Hold up, wait a minute, we don't need to do the intro music for the Patreon people. What's up everybody, how you doing? Your homie Don is back here to drop you some content. I am not neglecting my loyal and treasured Patreon followers. What's up everybody? Don will reach out and ask for some stickers. They are in the mail and on their way to him. What's up everybody else? Thank you so much for your continued patronage. And as always, if you want some stickers or something, let me know. Y'all don't have to pay for that. You're already giving me the five bucks, I appreciate it. So I just got back into town. Oh, my God, what a harrowing experience I had. So I was in Europe for two weeks. It was fantastic. The night before we were flying back, we were leaving out of London, and we decided to go to the airport the day early because there, British Airways allows you to check your bags if you have a flight the next day, and you can just get it done ahead of time. So the day of your flight, you don't have to wait in a bag drop line, which is fantastic. So literally, this is crazy, as the guy is swiping our passports and checking us in, he gets to my wife's passport, and it doesn't go through. And he's like, there's some kind of weird error. I don't know what it is. What it was was the flight got canceled that exact minute right before he swiped it, so it wasn't going in. So I left myself a buffer day just in case I got delayed so I wouldn't miss work. Well, they went and told me, well, your entire flight was canceled. This was on an A380, so it was like 380 people or something. All that canceled off the flight to Chicago from London. And they said, you've been rebooked on a flight in three days from now. What kind of garbage is that? And I'm a flexible traveler. I understand things happen, especially with staffing shortages everywhere. But, man, I was not expecting to get a three-day delay, especially because I contacted Jeff at Mad Pinball. He's the guy that I bought my Godzilla topper from. And I'm like, hey, I'm going to be home in a couple of days. Go ahead and throw it in the mail. And he's like, you got it. It was sent. And so now I'm thinking, great, I'm going to be three days stuck in London, and my topper is going to be sitting on my front porch, right? So it's going to get porch pirated. So luckily they were like, you know what? Check this out. I know you were planning on leaving tomorrow afternoon, but we have a flight that's leaving in two hours going to Boston. You can take that overnight and then, you know, fly home in the morning. So that's what we did. So I actually got home about 12 hours before I originally was going to get home. But, man, what a harrowing experience at the end there. Luckily, it all worked out. I had the whole day off today. I was able to record episode number 50, which I just put up. And for you guys, I'm going to recap how my whole trip went because it was fantastic. What we did, we flew to London, overnighted there at the airport, the airport hotel. Then in the morning, we went down to Barcelona. We started the trip in Spain. Went to Port Aventura. It's a seaside theme park resort. Used to be owned by Universal, so they got tons of good rides, great themed hotels. A whole Ferrari theme park is right there, too. So we had a fantastic time in Spain. We were there for three days. And then we had a 6 a.m. flight to Marseille in the south of France from Barcelona. us. So literally I'm 10 minutes away from the airport. We're doing just fine on time to be able to get there in time to check our bags and everything. And then this dude, like I'm in the slow lane, I'm 10 minutes away from the airport. This guy is overtaking us and just comes into our lane, side swipes us, smashes the rental car. And then, you know, by the time I look up, he's like already like 10 car lengths down the road because he was going so fast. This is some kind of delivery van. Oh my God. This is just what I don't need, right? Like I'm just about done with this rental car in Spain. We're making finally good time to be able to get to the airport with enough time to get breakfast and check the bags, even if the lines are long, and we're not going to miss our flight. So then this happens. And I'm on the side of the road in Spain. I speak some Spanish. The guy spoke no English at all, which is fine because it's his country. But we were able to explain and engaged him with my high school Spanish and I'm proficient enough. Got his information and everything. He wasn't trying to hit and run. He just, you know, whatever, sideswiped us. Now, luckily, I actually had the damage waiver for the car. So I'm like, okay, no problem. So I called roadside assistance and I'm like, here's what happened. The guy's like, all right, well, it's five in the morning. The branch isn't open. Just drop the car off. Call them afterwards. Okay. And my flight was a seven. So there's no way I could call them, you know, go by there at seven. Cause we had to make our flight, made the flight and everything. Well, Avis sent me a email saying we just charged you $2,000 because you dropped this car off and it was damaged. And I'm like, what the heck? So I emailed him right away. Here's the details. Here's what happens. Here's pictures of everything. I talked to your roadside assistance guy. I have the damage waiver. Here it is. And then they got back to me and said that the only way you can do this is through email. You can't call us, whatever. Oh, God. So that dogged me for the whole trip until a couple days before we went back. And they're finally like, look, your money's coming back in 15 days. Don't worry about it. So that was a harrowing start to the trip. Anyway, we made it to Marseille. It's in the south part of France on the French Riviera. We picked up a rental car and just started heading up the coast. We went through Monaco and then into northern Italy. Our plan was to go to Gardaland. It's another theme park. in northern Italy near Lago di Garda, which is this big lake right at the foothills of the Alps. It's where George Clooney has a lake house out there. Anyway, I went to this theme park years ago with the European Coaster Club. So I wanted to go back there. And it was fantastic. We stayed in their hotel overnight, you know, had a great time at this Italian theme park. And then we got an Airbnb in Milan, Italy, which is a couple hours kind of following the foothills back to the west. And we stayed in this cool little part of Milan in this guy apartment where we would wash our clothes Let go to a local supermarket I got some pasta from the deli and it was just fantastic I got gnocchi I got ravioli bought some pasta sauce some pesto stuff some things to make salad We just had, like, a great Italian dinner from just, like, this, you know, budget supermarket, right? Just, like, a Kroger or something here. But their deli made all their own pasta, and it was just fantastic. I think I bought a pizza there, too, and threw it in the oven. And just after being on the road for, you know, five days or so, just being able to, like, cook a meal at home and having to be, like, good pasta, just fantastic. What a great experience that was. So I recommend it. You know, if you're on a long trip like this, like, mix in an Airbnb somewhere so you get a washer, dryer, and oven and can actually cook something. So that was fantastic. The best part of the trip was after that, though. So we're in Milan. It's in northern Italy. We leave there and head into the foothills. When you get to the Alps, we actually take our car onto a train that goes through this 20-kilometer-long tunnel through the Alps to get to the other side and save yourself from driving an hour and a half over this mountain pass, which intermittently closes due to Carl Weathers. So we did that, and then we were in Switzerland, right? So we got into Switzerland, drove off the train. What a great experience that was. And then I finally got to go to Zermatt, Switzerland. So Zermatt is a town that's in the Swiss Alps, and it is at the base of the Matterhorn Mountain. So the Matterhorn, iconic mountain, my favorite roller coaster at Disneyland, this big Swiss mountain. And, you know, because of geologic formations and how, like, glaciers passed over there, it left this horn. You know, this mountain peak is, like, has three sides. It's very sharp and very iconically defined. It's the same mountain that's on the Toblerone package, that Swiss chocolate. And so I've always wanted to go there. No cars are allowed in this town, so you actually drive to a town about five miles away and then take a train into the town. And then the whole thing is like, like if you can imagine like what Aspen is like or Breckenridge, you know, one of these really like high dollar ski towns. That's what this was like. This is like the pinnacle. All it is, you know, all through town. It's so Swiss. Like if you've ever seen Swiss theming, you know, with like wooden window boxes full of tulips. It was that. The whole town looked like you were walking around a cuckoo clock. What a magical place this was. And everywhere you look, there's just this iconic mountain peak. Sometimes it's in the clouds. Sometimes it's not. It's making its own Carl Weathers. There's always snow up at the top. Like, what a fairytale Heidi experience this was. So I got a hotel overnight. I found, like, the last hotel room that was under $300 in the whole town. Great little place. And there's no huge hotels there, no huge hotel resorts. Everything is, like, a small boutique thing. All the rooms have balconies facing the Matterhorn. There's cable cars, gondolas that go through town up in the mountains. I've never seen a ski resort like this. Now, we're there in the summertime, so it's all alpine meadows and everything, but all the ski lifts and the gondolas are open, taking you all over the mountain ranges around the Matterhorn. There's also a cogwheel railway because the rails are so steep. They actually run a cog and gear system on the base of the train, so the train can actually go up these mountain peaks. And it was about, let's see, for the three of us, it was like $350 for a round-trip ticket for a 30-minute ride up to the top base station for this ride. So the town's expensive. It was an expensive place to go. I knew that heading in there, so I kind of budgeted for it. They do sell a pass for about $200 a person. I later found out that includes, like, you know, multiple rides for your duration of your stay. So I'll probably do that if I go again. But we took the gondolas around. We did some hiking. Like, you're, like, hiking in the Alps, like, across these alpine meadows with just these, you know, beautiful peaks everywhere. You know, and I've been to Banff, Canada and Alberta, and it's in the Canadian Rockies. And up until now, that has been the best like Alpine Mountain experience town I've been to. But this is like the mother of them. This is like walking through the Sound of Music inside of a cuckoo clock, inside of a Toblerone bar, inside of a wallet full of cash because that's what you need to exist in this place. There's basically theme park prices. Like if you wanted to buy a bottle of Coke, you know, it was smaller than what we typically have. And there were about four to five bucks. So, you know, it's just like going to a theme park, basically. We stayed there overnight. We went all through the town. God, there's not a place that you can aim a camera and take a bad photo in this entire place. So Zermatt, Switzerland, put it on your list at some point to get through there. If you're ever in that region of Europe, it was only like an hour and a half from Milan, Italy. So it's not hard to get to. Pick up a rental car. I just rented for this time. We rented from National. They're the same company as Enterprise. We picked that up in Marseille, France. And then as long as you pick up and drop off in the same country, you don't have to pay huge drop fees in Europe. So the plan was we picked up the car in France. We drove through northern Italy, like I said. Man, Sermat, we were there for like all of a day and a half, and it felt like a week of just nonstop adventure. I can't wait to go back. There's so much more to see. There's so much more to see there. I'm going to go back and spend like four days. It's just fantastic. And then all through the town, this little cuckoo clock town, it's just like high-end watch shops and art and, you know, food. And just people speak every language there The chocolate shops you walk in and they and they like here some samples of like the best chocolate you ever had And all of it you know expensive but it's, it's what you would expect to pay if you were at Disney world, honestly. So it's not like prohibitively expensive. It's just not like going to Baltimore. Right. So yeah, this is a place worth going. I think you can budget engineer it. You can actually stay in the town that's five miles away and just take the train in. Cause it's only a couple of dollars for the train. It takes eight minutes. It's not long. and there's more hotels there that you can stay in. But yeah, Switzerland is a place I got to get back to. This was my second time there, but the first time like going to the Swiss Alps part of it. So we left there. We went north into Germany through the Black Forest to the Alsace-Lorraine region and stayed at Europa Park, which is like one of my favorite theme parks in the world. Europa Park is a theme park owned by Mack Rides. They make roller coasters and log flumes and other things. It's their showcase park. So it's as big... All right, so if you've ever been to Disney World, It's like Epcot Center, right? Epcot Center has a world showcase where they have little areas themed around different countries, mostly of Europe. So this is a theme park based around all of the countries of Europe. Each land of the park is a different country. Each land has multiple rides and shows and restaurants and theming and things. It's not just, you know, you walk through this little area and there's a restaurant and a shop and then you go to the next country. Like every country is loaded with rides. You know, there's like 11 different roller coasters. Only one of them goes upside down. And that's how diverse everything is. It's their showcase park for all their new rides. I love it. They have a huge indoor water park. It's probably the best one in the world I've been to. They have five exquisitely themed hotels. For someone like me that enjoys theming to this level, this is what I dig. And at Europa Park, they have a small arcade. And last year, they had a Family Guy and a Guardians of the Galaxy Pro. And so I was excited to, like, go back and play some pinball. Well, I go in there, and they not only have those two, but they also added a Lord of the Rings and a Stern Pirates of the Caribbean. So I had like four games there. So in the midst of like going on rides and eating chocolate covered pears and whatever else they're selling and practicing my French and my German, I also got to go and play some pinball. So I live streamed from there. A lot of people caught it. So that was a good time. Around this time was when I don't know if you've been following the Canadian Sengez divorce but I reached out to Sengez because he had mentioned my name in his Wandering video there And he got right back to me like super friendly and everything And wants to collaborate now and everything So I mean I'm always open to collaborate with Anybody so that's fantastic so that Happened so there's the pinball news The log flume there at the park On our last day there I look up And I see this black plume of smoke in the sky The whole building was engulfed in flames They closed the park early, and they lost their powered coaster. They lost their log flume ride. This walk-through area, it was all in this one themed building, which is a really cool area of the park. That whole thing freaking burned down, so I went around the rest of the day just taking photos of burn damage and things. So that was exciting. We left Europa Park, headed into France. We went in and stayed down the outskirts of Paris the first night because the next day started our four days at Disneyland Paris. That's always a fun time. Disneyland's a great place to go to. We were so exhausted by this time of the trip, though. My daughter just wanted to stay on YouTube in the hotel room, and my wife and I walked around Disneyland. Great time, great place. I was thinking of going into the Paris Pinball Museum. They have about 150 games, almost exclusively electromechanical. So I skipped out on that. I didn't go into Paris town. I just wanted to kind of relax and hang out at Disneyland. I did that. That was fun. We got to take the train from Disneyland. I drove into town and dropped the car off at the airport. So this was full circle coming, you know, starting in France and back to France for the second rental car. That worked out perfect. I dropped the car at the airport, took the high-speed train one stop back to Disneyland, and then we took the high-speed train through the Eurotunnel, through the tunnel to London, and that's how we kind of ended the trip. We got into London about 9 a.m. and decided, you know, I put my bags in a luggage locker, and then we walked around downtown London. You know, I went to Tower Bridge, Tower of London, took the tube over to the, not Buckingham Palace, but where Big Ben is in Parliament. Across the street from that's where the London Eye is. And then they have this walkthrough Shrek experience. I didn't get to do that, but we did the London Dungeon, which is like kind of a horror walkthrough, like narrator detraction, where they take you through kind of like, you know, Jack the Ripper stuff and like Black Plague stuff and Fire of London stuff. And it's all themed really well. Merlin Entertainment runs it, the people that own Legoland and a bunch of other theme parks. So that was fun to do. There was a Build-A-Bear there. It was like the quintessential American stupidness. We go to London, and instead of going to the museum or going up Big Ben or Buckingham Palace or paying to go into the Tower of London, we went to this Napolitano pizza place. It has fantastic food. And then we went to the London Dungeon, and then I was going to go to Piccadilly Circus and go to the M&M's store because I heard a comic talk about like the excesses of American of going to Europe. And then you go at the M&M's store, right? Like the least cultural thing you could possibly do. I won't do that just for fun, but I think I'll have to say that for another time. So that was the trip You know we ended up heading out to the airport because I had a hotel right across the street And I like great We just kind of you know go to the airport We go to the airport hotel We have a whole evening to chill And then our flight is in the afternoon the next day. We just walk across the street. Everything's fine. And then that's when I found out, no, your flight's canceled. You're flying home in three days. I've got a topper coming. I'm supposed to work in three days. So that wasn't going to work. And then it all magically resolved itself. The only problem was we were all exhausted. and we were just looking forward to dropping our bags and then going across the street to the hotel. And then they told us, you know, instead of going and relaxing at the hotel and finally getting some sleep, here's the six-hour plane ride to Boston, and then you're going to get in at 10 o'clock at night and you have a flight at 8 in the morning. So have fun with that. I booked the second-to-last room at Logan Airport at the Hilton there because it's actually attached to the airport itself so we don't have to worry about transfers. It was $600. It was a $600 room. But, like, what are we going to do? Like we were exhausted by the time we got there. We had to sleep somewhere. And it was fantastic. The beds were great. We got like six hours of sleep. We were totally refreshed in the morning. So that was fantastic. But, God, it was $600. I have to see if British Airways will help us out to cancel our flight. Anyway, that was my trip. And I had some pinball experience while I was there. I can't recommend Zermatt, Switzerland high enough. What a fantastic thing that is. I just published Episode 50, some background details. I've lost all confidence in JJP. they, you know, people have been clamoring, like, where's the finished code for Guns and Roses, for Pirates of the Caribbean, you know, and on and on and on. And I'm worried about this company. If their next theme is Elton John, they're only going to sell, like, 750 of them because the theme is, like, you know, mainly to operators and some home collectors that will keep it and then flip it. I don't see this game selling like Guns and Roses. And if this company still is not meeting projections for sales, I think their parent company might drop them And if they do, I don't know that there's a way that Jersey Jack Can survive on their own, then they're done So like if I go in on one of their games I could buy a $15,000 Guns N' Roses collector's edition with the double Knockers and then the company goes out of business Who's going to give me replacement parts, service And Code updates, like nothing There's going to be nothing, so I'm worried about that I think that's concerning enough For me that I'm holding my pocket from them What I would like to do up my pocket up and get a punny factory. I've been talking to Donald at Oasis Arcade. He got his machine there and he put a couple of plays on it. He's invited me down there. Very gracious dude. I've got some stickers on the way to him. I'm not going to the Georgia Coaster event. The Georgia Southern Fried Gaming Expo as planned because I ended up picking up a week of work instead. That week of work will give me enough money for a couple of pinball machines. That's kind of like the trade-off. Do I go to the pinball show and maybe get my arm twisted to buy a game, or do I just take a week of work and then now I can buy two? So that's kind of where my thoughts are with that. But I would like to go down. I would like to play it. It's kicking around my mind like this would be a fun game to have because I don't think a whole lot of people are going to have them, not only because it's limited, but because it's limited, right? I want to play one. Yeah. So I don't know. I talked to Andrew McBain, and I was like, hey, man, let me know what your production numbers are doing, And if you get to, you know, number 145 and you only have five left, like, let me know. Because I just need to be in budgetarily the right position, right? Because I'm buying an Iron Maiden. I've got Venom I already have ordered. I'm for sure going to get that. Just because I'm going to start getting into streaming. So I want to have a stream of new games coming in. And I pre-ordered a Pulp Fiction. So on top of all those, like, you know, shelling out again for, like, a Punny Factory right now, I can't commit to it. But I would still entertain the idea of getting one eventually. I'd like to help Andrew out. And I want to play this game. It's got a notorious status. I think I'd rather have a Punny Factory at $6,500 instead of a Galactic Tank Force at $8,500. I played Galactic Tank Force at Interium the other day, yesterday, and they had the ball fix on there, and I didn't find that it really helped very much at all. So there's my take. We'll see what other people say. But there's your Patreon 20-minute update. Thank you so much for your contribution. It's very much appreciated I make more money Just from the Patreon subscribers that I have Than I would putting ads on my episodes And I think this is a much better way to do it You can listen to my episodes Without having to stop for advertising breaks And you're doing a good thing By helping me out There's no better way to tell me We like what you're doing, keep doing it Than here's five bucks a month man High five, go get them So thank you everybody I don't need to do the outro music Y'all know who you are Holler at me, let me know if you guys want to hear something different You guys are in charge, you're my best most loyal people Appreciate it, thanks everybody I'll hit you up a little later this week hopefully And I want to do some live streams this week Oh, I'm also giving away a t-shirt So I'm going to pick a random t-shirt and give it to a random comment I get on the Don's Pinball Podcast 50th episode Facebook thread So go check that out guys All right, later, everybody.