Journalist Tool

Kineticist

  • HDashboard
  • IItems
  • ↓Ingest
  • SSources
  • KBeats
  • BBriefs
  • RIntel
  • QSearch
  • +Health

v0.1.0

← Back to items

EP 94 - Just A Bit Outside

Special When Lit·podcast_episode·1h 14m·analyzed·May 7, 2023
View original
Export .md

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.027

TL;DR

SWL EP94: Domain issues, Wisconsin pinball scene, Drain/Save segments, QR code tattoo chaos.

Summary

Episode 94 of Special When Lit Pinball Podcast features Ken Cromwell, Bill, and Steve Beattie discussing personal updates, a domain name mix-up with the Kineticist, Wisconsin's pinball community hotspot status, and the "Drain It or Save It" game covering topics like mushroom foraging, Sunday evenings, and short-time pinball sessions. A notable incident involves a pinball player who tattooed a Stern Insider Connect QR code on his wrist, which was then widely used by others to sign in to machines globally, prompting discussion about brand loyalty, digital permanence, and unintended consequences.

Key Claims

  • The old domain specialwhenlitpinballpodcast.com was picked up by the Kineticist after the show went on hiatus and did not renew

    high confidence · Ken Cromwell explaining domain registration issue on the podcast

  • Wisconsin area is a hotbed for pinball and pinball content creation, with content creators like Poor Man's Pinball, Pinball Party with Jason, Ryan Kuiper, and Dave Brennan

    high confidence · Ken Cromwell observing trends in the Wisconsin pinball community

  • A pinball player tattooed a Stern Insider Connect QR code on his wrist, which Stern posted on Facebook, and people then used the tattoo'd QR code to sign in to machines worldwide

    high confidence · Ken Cromwell describing incident posted on Stern's Facebook page

  • Morel mushrooms in Wisconsin forests cost approximately $60-70 per pound and can take hours to find

    medium confidence · Bill discussing seasonal mushroom foraging as part of Drain It or Save It segment

  • The show had four Patreon supporters at the time of recording and is targeting ten supporters

    high confidence · Ken Cromwell announcing patron count and goals during Patreon welcome segment

  • Ryan Kuiper and Dave Brennan are streaming for Buffalo Pinball from the Wisconsin/northwest area

    medium confidence · Ken Cromwell mentioning content creators in the northwest region

  • Some of the best pinball games people have come from playing under time pressure with just minutes available

    medium confidence · Ken and Bill discussing the Drain It or Save It topic about short-time pinball

  • Sunday evenings are less enjoyable for parents with kids due to bath time, homework, and week preparation responsibilities

    high confidence · Ken and Bill contrasting their Sunday evening experience with Steve's relaxation time

Notable Quotes

  • “I eat pinball machines for breakfast.”

    Bill@ 3:57 — Humorous self-description of Bill's enthusiasm for moving and handling pinball machines, setting up the story about driving to Milwaukee

  • “He's the international man of mystery because he's a whore, he's in Brazil, he's in wherever”

    Ken Cromwell@ 22:08 — Joking about the QR code tattoo owner appearing on machines globally due to others using his code to sign in

  • “Stern was basically like, this is why we can't have nice things.”

    Ken Cromwell@ 27:38 — Commentary on how the QR code exploit demonstrates unintended consequences of sharing user-generated brand loyalty content

  • “Kids suck away any Sunday night enjoyment.”

    Bill@ 15:25 — Blunt assessment during Drain It or Save It discussion about parental Sunday night experience

  • “If I were to get a tattoo, it better be something meaningful.”

    Ken Cromwell@ 24:12 — Expressing skepticism about the practical and personal value of a QR code tattoo

Entities

Ken CromwellpersonBillpersonSteve BeattiepersonRyan KuiperpersonDave BrennanpersonJasonpersonSpecial When Lit Pinball PodcastorganizationSterncompany

Signals

  • ?

    content_signal: Special When Lit Pinball Podcast recovering from hiatus with domain issues and rebuilding Patreon supporter base (currently 4 supporters, targeting 10)

    high · Ken announcing domain change from specialwhenlitpinballpodcast.com to specialwhenlitpodcast.com due to expired registration, and welcoming new patrons Andrew and Kaz

  • ?

    community_signal: Wisconsin identified as a hotbed for pinball content creation and community engagement with multiple content creators (Poor Man's Pinball, Pinball Party, Ryan Kuiper, Dave Brennan)

    high · Ken noting Wisconsin area has been a consistent source of pinball content and community activity; mention of Midwest Gaming Classic as regional hub

  • ?

    industry_signal: Stern Insider Connect QR code posted by player on social media as tattoo, then exploited by community members signing into machines worldwide under his account

    high · Ken describing incident where tattooed QR code was scraped and reused by others globally; Stern's Facebook post led to unintended exploitation

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Discussion of how user-generated brand loyalty content (QR code tattoo) backfired, prompting reflection on unintended consequences of social media engagement

    medium · Ken noting Stern's attitude as 'this is why we can't have nice things' and discussing parallels to LifeLock CEO's social security challenge

  • ?

    event_signal: Special When Lit hosts planning potential trip to Milwaukee to connect with Wisconsin/northwest pinball community and visit Midwest Gaming Classic

Topics

Domain registration and website infrastructureprimaryWisconsin pinball community and regional content creationprimaryStern Insider Connect QR code tattoo incident and unintended consequencesprimaryPodcast sustainability and Patreon supporter growthsecondaryDrain It or Save It game segments (lifestyle topics)secondaryParenting and time management on Sunday eveningssecondaryShort-time pinball play and performance under pressuresecondaryTattoos and brand loyalty in pinball communitysecondary

Sentiment

positive(0.72)— Episode has a friendly, casual tone with humor and camaraderie between hosts. Positive discussion about Wisconsin pinball scene and community connections. Gentle ribbing about the QR code tattoo incident but no malice. Light-hearted Drain It or Save It segments. Some frustration expressed about domain issues and unintended QR code exploitation, but overall the mood is conversational and good-natured.

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.223

0:00
coming at you out of st charles illinois the special when lit pinball podcast starts now all right what's going on pinball land welcome to episode 94 that is nine four of the special when lit podcast i'm ken cromwell i'm bill and with us today is steve beattie what is up steve what's going on gents gonna be back guys in studio c for episode 94 So let's catch up with everybody. Ken, what's new in Ken's world? Nothing is new, Bill. I honestly have nothing new to talk about. You're just surviving. I am surviving life, going through life, having the best of times, and occasionally the worst of times. But that's okay. It's like the best of life. I'm alive, and I'm experiencing this, and I'm grateful for it. So good times. But everything's pretty good. How about you guys? What's up? Well, we're good. Steve, how about yourself? So last episode, we spoke about a new guitar that was going to be delivered. So that happened.
1:02
And ooh-hoo-wee. Yeah, so Steve brought it here to Studio C, opened up the case, allowed myself and Bill to not only hold it, but strum the sweet strings of beautiful instrumentation. So everything is cracked up to be. I asked Steve, I'm like, are you nervous? Because, I mean, that is not a $199 guitar. No, it's a piece of art, but again, it's meant to be played like a pinball machine. I play my pins. I play my guitars. They're going to get dinged up, whatever. Right, right. No, it is absolutely beautiful. I mean, the woodwork, I mean, just insane.
1:38
You were kind enough to bring it here. I mean, in the sun, it's just beautiful. It's like 3D wood, man. It's crazy. Yeah. I'm really more than happy with how it came out. Granted, it took two years, but. You know what you should do? We should post the pics of that on the Twitter account. Definitely will. Yeah, that Twitter. What's that Twitter handle? I'm still waiting for the handle and the password, maybe. Do we have the website up? Actually, a funny story. So we used to have specialwhenlitpinballpodcast.com as our URL, pretty lengthy URL. And then when we were on hiatus with the show for a couple years, we did not renew the domain. It was picked up, ironically, by the Kineticist. That is that new kind of Facebook website thing that's going on. They're kind of covering pinball in a different way. They own the domain now. When I re-upped the domain, it was special when lit podcast. We took pinball out of the equation. One, it shortens the URL. And then two, we're not redirecting to the Kineticist. So Kineticist, thanks for stealing the domain. And in all fairness, I haven't reached out to them on it. I just noticed that today when we were setting up some things for Patreon and trying to figure out why I was getting redirected to the Kinetisys, it was because I was looking into the old domain. So to wrap this story up, special when lit. What the fuck is going on here?
Jersey Jack Pinball
company
Kineticistorganization
Buffalo Pinballcompany
Poor Man's Pinballorganization
Pinball Partyorganization
Midwest Gaming Classicevent
Miller Parkvenue
Andrewperson
Kazperson
American Pinballcompany
The Pinball Showorganization
LifeLockcompany

medium · Ken proposing trip to Milwaukee with northwest pinball community members, mentioning potential overnight stay and visits to Miller Park and local venues

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Kaz rejoining Special When Lit as Patreon supporter; previously worked as correspondent for American Pinball and later extended career at The Pinball Show before format change

    high · Ken welcoming Kaz back as new patron, noting his history as original SWL correspondent and career progression through American Pinball and The Pinball Show

  • ?

    content_signal: Special When Lit Pinball Podcast uses 'Drain It or Save It' recurring segment for lifestyle and community topics; Patreon tier system offers bonus content at $7 tier

    high · Extended Drain It or Save It segment covering mushroom foraging, Sunday evenings, and short-time pinball play; Ken announcing Patreon benefits including bonus content

  • $

    market_signal: Wisconsin morel mushrooms command premium seasonal pricing at approximately $60-70 per pound with significant foraging time investment

    medium · Bill noting mushrooms take hours to find and cost $60-70 per pound, suggesting premium seasonal specialty in Midwest region

    • 3:00
    I was like, it's me, dude. I turned into Krim of the Frog. So to wrap this story up, Special When Lit Podcast is the current domain. Special When Lit Pinball Podcast is the old domain that redirects to the Kineticist site. And we don't want that.
    3:20
    Oh, I don't care if you go there or not. I'm just saying if you're looking for us, you don't want to use Special When Lit Pinball Podcast. You want to use SpecialWhenLitPodcast.com. otherwise if you want to visit the kineticist their url is special when lit pinball podcast.com wow or kineticist.com i would assume okay i definitely understand that yeah that was interesting bill what's going on with you buddy what's happening oh not much uh you know what a friend of mine reached out friday night he bought a monster bash se in milwaukee and he's like older gentleman not in the best of shape um loves pinball so he was really happy to get a deal and he's like dude you know anybody that can move a pinball machine and i'm like bill's like i i I eat pinball machines for breakfast. He's like, dude, but it's like two hours away.
    4:04
    That's a funny story. It's funny because he literally takes the head off, just like a praying mantis would. Exactly. Bites the head off the prey. We'll do a quick story on that, too.
    4:15
    So anyway, so drove up to Milwaukee, picked the game up for him, which he was real happy. Brought it down, and honestly, we'd been talking for a little while about what other games he should pick up. So he heard me talk about, you know, like Adam's Family. So he bought one of those, and he's like, it's beautiful, love it. And he's like, what else should I get? And I'm like, dude, you might like a Monster Bash, because he originally wanted a creature from the Black Lagoon. And I'm like, dude, it's a two-ball multi-ball.
    4:37
    Well, get a Monster Bash. You got the creature feature, you're good to go. So he was really happy. So that was a long day Sunday, but really, really good. And honestly, it's nice when you, like, make somebody's day and they get to see something and, you know. So he was really happy. So that was a good thing. I'm noticing, I guess I've noticed this over the last few years, but it's still adding up. It seems like the Wisconsin area is a hotbed for pinball and even pinball content creation. If you think about guys that are out of that area, you have the poor men that are out there. There's a new podcast that I've been listening to, and I was actually a guest on that podcast, and that is Pinball Party with the host Jason. That's a fun podcast. I think he had a guest on last week that was also from that general area, but there's a lot of pinball coming out there. I know that at one point, have you guys been to MGC, the Midwest Gaming Classic? We have not. Every time it comes up, there's always something going on. Yeah, it's too bad because that sounds like a good one. You know what? It really is. It's all-encompassing where if you want to go out and play pinball, you can. But if you want to see some of the retro gaming consoles and old computer games and that sort of thing, it's there. The setup is really nice. the thing that makes me really curious outside of the show is just kind of, I want to visit and hang out in downtown Milwaukee.
    5:53
    Miller Park is there, which is kind of known as Wrigley Field West, where the Cubs draw a big crowd at Miller Park in Milwaukee and probably vice versa. But I hear that's an amazing place. I don't understand how, as a baseball fan, I've not been out to Miller Park yet, but for whatever reason, I have not. But, I mean, just to kind of sit down and kind of walk some of the streets, and I would assume the beer tastes pretty good in the Milwaukee area. So at some point, and this is what I'm proposing, and maybe we can do this with some of our friends from the west. No, I think it's north. You keep saying this, west, and I didn't want to correct you, Ken, but it is north. Yeah, it's north. Okay. It is slightly west. Right. It's northwest. Okay. Our friends are the northwest. It's west of Wrigley, but not by much. You know what I mean? Let's go west, Bill. It's on the other side of the street. We're going to go a little west, but then we're going to go way north. Right. You've got to go west first. You always go west first. You've got Ryan Kuiper out there, TurboGrafx. You've got Dave Brennan, who is just well-known guys. I think both of those guys are streaming for Buffalo Pinball right now. Yeah. I say we get up there and let's just have some beers in Milwaukee. Let's stay overnight. I mean, it's such a short drive. It's like an hour and a half, hour and 45 minutes, at least from St. Charles. I mean, we can come back, but still experience it without having to worry about where you're going, where you're coming from. I am all in on trying to make a trip to Milwaukee. So all those guys and anybody else that I didn't mention, if you guys are looking to maybe connect out your way on your stomping grounds, I would love to go. You know the crazy part? I've been there twice, and you've not been there once. That blows my mind. Miller Park? Yeah. Yep, that blows my mind too. I've been there once, I believe. Very cool park. Very cool. Milwaukee itself is just great. I remember going up for, I've been there I think for a couple bachelor parties, and there's like a speakeasy, right? You got to like go in the back door and you sit in this room and you got to do this goofy shit to get into the building and like everyone's watching you on TV, like on the screens inside. Dance on one leg. Yeah, we'll do that again. But you know what? We need to know like the passcode to just go through. So let's consider connecting with our friends from the west, northwest, as you will say. And then, you know what? At the other side of things, we go east. We're in Indiana. and there's a lot of fun friends that we have in Indiana. We'll talk about that in a future episode. And then going south into St. Louis, we've got a really close friend of ours who is coming on the show pretty soon. I think maybe the next episode. You guys all know who he is. He's the mystery guest that we'll have back on. Where is he now? We're going to let you know on Special Inlet Pinball Podcast. You guys ready to play Drain It or Save It? Let's do it. Let's go.
    8:32
    It's time for this week's edition of Drain It or Save It. outstanding for those of you new to the program or just need a reminder drain it or save it works very easily we're going to bring up a topic the three of us will discuss it if we agree or like the topic we will save it if we disagree or don't like the topic we will drain it let's start drain it or save it with steve this week steve go ahead buddy my drain it or save it would be foraging for mushrooms in the forest?
    9:04
    I would drain that. What does that even mean? Okay. I don't even have to know what it means. Well, it was supposed to start with Bill and go on dandelions, and then... Do I have to walk in the forest? Yes. Oh, I'm out. You can walk on the edge of the forest. You know what? Let me clarify this. Why are you foraging for mushrooms, and what are your intentions with these mushrooms? So, every spring, these morel mushrooms come up out of the ground in certain areas of the woods and you go look for them you pick them you cook them and they're like the best freaking mushrooms ever i'm normally not a mushroom person so i would drain it on that fact let alone the having to dedicate time to go picking them yeah i can't stand mushrooms like it's fungus no i'm out thanks oh thanks i'm draining it just based on that i don't even need to go into the forest it could be the single best tasting mushroom in the history of mushrooms i have No interest. So you don't like just walking through the forest just peacefully, just kind of just strolling around, just looking at the ground. When was the last time you did that? Today. He's out in the forest. No, I mean, I don't mind being one with nature, but not to pick fungus that I'm not motivated to eat. There is one mushroom I would save, and that would be from Super Mario Brothers, but that's about it. Oh, the one-up mushroom? Yes. That's it. No, no, we're the one to make you big. Oh, okay. Yeah. Those are good. So Steve's saving this, obviously. Yeah. Yeah, it was a weird one, but it really reminds everybody of pinball, that's for sure. But you know what? If you don't try it, you'll never know if you don't like it either. I tell you what. Morels are badass, and I will go looking for them until they don't pop up, which is in like a couple weeks. Oh, seasonal. You can find me in the woods. It's like you're at the micro-brew and you're trying to get the seasonal one. Exactly. The release. Okay. Hey, if you cook them up, dude, I would give it a shot just to say that I tried it. I ain't cooking you up no more L's, dude. It took me three hours to find one. Really? Okay, so they're like 60 or 70 bucks a pound. That's crazy.
    11:05
    Wow. Okay. All right. Next topic. It's horrible. It takes you three hours to find one? No. Okay. All right. Not always. All right. Sometimes you find none.
    11:20
    Sounds like fishing. I was just going to say it sounds like fishing. All right. Join us or save it. Steve found a morel mushroom this big.
    11:28
    All right. Let's reel it back in. No pun intended. What do you got, Bill? Drain it or save it? I'm going to drain it, but I would give it a shot for you. Yeah, I'm going to drain it, too. All right. I'd cook you guys up some morels. I don't eat mushrooms. It's not that you're a bad cook. I just don't like mushrooms at all. I don't like them either, but I have respect. I don't like the idea behind them. I don't like how they look. I'm pretty sure I don't. You know what happened to me once is I was at a wedding, and I thought that they served the salad with steak. And I started eating the steak. I'm like, why is the steak cold and a little bit rubbery? It's because it was a shiitake mushroom, and that was very – I drained that, too. That was a mistake. Don't like that. That was a mistake. That was bad. Yeah, it was a mistake. I don't – it was a salad with a mistake. I don't like the shiitake replacement of a meat. It came in cloaked. It was like a double-agent vegetable that got me. Food surprises always suck. yeah you know i mean like hey okay yeah this is a cheese pizza but not you know i mean there's some weird i get it blue cheese i get it it's like when you take a bite out of a piece of chicken and you get like that knotty tendon oh that's that prevents me from eating chicken ever again i don't like that to jump back where we were before with uh like associated smells like that's one of those things like you said it and like in my mind i felt like yes tongue yes because i've I've eaten at places where I liked their chicken, and then it only takes one of those tendons to get into my mouth where I will not eat there anymore. Oh, my gosh. I'm like the least pickiest eater. You're like, yeah. Out of anybody I know, I'm pretty sure. It's good. Yeah. It's good. Without a doubt. Bill, what do you got for drain or save? What do you, is it just me or like Sunday evenings, you kind of dread the next day and whatever? I feel like on Sunday nights, I'd rather it just be Monday morning. because I feel like once you're already up and you're already committed to going to work and everything else, you know, Sunday nights, you're cooking, you're getting the kids a bath. It's like, dude, all this damn work just to get to Monday. So what's your drain it or save it? Sunday evening, save or drain? Would you rather be a Sunday evening? Drain it or save it. Sunday. Sunday evening, do you save it or drain it? Drain it or save it. Save it. Drain it or save it. You've been saving save it or drain it for like four years. It's drain it or save it. Remember, it goes in alphabetical order. D and S. I know, but you realize that for the longest time I've been really good about that. Right now, because I'm thinking about mushrooms. You were really good about it for the two years we were off. You did it last week. I was too. Phenomenal. I was going to edit it, and I was like, that's okay. This whole thing is going to be... Drain it or save it. Bitch, to edit. This episode is whacked out. We are probably, I don't know, 20, 25 minutes in. We could probably restart the drain it or save it. So drain it or... Sunday evening's getting ready for the next day. Drain it or save it. does anybody like that like i i i will drain it i don't like sunday evenings specifically because it it reminds me that i'm going into monday morning and as much fun as i have at work i still enjoy the weekends i still enjoy what i think is going to be free time which ultimately is never free time because i'm doing everything else at home same reason that i Ironically, I do love fall, which is the precursor to winter. Yes. So is Sunday night the fall of the seven-day week? Oh, I just blew my own mind. I don't know what just happened, Bill. I'm going to pass. Passing. Maybe I do like Sunday night. You're going to pass? All right. I'm going to save Sunday evening. It is my true and honest time to finally relax. And I'll play video games if I want. I'll watch TV if I want. I'll watch a movie.
    15:08
    If somebody calls me on Sunday, I'm like, it's Sunday. I'm not doing s***. I'm chilling. I am so jealous of you. That's not how we live. So to me, it's like... Well, you know what the denominator is that we have that's common? I know. That Steve doesn't have on Sunday nights. I know. What is it, Bill? Kids. Yes, it's the kids. Ding, ding, ding, ding. Kids suck away any Sunday night enjoyment. You've got bath time. You've got homework. You've got the wife yelling because, you know, she's packing up lunches for the week. Nobody wants to go to school the occasional, oh, I think my stomach's starting to hurt. I might have to stay home from school tomorrow. I'm like, oh, the wife is vacuuming. I've got to go on mute, guys. We're playing video games.
    15:42
    Yeah, that would be a glorious struggle. No, so, yeah, honestly, like Sunday nights, it's like, dude, it should be Monday morning already. Yeah, Sunday nights when you have kids, kids are the death of Sunday nights as far as enjoyment, I think. Saving that Sunday night. Saving the Sunday night. All right. That's good. So you're saving it. Myself and Bill are draining it. My drain it or save it this week is playing pinball short on time. Drain it or save it. And I'm going to say this. You have five minutes before you have to leave. You have ten minutes before you've got to pick somebody up. You've got seven minutes before you're getting picked up. Do you hit that start button? Drain it or save it? Yes, you do. I'll save that. I've had some of my best games. I don't know, short time, time crunches where you're like, Oh, my gosh. I've got to go. And I just, quick story. Terminator 2, before I had to go to work, hit the button. It needed to go in like five, ten minutes. It was out there for 30 minutes.
    16:43
    And I was like, this is the best game ever. Right. It always happens that way. So save it. I'm going to save it, even though literally I just had this experience Thursday. So I'm watching Billy, and he's like, you know, pinball? I'm like, yeah, buddy, we'll go downstairs. No problem. And, dude, so I hit the start button on a game, right? And I'm literally like, just not really playing hard, but I'm like, you know, I'm so relaxed. Carefree. You have nothing to prove. This death shot looks fun. Let's hit it and watch the ball drain. We're literally, we have 10 minutes before we have to get him upstairs for bed, right? Was this Sunday night by any chance? This was Thursday night. Okay. Which is like Friday Eve. It's essentially the same thing as Sunday night. I would rather Friday Eve than Sunday night. Okay. Oh, well, maybe that's for next week. Anywho. So literally, 25 minutes playing this, and dude, he's jumped on every other game. By the time we finished, he was so crabby, I'm like, was it really worth it? He's sleeping. But it's a game that I got a high score on on that night, so I was like, okay, this sucks.
    17:45
    But yeah, it was worth it for that. Sorry, Billy. Even though I got yelled at by the wife and then had to put him to sleep while he was crabby. It's inevitable, and I'm going to save this too, only because I can honestly say some of the best games I've ever had were those games where I only had a few minutes to burn. Now, you're not going to jump on some longer playing games because you understand that it just doesn't make sense. But it's on some of the shorter playing games. And I think it's because mentally you're not stressed. You're just kind of flipping. And the funny thing is you've got seven minutes before you've got to go or somebody's picking you up, and you're on ball three, and you've never been more disappointed to get an extra ball. Because it's like, no, I'm extending my time. And it's like you get risky. You start changing the stance. you start changing your flipper methods and you start blowing the game up And it right It like you just fueling on it So it funny It like that bittersweet elation slash disappointment because you know you got to stop the game In pinball, for the most part, you're not going to pause the game, walk away, and come back. But for the whole experience, just knowing that you might have something that's impressive and unbelievable, I'm going to save that one for sure. I had two extra balls on ball one. And I was like, you've got to be kidding me. That's a dream, man. Two extra balls on ball one. I mean, literally, it was like, and I completed the multi-ball already. So, I mean, like, literally, I was lined up to crush this.
    19:07
    You can't walk away from that. All right, so this week's Drain It or Save It, Forging for Mushrooms in the Forest. Steve introduced, he saves it, myself and Bill. We drain it, Bill. Bill cataloging the Sunday evenings as a Drain It or Save It. Myself and Bill drained it because of the kids. Steve saved it, so anytime he gets to relax and play his video games. And then we are all in agreement on the last one, which is playing pinball under pressure, short on time. We all save it, even though ultimately it drives us crazy. Play pinball anytime you can. And that's this week's edition of Drain It or Save It.
    19:44
    Hey, guys, I did want to take a second. I wanted to welcome a couple new patrons that we have that joined at patreon.com slash special one of the podcast. And that is Andrew. Andrew was back in the day with us when we had Patreon before. podcast went on hiatus he's back and then we got kaz who's with us now too was an original special when lit pinball podcast correspondent for american pinball back in the day went over to the pinball show for uh for extending his career over there before they ultimately kind of downsized to a craig bobby one size fits all but kaz welcome back to special and thanks for the support buddy we do appreciate it for those of you that are looking to support the show so listen right now we have four four patrons guys it's four we'd like to get that to 10 if you are feeling generous or you feel like you'd support the show please consider uh checking out our patreon page i'll put the link in the show notes and we would love to have you there are benefits to being a patron yes there are some funny stories there's a few tonight that already will not make the podcast but we'll definitely go into the bonus content area which is that that seven dollar tier guys i feel like i'm uh yeah it's a good time so but anyways you get a chance consider it but welcome andrew and kaz all right guys so i have something for you i don't know if you saw this on facebook on stern's uh page on facebook but this dude i don't know who it was got a tattoo of the insider connect uh qr code on his wrist right so he sent that to stern so they posted this picture on their facebook page and people started using this guy's qr code oh no way sign in to the insider connected on all these different games oh yeah so this guy is like scanning in all over the place yeah he's scanning all over the world so his tattooed qr code which I think it was on his forearm, right? It was on his wrist. On his wrist. Yes. Gets posted on Facebook, and then people are snatching his QR and signing in on other games as him. Let's not use the word snatch, though. Snatch? Yeah. No. Borrow? Borrow it. Okay. They're using his QR code. Wow. To sign in on games with their phone. Why would they do that?
    22:06
    Because pinball people are crazy. so he's like the pinball international man of mystery because he's in he's a whore he's in brazil he's in wherever i just don't understand so for instance if i had the qr code am i just like trolling the guy just trying to make things difficult pretty much yeah you're throwing a bad game up or you're having a really good game and you know how he's on the boards for you know he's all over the place he's on every stern pinball probably in across the world because it shows your location yeah oh oh okay interesting somebody from stern factory use this qr code well but let's look at the other story that we're missing here is tattooing a qr code to your body for for the convenience of signing in for a pinball machine uh i mean drain it or save it i guess but i'm gonna i'm gonna drain it you can get a business card with the qr code and just have that handy in your pocket if you're going out i mean it shows brand loyalty definitely shows dedication and let's be honest um in my opinion somebody probably doesn't do that unless they think that they're going to get uh some attention whether it be social media or something that goes viral i don't i i could be wrong so please pardon me if i am not assuming correctly but that's that's i i personally probably would not uh tattoo a qr code because this is the other thing In the world of digital interface and innovation, what if something changes where that QR code, for whatever reason, becomes altered or obsolete based on a new software system? Or shared and suddenly useless? Right. I mean, I guess you have the conversation starter of the QR code on your wrist, but I mean, that's still – It's kind of cool. I don't have any tattoos. I don't know if you guys do. No. I do. I do have a tattoo. Not of a QR code, though. Let's double down on this for half a second, though, okay? Okay. If he's got this as a tattoo, I'm willing to bet that's not his only tattoo. For sure. Some people get tattoos on a Friday night for the fun of it, right? You don't have tattoos. If I were to get a tattoo, it better be something meaningful. And the problem is I have an addictive personality, so one would lead into, you know. They are a lot like pinball machines, where if you do have one tattoo, it normally will lead into multiples. I can say I got my tattoo way back in the day when I was like 20, 21, and that's the only tattoo that I had ever gotten. And I have an addictive personality also. Yeah. For what it's worth. It is a sweet barbed wire around your arm, though. No, it's my Costco. It's not the barbed wire. It's my Taz tattoo with the barbed wire and the Indian dreamcatcher feather. That's a sweet tribal tattoo above your back. You know what I actually said? So my tattoo that I have on my left shoulder, it's actually claws that are ripping through my skin. And underneath, inside the claw marks is the American flag. Cool. And it's to show my underlying patriotism for the country.
    25:10
    That's a very cool one. I liked it too. Yeah, I like it. I'll show you guys later. Maybe that'll be a little patriot. Yeah, a little. No, I'm not. Nobody wants to see my tattoo for Patreon, but... I do. It's my underlying Patreon patriotism. This is not only fans. No. So what about a QR code if somebody took a picture in the distance and it was about you?
    25:34
    Like, hey, this is Steve Beauty. I was born in blah, blah, blah. These are my hobbies. I don't know. Just weird. You can do weird shit with QR codes. You can. And the whole thing is kind of odd to me. And it's not that it's off-putting or – it's just something that I probably wouldn't do.
    25:53
    And it's not even like a conspiracy thing. It's just like you're putting a QR code on you. How long does QR code technology even last? So when this guy – I don't know how old this guy or this girl is, but say he's in his 20s, 30s, 40s. He's 10 years old. But like 20 years from now when QR codes are like cassette tapes of modern digital technology. Your scan on the pinball machine is your eye. Retinal scan, right? Like Demoman. But I guess you still have the conversation of, yeah, this is what this was. Back in the day. I kind of went mini viral within the pinball community because we're talking about it.
    26:31
    So I guess it's the 15 minutes of fame. And again, no disrespect to the person that did this. but it does give you some attention. Not that that was your intention. I don't know if that was the intention for Stern to put that clear barcode on their site. And in their defense, who's thinking that far ahead? I mean, all right, so somebody like I am involved with social media with Jersey Jack, right? So if I see something that is interesting, that shows brand loyalty, that will drive up conversation and get people talking, It's all about the engagement on your social media pages. It's about the likes, the comments, the shares, trying to figure out at what time and how the algorithm is going to be impacted. Like that's a pretty cool post. Like I get it. You're not thinking, all right, somebody is going to backdoor scrape this guy's QR code and start – and it's not like they stole the guy's identity where they're charging up his credit cards or anything like that. But, you know, the guy will have the most played pinball time on pinball machines and maybe the history of Stern pinball. Stern was basically like, this is why we can't have nice things. And it's true. It's true. Because conceptually, that's a cool thing to share. But, you know, you leave the door open just a little bit. You give somebody an inch and they take a foot and it's hard. This reminds me of LifeLock. Remember LifeLock? Yes. It's still around, LifeLock. Okay. But the guy, you know, the president at the time was like, this is my real Social Security. good luck breaking into it and people were like oh my god hold my beer exactly and he had issues because of it so i mean house is gone he's arrested it's like what i mean it's i mean that that was about your all-time backfire a very very not brash but uh you know challenging move to put out there in the public it takes a complete uh ridiculous amount of confidence in moxie yes to issue a challenge like that because the social security number is like, I mean, that's your existence in society, in earth, like as a person, somebody gets ahold of that. They alter everything. Uh, yeah, not only that, they could, there's lots of things you can do with a social security number, you know, uh, I don't even want to go into it because I don't want to give anybody ideas. So I think what I was trying to say is somebody scraping somebody's, you know, QR code for Stern insider connect is not like they just backdoor and took the deed of their mortgage. It's not malicious. It's more funny, I think, to them, right? It's trolling. Totally trolling. The whole trolling thing is, and I've commented about this before. Train it or save it, trolling. It's just out of hand. At some point, you appreciate a certain amount of humble and limited trolling, but when somebody bases their whole life and existence just based on trolling, there's a fine line between trolling and being an a**hole. Honestly, it is a fine. And what I think happens is a lot of people will use trolling as cover to act out in a way that's not deemed normally acceptable in society or socially appropriate between people. And you hide behind that cloak of trolling because then you'll get people to think that it's funny. And it's like, you know what? I get it. But it's like, guys. anytime you and i'm trying to figure out how to wrap this up trolling is not an excuse for you to act out and be a yes it's just not manners are still a thing yeah i would hope so in the society that i want to live in manners would be and it's just like somebody that that expresses their discontent or their disappointment with decisions that let's just use pinball for an example right somebody that's frustrated or upset about the actions of a pinball company or uh somebody that works at a pinball company or somebody that creates content within the pinball space i understand that it's having a strong opinion is something that i i think is encouraging i i think that you should have strong opinions how you correlate or how you relay those opinions speak a lot about you as a person in my eyes whereas some people will appreciate a more brash a more controversial a more polarizing approach because let's face it entertainment sells uh jerry springer just recently passed away jerry springer had one of the most watched talk shows in all history and it wasn't because people were sitting down and they wanted to have a lesson on ethics or morality or celebrating humanity. It was because it was one of the most unbelievable shows of all time because it was shocking. And when you're in the moment and you're consuming this content, so to speak, it's easy to forget about who you are as a person because at that point you just want to be entertained. And I get it. I'm guilty of it too. This happens to, I think, everybody. But going back to my original thing, It's like I think that the boundaries of what is deemed trolling have expanded themselves by those that are doing a lot of the trolling. And, you know, a lot of people are along for the ride, not necessarily because they agree. It's snowballing. But it's just it's like, hey, you know, I just want to be entertained at this point. And, you know, I have no personal vested interest in any of these people that are being impacted. So let me just as long as I'm entertained, that's all I care about. And, you know, hey, hats off to you. Kudos, whatever. Free country. Do whatever you want. it's just one of those things. I don't even know how I got on that rant. Well, QR guy. The poor QR guy. I kind of felt bad for him.
    32:15
    Maybe it's... I wouldn't have done it. I wouldn't have taken that up to my machine and put his QR in my machine. That's just how I am.
    32:26
    But a lot of people did. But we have... We have respect and wouldn't pull that kind of... It's not even about respect. You know what's trolling? am i a troll myself we wouldn't do very much not i guess it doesn't really impact him no no no and you know what i said respect it's not even about respect because i guess it's all of his scores for stern ever right the guy the guy's legendary he's got to like add like another little square or something and change his qr right but you know what i mean i i think about it from this aspect 20 years ago i could see me doing something like that because i thought it would be funny sure you know what i mean but now i'm older and i see how things impact people um and just to be fair i'm not trying to correlate somebody taking that qr code and scanning it as somebody's stern insider connect machine as like this catastrophic malicious or malicious no it's just something i wouldn't have done but it's something i wouldn't have done either but i don't necessarily think the people that did this were thinking that i think it was pretty light-hearted i think so all around i don't think the people that use the code were trying to be malicious or anything i want to put your code in and just drain three balls i don't think it's timed out him getting the tattoo was you know all about fame and fortune and you know being well known in the world you know because i missed it on abc when i watched a cool idea no no yeah it is i mean if you're stern all day and you want it easy just wrist it boom all right right but but i'm talking about like the i think i had made the original comparison of people taking that qr code and and trolling with it uh and then i kind of shifted gears a little bit and talked about the evolution of the troll uh whether it be pinball or anything else uh not a huge comparison and where i kind of took the trolling conversation um but you know it kind of is what is it's interesting conversation to talk about and that's what it all is you know especially when lit that's what this podcast is yeah i mean look we'll be honest but i mean we can have polarizing thoughts and conversation but i think the effort is to to look just treat people like human beings right be as respectful as possible and let the everything fall as it may and we might not always make the right decisions and and you know but at some point you have to be able to kind of realize that you know maybe it wasn't in your best interest to say or do something. And to be clear, I'm not singling any one individual out. This goes on throughout the entire industry and the hobby. And I'm sure there were points in time where we've been guilty of doing something very similar. So it just kind of is what it is. It's more of a general statement. So I don't want this to be a rallying cry for any one individual to be upset. It's not my intention to do that. And we'll leave it at that. bill had a nice uh segment last last episode uh guilty pleasures guilty pleasures you want to do that you want to jump into a little guilty pleasure we we need uh we need like a lead-in and some bumper music yeah we do we need to segment that up so we need to figure that out but uh you should be like some very very dirty pornographs because it's guilty pleasures Dude, there was a TikTok on. So TikTok had a video, I think it was a while ago, of a high school kid who played the intro of an adult website, like their bumper music in like the high school.
    35:59
    Hallways. Not hallway, but what is it called when they get the whole school together? So there was a TikTok of this kid that literally he used the bumper music from an adult website for their school assembly and every you know most of the students were like yeah and he got in very deep trouble for that do you remember what happened with special when lit our original bumper music uh became an intro music after the fact for a porn site and it was us not wanting to be identified with a porn site uh which caused us to change the intro music to what it is now and uh in an exciting evolution and change of events since we're back now we're kind of going under a little bit of a rebrand so we are going to have like new intro music new voiceover work that sort of thing that'll be coming up here um i think we'll do an official ribbon cutting ceremony of of uh kind of the relaunch the 2.0 so to speak coming up here in the next couple episodes maybe we do it for episode 100 that'd be kind of cool i like it you know so it's it's coming but the frequency is back. I think every other week is what we shooting for now Yeah That the loose plan Because the way that we had it before right we would uh we would meet on one week to do show notes the second week we would record the third week we would be off this is kind of the plan of attack when we came back and then the fourth week we would be back at doing show notes the fifth week we record the sixth week off so yeah it's uh but now in today's modern day technology we have the ability to kind of converse and interact all day get our show notes done where we can do one week of show notes and record a game or and record a podcast well and when we and we literally would do that we'd get together and we'd talk you know the week before we were going to record it was like damn we just recorded an episode what was the point of not recording this yeah right and it was just wound up being like, when we get together, we should record regardless. And some of the stuff that we make show notes for makes it in. Some of it doesn't. Some of it's bonus content. You never know where it's going to go. Are we recording right now? Yeah. Yeah, we're recording. I don't know who will hear it, but we are recording. Yeah. Bill had come up with this segment last episode, and he decided that he was going to introduce this, and Guilty Pleasures is the name of the segment. Do you remember last week's Guilty Pleasures, Bill? Mine was drywall. Mine is taping and mudding and sanding drywall. Right. And Steve, yours was cutting the grass with Stripe Life. Yeah, I had two. I had cutting the grass and vacuuming. And vacuuming. And I think mine was folding laundry. Yes. I listened to that earlier in this week, and I still laughed about that one. You're like, I can go get a job at The Gap and crush this. I'm not messing around. I'm a professional folder at this point. baby tees but you know what maybe every single week we're not all offering up guilty pleasures but uh there's only so many we can offer up who's got a guilty pleasure this week i do uh as we were talking about before we started recording organizing toolboxes like going through all the sockets and i will post a picture of this so in my toolbox dude i literally have rails of everything that's you know when you say toolbox you're talking about like a portable handheld or I am talking about floor-based mechanics-sized toolbox. Right, which we have one here in Studio C. I know Bill has one in Studio W, and B's got one in Studio B. So we all have these things. It would be interesting to just open them up randomly and take shots on how we all organize these tool cabinets.
    39:47
    So like on mine, I literally cut a piece of plywood, bought all the rails that you can mount the sockets to, right? and literally everything is organized per you know six point twelve point whatever and it's just you know you know what's missing a neighbor comes to borrow something you can you know hey you still have my you know five ace or whatever you know what i mean um organizing the pliers making sure everything is perfect the drawer for allen's a drawer for uh grinding accessories dremel i mean the whole the whole nine yards i love organizing that so when it's a mess It's like, okay, turn on some music and just. I thought mine looked like that until Bill opened it. And he was like, I'm going to come here with some energy drinks on the weekend and organize the tool shelf or the toolbox. Yeah, I think mine needs to be done too. I'm like, I just did it. It's like, what are you talking about? He's like, open up those drawers, the toolbox.
    40:42
    And yeah, I guess I did it wrong. I mean, over the years, you start to just kind of, I don't know. I forgot which drawer. Well, I extend my toolbox throughout the house too. Same here. Right. I will be upstairs on a project, and then I'll leave a group of tools upstairs. And then at some point, I do that a couple rooms over a couple months, and then I'm trying to find something that should be in that original toolbox. And I've got to backtrack on what projects I had, and I can usually find some type of mini mess that I didn't. So just to expand on this a little more, how many sets of tools do you have at your house? I typically have three. I've got the big toolbox, the floor-standing one. Okay. I've got another general one that I can just kind of pick up and move. And then I do have a pinball one that just has like pinball repair and like arcade repair. So those are the three that I have. Okay. Yeah, I'm rocking two. But they get mixed up because I do a lot of pinball stuff. And then I'll be wrenching on the car. Yep. And then I'm like, where's the 10? Yeah. Where's the 10 millimeter? Is it in the pinball? Or is it, you know, it's annoying. Let me just say that. So I got the one in the garage, which is a giant stand-up toolbox, right? And then all the power tools are in there, minus I have an impact and drill in the basement and in the... I always know where those are at all times. I have like three impacts and three drills. You're lucky as a bee. So it's never a matter of, you know, I have one in each location, so I don't ever have to drag stuff around. So I have the stand-up in the garage. I have a full basement tool rack with wrenches, sockets, screwdrivers, digital multimeter, and then all my pinball parts. And then I have a generic set in the shed to work on the lawnmower. And then a portable toolbox for pinball. I can't tell you how many times I'm looking for a drill bit or a security socket or something, and I can't find it, and I just go out and buy a new one. Because it's easier for me to drive a mile away to hit the lows. and buy a replacement than it is for me to actually find where I left it. I do it all the time. So I'm on this site normally, slickdeals.com. Yeah. When tools like that pop up, like a bit set or whatever. Torch Curious. Milwaukee Bits set. Yeah, you can never have too many. I'm like, man, it's only $10, normally $30. I'm going to buy it. It's disposable at that point. I have a ton of these little sets that aren't even open yet. Right. But that's never the shit that I'm missing. No, that's true. That's true. It's usually like the 10-millimeter socket or something, whatever. So literally I bought quarter-inch. So I literally have a bag with quarter-inch sockets, okay, because those are the ones that I lose from pinball, right? And especially magnetics. Yeah. Quarter-inch and quarter-inch magnetics. And different sizes too. They got to be like the thin for like underneath pulling off light bulb sockets. They're all thin. Okay. Yeah. See, some of mine are thick, and I'm like, man, I can't get this. Another bag. Quarter-inch. Another bag with 5 16ths. Another bag with 11 30 seconds because those are the ones that you literally.
    43:47
    What? No, I want this. Okay. I need this. Another bag of 11 30 seconds because that's like the weird size that's not in every kit, right? And that's that weird size that like literally when you're taking something apart on a pinball machine, that's that last set of screws. It's the 11 30 seconds that you're like, son of a. so i literally have a bag of those just in you know whatever uh and then uh what was the other one three is you really don't need but i have a couple of those yeah but i bolts but i literally have everything on you said literally like five times in 60 seconds i'm so sorry for your editing i'm gonna get a little bell do it do it i'm gonna do it you've seen my bag of pinball just little yeah dick necks that i need how many how many quarter inch and three ace hex two i have one three ace in that bag oh no i have two um but every other everything else in that little tiny little canvas bag it's like five by five i can work on any pinball machine see that's all you need you just might need to dump it out on the table and find it see i hate going upstairs to Grab that stuff. So I have about 15 of each of those, the quarter inch and the three ace. So it doesn't matter where I'm at, dude. I have whatever. Yeah.
    45:07
    Ken, how's your 1130 seconds situation? 1130 seconds, 1130 thirds, whatever it takes. I like to call it 1130 tooths. Let's go. Yeah, 1130 tooths.
    45:17
    All right. That's Bill's guilty pleasure. Yeah, I got no guilty pleasure this week. I got to think about it. I'm still recovering from the laundry admission. As it turns out, my daughter has decided that she is taking an interest in listening to the podcast. So, Elena, welcome to the Special One Lit family. Good to have you here. Hey, Elena. Hey. She no doubt now will tell her mother that I do enjoy doing the laundry. So there might be a small toy in it for you to keep that under wraps. We'll talk about that. So now there's no more of this going on. Right. Exactly. I like cleaning the garage. I like vacuuming and mopping. Guilty pleasure. I love when your mom yells at me because I didn't do something right. I love being corrected. I love being micromanaged because I can't handle myself in my free time. I need to be micromanaged, and your mother does a great job of that. I pretend like I don't like it.
    46:09
    No. She knows I'm going to die early, so that's why she's trying to take advantage of every second now. All right, so I kind of have one, and I think it's not really a guilty pleasure. I enjoy cooking. I don't know if you guys enjoy cooking. I know you guys enjoy frozen pizza.
    46:27
    We do. Is that cooking? That's not really cooking. So I enjoy cooking a good, healthy salad four-course meal. I've had some of the best food I've ever had in my life at Steve's house.
    46:41
    And I'll go right. Oh, my gosh. You can deep fry like nobody I've ever met in my life. I've never had better fries, French fries, whether they were fresh cut, crinkle cut, disco um steak fries than i've had at your house and for whatever it is you were able to make it the same time every single time you have something that i'll put i'll put those fries up against portillo's against mcdonald's um amazing french fries but like you always do a really good job of hosting and you turn me on to like smoking drinks like with the uh oh yeah yeah stuff like that but yeah he's he's an excellent host i like good drinks yes and i like to create them you know i like to i like to cook do you cook do you cook or deep fry with msg oil is that is that your trick because i mean you bring up an interesting point i mean msg is not bad for you either way but no i just use canola because i'm ken you got a point like he'll make a basket of fries yeah three of us are there the basket's gone it's amazing yeah he turned me out of those dark chocolate. And now we're just, yeah, beat it, deep fry some good chips.
    47:50
    Man, that guy can rip some Pop-Tarts. Nobody I've ever met in my life. Filipino egg rolls. One time I burned them. There's a Tucky story behind that. Maybe that's a little bonus content. Oh, that's right. Burned egg rolls are good, though. I like some singe. Lumpia. Yeah, I mean, Steve's introduced me to a lot of different foods at his house. The Costco dark chocolate covered with salt caramel things those are unbelievable uh but again going back to your i don't i think cooking can be a guilty pleasure because i think stereotypically you know men aren't on the hook for cooking or wanting to cook stereotypically it's work right so it is work like mowing is work folding laundry is work see but you brought this up and work and i enjoy it and there's a payoff for it and this came up because we were talking about dishes Do you remember that? Yes. We were talking about dishes earlier today, Bill. And guilty pleasures. Okay. And you were like, I don't mind doing dishes. Like, you know, cooking away. Not necessarily a guilty pleasure, but we kind of had this conversation. I can't stand doing dishes. We kind of had this conversation where Bill brought up. So we have four people in the house. So literally, you know, up until my son was born, everything was hand washed. Rolling back into drain it or save it. Oh, Bill got the order correct.
    49:16
    Hey, now. Drain it or save it. Nicely done, Bill. Another reason why I would hate Sunday nights is the wife would do all the cooking for the week, right? Like making lunches, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. That sounds great.
    49:27
    It's so awesome, especially when Sunday night is your night to do dishes, and she just doesn't give a flying monkey. Oh, yes. You're on the hook for the dishes. Dude, literally. And I'm sitting there playing video games. Yeah, you're playing video games. Dude, she gives Maddie a bath, right? And this was before Billy. She goes and takes a shower. Dude, it's like an hour and 15 minutes later because that's the day you clean out the refrigerator. Guys. What? I'm giving you a life hack here because I'm married and I have three kids, ages 8 to 17. There's a lot of food that comes in and out of this house. There's a lot of dishes that can be dirtied. Nobody likes to do dishes. We have a dishwasher, and when she's sick, I use the dishwasher. Don't do it. I'm kidding.
    50:10
    No. We have a dishwasher, but it's the whole process of getting the dishes because loading a dishwasher is a whole other methodical process that I have that's different from some of the people in my house that think that the dishwasher is also some type of a garbage disposal. It's just not. But anyways, I digress.
    50:29
    There's this thing that was invented a while back. It's called paper plates. And I do have – I do have plates. If you're cutting a steak or something like that or you have company over, that's fine. But I am so happy to just take out plates, paper plates, and just throw everything out. Throw everything out. You can recycle that stuff. So we grew up on paper plates. Like every meal is paper plates, paper plates. Same here. We didn't have a dishwasher growing up, right? But Jamie and her parents. But you're washing dishes by hand. Hold on. It gets better. So Jamie and her parents, it was just them, right? It was just Jamie. They didn't have a lot of kids. so her mom would literally wash everything when they were done so literally when we got married so when we got married no but let's go keep it going i'm just kidding man no it's all right she she inherited a uh a last name and i inherited being a dishwasher oh no that's not good and literally like i said Every Sunday it was –
    51:33
    Oh, this is awesome. I'm not even catching it. It's so quick. It's so – I didn't even notice that. I love this. No, no, no. It's good. You're not getting mad, are you? No, no, no. Okay. So literally – I'm rewinding back to like episode three of Special Lit Pinball Podcast where it was – every word is um from Bill. Every word is um. No, we all – Everybody ums. That's the power of the edit. We just do that. That's the power of... So until we had our son, I was the dishwasher. Right. And then finally it was like, okay, we can finally start using the dishwasher. She doesn't believe in paper plates because it's chemicals and... Trees, man. Trees. We'll probably be just fine. Are there chemicals on paper plates? I don't know. That's bad. I'm not going to argue with her. Ceramic plates. Yeah, I don't know. Think about that.
    52:34
    I mean, we go outside and – Those lead-painted plates. They're tasty, though. For me, it's just laziness. I don't want to be on the hook to have to put dishes in the dishwasher because essentially what I will do is I will – if I'm in charge of loading the dishwasher for that particular day, I pretty much wash the dishes before I put them in the dishwasher. Exactly. So it's like – So why not just – I know. This is my whole point. You can't just eat a meal and throw the damn thing in the dishwasher. No, no. You need to rinse it by the time you're rinsing it. Right. But I need the heat for sterilization. Like I want to know if there's nothing left on, nothing residual. Oh, my hands have third degree burns because my water runs hot. So I wash my dishes. Interesting. But I cook a lot. So when I cook, I'm washing as I'm cooking. And if I need that utensil or that tool again, it's there. not a week later when the dishwashers ran i don't want to go digging through the dishwasher and something's been in there for five days because that shit just gets gross right so we load the dishwasher and then that evening we're unloading it and putting all the dishes away oh it's same day oh yeah yeah same day ours ours ours would sit so i'm like i just i cooked tonight everything that i used and everything that else that was in the sink from me throughout the day or whatever. It's in the drying part of the sink now. Let me ask you this. What did you cook tonight? I made fried rice. Fried. See? He's the frying king of Chicago. I used the wok. He's throwing rice in with fries. He's frying everything up. The other day I made some char siu, whatever. I don't even know what that is. Some Chinese pork. Oh, it's so good. That was like a two-part cook. Outstanding. We've got to do some Mongolian skirt steak. Mongolian.
    54:27
    I've never done Mongolian. Really? I make Thai. I have a challenge for you. I can do some good Thai. I can do some good Filipino.
    54:35
    I get enough of that here. I know. I've been to one of your parties. Right down to the pig blood soup, dude, which ironically contains pig blood.
    54:44
    Who would thunk it? I'd try it. I'm open. I thought that was just a polarizing title to get people to try it. Talk about your all-time backfires. Do you still enjoy that today? I don't ever enjoy it. Oh, okay. Yeah, so my wife's family is from the Philippines. There's a lot of Filipino food that I enjoy, and there's some that I would not touch.
    55:08
    Do you know what balut is? No. Okay. Yeah. Do you know what it is, Steve? That I don't think I would touch. So balut, I don't even know if I'm pronouncing it correctly. But it's essentially, it's an egg that has like a half-formed embryo of a chicken. Like even more. There's like feathers. You're getting feathers and beak into that. Feathers and beak. Now, my wife doesn't eat that. But that is like a delicacy in the Philippines. But I know at one point her mother made something called pig blood soup. And I was like oh that kind of catchy What in it She like oh yeah pig blood I like yeah I not in that I out of there I came over for I don know what you guys had going on Yeah yeah yeah And there was just Pig roast? Yeah, it was the pig roast. Yeah, we had a pig roast. A ton of Filipino food. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I was just mowing on everything. You're like, no, I'm not. They're like, yeah, you got to take the meat from the cheeks and from the eyes. McDonald's. I'm like, what's going on? With the eyes? Let's go. Well, this is the thing. I don't like dead animals on my dining room table, especially one that weighs that big. That was a beautiful pig. And it.
    56:14
    I like pig in the form of like just prepackaged bacon. That's what I need. Or maybe a pork shoulder. There's the crackling on it. Oh, my gosh. Maybe some ham. It's so good. Ham is great. Or pork shoulder where if I can smoke that, that's fine.
    56:29
    To have like a whole body and a face and everything on it, it's just not my style. Because then you can imagine him with a name.
    56:37
    It makes it a real personal thing when you're eating something that has a face on it. I agree with you. Not into it. I can't do that. No. I have relatives that live in Michigan that they hunt deer and all these other things. And it's like, oh, yeah, we're going to take this home and skin it and do whatever and freeze it. I mean, listen, that's not my thing because we grew up close enough to Chicago. If you hit a deer, you called somebody to take it up off the road. yeah yeah we didn't take it home you know and that was just i feel like a cultural thing for us because we weren't used to that we weren't raised that way you know and that's okay right but our friends to the west and north in milwaukee definitely are that's right and michigan but i mean literally and you know my my cousin he was like oh no no we actually hunt and you know we say that me you know that you know i love that they might be doing it for sport but they're not just senseless killing. You know what I mean? But there's a lot of faces on Filipino food. For instance, sometimes her mom is a very good cook. A full duck? Can they get a full duck fish? Yeah, or the fish that is just a whole fish. I'll do a full fish all day. It looks like something out of a cartoon.
    57:54
    Bluto should be putting it in his mouth and pulling it out with a skeleton. It's just like, I prefer a Mrs. Paul's fish stick.
    58:04
    In that instance, I don't need like a scaled out fish sitting out there. The other thing that was very shocking to me, and again, no offense intended, is just me not being very culturally exposed to some ethnic food. And like my idea of a shrimp is a little bit different than some of the ideas of like shrimp that I've seen come through here, where they look like overgrown sea monkeys. And sea monkeys are like, remember those little brine shrimp? Oh, yeah. Back in the day. but they've got like tentacles and little eyes and the whole thing on them deep fry them up you can eat that whole thing no I don't eat the whole thing I don't know you guys don't even know what's been through my deep fryer you know why those fries are so good maybe that's why it's like because that full shrimp just went right through but whatever you know that's one thing but we don't have to see it seeing it makes it real so my wife if she sees like what I'm prepping before cooking, it weirds her out and she might not eat it. Well, let's go back to that. So I always do the prep before she comes home. You guys like a steak or a good hamburger, right? Yes. But if you saw the cow get slaughtered that you were then eating, would that be off-putting to you or would you appreciate the freshness?
    59:20
    So a friend of mine bought a half a cow and froze it with him and like two other families. and they like went to this place in indiana and picked out the cow and then showed up three weeks later or two weeks later after it was processed and i'm like oh man knowingly personal connection i called jerry over there yeah there's a dude here in my neighborhood that has a pig um he's had it for a pet for years cool and it's gotten pretty big it's a huge thing and i remember my daughter two years ago she's like um why do you why did you why do you have a pig and he's like in case of the apocalypse we're all gonna eat oh my she's like what does that mean i'm like oh my gosh it's terrible and you don't want to explain that no apocalypse you're probably eating cats and dogs too i don't know yeah so i think if everything goes ethically you know as we expect it to i don't have any problem eating meat or fish or well we talked about sushi the other week too right i mean yeah like i'm in i i just couldn't pick that out like i was you know to me that was it makes it real now that said yeah for me too so i was at this place in north carolina where they do not have any freezers on site the meat is brought in fresh every day and i was told this is the best burger you're ever gonna have yeah yeah whatever give me two and i'm jumping on the plane ate the first one in the car driving ate the second one in the parking lot it was the best burger I've ever had in my entire life. I'm sure it had a face, but I didn't have to see it. They all have a face. You guys ever been to Chinatown? Yeah. Not like a Chinatown. You guys ever been to Chinatown? They have pork hanging. They have Peking duck hanging. Gooey duck still in the tank.
    61:10
    Just ask for like a half a pound of it. They'll pull it off the rung and chop it. flies off of it because it's outside i don't like that i don't like outside stuff hanging you might get a little dysentery but it's so worth it no no not only is it the outside stuff i do it's all inside if i'm outside and like a like a fly lands on my sandwich like i'm throwing it out like i don't like oh i don't like stuff laying on my food i i'm very picky i don't like the outdoor dining because that's what oh exactly that's what i love about exactly all of my drainage or savants are going to be food based yeah i'll be draining a lot of your uh i'm gonna Maybe like peanut butter jelly where a fly landed on it.
    61:50
    All right, Billy, you had something that was kind of interesting happen to you, pinball related. So I'm always scrolling through Facebook ads, whether it be UTVs, ATVs, skateboards from Gleaming the Cube, things of that nature, things that just pique my interest. So I'm scrolling through the pinball marketplace. All of a sudden, I see a picture of a scared stiff in my basement. I'm like, hmm. And then I look at the ad a little closer. It's an ad in Florida saying, oh, you can buy this scared stiff for $2,000.
    62:23
    And it was in your basement. Well, now it's at my house because I bought it for $2,000. Yeah, no kidding, right? I was taken back. I was like, how can this? It didn't make sense to me that somebody had stolen my pictures and falsely said it was their game. You've seen it before. It's literally a picture. Never thought it would happen to you, though. Yes, you're absolutely right. No, I saw the ad.
    62:49
    So you saw this? No, I saw you post about it. Okay. Yeah. Be careful. This is a scam. This was my game. So I saw this, yeah, and it was just, I couldn't fathom how somebody had taken the pictures and posted them online for, number one, $2,000. and that's not to say that good deals don't exist out there. This was literally taken in my basement and it just really pissed me off the more and more I sat there. You would have to feel a little bit violated. I did feel violated and that's why I was pissed. Because now the stuff that you created in like a photo is being used in a scam.
    63:34
    Correct. Are you guilty by association? I know you're not. But it would be hard to not have that feeling. This could affect future ads, too. Right. It's like, man, this guy. The basement. So I went on Pinball Enthusiast because I didn't know what to do. So I flagged it and did everything I possibly could to get this removed, which I don't think you guys have ever tried to do something like that. I don't think it was very productive, and I don't know. Yeah, Facebook is slow. Okay. But I tried to do my due diligence. Yeah, but you should be able to go through Pinball Enthusiast and just contact the moderator and ask them to take that post down, right? It wasn't an enthusiast. It was just a general ad. Oh, so you reposted the scam ad. It was like a sponsored ad. It was a sponsored ad. Which those are really hard to get rid of because somebody's paying money for that. At least $25. At least. But Facebook is like, sweet, $25. So, yes, I felt violated because pictures of my basement are on there. Right.
    64:26
    I don't mind, you know, I'm proud of the collection that I've built and that kind of stuff. So it wasn't that, but it was just that's my information to display for the world, not for the world to display for the rest of the world. I can see that. That really pissed me off. So I'm an enthusiast. I created a post saying, hey, this is not me. This is a company that stole my picture. Please be aware. If you see this, this is not a legitimate ad for a $2,000 scared stiff. Have you guys ever dealt with something like that? I've seen people have that happen to them before. And I feel like the pinball enthusiast community, the group, would know that that's not real either way. It was just frustrating. There's enough crap in this world that we don't need to invite more people in. You see the ads for $3,000 Addams families and stuff like that, and you're always like, yeah, okay. Right. It was just very off-putting. So to have your basement in one of those ads is very... Well, and I think the lesson to be learned here is regardless of where the basement that's hosting the game, you're not getting a $2,000 scared stiff. You are not. Right. And be careful. You never know what you're doing. Don't send money. If they send you the $2,500 check for a $2,000 game, don't send the $500 credit back. Right. Just, I mean, the scams today are just absolutely insane. Just watch their show on scams, believe it or not. I believe it. You ever watch Locked Up Abroad? Yeah, that's a good one. So depressing. There's a show called Scams, though, about the people in Jamaica. They do lottery scams, and they just call people, and they're looking for old, lonely people who just want to talk. And then they'll send them $100, send them $500. They won the lottery. Oh, wait, no, send us $1,000. And people don't wipe their savings. It's really sad. Well, this is the thing, too. And I've done a lot of reading on this because a lot of times you'll get a phone call or an email and it's so horrible. It's like it looks like somebody that's illiterate wrote it. It's definitely not professional or representative or representative of like a brand or a company. And the people will be like, well, why would they send something like that out? Because obviously it's a scam.
    66:49
    It's intentionally done that way because anyone that actually replies to that. the person that's in charge of the scam already knows they have the upper hand because they're not dealing with somebody that's dealing with normal common sense. So the rudimentary attempt at creating an authentic ad is intentional to bait and switch those that would fall victim to something that's that terrible. So on the show, they literally say we go for Americans because they're stupid. then i'm like well i don't like that i'm like i'm like i live in america i i know and i'm a you got you got a tattoo digs deep i got that tattoo with the damn flag on my no uh no pun intended there but it's not nice there are a lot of stupid people everywhere and you know what people everywhere but you know what let's reel that back in for a second there are older people that are not as equipped to understand the understanding technology and the way that it functions are likely to be targets because they're just easier and they don't understand i got two examples if you don't mind humoring me and letting me run through this go for it uh three examples so my wife oh two months ago she set up a zill account because somebody wanted to buy something set it up got an automatic email saying hey please send 500 for your zell account so you have money in there to use it she sent the money we got burned oh that sucks yeah that's a tough one and i was grateful it was five hundred dollars and it wasn't life-altering right i'm dude i get somewhere i'm like are these like damn are these legit like wow it's that they're getting good that was number one number two uh and of course my wife is crying and freaking out and i'm like listen it's five hundred dollars it's it's a lot of money but it's not going to affect our children eating we're going to make our car payment and we'll be okay uh second one was my mother-in-law uh decided to list some items for sale on i think it was craigslist or something like that um stamps so she had somebody that wanted to buy a stamp from her and they said hey you know i i need to be able to uh send you money and she set up an itunes uh gift card gift card no that's you don't do that for 500 oh that's the magic number scanned the thing and sent it to them then realized she got scammed yeah and she she was done so somebody's listened to some good tunes across the world who knows where they are yeah but the itunes one is weird and that's how you can get out of that is music or no apps or anything else but and then The other one was in October, my mother-in-law, she had her house broken into and she was home. Nothing serious happened other than a broken window. But the police officers were telling us that not too long ago, this elderly couple let the water management company in, quote unquote. And they ransacked the house while they kept the wife busy. And they got $17,000 out of that elderly couple. And they were hysterical. It's terrible. That was a lot of their life savings. Yeah, it's horrible. So be careful, whether it's pinball, stamps, buying tables on whatever, whatever, whatever your thing is, is you always got to watch out. Yeah, my brother had gotten a call a couple of years ago. He calls me. I'm at work. He's like, hey, I need to talk to you. I'm like, what's up? He's like, IRS just called me and said that they have the police that are ready to arrest me because of outstanding taxes that I haven't fulfilled. He's like, I don't remember getting anything. He said, but they said that if I sent them like $300 in iTunes gift cards, like through Western Union, that they would cancel the arrest and then be able to negotiate the settlement. I was like, what?
    71:01
    I'm like, think about what you just told me, man. the irs needs you to go get itunes itunes gift cards and bring them the western union to avoid you getting arrested like the cops are outside it's amazing but but my brother who is an intelligent person was just caught off guard with a phone call and it was a sense of urgency right it's like hey listen you have like you have like 20 minutes to do this before we send everybody in you don't have time to think you don't have time to research you don't have time to go online and do anything. That's what it is. We're going to give you this one way out. You've got to do it right now. Boom, boom, boom, boom. It's crazy. It's scary. Think about it. These call centers around the world, they have thousands and thousands of contacts. They call a thousand contacts per day. They get three of them. They're good. Oh, it's a numbers game. 100%. So you and I, Ken, would be like, if you could wait until Sunday afternoon, come get me then. That's what we're going to have to do on Sunday night. and we're good to go. Right. I remember coming home once with, you know, the blue screen of death that's on your, like, Windows PC. Oh, sure. With my wife on the phone. I'm like, who are you talking to? Talking to Microsoft. Oh, no. I'm like, no.
    72:17
    Don't say that. I'm bored. No, it's fine. I gave them my credit card number of the remote again. I'm like, no.
    72:24
    No, you're not. You're unplugging everything out of the walls. Hoping it never happened, but anyways. You know what, It can happen to anybody, and especially with a sense of urgency. That's the thing. When you're not given an opportunity to kind of think and evaluate the situation, and you're just broadsided by something, and you need to react, it's hard to really make a sound judge. It's hard to make a sound decision. There's a show. They go undercover, and they talk to the ringleaders or the people who do this.
    72:57
    I recommend checking it out. I forgot the name of it. I just saw it the other day. That's great. recommend everybody check it out it's probably called i don't know what the name of it's called well you know we'll throw it in the show notes it's probably called scammers put it on the twitter account all right that's a wrap for episode 94 of special lit podcast if you want to email the show with questions comments observations we've got an email address set up and it's this special when lit podcast at gmail.com bill what's up with the instagram uh still rolling uh we post pictures occasionally of stuff that we've been or might be talking about in the future so definitely tune in Check that out from time to time. And the handle for that is SpecialWhenLitPinball. Outstanding. Steve, what's up with Twitter? Twitter, we're still waiting on credentials. Hey! So, you know, we'll get there one day. But we do have the domain part, SpecialWhenLitPodcast.com. We'll get that up and running at some point, I'm assuming. And another special thank you to the new patrons that joined and supported the show through Patreon.com.
    73:55
    Kaz and Andrew, welcome back to the family. Good to have you guys. Thank you, guys. We're going to try to take those four patrons and make it ten by the next time we broadcast. So that's going to be a good time. But for Bill Webb and Steve Beattie, I'm Ken Cromwell. Everybody have a good morning, good afternoon, good evening. And don't forget to take some time out of your day and play some pinball. So long, everybody. And it's chill. See you next episode.