That fell apart faster than some vineyard vines, purple corduroy pants. What's up, everybody? It's Monday. I've got some news. I've got some views. I've got some entertaining things for you to listen to in your ears. Welcome to Monday. What's going on? We've recovered from the weekend. And, man, was there some drama that was stirred up by our boys in Australia with Haggis Pinball when they announced that they need money. No, no, no. What they announced was they have decided for two weeks only to offer a 2.0 upgrade to anybody that did not get in on the Mermaid Edition of Fathom. Okay, the Fathom story. Just to recap, announced two years ago, Haggis Pinball, these mad lads out there in Australia, makers of kelts, you know, that fine championed pin that's up at the top of the leaderboard on pin side, I assume, I haven't checked, but they released, when the heck did Fathom even come out, in the 70s, 1981, something like that? Well, they recreated it, and the machine is beautiful, especially the Mermaid Edition, because it projects water droplet kind of schemes through a projector on the bottom of the machine, onto the floor which i can totally dig otherwise it's an old grandpa's game you know it's a electric mechanic or maybe the generation after that kind of some simple gameplay but some beautiful graphics you know and themed about these you know sirens slash mermaids that grab divers and drug them down to their doom so they announced that they were going to make this game and then you know they were going to be transparent and all these things and it was going to take eight weeks to get your game and you gave it a deposit and it wasn't doing full until it was ready to ship until it was and then it was like give me all your money and wait eight months and Now they're slowly tricking out. Well, they have announced that they are going to allow people that have purchased, and I assume are still waiting for, the Classic Standard Edition of the game, the 2.0 upgrade, which here they're due for, was only available to purchasers of that Mermaid Edition. And that has ruffled some feathers. It has rustled some jimmies. If you purchased this machine at that top trim level, you're expecting to get certain things exclusive to that level, right? and so I could see on the one hand where people would be a little bit upset about that. On the other hand, how many people have actually done that? On the other hand, people that have bought the game have a game that's actually worth more on the secondary market right now, so you're not really out any money. And on how many hands are we on now? The fourth hand, has anybody even gone in on these classic editions yet? And, you know, they haven't even been made yet from what I can tell. Well, we were told last year that all the Fathoms would be made at the end of the year and they'd be getting a Centaur. Well, they didn't mention that, but that's been the persistent rumor that Centaur is next. Another game of that line, and that's got some pretty cool art. You know, Lit Pinball up in Minneapolis has one to play. I've got one on my V-Pin. It's a fun-ish game from that same era. So they're offering that code. That code also comes with an upgrade to the apron, which includes those little 4-inch screens that are there. Now, I got to play myself one of these Mermaid editions back there at Expo. I played one game on it. It looked well enough. It looked built well. it was pretty. I don't remember anything really different about the code. Maybe it wasn't uploaded. Maybe it wasn't in that mode or maybe I just, it was so subtle. I didn't even notice. But that is now available. So, you know, these guys have been saying that they were going to have all the games made at the end of the year last year. Now that has turned into the end of the year this year, what we haven't seen is what's going on in the factory. They have been taken to task by Kaneda on his podcast so much now that, well, I'll let him talk about it, but there's a free lunch out there for anybody that wants to be a little more transparent. Transparency equals sandwiches for the factories, the baseline take home, which that's just fantastic interaction between the community and the pinball company. And I certainly would like to know what's going on in that factory. Now, not only that folks, you have two weeks to purchase that 2.0 upgrade. If you want no word on if that 2.0 upgrade will work for Centaur. But they also have this season ticket pass thing, which looks like a kind of a Kickstarter method of fundraising, which I get it new company need to generate some revenue. I guess Kelts wasn't doing that. So they're doing this. So basically, you can lay down four deposits of $1,500 Australian for and secure their next four titles. And what they'll do is if you do go in on this, they're promising that they can keep your number exclusive across all the lines. So if you end up buying all five of their games, we'll get to how long it's going to take in a minute, but they would all be the same number addition, you know? So, I mean, that's kind of cool. Now, you're going to have to lay down for their next four games, if you want to take part of this offer, $6,000 Australian. Converts to $4,000 in Eagle Feather money we use here in the States, or in the Euros, it's about $3,600. So, okay, you know, that's something that you can do. I see that these games are appealing. The games are pretty for sure the games are made well the games are are slow baked is the problem and you know there's no assurances now given a track record on when you would actually receive these now fathom was announced april of 2021 exactly two years and a couple of days ago and so they're still going to take until the end of the year now to to make these if we take them at their word where they are now i'd like to see some evidence of the factory to that effect um but we would be realistically be looking at you exhausting your pre-ordered games and finally getting this full collection in about eight years at this point. So I don't know. I was just over on Pinside there, and there was four Fathoms in box or recently used for sale that you can get right now. And yes, they're going to cost you a little bit more money than going in and ordering one. However, you can also have it sooner And so you know is that extra thousand dollars at um worth it to you and money to skip the line by about eight months to a year You know I think that would be reasonable One just sold for $11,500. There's another one for sale right now. It's out of box, $10,500. If you really want a Fathom Mermaid edition, there's one available there. There's also one listed for the crazy price of $11,896. I don't know how they came up with that. It looks like it's down in Florida. But that one's still new in box. if I really had my jimmies set on getting me a fathom I think this is the route I would go to and just skip the waiting period and eat the $1,500 cost and know that I actually am going to receive a game nothing seems to be guaranteed yet wish these guys all the best I mean you know they make a beautiful machine when they can get it out and they haven't been transparent with me as a potential customer about you know how exactly many of these are leaving the factory you know I love it if they would follow you know spooky's demonstration of where they you know throw out videos of like here's what's going on the line here's how many games we're making a week and then you're seeing people unbox and set up i mean we just saw scooby-doo 299 was just posted it's up it's working so they're into the 300s now and so given that uh i believe um the middle of february is when i played my first scooby-doo it was one of the first ones available in the public as io Arcade. More on them in just a little bit. I'll make a note to myself. IO Arcade, talk about that. So that was the middle of February. And so here we are in May. And so middle of February, we'll give them two weeks, March, April. So two and a half months, they've managed to crank out their first 300. So way to go, Scooby. That gets an air horn sound button. So if I'm looking at being in the mid 700s, I'm looking probably another at least three months until I'll get my game. But we know that. We're seeing people post them out there. I got my machine. Here's my number. Here's what's coming up. On the Scooby-Doo forum, there's a spreadsheet where people are updating the dates when they hear that they're asked for deposit, when they get scheduled delivery, and when it shows up. And we can all track that. Transparency is a fantastic thing, especially if we're going to be laying down money, especially Australian dollars, and then hoping that this game shows up. So I'd like to see a little bit more of that transparency for me to go in on one of these games. you know should i be in the market for them currently uh i'm kind of holding back because they're you know for at home use for me personally i don't think these games would hold a lot of my interest i can play them on my v-pin i could play fathom i got two versions on there they're fantastic i like playing them you know when i want that gameplay when i get that itch i go grab my mermaids um centaurs on there it's a weird game i think i like fathom better but you know they're pretty and i would like to see them at shows i would like to see them on location so i could play them occasionally so hopefully they can figure it out and get it together and get these machines together and out to people but isn't that always the way with some of these boutiques that are out there on the fringe have i talked about fathom and haggis enough i think so uh moving on recently i did list my r2d2 star wars topper limited edition number 120 of 500 on pinside also on facebook marketplace and i'm getting some slings and arrows about the price there. Okay, so I'm going to lay it out. I came into this R2-D2 topper recently. I know it's in limited edition. It's kind of cool to me, but I'm sure it's worth more to somebody else. So I did list it. Now I came upon my price by looking at the last four of these that I could see sold. And I saw two listed old archived ads on Pinside, $3,000, $3,200. Flippin' Out sold one last year for $3,500 and game room goodies had one sold out at 37 99. Now was that the actual price that they sold it at or not? Um, I don't know, but I went ahead and priced it at $3,800 because that looks like what the price is, uh, when we left off. And some people just were straight up hateful to me. Um, other people were like, I get it. You know, you're probably going to sell it. I got an offer within the first four hours of putting that thing up. I had some guy in Texas, some knucklehead, from Pinside who said he was going to give me a cashier's check right away. And I'm like, okay, great. Well, I have references. Before you just mail $3,800 off, make sure I'm not a scam. We can video chat. I can show you that it works. I can verify that I'm the guy from the podcast. I mean, it would look bad if I was scamming people. I got none of that, but I got reassurances that, oh, work was busy. I'm going to go get it tomorrow. Oh, I'm going to send it tonight with a tracking number. And then nothing. Like a week goes by. I've had other people ask if it's still available, and I was waiting on this guy. So I think I just got hosed by someone messing with me, someone that was just upset at my valuation. And I think I was fairly transparent with where the valuation for that topper was at, notwithstanding that I don't hate the thing. I mean, it's not like I'm trying to get rid of this thing. If I was, I'd list it for $2,700, and it probably would have been gone. My wife kind of likes it, and she's not really looking at me to sell it. So it comes down to a value judgment. That's the value that I've seen in the marketplace. That's the trend of where it's been going. That's the veracity of the rarity of this topper device. So that's where I listed it at. If someone offered me $3,000, I don't know if I would sell it. I'd probably keep it for that price. But if someone wanted $3,800 or maybe even a little bit less, or would be willing to trade something, maybe they have a Williams Diner, and I can give them my topper and a couple of grand and get a Williams Diner, I would probably do that deal too. I mean, I'm open to negotiation. but there's no need to say, oh, hey, guy, I'm going to send you a cashier's check. Just wait and just keep dribbling me on for no reason. What's the point of that? Come with a counteroffer. A couple people did that, and I put them on the list waiting, so we'll see what shakes out, but that's my rationale behind posting it that way. I'm not trying to rip people off. That's just what I've seen in the marketplace. Moving on to something better. Foo Fighters. Foo Fighters Premium is blowing my socks off. Now, these LE buyers who have got their machines, you know, no surprise to them because they've had this game and they got the expression lights to boot. Now, me, I went in on a premium. I'm glad I did. Man, this game is amazing. Mad Pinball hooked it up. They got me an early build. So thank you, Jeff, very much for that. I am not sponsored by Mad Pinball, but I bought three machines from them, and they always seem to come with, you know, good deals, MSRP, fast delivery, and great communication and great service. So if you need a game, you know, and your distro's list that you're working with is out six months or so, maybe give Matt a call. They seem to be able to get the deals and get the allocations. And when it comes down to getting a game, who can get it to you first, right? I mean, they all drop ship anyway. But so thanks Jeff so much for helping me out especially with an issue I had Now I live streamed the setup of Foo Fighters Premium That was fun I showed the whole thing me taking it downstairs in my pin crawler and how I was able to do it all solo Took it off the pallet, onto the pin crawler, downstairs, unboxed. This time, I actually laid the box down, pulled the machine out to keep the box intact so I can have one if I need to ship a game. I can have a full intact box. And I was able to do that solidly on my own. So follow my techniques. My back is still intact. So everything has been working out great on that end. Now setting up the game, you know, it's playing fine out of the box, but I noticed a couple of issues, and there was a couple of fixes I had to give to it. So I want to kind of go over those. So for other people that are setting up their Foo Fighters, if they run across the same sort of things, they won't have to scour Pinside and the Facebook forums like I had to. So there's the forks that pop up in lock when you get a ball up into the Overlord's lair up there. My forks were not coming up. I could push them up and they could come down. There's a coil that drives it down. And then there's a magnet release that allows it to spring back up. So my magnet release was set a little bit too close to the center of the release mechanism there. It's hard to explain. I did put some pictures up. But basically I could go into the test and hit that magnet and it wasn't strong enough to pull it. So I found out there's a little retention tab or a little limiting metal tab in there in the device. If you look at it, you can see what I'm talking about. And you can bend that, and it works as like a limiter to how far the little magnet-activated metal can move. You know, its movement is limited by this little metal tab. So I just had to adjust that so that it was catching just at the edge of the activated coil stopper, and then it works just fine. So that was an easy fix. I've seen a couple people had the similar issue, and that was fairly straightforward and easy to fix. Stern actually released a little infographic on how to do that, but it wasn't very clear, so I thought I would explain it. I got some photos on the Facebook page. If you run into that issue at all when you're unboxing this thing, go ahead and get at me, Don's Pinball Podcast, gmail.com. Give me a call. I'll walk you through it, how I did it. That was an easy fix. What has not been an easy fix is figuring out why my opto's not working. There's a little optical sensor on the entrance to the Overlord's lair, and that's what actually triggers the forks to come up and lock a ball behind there. Then you have a captive ball you can play around with, bash it up into the targets, and then the forks drop and it releases for multi-ball. So my switch was not working. I went into the switch test. Every switch on the machine was working fine except for my ding-dang opto. I disassembled the whole thing. I pulled these optos out and they look like they're a different style than Stern has been using. The Stern optos, even most of the ones that I've seen on Foo Fighters itself, but also Elvira, Godzilla, and Rush, They all have this lens on either end of the emitter and the receiver, and there's a little plastic molded guide or apron or some such thing attached to it. It's a fairly bulky kind of mechanism, but these were just simple little circuit boards with some wires soldered onto them and a couple of LEDs. Now, I could see that my emitter was functioning, and the red LED on the receiver was lit also, but I could not get the thing to register. I even desoldered, resoldered it, nothing. So I called up Stern or sent them a service email, and they said to reach out to your distributor. So I quickly emailed Jeff. He got in on it. I've got a receiver opto on my way under warranty from Stern. So thanks to you guys.