I'm Back from California

Cary Hardy·video·19m 53s·analyzed·May 1, 2024

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.023

TL;DR

Cary Hardy shares California trip recap including pinball venues and tourist experiences.

Summary

Cary Hardy returns from a two-week work trip to California and provides a travel vlog wrap-up covering pinball arcade visits (Game On Pinball, Pacific Pinball Museum, Free Gold Watch, Flipper Room), San Francisco tourism (Alcatraz, Golden Gate Bridge, Full House house location), and observations about California's cost of living, traffic, and weather compared to Texas.

Key Claims

L1's Bond game would sell better if it wasn't limited to 15k+ pricing
medium confidence · Personal opinion based on gameplay experience at Game On Pinball; notes L1 was originally targeting $20-22k, now around $18k
Pacific Pinball Museum entry fee is $22, which is steep compared to $10-12 typical museum prices in his area
high confidence · Direct observation during museum visit
California gas prices were over $5 per gallon during the trip
high confidence · Personal observation while refueling rental car; contrasts with Texas prices above $3
Jack in the Box combo meal cost $22+ in California vs ~$16 in Texas
medium confidence · Personal calculation and co-worker's experience in San Jose; notes uncertainty about co-worker's $36 claim
San Francisco parking is consistently difficult year-round, not just during tourist season
high confidence · Direct statement from Free Gold Watch staff when Cary asked if parking difficulty was due to April 20th crowds

Notable Quotes

“I it sucks that they made L1's Bond a limited game, because I believe that the game would sell a lot more and do very well if it wasn't a 15k plus game.”
Cary Hardy@ 3:36 — Direct criticism of L1's limited production strategy for Bond game; suggests pricing/scarcity may be hindering market penetration
“It was like over five dollars something a gallon i mean we freak out here in texas when it goes above three”
Cary Hardy@ 14:14 — Stark regional price comparison highlighting California's cost of fuel vs. Texas baseline
“so you order that in California, at least at the Jack in the Box. we were at over there in San Jose, $36”
Cary Hardy@ 15:11 — Dramatic cost-of-living example; notes skepticism about accuracy but illustrates perception of California pricing
“If you're driving in San Francisco, don't. That's all I can say. It takes half an hour to get anywhere in California, let alone the city.”
Cary Hardy@ 5:44 — Strong negative assessment of San Francisco driving conditions; advises alternative transportation
“the machines were very well maintained they were very clean that was coin drop according to the era at which the games were manufactured”
Cary Hardy@ 12:46 — Positive review of Flipper Room's machine condition and fair pricing structure by era

Entities

Cary HardypersonGame On PinballorganizationPacific Pinball Museumorganization Free Gold WatchorganizationFlipper RoomorganizationL1 (company)companyElton Johngame Jaws

Signals

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community_signal: Newer Stern releases (Elton John, Jaws) gaining traction in location play; community interest in gameplay experience beyond shows
medium · Cary made deliberate effort to play both games at multiple locations to gain extended experience; notes lack of prior extensive playtime due to show conditions
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market_signal: California pinball arcade market shows healthy venue infrastructure with well-maintained machines and diverse locations
medium · Multiple functional venues visited (Game On, Pacific Museum, Free Gold Watch, Flipper Room) with varying business models and machine selections
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market_signal: California cost of living significantly exceeds Texas baseline across multiple categories (fuel $5+ vs $3, fast food ~$22-36 vs $16, accommodations include tourist tax)
high · Multiple pricing comparisons documented with specific examples; corroborated by business owners (Free Gold Watch staff confirming parking difficulty); tourist tax of $0.40/day mentioned
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announcement: L1's Bond game limited edition pricing strategy ($15k-20k+) discussed; currently available around $18k on secondary market
high · Cary played L1 Bond at Game On Pinball and noted original $20-22k target, now $18k; criticism that limited scarcity hurts sales

Transcript

youtube_groq_whisper · $0.060

0:00

So I'm back from California and I figured you know what let's do a post California little wrap up video. I know a lot of you don't care about my experience there but for those of you that do this video is for you. And this video will include my bucket list item of driving across the Golden Gate Bridge with the Full House theme song. I'll put that at the end of the video if that is something that you in fact want to see. I did not know what to expect. Well, I mean, I guess I had a little bit of idea of what to expect going into the state, but it was all basically hearsay and stuff like that. I mean, I was expecting to see homeless everywhere, high gas prices, and, you know, a bunch of just the stereotypical things that you hear, okay? and the thing is it wasn't as bad as what you what you hear kind of thing were there homeless yes um some of them were living quite well may i say i thought that was kind of funny at one point i drove by they had a tarp in the bed of a truck and they had it filled with water like they were just chilling out in a jacuzzi i saw that on the way to work one morning and i was like oh okay look they're they're they're enjoying what that what for what they have they're enjoying it so i thought that was pretty nifty but i i need to stress and i thought it was pretty clear in my initial video to california that i the whole point of this trip was for work so that came first before anything and i know a lot of you wanted me to visit certain locations and experience certain things but obviously work came first and then play came later and there's still locations that i have not seen yet in california and eventually on my next trip yes i i will be going there again whether it be work related again or just you know doing a trip with the family it's not going to be a one and done deal so there is that but i think my first stop when it came to related to pinball was game on pinball now each destination that i stopped at i did a live stream little tour so that way everyone has an idea of what games are available at each establishment because there's a lot of you out there that would like to know is it worth the drive and stuff like that as well as just you know maybe you're never going to visit this state or this area and just want to see what it's like out of curiosity so i'm hoping that i able was able to satiate those um needs that you might have had for that so uh game on pinball was a nice little place i just wish that it was a little more more obvious of where it was they're still working on signage on the outside of their facility because you could easily drive right past it and not even know that it's there and its current position but they told me that they are currently dealing with the landlord the who owns the facility or whatever and they're like revamping the exterior so that problem should be resolved in the near future from what i've told and uh it's coin drop and i got a chance to play on the bond via l1's uh bond game and honestly i really enjoyed the l1's bond and i think it's It sucks that they made L1's Bond a limited game, because I believe that the game would sell a lot more and do very well if it wasn't a 15k plus game. I mean, I think on its release, they were shooting for 20, 22, and now I think you can get them for around 18 or so. So I didn't expect me to ever get a chance to play this game. So they had one on location, and I got to play it. I really enjoyed it. it shot very well and I got more time on Jaws Pro and Premium they had that there and more time on Elton every stop that I made I wanted to make sure I put games on Elton John if they had it and Jaws if they had it those were my two goals because I know those are newer releases for the bigger manufacturers and I just wanted to get more experience and time on them because I honestly haven't due to them only being at shows and you don't really get the ability to hear very well as well as having a line behind you so at these establishments i was able to put quarters in and just play game after game after game and really get a good idea of how i feel about them and my next pinball visit was the pacific pinball museum and i enjoyed this place the entry fee is a little steep but it California so it probably not too bad $22 is a little steep for me because around here where I'm at, it's usually $10 to $12 for the type of entry. But since it's a museum, I guess they kind of have that ability to do that as well. So there is that. Still, great place. I highly recommend that you guys pay to visit if you're in the area because it's, like I said, a museum, but it's also an arcade at the same time. Then, of course, came my visit to San Francisco or the city. So going there was quite a pleasure overall. There was definitely some cons.

5:44

If you're driving in San Francisco, don't. That's all I can say. It takes half an hour to get anywhere in California, let alone the city. But it's like, all right, let's go from here to here. Oh, it's only four miles? It's still going to take us 30 minutes. Wow. So, but I got to see the city. I got to do the Alcatraz tour. I did the audio portion of the tour. I highly recommend it to a lot of you out there that plan to visit Alcatraz. get up there and do the audio tour. It's a pretty cool little experience. You don't have to follow some old guy around and listen to him. You get to hear things and you have ambient sounds and stuff like that you would more than likely hear in a prison and stuff. It kind of just adds a little to it. I definitely plan to bring the family there in the future to experience it all over again. And I got a lot of messages from people giving me information about, you know, make sure you do this or don't do this. And one of the tips was to make sure I wear a jacket, going across the bay and i'm glad that you guys specified that i mean i had a native there from california letting me know that yes that is true but definitely i can see why you wanted me to wear a jacket because when you're on that ferry going to alcatraz you really do feel the cold and i almost like was i'm going inside the ferry to warm up kind of thing but uh yeah very good experience at Alcatraz, got to see the sights and all across the bay and see what the city looks like. And then finally I visited, I don't want to say finally, but on my way to the Golden Gate Bridge, I actually got to see the full house, the house at least they used for the show exterior wise. And I got to pay that a little bit of a visit, merely record it and keep on moving. I didn't want to hold up any traffic or be stared at by some of the residents there going, why are you recording this house? But I can say that I've actually seen it in person now. And then we went to the Golden Gate Bridge and I finally got to do it. And it was awesome, guys. I mean, it was a very cool thing to finally see in person. I mean, I went back and forth on it a couple of times because I wanted to see it from both sides, the Pacific side, and get to see all that area over there, and of course the bay. And then I got to walk across it. So I know people wanted me to go see it from a specific angle and everything, but I got to walk across that damn thing and touch it with my hands. And the towers, I got plenty of pictures about that. And then you had the fort that's down there below that. I got to look down there into it, so that was pretty cool. and it's pretty nifty to see uh i mean i i've seen the documentary for the golden gate bridge and how they created it and stuff like that little known fact there's so much concrete involved with the golden gate bridge that you could build a sidewalk from san francisco to new york that is five feet wide that's a lot of damn concrete but when it comes to the wiring and everything i'm going to try to throw a bunch of b-roll footage in this video to show you but just how many separate cables are involved in making the golden gate bridge and to see it in person like that was pretty cool it was perfect weather the day that i went to the city as well the sun was shining there wasn't any clouds so i got to see everything clear and was there's no fog or bad weather or anything like that the weather overall for my entire two weeks there was very nice and i don't know how hot it would normally get there or how cold it can be there. But I mean, I didn't really need to ever wear a jacket unless I was going across the bay. But, uh, yeah, weather wise and everything, but traveling in that city is God awful. Uh cause you have so many uphills and downhills I seen you know how it is in movies and stuff but it just like when you actually there driving on it i mean if you have driven a manual transmission in san francisco kudos to you because man i can imagine the brakes and the clutch just man that there's just no way but the way to get around that city i think the fastest is by bicycle or even walking because if you're in a car every possible parking place has been taken by the residents or tourists as well but just trying to find a place to park is a challenge in itself because there's also construction going on here and there so when I finally got to visit free gold watch which was highly recommended by a lot of you that was part of the trouble was finding a place to park and I remember asking them there like is it normally like this or is it because it's april 20th and there's just more people here and they were like no it's always horrible the parking is always horrible in san francisco so if you do plan to go to the city it's probably a good idea that you either uber or rent those little uber bikes or whatever scooters i saw people doing or just you know what walk because driving a car is that was bad i mean because we were stuck in traffic a lot. And it's just because the design of the roads and everything is just god-awful. I even visited Pier 39. That was another thing. So I got to have the clam chowder and the sourdough bread bowl and everything. Really good as well.

11:53

What's it called? A screen printing type of T-shirt place. And it slowly grew and grew into what it is today. Got a nice little tour. And, yeah, great collection there as well. You don't see many Pirates of the Caribbean on locations, and that just happens to be one that has it. And, of course, they had Elton John and a Jaws. So I definitely put some time on that and got a little bit of a lesson on some of the rules on how to play Jaws. So then more time went into work, and on the last day there, I managed to drive down to Concord and visit the Flipper Room. and this was probably up there at being my favorite visit and the reason for that was mainly because of the parking it was easy to park right there out front there was no pay to park and the machines were very well maintained they were very clean that was coin drop according to the era at which the games were manufactured so your ems are like you know cheaper like a quarter kind of thing and then your newer games are 75 cents and then your newer sterns are like a dollar and stuff but very nice selection there uh very nice to meet mike and uh his basically it's kind of the same thing as free gold watch it mainly used to be a framing business and then it they had a machine and they had two machines and now it's turned into what it is today but if you're around Concord, California, then I definitely recommend paying that place a visit. It was difficult for me to be able to visit this place because their business hours are your typical eight to five type of thing. And I didn't get off work until late afternoon and it would be an hour drive for me from where I was located. So I didn't, I mean, luckily I managed to get off work early on that Friday or Thursday I'm sorry and got there for a good hour or so visit before driving back but uh yeah Flipper Room was a great place to visit now let's talk about gas prices because that is definitely something I'm not used to and the price for everything honestly is something I'm not used to but as I'm sitting there pumping up my rental car and I'm going over a hundred dollars in fuel i'm like this is insane it was like over five dollars something a gallon i mean we freak out here in texas when it goes above three so to see it above five and i know it's been higher than that it's no my buddy who was with me he went to jack in the box this will this will really freak you out right here because okay so here in texas if i was to order a bacon ultimate cheeseburger combo and a seven piece stuffed jalapeno i bet it's probably going to be around maybe 15 bucks okay uh you know what let me just look real quick i don want to be caught in a lie So I was pretty dang close So with the bacon ultimate cheeseburger combo and seven piece of jalapeno, we're looking at with tax $15.96. Just four cents shy of $16. So you order that in California, at least at the Jack in the Box. we were at over there in San Jose, $36.