get on Keith Elwin. But oh my God. We do have to talk about the Twippies. We do have to talk about the Twippies for a second. But I want to put a little bow on talking about Droneon. And they are back, baby. I can't wait for episode three. Go back and listen to episode two if you haven't. Thank you very much. That's all I want to say about that. Okay, so we have to do a little bit of Twippy Truthin'. Now, here's the thing. Many of you may have seen that I did respond very quickly on the, I believe it was on the Loser Kids Facebook page, after they posted the Twippies, and I said something to the extent of, perhaps in Minecraft, sorry, I said perhaps something about, you know, I know this year was a bit weird, but I think y'all did the best you could. So thanks for doing that. And I do want to take a moment to thank Josh and Scott profusely, because I think they did, it is a bit of a weird year, and I think they did the absolute best they could. Obviously, like, you know, it's tough when they're sitting there at their houses, and they don't have the feedback of the whole crowd, and there's not all this big momentum for months leading up to it coming from all the pinball podcasters and YouTubers and Twitch streamers and content creators, and when you don't have all the content creators getting all hyped up and talking about it, and everyone talking about, like, what clothes they're going to wear at the Twippies, and someone going to stand up and boo Kaneda again, yeah! Or boo, depending on if you like him or hate him, you know what I mean? Like, just, there's all these things that could happen, like, is Francie going to run up and smash Zombie Yeti's trophy yet again? Who knows? Is the crowd going to be like, whoa, what's happening? I laughed, Francie. Some other people didn't, but I laughed. I found that one funny. like what's gonna happen you know are Zach and Greg gonna go up there and costume and be funny like you know is uh uh not Jack Danger Jack Danger has had to go accept a couple toppies of course but um uh Mike Mike Vinacore the one year Mike Vinacore I think for Jurassic Park I think he had to go up for like nine of 12 awards in a row so he just kept going up he's like hey like uh well I'm up here if you want to pass me some other ones so I didn't have to keep getting out of my seat and stop drinking my beer that'd be totally rad no I don't think he actually said that but it was just funny, because he had to, like, he's like, yeah, cool, thank, thank you again, I think, like, what do you say the 12th time you get a Twippy, right, but anyways, I will say this, Josh and Scott did their best to, um, salvage it, okay, okay, they, they basically, what they, what happened is, and again, I'm not blaming this on Colin, I'm not blaming this on Will or Twippies, I'm not blaming this specifically even on Kaneda, I'm not even blaming this, well, okay, at least partially, but I'm not specifically blaming this on any one person, I do think obviously there are some people more responsible than others, but the Twippies have kind of been, let's be honest, let's not lie, the Twippies have almost been on life support for a couple years, you know, like, it's almost like, I don't think it's like, it's not like you took someone out back behind the shed and you shot him like yeller when he had rabies, it's not like you take the dog down, no, I don't think that's what happened, I think that this is more like, well, I mean, I already mentioned Betsy once, my Oma, Oma I love you, you know, after my Oma had been on life support for X number of amount of times, it's like how long can you be on life support not really living life until just kind of they remove you from the life support? And I feel like when they announced that the Twippies would no longer be done live at TPF, it was just kind of removing it from life support. And that's when it like fully died. Now at this point, the doctors have ran in, they've got the clear trying to bring someone back to life. That's what's happening now. Just let my Oma go die. Oh my God. No, I'm just kidding. Oma's long gone. Thanks for the inheritance, Oma. I do appreciate it. Sorry I didn't get to spend your last two years with you because I was out here on the East Coast and it was the middle of a freaking pandemic. That part did suck. I would have loved to have got to go to my Oma's life celebration. But I've gone down a different road here. I didn't mean to go this way. That is all to say that I think Josh and Scott did their best. They're in there, you know, with the paddles. Aren't they doctors too? This is why they were chosen to try to revive the Twippies. Because they already know about this stuff. Isn't one of them a doctor or something like that? I think, wait, I think Scott is or something. Yes, yes. Josh does something else. He's mentioned that. Okay, I'm so sorry. I have listened to like every single episode of Loser Kids since day one. And I'm a pretty freaking big fan, I'm not gonna a lie, so I should know that stuff. But here's the thing. Next year, a lot of people are saying, oh, the Twippies are dead. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Go be negative and rude somewhere else. Let's be honest. Josh and Scott tried their best. I don't still necessarily agree with all the decisions made by the Twip Committee, but who cares? I'm not on the Twip Committee. I don't have to agree with all their decisions. The decision to allow Josh and Scott to do what they did was smart. It was better than not having any Twippies at all, and that's what I would like to say here, this was better than nothing at all. So let's just try to be positive Paulies here and be like, yo, next year, if you could do it live, it'd be great. If you could do it live at cheap, you have to be even better, right? If you could do it live and there was no drama leading up to it, it'd be even better, better, better, right? And what has maybe made it even better would be if I got one single solitary mother flipping vote. I didn't even get a single solitary vote. I thought for sure, I kept scrolling down. And then I would click the more, more, more, more. I was down to people who had one vote. And I kept clicking more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more. And like, I'm like, what? I got zero, because I know I was on the drop down, I know I'm on the promoters list. I know I even asked y'all, I said, and I know, here's the thing. Most of you guys listening were disenchanted. You knew that the Twippies were basically dead and on life support and they need to get clear, charged, you knew that they were dead on arrival and you didn't even care to vote I think they only got like a tenth of the votes they got before or a quarter I don't know perhaps maybe in Minecraft don't look it up they didn't get that many votes though people just didn't really care that much I think even Kerry Hardy who won the the content creator got like 80 votes or something right so like I mean literally just on most people's Facebook lists if you just put up a post you know most people have, most pinball creator type people have, you know, 500 to 1,000 minimum pinball people on just their personal and or their, you know, their either podcast, Facebook page or whatever, right? So between all of that, even just if you get 10% of them to vote, that's 80. You know what I mean? Or less for Kerry Hardy because he has so many subscribers. So here's the thing. Kerry Hardy totally deserves it, so I'm not taking it away from him. And in fact, if you go back to me live voting for favorite pinball content creator, I'm 99% sure possibly perhaps in Minecraft that I did on the live show actually say that you know I'm not going to go back and listen to it I'm sorry but I did actually was one of the few content creators who did try to support the Twippies I tried to run in there and clear you know just shock them charge and bring them back to life I'm trying to help a little and I'm here talking about it now saying that if each year moving on forward we try to make sure we have a clear path leading up to it We try to make sure we do it live. It doesn't have to be at TPF. I prefer it at TPF. I think TPF is the best place to have it because it's the only show that's close to kind of sort of the end of the year, right? But if you even just did it live on Twitch, I think that one year Emoto and Jack Danger just did it live on Twitch without a...
    45:50
    Oh, my God. Excuse me. Let me have a little sip of my coffee. y'all, if you're listening, you can go have a little sip or a little sorry, I meant a little straw stick. That's someone sucking from a straw, obviously, perhaps, in Minecraft. You know, whatever it is you do while you're listening to my show, you're in the shower, you're driving in your car, you're at work probably, you're on your way to work, you're coming home from work, you're going for a jog like Tim Lee used to listen to me whenever he would go for a jog, right? Shout out to Tim the Lion Man Lee. And while we're talking about it, I do for a second have to shout out Glenn the Skateboarder. Glenn the Skateboarder got into, it shouldn't have been, but a little bit of drama. And Glenn is such a positive force for pinball. He does so much for pinball content creators. He does so much, like, between Slam Tilt and me, and even with Loser Kid when they've asked in the past. And I know with the Pinball D-Jenny's coming up this Sunday, February the 18th at noon, Eastern Standard Time. Make sure you're watching. Okay, so there you go, Joe. There's the plug. I should have had Joe on. Maybe I could still have Joe on. Maybe I'll message him and see if I can actually shoot. I'm going to PEI early Saturday morning, maybe Friday night, Joe. If you're not too busy, we could have you in here for just a little tiny short show. Just a little tiny nubby rubby where I'm not going to go off topic too much and talk about other stuff. But Glenn the Skateboarder had put part of a quote that Zach had said in the pinball show about being sued by American Pinball. And people lost their freaking minds. I'm like, that's just Zach's quote. He literally was just, A, he's drumming up more support for Zach and Zach's show, and therefore Zach's company, and B, he didn't say anything negative, he didn't say anything rude, he was just curious, okay? He is a curious George. He just didn't know, he's like, well, I don't get it. He doesn't pay for extra content, I don't pay for extra content, I don't think very many of our mutual friends, I know Glenn, Glenn is such a moral and ethical guy that like, Like, okay, I don't know Glenn that well, but I'm pretty sure that Glenn probably wouldn't listen to, like, you know, paid content illegally. And, like, I don't do that. Like, even if someone offered to send me, like, Canada stuff behind the paywall or the pinball show stuff behind the paywall, I still wouldn't listen to it. I still wouldn't go to my – I don't want to listen to it. It's behind the paywall. If I'm going to listen to it, I will pay to listen to it. I'm not going to pay $15 a month, Zach. Come on. It's $15 Canadian a month for that sucker. I'm like, literally, my Netflix is $4.99 a month. I think I pay for Crave, which is like, has like 20 or 30 of the other channels you don't get on Netflix, like more local stuff. I think we pay $7.99 a month for that. I'm not going to pay more just to listen to a short little segment every couple weeks on the pinball show, $15 a month, than I pay for both of my other, like for all of my television and movies included on planet Earth. Even YouTube, I mean, I don't even pay the upgrade for that for $4 or $5 a month for no commercials. So, anyways, I guess I'll just never know if Zach was the only pinball podcaster to possibly be being sued. But I know another one who also was being threatened to be sued, and we're going to talk about that at the end. Getting on to it, oh my God, we are into it for 48 minutes. Let's try to speed her up a little bit. Okay, let's look at the other topics on here. Oh, to put the cap on Glenn's thing, people lost their shayats in the comments, and they were like, why would you, what's the point of this post? And I'm like, he's just curious. He just wondered if maybe someone else either already listened to it and had, like, a just of if it was just, he was just curious if they were just being click, like, was Zach just 100% being clickbaity? or, like, is there, like, seriously some bad shit going on? And Glenn didn't, like, didn't know how to feel about the whole episode because of that. So I don't want to put words in his mouth. Glenn, yes, does the, you know, did the, Glenn's a good buddy of mine. He's been on the show a lot of times. I say good buddy. We've never hung out in real life. But, like, you know, I get to chat with him on Messenger a couple times a week. And, you know, we even do talk on the phone from time to time, which is great. Sometimes not even on the podcast, which is even nicer. And I just felt like people really lambasted Glenn. If Lensius had curious George and he wanted to ask that question, he didn't say, like, someone please send me the illegal link so I can listen. No, he was just curious. He just wondered if anyone on Pinball Enthusiast, which is where someone might have extra info, you know, if anyone else, if any other, you know, podcasters perhaps had dealt with this or something similar to this or what was going on. He was just curious like we all were, and he took all these arrows in the back for very, very, very little. so then he deleted the post and then today he put up a whole post I'm so sorry to the entire pinball community for the horrible it's like Glenn I love you bro don't worry about it you didn't do anything that bad it's not a big deal I think Glenn just I think Glenn is very concerned with making sure that his image in the pinball community is fairly squeaky clean which I get because he's such a cool dude and he's so good with sound engineering and all that type of stuff that I'd be shocked at some point if Glenn wasn't possibly offered maybe not a full-time career and pinball and sound and all that kind of stuff, but maybe at least a part-time side hustle, right? And he already does all that stuff, right? So, Glenn, thank you for everything you do for the show. Thank you for being an awesome Poor Men's Tribes member. Thank you also just for being a cool dude. Thank you for all that you do for tournament pinball.
    51:24
    That's all I want to say about that. Just, Glenn, people are just going to complain. People are going to complain. The time that I ended my pinball podcast was because I was dealing with like five people complaining about my free show all at once. I'm like, yo, it's free. You don't want to listen? Don't listen. Don't just message me every day about 15 things I have to do better so that my show is exactly what you want to hear. Go find a show that's exactly what you want to hear. If you don't want the unfiltered, absolute truth about everything happening in pinball, don't listen to my show. If you want to listen to a show where someone never goes off topic and they only ever tell you exactly, like basically read Nap Arcade to you or what's happening on the Kineticist, then go listen to another show. This is not a new show. This started as a pinball vlog. In fact, if you listen to my first 100 episodes, I did talk about pinball, but some episodes I barely talked about pinball or it was only part of what I talked about during the show. I try to make it primarily pinball-centric, and that's why we're going to move on and talk about some other stuff in pinball. So, this morning, Craig Bobby, Craig Bobby, making me that content. Say what?
    52:38
    No, not as good as his. His is way better. Alright, Craig Bobby say, insert Craig Bobby say what right now in your head.
    52:46
    There you go, you just heard it. Okay, now after that Craig Bobby you just heard in your head, here we go. Naps Arcade brought fresh off the presses. Boo, boo, boo, boo, boo. Fresher than that bread from Subway. Made with yoga mats. That's right. Santa Cruz, these guys have been around making boards since the 80s. An awesome skateboard company. They released a new pinball-designed skateboard. And this is coming from a guy who owned a $500 limited edition, I think the 400. Kill Bill 1 and Kill Bill 2 and I was one of the only people remaining on the planet who had Kill Bill 1 Limited Edition and Kill Bill 2 Limited Edition skateboards at my house signed by the one, okay no they weren't signed I wish they were signed, but I was one of the only people on the planet left who had one and two and I stupidly, well not stupidly, I needed money at the time and didn't have like, you know, didn't have any other way to get money probably about ten years ago and I sold those suckers. I wish I still had them. And they were perhaps the most gorgeous skateboards I had ever seen until this morning. When Craig Bobby tagged me on the Napa Arcade link on Facebook, telling me, like, Albert, I think you need to see this, brah. So, yes, they are gorgeous. Head over to Napa Arcade. You don't even have to Google Santa Cruz. You don't even have to go to YouTube and look for the, probably the most rad infomercials or anything to do with pinball I've ever seen. maybe other than the Guns and Roses commercial for JJP, that wins it, but this is the second coolest pinball commercial I've ever seen this is for Santa Cruz, head over to Nap Arcade and one of the top links is talking about Santa Cruz, you can read the whole article or not, it's a neat article but the boards are $68 American that's like, you know, probably with shipping and everything a little over a hundo for us Canadians and the Aussies and all the Europeanos and everything, right? okay so but this is the most gorgeous skateboard I've ever seen and I know that not many of you will know what I'm talking about but oh my god Glenn the skateboarder will those wheel wells are yes mother so if you don't know what a wheel well is it's just like if their skateboards now kind of have a throwback retro thing that skateboards didn't have for decades especially when they're making a cool looking kind of vintage board they'll put in these wheel wells it's almost like the equivalency of when you see an old vehicle with white walls on it and the guy put brand new white wall tires on it obviously we don't need white walls anymore but they just look cool and so these old kind of uh they're it's basically like a concave piece of the wood that's chipped out and then they don't just have wheel wells look cool enough but they power it's almost like powder coating your pinball machine, like, they powder coated it, they took special colors and put the wheel wells of special colors, so I don't care if you skateboard or not, having this, first of all, first of all, a pin, and I did this with my skateball, of course, with my, I actually have a replica hoverboard from Back to the Future, so on my skateball pin, I actually had it up there as a topper, so if you own Radical, or if you own even that cool BMX game where the four balls fall at once, or if you own Skateball, of course, the only pinball machine that Tony Hawk owns, and also Keith Elwin, one of his favorite machines of all time, because his name on Twitch, if you ever see someone called Skateball SK, the number 8 ball, that's probably Keith Elwin, I'm not going to say for sure, perhaps, maybe, in Minecraft it might be Keith Elwin, okay? So, yeah, Santa Cruz boards, check that out, really cool article, thank you Jason Knapp for keeping all of us content creators and pinball nerds all across the planet always updated.
    56:38
    Kineticist also had a really cool article that I loved talking about weed smoke, and he actually dug into it, and it's a real question. I have, and God love him, shout out to you, my man Mike Dimas, God love Mike Dimas, shout out to Mike Dimas, but a couple times when I got pins from Mike, I know Mike doesn't smoke the Stiggy's very often, I don't even know if he does at all anymore, but back in the day on Friday nights, I was one of those jerks, I guess jerks you'd call them, you know, I was smoking ciggies, I think on Friday nights he would allow people to possibly smoke ciggies and some other things down in the basement, do you know what I mean? It was nothing crazy, it was nothing nefarious, but it was like things that are very legal here in Canada, I'll just say that, in Minecraft perhaps, we may have done this, so a couple times when I got a pin from Mike, yeah, it had a bit of a smell to it for a couple days, but usually, honestly, it was gone within two or three days, and because I never smoke cigarettes or anything in my house, I'm a person who does edibles, I also vaporize on a very low setting, so there's almost no smoke ever, like, you don't see any smoke in the air coming out of my mouth ever from anything, because I just, I don't, I really, unless I'm at a party or a get-together where someone is actually, like, doing something very social, I, there's, I'm not like Snoop Dogg, I don't do blunts, I'm not like Cheech and Chong, I don't have a bong. I don't have a pipe. I don't do doobies. You know what I mean? I literally just edibles and vapes because I want to use marijuana to enrich my life and make it better, not to make my lungs dirty and not to like, you know, do all the negatives that smoking anything doesn't even matter if it's freaking something healthy. Like if you took the healthiest green tea, like Sencha organic, you know, green tea and you rolled it up and you smoked it, you'd still be getting tar in your lungs. It doesn't matter. That's why a lot of guys with cigars, cigars is like a good step up because you're not actually inhaling it into your lungs. Sure, you'll get a little tiny bit in your mouth, which, you know, that's probably not the end of the world. The real place you don't want that shit is in your lung. So if you are someone listening to this, just because we are talking about weed smoke, and you think you want to enjoy, you know, God's most, I think God's most incredible plant. If you want to enjoy it, try to just do it a little bit more healthy. So maybe you just smoke it a little bit less, you look into getting a really good vaporizer. I think the best bang for your buck, well under a hundred bucks, get the Airizer Air 2, actually made in Kitchener, Waterloo, shout out. But it doesn't matter, none of that matters, just look into getting a vaporizer that works with the flour. Don't get those, the vaporizers that have all the liquid in there and stuff like that, all the tinctures. They've got a whole bunch of other resins and ways that they use to strip the plant of the THC. Plus they don't have all the other 300 cannabinoids that help you get healthy, I've gone off track, thank you Colin, blame it on Colin guys, it's because of the kineticist I've gone off track, no, he was asking the question, does this lower the value of your pins, and I'll say yeah, if you like, the machine that comes out of Snoop Dogg's frickin' arcade, or like, you know, like when Eminem, I like to think that when Eminem goes to record, or especially if he has Snoop Dogg over there, you know there is some pinball machines just outside that, you know there is, anyone who saw the Snoop Dogg and Eminem song, you know there is some pinball machines in his arcade just outside the studio. And Snoop Dogg has already said when he was on the car show with Jay Leno that he loves playing pinball. In fact, they went over during the live stream and played pinball. And so you know that Snoop Dogg and Eminem are out there, and Snoop's just sitting there like yo Em I not going outside to smoke this And Eminem like he a powerful man but you never tell the Snoop Dogg or the Snoop Lion where to smoke his joints or his blunts You just don You definitely don't be bringing up edibles and vapes and stuff to Snoop Dogg. No. You, even if you're Eminem, you're like, yo, Snoop Dogg, you can smoke that wherever you want. So, yes, if a machine came out of Eminem's basement after they recorded that last song, after three days of Snoop Dogg being in there with big, giant blunts the size of my frickin' fist, You know what I mean?
    60:31
    This man is fisting it with these freaking, these giant, these giant, you know, basically joints, right? And so when you're doing that, yes, it probably does affect the value in that, yes, there is tar in marijuana smoke. So, yes, that eventually, if you're doing it all the time, like 24 hours a day in there, eventually would build up a little bit on the glass, a little bit. And if you never, ever cleaned your pins, this is the same as someone has a dusty house or something like that or a lot of pets. if you're not cleaning your pins like just I'm not saying every month but like once a year giving it a really good wash down with like lukewarm water the tiniest little bit of soap I think that's how you do it at least I've heard that's how you do it perhaps in Minecraft I don't know but google how to do it give your pins a good wash down if you're worried about something like that and if not let's not worry about pinball machines were meant to be played sure maybe playing them drops the value a little bit sure maybe when you play it for so long that you have to replace the flippers the value is a little bit less. Sure, maybe in life, when you sometimes smoke a little weed, the value might drop, but who cares? You only live once. So go live once and enjoy it and don't worry that much about it. Plus, even right now, I have Guardians of the Galaxy here for sale. I'm allowed to put on there, coming from a smoke-free home, because nobody smokes anything in this house ever. The closest to anything ever getting smoked in this house is when I make a freaking turkey, okay? um no I don't do smoked turkey I'm not David Dennis I'm not David Dennis but all right let's move on to some other topics oh my god we had an hour I have so much to do today I've talked too long let me have a little sip of my coffee let me have a little schmertz a little schmitz a little schmertz a little I don't know what I'm talking about now that is some good coffee. Okay, next topic. All right. So, the other podcaster that has been threatened by American Pinball is no other than the one, the only, the, no, it's not quite time to talk about that, but we are getting really, really, really close. Let's just talk about the thing that I, the positive thing I want to talk about before that, okay? Because I'm going to do American pinball into American pinball. So we're getting really, really, really Oh, excuse me. We're getting Oh my lordy. Ari Jones. Ari, you're going to love that. Ari told me his favorite part on one of my most recent podcasts was when I ripped a big old fart and I just left it in there. Well, to Ari and every other pinball nerd listening, whether I fart, whether I shard, or whether I burp, you're probably going to hear it because I don't know how to edit and I couldn't do it if I wanted to and I could maybe learn it but I'm not going to. So there you go. That's what you got. Oh, here's this little tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny tidbit before I go into talking about American Pinball's most recent live streams. Okay, I was on Don's Pinball Podcast. I want to go, okay, I can't go back and listen to my shows for obvious reasons, even though I have gone back and listened to a couple of my interviews from time to time, maybe a month later, which that part is cool. I only listen to the first 10 seconds, maybe 5 seconds in the middle, and the last 10 seconds to make sure my audio sounds at least relatively decent before I upload it. And I know it doesn't sound great. I get that. But while I was on Don's pinball, oh, and Don did actually, I thought the audio was great. Maybe the first, like, three to five minutes of Don's 100th episode was I was a little bit quieter. But he F'd with the, he adjusted something and he made me come in louder. And then the whole rest of the show, like, honestly, it doesn't sound, like, great. We're on the super awesome pinball show here. Come on. Like, you know, I didn't used to work at a radio station. I'm not Jesse Olds with a golden voice here, you know. You know what I mean? But it sounded pretty damn good. I thought it sounded great. Sometimes when some of the call-ins, I know Josh and Scott called in to congratulate him and quite a few other people. Thank you to everyone who called in to congratulate Don. And if you have a pinball podcast or a pinball show and you didn't take time out of your day to at least congratulate Don on 100 episodes, that's not very rad. At least, I mean, when I hit episode 500, there was quite a few pinball podcasters who took time and energy to either thank me on their show or in real life, and I really did sincerely appreciate that. and I remember who did and who didn't, believe me. But no, Don, he did get quite a few people that called in, but it would have been cool if there was a couple other maybe pinball shows out there we had heard like a congratulations to Don episode 100. It didn't have to be like a long segment or anything, but that would have been cool. But here's a little funny tidbit from something that happened. I will go back and listen at some point. Somewhere around an hour and a half in, I already mentioned Edibles, so I can't really go back right now, but I had maybe made some wonderful marijuana cookies. And somehow, even though two was too much for me before that, I decided to go for three. And that was a mistake. Somewhere about half an hour in, I ate my third cookie after the alcohol was kicking in and feeling pretty good. And I was like, wow, wow, I'm doing good. And I not only drank all the freaking beer in this house, which is saying something, because there was a good amount of beer here. I got into Danielle's Ciders.
    65:35
    And I had a Cider B-Cider. And while Don was talking, or while, like, one of the Collins was going, it was, like, a really bad moment for me to say anything. I was sitting here, and because, like, with our new awesome couch, there's no, like, it's, like, really high up, like a 70s couch, there's no table right beside me to set my beer down. So I had my beer squeezed between, like, my cheek, like, well, I guess not my ass cheek, but, like, my thigh, my upper thigh, and the couch. And I was talking, and I may or may not have been reloading the vape, and, oh, my God, I accidentally spilled, I'm not even kidding you, a full 500 milliliters. Damn, I don't know what they, I don't know how many gallons that is. Is that what, is that how Americans measure drinks? You don't use milliliters, right? You use gallons? I don't know how many gallons in a liter. I think there's like, I think there's two liters in a gallon. And I spilled half a liter, so I'll say I spilled a quarter gallon. I spilled a quarter gallon, I don't know, maybe that's too much. I spilled a lot, like a whole tall can. Like twice as much as in a small can, almost. I spilled everywhere. and because it was an important part of the podcast I didn't say anything I actually sat there for about 20 minutes now thank god Don actually said you know what I gotta go on a bathroom break let's pause it Don unlike me has the ability to pause and edit so Don anything that you left in there that you didn't want in there that's on you Don I'm just saying I don't know if he said anything he didn't want left in there I gotta go back and listen to the whole thing I need to give it a couple more weeks because I kind of feel like I'm kind of embarrassed listening to that stuff because, you know, I do, I do, I'm not going to say I stand by everything I said in there because there's probably two sheets to the wind. However, for the most part, I haven't heard any negative feedback yet. So fingers crossed I didn't say anything too crazy. But again, go listen to that with Don. See if you can listen to the splash. I guarantee you somebody somewhere would have been able to hear some type of like, whoa, or me moving around. And then all of a sudden, like, I don't know, 20 minutes later. So what I did is I ran, took off my pants, obviously. didn't take off my pants and jacket don't worry but I took off my pants I took off my underwear I changed into some pj pants ran back here with a towel tried it up a little bit with the one towel took the other towels set it down on the couch and then I sat down and I recorded the rest of it but for 20 minutes that I was sitting in soaking wet like a big freaking massive puddle thank god we have a leather couch like uh you know I'm not gonna lie the next day it smelled like it needed a little worsening, so I gave it a really good full clean down the next day, just to prevent any, like, cider be cider going down be cider, you know what I mean? But, anyways, that was so fun, that was, and if you're, if you're a pinball podcaster out there, I haven't been invited on a lot of shows, you know, in the last couple years, probably, I think, last time I was on a show was with Marty and Jeff before Dawn's, so if, you know, Slam Tilt, they got, like, five years worth of guests lined up, I'm not going request to go on their show, even though I would actually really like to try to get, uh, Ron, yes, but more so Bruce. I don't know why, I'm just very, I feel very magnetized. Bruce is sort of like my American, my American, I don't want to offend him, but like, my uncle, my American uncle. That's what I kind of think of him as, you know? He's like, we both like to get right up to that line of what's okay and allowed to be done instead, and sometimes Bruce crosses it, and sometimes I do too, but most of the time, we're pretty good frickin' dudes who from time to time, he's, Bruce is funnier than me, I'll say that, Bruce is definitely, definitely funnier and a better pinball player than me, so, but Bruce is, when I listen to all the other pinball podcasters, I know I'm never going to be the next Jeff Teolas, I'm never going to be, you know, the next Zach or Dennis, I'm never even going to be the next Joel, Triple Drain, oh my god, those guys are on fire, they released not one but two awesome podcasts in the last couple weeks, including the one that they did release today, that one was talking about the return of Papa. And this will be a little bit of a sad part of the show, so if you are uncomfortable with talking about that sort of thing, here is your warning. Look away now. But I'm going to try to just go through it very quickly. Papa is returning, the Papa World Championships. So for those of you who are newer to pinball, Papa used to do two really big tournaments per year. The one was always like a stern circuit championship, I believe, if they even did that back then, perhaps in Minecraft, because I'm not sure, but the two that they, that Papa really helped out with, from what I understand, was Pinbird and the Papa World Championships. Now, I never went to a Papa World Championships, but I heard about it, and I heard how brutal it was, and I heard that it's, you know, one of the last big pinball championships where it's not match play, like Pinbird was, and like so many other ones are, it's actually like a, and it's not a pump and dump, like so many others are. It's like a card. You have to build a card. So it's easy for, it's not easy, but anyone can have one good game on a machine as a bit of a fluke. You know, like my very, very, very first game of Iron Maiden, I think I got 160 million. It took me like three months to ever get over 100 million ever again. So anyone can have a little bit of a fluke. You're having a good day. Your flipper skills are doing well. You know, your mind's in a good place. Anyone can have a good day from time to time and do that. But can you put together five good ones in a row? Now that's a challenge. And that's what the card is all about. You need to be a top tier player to no matter what, overcome all the bad luck you're going to get, overcome all the house balls you're going to get, overcome all the times you're going to nail the shot the machine asked you to hit, and it's still going to send it down that freaking left out lane or down the center, right? You're like, the machine, the pin, ask me. Lyman sheets himself in the code, ask me to hit the shot. And then I hit the shot and it went down the drain. But here's the thing.
    71:18
    For those of you who don't know, or are newer to pinball, which I know my show does have some newer listeners, so shout out to all you guys, and thanks for being here and spending your time with me. I know there's like 50 other pinball podcasts and content creators you could be listening to, so I'd like to thank you. Even though none of y'all voted for me in the Twiffies, I would like to thank you for at least listening. Um, now, everybody not voting in the Twippies this year does make me feel like I can do whatever I want this year. If I want to do some weird podcast, and I know I did one from the shower once, if I want to do one from a bath, I can. I, like, now that, like, I got no, if I got even one or two votes, I'd be like, well, you know what? I got a couple votes. Maybe I'll try to get more next year. F it. I don't even care about votes anymore. I'm just doing whatever I want. I'm doing whatever I want. I'm saying whatever I want. I'm playing whatever music I want. Y'all didn't vote for me. I'm not even one person. I'm not even in your top five. Not even one person out of hundreds of votes? Not even one person on your fifth favorite pinball podcast? Give me a break. Anyways, I'm kind of joking, but I'm kind of serious. Obviously, it would be great. It would be wonderful if I got one vote, but I didn't, which means I'm free, baby. I can do what I want. I don't even have one person who, because if I'm currently in no one's top five, and I tried as hard as I did last year, with as many interviews as I did last year, with as many shows, which is much content, with doing 12 shows in 12 days leading up to Christmas, the only podcasters, okay, wait, the only one of two podcasters to even attempt to do such a thing? Come on. Anyways, whatever. I get it. I understand. I think y'all are hate listeners. I get a lot of hate listeners. I try to make fun of myself a lot, so it makes sense that, like, I thought, like, maybe half my listeners were, like, listening in hate, like, oh, what's Orby going to say next, that nerd, but like, I think y'all are just a bunch of hate listeners. I don't even know if I have one legit listener that actually enjoys the show and appreciates the fact that, I know there is some people who enjoy the show, because a lot of y'all did support me last year by buying some coffee, and a lot of you do support me by just listening to the show, so I'm going to stop complaining. Let's move forward. Let's trudge on forward through the crap that is my sad, little, poor, depressed ego on the ground that didn't even get one vote, and And maybe instead of just going, you know what, I'll go weirder. Maybe I'll go more normal. And maybe I'll never go off topic again.
    73:38
    Franchi will be like, well, I'll listen again, Albert. I'll listen again. I'll listen. You never go off topic. I'll listen. No, I'm just kidding. Franchi, I love you. And he's even, that's totally a joke. Franchi has even confirmed that he doesn't necessarily hate it or care if I go off topic. So, all right, let's keep moving forward here. Let's chug on forward. Papa is returning. It was so nice. on Triple Drain to see Lyman Sheets, and Andy Bagwell was there also. He runs the monthly pinball tournaments, or I think all the leagues that happen at Interium. Interium, or Interium, I'm sorry. Interium, I believe it's in and around near Chicago.
    74:17
    Perhaps, maybe in Minecraft. And, wow, this particular you know, this is going to be like an emotional tournament for people because we're there to celebrate Lyman Sheets, and for those new to pinball who don't know Lyman Sheets, he is at this point the GOAT. He is the greatest of all time pinball programmers. I'm sorry, I'm sorry there is tons of incredible, talented pinball programmers out there, but as of right now, as it stands, very few people would disagree. He was the greatest single pinball programmer and rules maker to have ever walked this planet, as far as we know. And I'm sorry if that offends any of the rules makers out there, or pinball programmers, because I do think that someone could come along and maybe someday even be as good as, maybe, maybe, be as good as Lyman Sheets.
    75:12
    And unfortunately, Lyman succumbed to suicide a couple years ago due to, or, you know, I don't know all of the reasons, nor are we going to go into it here, but he was going through a very tough time. And obviously this particular tournament with Papa returning and where it's going to be and who it's going to be run by and how it's the Papa World Championship returning and the money donated is going to go to, I believe, two if not three different charities that have to do with suicide prevention and awareness. So please go listen to, and if you'd like to, I watched the video. It was really nice to actually see Penny. So Penny was on there, and Penny is Lyman Sheets' fiancée, I believe.
    76:01
    It was just really nice to hear from her and see them. And I can be honest with you guys here. I have another person in pinball. I'm not going to mention their name, but many of you, if not all of you, would know who that person is. And they, in the last year or two, have gone through some tough times mentally and had some challenges. And I was just talking to them in the last week or two about, you know, I said to them, I'm glad that you're kind of dealing with it better and you're doing better because a lot of you know, and you heard it here right on the show, I had a really tough time mentally moving all the way across Canada, losing all my family, losing 99% of my friends. Yes, I had David Dennis here and Tom MacArthur from the Fundy Flippers Tournament Director. Thank you so much to Tom. Tom, all the tournament directors, all the volunteers, everybody out there. I went through a really tough time mentally, and one of the things that helped me through that was just reaching out and talking to other people in pinball, talking to family members, talking to friends, prioritizing my mental health.
    77:00
    You know, it's my show. I didn't get any tribute votes. If I want to do a mini top five, I can. Ah, darn it. I guarantee you almost that that is. Drop target Danielle calling on the phone. I'm just going to let it ring. She won't leave a message.
    77:12
    I've ran too long. I've gone into her lunch break. She usually calls me while she goes for a walk on her lunch break.
    77:18
    there you go, I'm doxing myself, y'all can hear my, they'll probably give my, it's probably my doctor like, oh, Albert, by the way, your anal fissure is bleeding again, if you wanted to hit me up at the doctor's office, right up the street from your house, no, okay, thank God I didn't get doxed, it's just drop target Danielle, I will give her a quick call back, probably in 20 minutes, closer to the end of her run, or I'm going to try to wrap this up a lot closer in 20 minutes for y'all, but, please, mark it on the calendar, I believe it's September. Oh, I should have had this up. It's early September. I believe September 5th and September 6th. I had this up on my other laptop, but my other laptop, alas, is now closed. And I will tell you this. I can open the laptop. I will tell you this. This Papa returning is a miracle. It's beautiful. It's wonderful. I'm excited about it. the okay I have it here sorry I want to give you guys a date I'm trying to do better this year it is the 2021 Papa World Championships registration is currently open there is no limit so you don't have to be in a rush so you don't have to make travel plans even though they would prefer you to register just so they know so if you know for sure you're going definitely register but like if you're someone like me who it depends on finances and it depends on how inexpensive a flight is at the time. But please, please, please add this to your calendar and consider going. Not only are two incredible suicide awareness charities, if not three, are going to be supported, but we're all going to get to celebrate the beautiful, wonderful life that was Lyman F. Sheets Jr.
    78:53
    It's going to be a comfortable place for people to talk about mental health. And like I was saying before, here in Canada, during Mental Health Month, we often, the biggest campaign we have is hashtag half of us, okay? So what that means is here in Canada, we recognize that half of us or more, some time in their life, will go through a, I don't mean just like you've had a bad day, or you lost a loved one, so you're sad for a week or two, but I mean like an extended, serious challenge mentally, where you're at least, you know, more than I would say a regular depression or anxiety, right? Because everyone has, deals with a certain amount of depression, and anxiety. But if it's really affecting your day-to-day life, please, please, please talk to a friend, talk to a family member, reach out to suicide awareness if it's that serious. If not, try to just find a counselor, you know, look for counseling. Find even a self-help book maybe. If it's at that level that's not that serious, look for a self-help book. Watch a YouTube video. I will tell you guys, when I quit this pinball podcast before, I really started looking at the five, you know, you know me, I love the number five, I love top five lists, I'm your fifth favorite pinball podcaster, yada, yada, yada, or apparently not, because I didn't get a single toppy vote, but I did five things that honestly just changed my life, I started prioritizing the hell out of sleep, I put sleep on a freaking pedestal, I used to put, I used to put the pee on the pedestal, and I don't do that anymore, okay, I put the sleep on the pedestal, okay, I'm not one of these girl guys who puts a P on the pedestal. And by P, I mean obviously pinball. Come on. In Fortnite, yes, obviously. Come on. But, no, I'm one of these guys. What I did is I would just stay up as late as I wanted. I would eat food as late as I wanted. If a hockey game was on until 3 a.m., I stayed up until 3 a.m., and I forced myself to stay awake, and I would drink caffeine or energy drinks or five-hour energy or do whatever I had to do to, like, stay awake, to party as late as I wanted, to watch any TV shows late at night, and my whole daytime would suffer because I would be exhausted. So I'd have to get up and try to be a dad and a pinball podcaster and a business owner and a homesteader and a goat owner and a goat master and a chicken farmer. And, you know, I'd try to do all this stuff just exhausted. So I decided that's it. So I made sure I put blue light filters on both my laptops, on my tablet. it. I put a blue light filter even on my cell phone. It automatically turns on at 8 p.m. Okay. Now, if I'm out somewhere out and about and I'm outside and it's really bright out and it's past 8 p.m. and my blue light filter turns on, you know what? It takes about 20 seconds to turn it off. Maybe 15 if you get good at it. Okay. So, but have your blue light filter on so that when you're ready to actually go to bed, you can actually fall asleep. Your blue light, if you watch it right to the second you fall asleep, it will keep you awake for hours at night. So, there you go. That's the one little tip I'll do for your sleep, or also just for your mental health. Number two, this is just what I did. I'm not a mental health professional. You know, this is just what I did. This is my experience. This is perhaps what might help you because it helped me, okay? Then I started worrying about eating a little bit healthier. Do I still have cake or ice cream or pizza or cheeseburgers or craft beer? Of course. I just eat it in moderation. Instead of, like, five slices of pizza, I try to have, like, two and then a salad on the side. You know, instead of having three JBCs, I try to have one JBC and a Caesar side salad. You know what I'm saying? Instead of having like two big, yeah, you get the point. Okay. The next one is I try to exercise and my chickens are getting really loud because they definitely need to be fed. They definitely want to be let out and run around for a bit. I'll be there in a second, chicks. Take it easy. Damn, girl. These girls, these chicks are all over me, man. Oh, so many girlfriends. No, I'm just kidding. Somebody said that and I thought it was funny. So, but let's go back to it. The next thing I did was I prioritized every single day, and I don't want to say meditation because meditation doesn't work for everybody, but I prioritized a short period of the day, 20 minutes a day, 15 minutes a day, that I spend in gratitude. Yes, I do a short mantra, but that doesn't matter. You don't have to do a mantra. Find 10, 15, even hell, even five minutes a day where you have no cell phone on, no radio on, no TV on, no kids talking, ideally no baby chickens in the background wanting to be fed, wanting to be baby birded, okay? You know, no dog really bugging you, like when either the kids are asleep, or when your partner is not home, or five minutes, 10 minutes, 15, I like 20 minutes, but stuff has to be absolutely silent, and during that time, I try not to allow my brain to think about anything other than gratitude, okay? And during those 20 minutes, basically, it resets my brain, and it calms my brain down, and it quiets me down. And for someone who is self-diagnosed with bipolar, ADD, ADHD, a couple other things, that's, you know, it's a very long list. But for someone who, you know, has struggled with a lot of this stuff, meditation has been life-changing for me. I'm sitting here right now. Ironically, here's a little ASMR for you guys. This is my mala necklace. It has 108 beads on it. I've gone way too far. I didn't think I was going to share that with you guys. But basically, I do the same mantra, which is love is accepting, peaceful, and calm. I am love 108 times every morning. And usually it helps me. Most of the times that I lose my temper and I have a really effed up day are days that like I didn't meditate in the morning and I wasn't calm. I didn't try to be peaceful. And I know what you're saying. You're listening to the show going right now, Albert, you meditated this morning. You're the opposite of calm. I get it. I'm a person who gets excited. and I wear my heart on my sleeve. You know, I'm a lover. I'm a fighter. I'm a midnight something, joker, toker, something. I don't know. Okay, let's get back into it because we've gone off the rails. My show goes off the rails more often than a train getting attacked by Godzilla. I don't know. All right. So, please, please, please, if you haven't, consider, consider going because the last Papa World Championship was held in April of 2017.
    85:04
    Okay, so since then we have lost Lyman, unfortunately. And this is a great, according here to the IFPA article on ifbapinball.com, they said that this tournament now honors his legacy, Lyman's legacy, in the pinball world as well as his memory as a person. The event will be held September 5th to September 8th, 2024, this year. at Interium in Schaumburg, Illinois. I knew it wasn't quite Chicago. Schaumburg. I just like the name of that town. Schaumburg. It's cool. It actually reminds me of Pembroke a little. Okay. This is a charity event,
    85:43
    which we hope will be rewarding players while honoring Lyman's memory, as well as raising money for suicide awareness. So all in all, this is like, it's going to be a fun pinball tournament with a lot of awesome pinball players at a really cool place like Interium. for such a good cause, so wow. And an unlimited amount of players, so please, please consider adding this to your calendar and going for such an awesome cause. I will be talking about this again over the next couple months. I can tell you right now, I've already promised a lot of Tribes members and a lot of people in Pinball that I would make it to Pinball Expo this year.
    86:21
    So there's very little chance that I will actually make it to this and Expo, even though I'm going to try. And if I am able to sell my Guardians of the Galaxy Pinball Machine. Hit me up if you're listening to this right now and you live in the East Coast, especially if you have like a $1,000 to $2,000 pin that you could trade me and give me some cash on top for my Guardians Pro. Let's just do it. Let's just get it done. I'm going to give you the best rock-bottom price that has ever been sold on the East Coast of Canada for a Guardians of the Galaxy Pro. In fact, I'm willing to lose. You heard it last time on the show. I was willing to lose $1,000. I'm now ready to lose $1,500. I'm putting this bad boy up for sale for $1,500 clearance rock bottom prices hit me up. I said I wouldn't advertise or something but now I did. So let's get back to your regular scheduled program here. Okay. So did American Pinball click bait us a little bit by saying that they had big news. Like big news. Okay. First of all, you can't write a headline that says we have micro news. I don't know about you, but how many people get excited about micro anything? Come on. you know what I'm saying? You know, like, okay, well, maybe micro-sustainability. There is micro-farming. There's some cool micro-dose things. See, there is some cool micro-stuff. But of course, I would not do that. I would only micro-dose in Minecraft, perhaps, maybe. But American Pinball decided to bring back live-streaming. And I have been asking and saying this. I've been beating it like a drum, like a dead horse. I've been saying, American Pinball, you have Steven Bowden, one of the top tournament players on the planet, on your team. Not only is he one of the top tournament players on the planet, who recently won Illinois, which is like the hardest state to win in, right? I think, I believe, perhaps, in my grasp. Or wait, did he go further north and win Wisconsin? No, I don't think so. But Steve Bowden is an incredible tournament player. He's also, and I've said this several times, I truly believe this in my heart. I'm not saying this because I'm afraid that David's fixer, American Pinball, is going to sue me. Steve Bowden is one of the best pinball commentators in all pinball. He just is. You know, maybe he doesn't add color commentary quite as good as Jeff Diolos, but I'd say damn close. And maybe he doesn't know rules like quite as good as Escher Lefkoff, but I'd say damn close. It's not better. I don't know. You know what I mean? So, like, but he also is just, he does it in an entertaining and enlightening way, and no matter what the other commentators talk about, he does a great job, perhaps better than anyone else, bringing it back to what we're seeing on the screen. And I think that's a good thing for pinball. Now, you can't just talk about what's happening on the screen, because then you're kind of like a pinball podcaster just reading up, to me. But you also can't just do color commentary or talk about what's going on in your life, because then you lose the viewer. And when we're talking about getting 3 million viewers like we did at InDisc, wow, oh my god, thank you Pluto for getting us on the front page. And by the way, if I can say this, Pluto, the chance of you listening to this is, even as Orbital Albert, I know it's like out of space chances, like one in a gazillion, okay? Sort of like Earth on, you know, our planet Earth here, life on Earth, one in a gazillion. Sort of like the chances of Pluto ever hearing this or hearing about this. But Pluto, can I please just say, if by chance, any way possible, I believe Fox Cities is the one that's doing nationals and or perhaps also the pin masters at D82, the live stream. Pluto or anyone who works at Twitch could we somehow some way get this the pin masters or the nationals could we get that on the front page because it would be great to have millions of people watch Eric Stone former world world champion destroy orbital Albert in round one on camera Okay no selfishly yes I would love to get to be my first time ever Imagine your first time ever in a pinball tournament live stream and like 50,000 people like we're watching concurrently all at once, watching the, watching in disc. Imagine if the millions of people who got to see it over three days got to see me getting just destroyed 7-0. They're like, who's this Orbital Albert? Actually, I don't even think they'll put Orbital Albert on the screen. I think they'll just have to put my real name Albert, right? Because, like, that's what they do. But, who knows? Maybe the teleprompter Tom? Not only does Tom talk, but Tom also can change what it says on the teleprompter. So, if you want to put Orby on there, you can. Albert, Orbital, Agar, I don't care. Orby, Agar, whatever. Doesn't matter. Who cares? The funny part is I'm not even thinking about, like, I know even Glenn the Skateboarder has hit me up and been like, yeah, are you doing much studying? Are you looking at the games at D82? Are you coming up with strategies? And it's like, no. You know what the only thing I'm thinking about, Glenn? It's what t-shirt I'm going to wear! Okay, so I already know day one, I have to wear Drew and Ian. Drew and Ian, right there. Right there. For no other reason to bring Orby over to the old poor man's pinball network. Okay.
    91:19
    You guys are going to get on there. So if millions of people see me, millions of people will see Drew, Ian, and what I like to think is Orby, which is that alien holding the thing that looks like a bong. Come on, it should look like a vape, guys. I've always joked that that third person, the alien, the Orby, the orbital Albert from outer space, because he's that weird, okay? I always thought that on that Drew and Ian shirt that that was me. That's how I felt.
    91:43
    Y'all know I wore that shirt, you know, several times to win big, not big, but small little pinball tournaments in the past. How much luck it's brought me. So, and as a thank you to Drew and Ian, and just a shout out to every person in the tribe, I will be wearing that for the Nationals. It's going to be great. I'll be wearing that when Eric Stone destroys me 7-0, okay? Or 4-0, I guess it would be in the first round. However, I don't care that I'm losing to Eric. All I care about is what I'm going to wear on day two. Because day two, I have to either wear, like, I even owe TurboGrafx-7. I owe him to wear that sometime. I have that shirt, which is a bit too small for me. I'm still doing some fasting. I'm still losing some weight.
    92:22
    I'm drinking alcohol. I'm back on the wagon again, though. I took most of January off, as some of you know. But I'm trying to fit into that small TurboGrafx. I'm trying. But no, I have that. And then I have about 100 other pinball shirts I could wear. But I think what I'm going to wear is my Edmonton Oilers. And again, shout out to my boy there, Pinter in Australia, Ryan Berry. His favorite team, I didn't think that an Australian would reach out to me and tell me their favorite team was Edmonton Oilers. I didn't. I really didn't. I thought down there rugby was like way bigger than American football. I figured down there that cricket would be bigger than ice hockey. But who knows?
    92:55
    One of my best friends all the way through college, shout out to Tim. He loved watching cricket. He would watch cricket world championships in Australia and in the UK, and I believe like Pakistan, India, they're really big there as well. He would watch them wherever they were across the world, and we were right here in Canada. So what's to say that Ryan can't love the Edmonton Oilers? Shout out to the Edmonton Oilers. I think I probably, for the pinmasters, will have to, and everyone's going to say, oh, Orby's just trying to stand out, be weird and be different. Yeah, kind of, probably a little. But the Edmonton Oilers jersey, which is bright orange, is just an awesome jersey. And if you're going to get a Canadian pinball nerd who is almost as big of a hockey nerd as he is a pinball nerd to come on to the pinmasters and play with the likes of Roger Sharp, Escher Lefkos, Keith Elwin, Raymond Davidson. I'm going to get to play with all these people. I got to rep Canada, hockey, and my favorite colors all at the same time. Right? So, yeah. Definitely. And then day two, who knows?
    93:51
    Lumberjack Johnnies? Maybe I spill a beer on my shirt. and I pull a Jeff Teolis and I do a shirt change. You guys see that last InDesk? This man did more shirt changes than the loser kids have Elwin on their show. I'm serious. Anyways, shout-out to Jeff. Shout-out to everybody. That's so cool. That's so fun.
    94:09
    Speaking of it, though, before I move too much forward about talking about nationals, I'm not bringing this up just to humble brag. Recently it has been funny, though. Whenever I'm, like, cooking dinner, after I cook dinner for Danielle and she's eating it, I go, how does it taste? She goes, yeah, oh, it's pretty good, thanks. Now, I mean, really, how good? You know me, the only two things I can make are toast and Kraft dinner. Wait, I don't think they have Kraft dinner in the States. Toast and macaroni and cheese. I think you call it Mac-ers. Mac and cheese? No, wait, Mac-ers is what Aussies... No, Mac-ers is what New Zealanders call McDonald's. Aussies, I don't know what they call it, but I think New Zealanders call it Mac-ers, right? I'll have to hit up my pin turn to see about that, but... Go Oilers! 16 in a row, they broke the record, by the way. They did lose one, but they won again. So the Edmonton Oilers have won 17 of the last 18 games. Absolutely incredible. They're going to win the Cup. If you don't believe me, F round and C because they're going to do it. But going back to this, I am flying in. I have actually paid for my flight, okay?
    95:12
    Oh, geez. Geez, I'm about to lose. Okay. Yeah. I have actually paid for my flight. I'm flying back in on Wednesday, March the 6th.
    95:25
    I'm not bringing any family or friends. Like, I'm just flying in myself. And I will be getting to the airport at Pearson Airport in Toronto around 1 p.m. I think 1.30 is the official time on Wednesday. Please, please, please, whether you're, I know the Castlemans, I know Carter Castleman is going. No clue when they're going. Maybe they're going earlier that week. But whether it be the Castlemans or the Ontario gentleman who won, no matter who it is Dimas, I was trying to get Mike Dimas to go but I don't think he's actually going even, yes, Ian Harewer or Julie Dorsers I know that a long time ago I had a little tiny minor beast with you guys but we're way past that love both you people if either of you guys are going Jeff Teolis, if you're going and you still listen to my show no clue, if anyone listening who lives in Ottawa Montreal, Toronto Kitchener, Waterloo, London Hamilton, Sarnia, Ottawa, I already said Ottawa, Windsor, even Detroit, or possibly maybe, yes, Point Edward, which is the other side of Sarnia. But anyone who lives in around southwestern Ontario, if you are traveling up to D82 and Lumberjack Johnny's to do either pinmasters, nationals, or just to go to have a rad time, or you're considering going, please let me ride with you. Please let me ride with you. I have a passport. Don't worry, I wouldn't do anything stupid and bring anything illegal across the border. I'm an idiot. I'm not that much of an idiot, okay? I want to get across the border. I would do nothing to ever jeopardize the best time of my life, which hopefully maybe we'll be losing to Eric Stone in Nationals and then playing Pinmasters. Let's be honest, Pinmasters is probably going to be more fun because I'll get more than just the minimum number of games until I'm out. Can you imagine if somehow, some way, like, Eric Stone, just, like, I don't know, something, I don't want anything bad to happen to Eric Stone, but I'm just saying, if Eric Stone just, like, had, like, the worst morning of his life, and, like, I don't know, just, like, just he was in a bad mood, or he was just grumpy, or he was just, for some reason, I was having, like, the best day of my life, and Eric Stone was just having, like, Eric Stone is human, when you watch him, you don't think he's human, but he is a human, if Eric Stone has, like, the worst day of his life, and I have, like, the best pinball day of my life, can you imagine if I even got one game on Eric Stone? I would cry. I would just break down on camera. Well, I wouldn't actually cry because I wouldn't want to get tears onto my most favorite shirt, my Edmonton Oilers shirt, or even Drone Ian. I wouldn't do that to them because that would be embarrassing here to the tribe members. However, however, wow, it's funny that everyone thinks that I'm probably, well, not everyone, but people, even some people who know me well, assume that I'm like looking up strategies and I'm, oh, and I'm watching pinball videos and I'm making notes and I'm nerding out and pushing up my glasses. No, I'm not doing any of that. All I am doing is simply thinking about where I'm going to stay, how I'm going to get there, and what clothes I'm going to wear once I get there, and maybe, maybe, maybe, how the hell am I going to get certain things that are hard to get there? I don't know, like craft beer at D&E 2. No, no, no. I'm not going to, there's no drinking there. I do not, I can play pinball without, I can play pinball sober. I've done it before. I will try it again. It might be a new experience for me, but just think about it. When I lose 4-0 to Eric Stone in the first round, I can say, hey, I had to play sober for the first time in my life. I'm sorry. It's not my fault. I've never played pinball sober. That's why I definitely lost. That's the problem, right? Yes, Elowen, I will let you out soon. You've been such a patient girl. All right. So, please, please, please, if you're listening to this pinball podcast and you happen to know anyone or happen to yourself be traveling anytime Wednesday afternoon or Wednesday night, Bud, can you let Elowen outside for a sec? She's a little upset. So, if you happen to be traveling up around that direction, I don't want to spend $600 on a rental car. Or, hell, if you live in London, Ontario, or Toronto, or that area, and you know me well, and you are willing to let me pay you a couple hundred bucks to borrow your car, I guess, depending on the type of car it is, and all this kind of stuff, how long I'm going to have it, I'd probably pay you $200, $300. That's barely me paying $600 to a rental car. So, anyways, but I'd much rather travel with some companions. I'll be a good travel companion in that, A, I'm going to pay for all your gas, if you get me. Like, all your gas there. All your gas home. I don't care if it's $100 there and $100 home. Paying for 100% of your gas. B, I'm paying for all your food on the road within reason. Like, we're going to, like, you know, I'm not going to stop and buy you, like, a $200 steak meal because that would cost more than me even flying from Detroit to get there, right? But, yeah, I'm going to pay for all your food on the road. I'm going to pay for all your gas. and I promise to be a good travel partner. And if you tell me to shut up, Orby, I don't want to hear you talk anymore, I promise to just shut up, put on my headphones, and listen to another pinball podcast, okay? So if anyone is traveling, I would love a travel partner. If I don't hear back about 72 hours after this pinball podcast airs, which will be today, which is, oh, that's the day after Valentine's Day. Happy Valentine's Day to everybody. Whether you're single, whether you have a partner, happy Valentine's Day. I hope you had a nice time with your partner. And if you don't have a partner, I hope you had a rad time by yourself going, thank God I didn't have to buy a gift today, clean the house, make dinner, try to do all the expectations that partners have at Valentine's Day. So there's positives and negatives to having a partner at Valentine's Day. But please, please, please. Also, if you have a hotel for nationals, even if you're not traveling through Detroit, if you're not traveling in and around southwestern Ontario, if you have a room and you're okay with having Orby room with you, I will sleep on a couch. I will sleep on a pull-out couch. I don't need a comfy bed. I will sleep on, I'll say, a, oh, no, we're about to lose this podcast. I better plug it in.
    101:14
    I will sleep on whatever. Okay, I'm not actually going to sleep in the bathtub or on the floor, but, like, I will split a king-size or queen-size bed with, yes, another male. I can platonically sleep in a bed with someone. Don't worry. I like being the big spoon. No, I'm just kidding. We can separate blankets, all that stuff. Like, I literally just want to save some money on a hotel room. I don't know where Lumberjack Johnny's is. I don't know if that's in Madison or if that's in Green Bay or if that's in De Pere. I'm saying it wrong. I heard, oh, Craft Beer Sally and Foghorn Leghorn, they just recently, I haven't listened to it just yesterday. They came out with a new episode of the Pinball Junk Drawer, so go listen to that. I have listened to their most recent one before that, also another good episode. Check them out. but they were saying, they were talking about going to the pier. The pier? See, in Canada, pair, mare and pair is mother and father. So that's like the first thing you learn in kindergarten when you're doing French, right? Like la mare, la pair. So when my wife was talking about it, she said the pair. No, that means the father. So I guess I'm going to the father. I'm going home. It's almost like the pinball Jesus has come home.
    102:24
    Okay, wait, no, the pinball Jesus is obviously Eric Stone. I'm the pinball Satan. I've come home to you, Lucifer. Your son, Orbital Albert. I am here in De Pere. But apparently, Foghorn says it's called De Pere or something, I thought. So, anyways, De Pere, De Pere, whatever it is, where are the hotels? Are people staying there? Are people staying in Madison? It's only like 20 minutes away, or not Madison.
    102:48
    Damn it, I don't know American geography as well as I should for even a Canuck who used to live in southwestern Ontario. But this is the other thing I didn't know. I'm going to drive through Chicago. That's so cool. As a guy who's heard so much about Chicago, half the freaking pinball podcasters like every Chicago, or at least half the pinball makers, if not more, are from Chicago. So I'm going to get to drive through and or around Chicago or possibly take a train. I guess there's a train if I can take, if I don't end up renting a car, I might attempt to take the old,
    103:21
    back in the day we used to call it the welfare wagon. Nowadays, I get too many social justice warriors getting mad at me if I call it the welfare wagon. So I'll call it the unemployment wagon, also known as the transit bus. I might have to take the old transit bus, you know, down to De Pere. And I might have to take the old transit bus from Pearson Airport to Detroit, then take a train from Detroit or Point Edward, whichever is closer, quicker, cheaper, to get there. But I know I'm cutting it close because the tournament starts Thursday morning. So I don't even care if I have to sleep on the bus or sleep on the train. I will get there, come hell or high water. I don't care if I have to run the last 5K. I will make it to nationals, and I will be on time. Yes, Julie Dorsers, I can hear her saying, and even my mom. My mom sang, better to be 10 minutes early than one minute late. And I can hear Julie like three times saying to me, don't be five minutes early. Don't be 10 minutes early. Be 15 minutes early. quite often I was working as a craft beer rep when I was playing in tournaments where she was a TD and I would fire off a message like I am playing tonight, put me in the system put me in a group, I'll be there as soon as I can and I'd be rushing back from somewhere across the province, trying as hard as I could to literally just park my car up so I could call the office and sprint in without even usually going home or anyways I would absolutely love it if somebody is driving from there let me, help me and let me help you. I'll pay for all your food, all your gas, that is it. Someone wants to split on a hotel room, please, I don't want to stay at like the Wharf or something or the Andory or I don't want to stay at some, the Ritz-Carlton, like some high-end place, the Hilton. I also don't want to maybe stay in like the lowest end motel, like ideally not bedbugs and stuff. So like somewhere in that middle range, you know, I don't mind tossing in whatever, 50, 75, whatever it is, whatever, whatever my portion is, you know, And here's the only thing. I promise, I promise you, I won't be the big spoon, but I do snore. Especially if I'm drinking or partying at all, I do snore. So if you cannot sleep with someone snoring, probably don't invite me to be your roommate. And if I don't get a roommate, it's not the end of the world. I don't mind spending a little bit more on getting my own room. I really don't. The most important thing is that I get to the tournament on time Thursday morning. So someone, please, either, if you don't have me on Facebook under Albert Agar, please email me at pinballnerds at gmail.com or go on to Facebook if that's what you'd prefer and go to pinball nerds podcast and even message me through there those ones I don't look at as often but let me know I would love to ride with you it will be fun who knows maybe we'll if you're comfortable with it not that we would have to but if you're comfortable with it maybe we'd even record some content on the way there or on the way back right so that is all I have to say about that, I do want to talk about AP here quickly. Good old American pinball. First of all, for years and years and years, I have been saying, please start live streaming your stuff more often. Please start communicating with your customers more often. Please start going out of your way to use resources you have, like Stephen Bowden, okay, to promote your products. Because people say a lot of negative things about AP as far as like, you know, with GTF, with not understanding the rules, and not understanding what the machine's about, and not getting why they didn't practice test it, and not have the balls shooting in the air, and why was there magnetized balls on the one live stream that you did of it, and just, you know, there's a million things to complain about, but nobody ever complained about the artwork. The artwork is by far the best part of that machine. The second best part of that machine is probably, and this is not 100% because I have heard a lot of people complain, especially about GTFs out of the box, but for some reason or another, I have, although I've heard some people complain about Hot Wheels having a couple issues out of the box, for the most part, I know even Peaceman Nick, also known as Peace, but his name on Facebook is Peaceman Nick, I know even Peace there, shout out, and old Pinburg or Pittsburgh, you know, the very first time, the very first day Hot Wheels was out on location at Halicon, he went there and on his first game, on his first ball, the second or third time, you know, the car on the stick started spinning, it flew right off. And like, those guys get the first few machines coming down the line. So maybe the first few Hot Wheels machines had issues. But at this point, oh my god. Hot Wheels for most people has been, excuse the pun a freaking tank like 7's Pinball-O-Rama in Charlottetown the largest pinball arcade in all Canada I believe they got like 12,000 games on it without having to do much more than change a light and maybe a couple pinball rubbers like very very very little maintenance so for the most part the build quality is not the main issue with American Pinball it is and has been for quite some time primarily, it's not even their build quality, it's not even the amount of time it takes to build them. The main issue has been the themes. Now, it appears from many recent pinball podcasts, including the one I listen to on Pinball Profile with Jeff Teolas, Dave Fix is willing, and I'm sorry, David, I'm not calling you David anymore. You're now just Dave Fix. I've taken away that acronym. I'm sorry, bro. I'm sorry. You done Daved it. You're a Dave. You're not a David. I've met Davids. David Dennis? I know that guy. Yeah. He gets his stuff in line. But Dave Fix? Come on. Dave, I love you. And I'll say this. I love Dave Fix, and I think he does a terrific job with Pinball Expo. That's a great position for him. I love him as an owner, as an operator, as a guy that helps, I guess, Lloyd with that thing. And he does a whole bunch of stuff. He helped Jeff Fulis with the Beast this year and did a great job with that. It sounds like he's incredible at that. It even sounds like he's decent at helping American Pinball. I just don't know, as someone who's worked for many, well, I can name at least three large Fortune 500 companies, okay? I've worked for three large companies, and I've seen how they work. Dave Fix is maybe not the dude that you need to be the creative director. I'm sorry. He can maybe stay whoever president is or whatever that position they have him in, But they need, like, a creative director who does, who basically says, look, that theme's no good. We need a better theme. That's it. Now, I'm not saying that AP needs to go out and get these A-level tiers. They need, like, even something like the Princess Bride or Labyrinth. You're telling me they couldn't get Labyrinth? Think about it. If they want to sell, you know, their best-selling pin obviously was Hot Wheels. Let's just say there's a thousand Hot Wheels out there. but most of their other pinball machines they only sold 500 of well does Hot Wheels shoot better than Legends of Valhalla? I don't think so, it's just a better theme does Hot Wheels have cooler mechs than Houdini? absolutely not, Houdini's got one of the coolest mechs we've ever seen in pinball with shooting the ball all the way from your bottom left flipper to the very top of the pinball machine without even somehow hitting the glass and it lands in it 100% of the times I've ever played it anywhere that is one of the coolest mechs we've ever seen it has, Houdini also has some of the hardest shots, and at the time Houdini had some of the best animations we've ever seen at the time, they're static, I get it the water's filling up, I get it, but like for kind of steampunk and meant to look kind of 8-bitty and chunky and old, and you know, that's how they were, you know what I'm saying is if you have Steve Bowden, one of the best commentators, and also a very competent live streamer, or at least used to be for the most part, and has joined tons of live streams and been around a ton of live streams at tournaments. He's been on Deadflip, obviously, several times before. He's been on, you know, probably 100 pinball live streams between commentating and playing, probably almost equal amounts of both, right? So we need a Steve Bowden, and guess what? He already works at American Pinball. If you had a DeLorean and you could get that sucker up to 88 miles an hour, which is exactly, of course, 111 kilometers per hour, because 0.1, 11.11, why would it not be, right? But if you could do that, you could go back a year ago, and if a year ago, a year ago, right now, Steve Bowden had started live streaming like I had started saying a year ago, and Spooky did start doing, so Spooky streamed and streamed, congratulations.
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    They're doing that all the time, which I think is just great, and that builds such positive momentum for them. Their marketing bucks are quadrupled there. Like the amount of time and energy it takes Bug to set up and stream that stuff, they are investing in the future of their company in a way that every other company needs to do. And of course, Stern used to have that with Jack Danger. Now, I would never say anything Jack Danger on the show because I love Jack Danger with my entire heart. Of course I do. I love you. I'm in love with you, Jack. You're the best. But now that Jack is very rarely live streaming, we used to see someone live streaming a newer Stern pin three to five nights a week. Yes, once in a while, Jack Danger would stream a pin from someone besides Stern. But I would say four to five days a week on average, we were watching a newer modern Stern you could buy being advertised in front of sometimes five, ten, you know, okay, not five or ten thousand unless it was a new pinball release. but every single night on average you would see two to three maybe even sometimes 400 people just chilling with Jack Danger and that was at one time throughout the night thousands of people would come watch it and that was like an advertising for Stern so if I were Stern Jack this is not anti you because Jack you're so busy I don't want you live streaming on dead flip every night I don't think you have the time I don't think you have the energy I'd much rather you spend that time and energy with your family your friends or creating more awesome pinball for us, but it would be advantageous for Stern to hire someone new. Who's the girl? I forget her name. She has a really cool name. Elizabeth, maybe? I forget the girl that we saw. She was in the live stream for Jaws, and then she actually joined the live stream on the Flippin' Out stream with Joel.
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    Geeseke? Oh, no. I'm probably ruining it. Perhaps, maybe in Minecraft, that's her name. But she is a breath of fresh air. It was really nice. Not just that she's a female. It's not just that. That is part of it. I'm great to see more women working in rules and working in code because why wouldn't they and and I want to see more women designers but it was just really nice to see her on that stream with flipping out with Joel and his brother there um she's just done a really really really good job talking about all that stuff and explaining it in a way that people get but if AP a year ago if American Pinball had started a year ago leading up to GTF once a week doing this showcasing their gains and pushing their back sales of Hot Wheels just like they are now, pushing their back sales. I think it's every Wednesday on the official American Pinball stream, so take a look at that at Twitch or head over to Facebook and go to American Pinball. Don't sue me, American Pinball, if I fucked up or I fricked up on something on the show today. Don't sue me, American Pinball. I absolutely love you guys. I want you guys to do well. Any criticisms I say are because I want you to do well. And believe me, American Pinball, you want people like me with a degree in marketing to be giving you free advice, because it costs nothing. You know what else costs almost nothing? Doing your weekly stream. So if a year ago they had done it, I guarantee you they had sold 20% to 30% more GTFs. And over the last year, they would have sold 10% to 15% more Hot Wheels, 5% to 10% more Legends of Valhalla, 5% to 10% more of even that horrible atrocious Beer Fest or Oktoberfest or whatever the frick it was called, which I did originally like that machine, but after playing it, changed my mind a little. and then they would have also sold more of all their back line of Houdini and everything else. Plus, they would have been able to positively, properly address every issue they had with the machine as it came out. Us not having enough information, which is what caused the backlash. It wasn't a... Because lots of stir machines come out and they have an issue, but it's addressed on like five different podcasts in like a week. AP didn't really address any of this stuff for so long that just the momentum and the FOMO was gone by that time. So, anyways. absolutely love American Pinball in that I love them in that I love Dave Fix as a person. He seems really rad. Can't wait to meet him. Hang out with him. Shake his hand. Ask him if I can take a quick picture in his safari hat, you know.
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    Compliment him on his beautiful mustache. Oh, and remind him, show him my badge, my media press pass that says five years in pinball right here, even though when he originally requested that I wasn't five years, but I am now Dave Fix. I am now. So, or Dave Fix? David Fix? anyways I hope they don't sue me like they have possibly maybe perhaps in Minecraft threatened to sue other people because Dayfix I think that maybe possibly someone who is close to your company may have heard me say several times the best thing AP could do is a weekly stream where they're talking to their customers and that was the problem was the very first live stream they didn't talk to the customers or potential customers the potential customers were asking in chat, how do we buy this pin? Where do we get this pin from? How do you update it? Tell us this, tell us that. And they were not responding. So the one thing I will say is, without a doubt, and I did mention this on Dawn's, they need to respond more. Now, Dave Fix did address this, which is why a weekly stream is so good. He addressed it in the live stream, the Legend of a Hollow live stream that just happened last Wednesday. And what did he say on that live stream? he told us all that they apologized, they didn't have a large enough monitor to read all the chat, so now they're going to address the chat it looked like and yes, I will agree, everyone is right it wasn't shot on the best camera I get it, I think they're working on that they needed to change, I think actually one of the guys from Jersey Jack came in perhaps maybe in Minecraft, and was saying hey, you need better resolution, you need better this you need better shade, yes, it didn't look great, but Legend of the Hollow looked better and I have trust in whatever freaking thing that they end up airing or aired last night. Hopefully it looked even better. And yes, maybe if it's Stephen Bowden's birthday or it's a big holiday, they take a week off. But I'm telling you, if over the next year, American Pinball is more humble and more kind and more honest, like Dave Fix was on the Super Awesome Pinball Show when he gave American Pinball a C, which let's be honest, it probably should have been a D, but probably an F in the marketing side of it. But you know what, a C is at least there. So let's, American Pinball is ready to kind of, it looks like they're ready to turn the other cheek. It looks like they're ready to be a little bit more humble. They're changing things up. They've listened to a lot of us in the pinball podcasting and media and content creation saying you need a weekly stream or a way to contact your customers or tell them what's up more often. For all the people that were saying they couldn't get help fixing their machines, they've hired Lloyd and the other gentlemen. Now, did AP clickbait us a little bit by telling us that they had big news? Yes. But if they didn't clickbait us, you wouldn't have watched. So I actually, from a marketing standpoint, think that was kind of smart. Just don't do it too often, AP. Like, don't say next week, big news again, and then tell us, guess what? Oh, the screw we needed for the thermos came in. Wow, we got a new sticker for the bottom of the thermos. For the thermos that's slightly different than the other thermos. These guys sell more thermoses than pinball machines. They should maybe talk about doing a brand with Stanley there. And I'm not talking about the Stanley Cup like the Oilers are going to win. I'm talking about the Stanley Cup that you put your ice cold beer or hot coffee in. All right. So anyways, American Pinball, I applaud you for doing the weekly streams. Keep it up. Don't stop. Keep doing it. Now, as far as the other pinball podcaster who was threatened, I can't tell you who they are. I asked if I could and they said no. They didn't want me associating their name with anything to do with this. So I'm not going to tell you who it is. but I can tell you, if I ever had to, I have the receipts. And as soon as I heard those words come out of Dennis' mouth on the pinball show, I knew without a doubt that this person wasn't lying to me. Because what are the chances the exact two words that I've never even heard before was used by this person and this person? So I would have guessed, even though I had not listened to it, this is only maybe and perhaps in Minecraft, I would guess that not only was Zach possibly perhaps threatened, without listening to it or knowing anything more about it or reading inside it, I have no clue, but I would guess that there's a good chance that Zach was at least threatened because the words that Dennis used are exactly the same words that the other Pinball Podcaster used, who I'm not going to tell you who that is, so don't ask. All right. I love you, Pinball Nerds. I love you. I'm in love with you. Until next time, Pinball Nerds, remember to eat, sleep, and breathe American Pinball, if you want.