And then also don't leave at the end of the show because I have something that I'm going to try. Sorry, my voice. I'm going to try this for the podcast. I did it before when I was doing a show called Coffee Talk, which is mostly arcade related. but I have a link I'm going to provide where you can leave a voicemail for the show. And then what I'll do is you can ask a question, you know, it could be anything, but you know, hopefully it's pinball related. If it's, if it's life related, sure. Maybe if it, maybe we'll talk about that too, but I would prefer it to be pinball related questions or questions about the pinball industry or whatever it might be. And then I will play those either in the front of the episode or the middle somewhere. I haven't chose, I haven't chose where I'll put it exactly, but I just thought that would be fun. So there'll be a link. You go to that link, you record a voicemail, and then I will get that voicemail. I'll screen them all before I do the podcast and we'll just talk about it. So we'll see like what questions you guys have. When I did it before, a lot of crazy, there was a lot of crazy ones and I played some of those too, but yeah, I mean, we can have fun with it, obviously bust on me, whatever you want, but it'd be fun to do that. So there'll be a link at the end of, there'll be a link in the YouTube version on the on on, you know, in the description of the video where you can you can hit it and hit the link and you can go record a voice message for the show. So. All right. So X-Men Notables, obviously Metallica was big for me and it definitely was big for everybody else. But there was a lot of other great things at Expo, too. The homebrew section was like off the chart this year. They actually have a had an actual section, not just pushed up against the wall, which is where they've been for years. So that's really cool to legitimize, you know, the homebrew section a little bit more because people are making some awesome creations and they should be celebrated, you know? I don't know why Tony Hawk was not in that area. Tony Hawk was over by Electric Playground, the guys that make the really cool pinball toppers. If you haven't seen that video, I made one on their Godzilla 70th black and white. It's really cool. And those guys are actually really cool. I had never met Rob in person. I got a chance to meet him. and I can't remember his partner's name, but he was really cool too. He was passing out, um, fireball, little fireball, little, uh, back East, we call those things nips. Those little alcohol bottles are called nips when I, where I grew up. And when I moved back, moved West and talked about nips, people were like, what the hell are you talking about? I was like the little nips. And they were like, okay, this guy's creepy. I'm like, dude, that's what we call them. So if you're listening to this podcast and you live back East, do you not call them nips because that's what we used to call them when i moved west everyone thought i was absolutely freaking insane for calling them that but anyway so uh let's talk real quick about the other notable notables for me i'd say um i'd say probably outside of metallica and uncanny x-men i did enjoy playing alice's adventures in wonderland if you watched my whole recap video on expo i did say it played a bit clunky but that was my initial experience of it i only got a chance to play four balls i played two and then melvin i think his name is melvin over there really nice guy by the way he was really cool and took some time um to really like uh kind of explain the layout and and what things you were supposed to shoot at and stuff but i don't know like for me and this is this is with all games guys like you gotta play them for a while before you can really come up with a like an assessment of what you like and what you don't like about the game because you can easily jump on a new game and have like a bunch of really bad balls at first until you really kind of get a feel for it. So take it with a grain of salt when I say it was clunky. I say it was clunky because my first couple games were not good. So maybe if I got into a flow after a little while, it would have been great, but I never got there. So and sometimes that happens. Like sometimes you jump on a game, like it took me a lot of games before I felt real good about Avatar. Like Avatar at first, it was just I didn't know the shots. I couldn't figure out that like scoop ramp thing. And then I finally did. So like after I figured that out, I enjoyed it more but that's like almost all pinball machines like it's very rare that i jump on something and i'm initially like oh my gosh this is the most amazing game ever because you have to learn the shots and then once you do then i think you really can that why it like i really shy away from doing like pinball review videos because um especially in the beginning i want to like play it for a while before i really give you my this is this is a game i really like and right now i'm really liking uncanny x-men i'll give you like my two second version on that is uh at first um it was weird because i had that like bad feeling about it after the live stream which i know a lot of you guys did too because the live stream just wasn't good when they when they featured it so i was a little nervous i kept my pre-order and then i got it and then once i got it i was like i felt a lot better about it i'd also talked to kale uh from electric bat we had that episode and he made me feel more comfortable with the fact that i had pre-ordered it because at that point i i still uh could have made a decision whether i wanted to back out or not and i didn't and i'm really liking the game the game is really fun the code is developing so i i shouldn't say when i say the game is fun, I'll say the shots are really fun. Like the shots are fun and satisfying. The code needs a lot of work still, but as they've progressed and they just drop another code release just recently, I'm seeing the progression and I'm enjoying the progression. I will say I was watching Triple Drain the other day or listening to it. And Travis was talking about this strategy. Actually, he has a video, a dedicated video to it too. So they were talking about it and then the pinball company has a dedicated video that travis did about strategies for playing uncanny x-men and uh one thing that that i i took away from from his video and i'm like oh man i've been doing this like a more difficult route is when you go to start a mode in uncanny x-men i was shooting that far left ramp twice and then it and then the post comes up it locks the ball and then it uh or not locks the ball but stops the ball and then the the mission user interface pops up. It's much easier, probably, if you go with the shot on the left of the Sentinel head, just do that twice, and then that'll start a mode. Also, you can kind of exploit that left-hand shot on the left side of the Sentinel head and kind of keep shooting that in a lot of the missions and kind of complete them a lot easier. That might be just a code exploit right now because you can kind of just do that shot and you can kind of defeat some of the missions the one thing i will say though if you're looking to rack up points quickly go with the more difficult missions versus the the go with the challenging missions versus the simple ones so i now start and this is because of travis but i start with the sentinel laboratory or whatever it is sentinel i can't remember what it's called it's the one so if you're if you've got the user interface up it's the one to the right of Juggernaut. So that's where I've been starting, and you can rack up some big points. Like right now, I can kind of average like 50 million after that, if I can complete that the first time. But the cool thing about the new code is it actually saves the progress of that mission. So if you don't complete the mission and you don't drain the ball, I think, I don't know, actually, if you drain the ball, I think it still applies too. But you can go back into that mission and complete it, and your progress is saved. So it's not like you have to start that mission all over again. But I'd like to see more depth in the missions and everything. Like there's just, it's new, right? And that leads me to something I wanted to talk about a little bit. We keep talking about this on the podcast, and I kind of talked about it a little bit, about the code and how a lot of these companies roll out their products. I'd say they don't all roll them out the same. Jersey Jack seems to put more time into the code. So what you get delivered is not, I don't know if I'd say it's code complete, but it's close to code complete. And then they kind of make like subsequent almost patch updates to what would be like a completed code base. That seems to be how Jersey Jack does it. And I think that's actually kind of nice because what you're getting is more of the completed game with the rules well thought out. But when you're buying a modern Stern, you're really getting, if you decide to go new in box and buy it brand new, you're getting like minimal code, right? It's like you can call it a working game, but a lot of the deep rule sets are not developed. I mean, if you look at Uncanny X-Men, there is no published rule sheet yet. I actually think on John Wick there might not be a published rule sheet yet either. I know Jaws, I'm pretty sure, has one now. I'm pretty sure. So, like, think about it. I bought Jaws late, later. And what I experienced is way different than the person that bought Jaws day one. So I did buy Jaws new in box, but I bought it way later than, let's say, someone that bought it at launch. And my experience was like, oh, man, this game's amazing. I don't know if I unboxed that day one if I would have said that. Just like how John Wick, the latest code just dropped on John Wick. They added a lot more new features, but the modes in John Wick are still kind of incomplete. And they feel really confusing. I don't know what the hell I'm supposed to do. on John Wick modes. Like, I don't. I'm like, I'm just going to hit all these lit shots. I mean, it seems like you'll go into some mission and it'll be like, you know, you're hitting the lit shots, but it just doesn't feel like that satisfying to me. But on the flip side, the new lights out feature is really cool, although it doesn't do a whole lot, but it's kind of cool. Like, you spell Bob, I don't know. I forget the term from the movie, but you spell it down at the bottom, and then when you spell it it um you the the your action button will flash it's red i think and then you hit it and like all the lights go out on the play field so it's really cool it kind of makes it challenging i think what they're trying to do there is it's supposed to be like although this is weird because i view you playing as john wick like when you're playing that game i feel like you're playing as keanu reeves as john wick but the lights out feature kind of reminds me of kane because Kane is blind. So if you've watched John Wick 4, Kane is a blind assassin. So I think that's what they're trying to do with the lights out. And then I didn't play with it that much yet. I just started playing it because really most of my attention is going on Kenny X-Men right now. I think you can hit the action button again, and then it will quickly show you some of the stuff you're supposed to hit, and then it goes back to dark again. It's really a cool effect. Like from a lighting perspective, it looks awesome. And if you're in a dim room, it's pretty badass. and they incorporated a lot more music into it now. The soundtrack, there was no DJ mixer mode even on that game yet. So that's now in the code. The lights out features now in the code and it seems like they're exploiting or using the music a lot more. So it's got a good vibe. It's getting there. So I'm having fun with that, but unfortunately Uncanny X-Men's getting the majority of the time. And I realized that I'm not at all talking about Expo right now. So that's awesome. But yeah, I did want to mention one more thing about Uncanny X-Men before we move on to other Expo stuff and just some general news topics is that the auto plunger thing has been a total pain in the ass. I published a YouTube short where they sent me a new auto plunger assembly. The only thing I'll say is it looked like the forks were pushed inward more, like almost diagonal inward, which made it kind of have an impact on the ball that was much different than the forks it shipped with. So the auto plunger forks were kind of straight dead on before. So that did help. But when I filmed that short, I did three plunges. All three went all the way around. so i was like cool it fixed it you know but if you look at the the comments or the pinned comment i made on that video it didn't fix it it's actually kind of got progressively worse now not worse than new in box but it's definitely not sticking as a as a solution i think there's a lot more going on and i've talked to a bunch of different people there's community members on pin side and stuff trying to address it in different ways and honestly i don't really think anybody's come up with a solution that's stuck to get 100% of the auto plunger success. I just haven't seen that yet. So I do have, I did have an initial case open or ticket open with Stern. They did send that part, but I did now reopen a new one to say, Hey, that didn't seem to work. And I'm working with, um, I'm working with, uh, Kyle over there. So if you know, Kyle, Kyle is the one that does the, uh, Stern tech school thing. I've met him a couple of times. It was interesting because I saw his name, I'm like, Kyle, Kyle. I was like, oh, it's that Kyle. I was like, the Kyle that told me how to adjust the Jaws chum line. Like, so cool. He's a really nice guy, by the way. I met him in person. Super nice guy. I think he was only hired like a year or a year and a half ago at Stern. So thanks, Kyle, for helping me out with that so far. I know that you're probably working on a lot of different potential fixes for it. So I've tried a couple of the things that you've suggested. It's making some marginal improvements, but yeah, hopefully we can get that fixed. I'm not one to go like flame a company because something isn't working right. I want to take the time to work with them. That's just my style. I'm definitely more of an optimistic person, a positive person. I'm not going to sit in here and say how everything's like crap because it's not working. Now, if the company wasn't working with me, like if Stern decided, hey, like there's all these people opening up tickets and no one's, they're not helping. Well, that's different. Now, Now you're going to have a different attitude. But if a company has a problem, which all companies do, right? Let's face it. All of these pinball companies or any company in general that releases a product never has flawless execution And there always some kind of problem here and there or potential problem here and there and they working to fix it So if they weren being so helpful in wanting to fix it then yeah, I would say that would be grounds for me being upset. But just my personality style, I kind of more of a calm, cool, collected kind of a guy. I'm not going to go and go freak out and go nuts. Is it a bummer? Am I upset and disappointed about the auto plunger? sure but i'm also seeing that um they're gonna fix the issue um the only thing that's kind of a bummer is it does kind of affect it does affect multi-ball because when multi-ball is coming out it's obviously shooting them out and at rapid succession and if it's not going all the way around the backside and feeding that that right flipper it it prevents you from playing the game properly during that and then also um if if you if you drain a ball and you get a ball save or not, sorry, not drain a ball and get a ball save. But when you do the first launch and you want to get your skill shot, it can sometimes interfere with that too because the skill shot timer could be kind of depleted and then now you're not going to get it. I will say my manual plunger, my fix for that is I put on the red spring, not getting 100% success rate, but really close. It's like 90, 95% success rate. So that's really good. All right, let's keep going. Do I have any regrets from Expo? My one regret is that I really didn't spend a lot of time in that free play room and there were a lot of really awesome games in there. I'm so bummed about that, but I spent a lot of time on the show floor. And then I did have, I say I didn't do as much filming and stuff, which that's true, but I still had obligations. I did the pinball project thing and that was really fun that the team over there was really great. So I announced their silent auction winners. Very fun. If you've never checked out, check them out, go, go check them out. I'll have a link in the description, but they do a lot of great things. They put, they put games in children's hospitals and Ronald McDonald houses. So, uh, they're, they're doing a lot of great work over there. Then I did, uh, participate with Bob Rose and the token taverns, uh, token taverns panel, because I was in that movie. Uh, Bob's a good friend. So, so I wanted to support him through that. And then, uh, what else did I do? Oh, and then I made a, I did a podcast. So I did that podcast with kale, Rachel, and then Jamie over at wormhole, which was really fun. But you know, a lot of that stuff takes a long time to set up. Like you're setting up all your gear and you don't realize how much time between setup tear down you know go put that back away and then go back on the show floor so anyways and uh yeah i'm getting older i'm 45 so i don't i don't uh do as well with uh i think it was the triple drain guys it might have been it might have been tom yeah it might have been tom tom was talking about how like man it's hard if you don't get a lot of sleep it's true like i used to be able to roll on roll into these conferences in the past and just get like three hours of sleep and be like, yeah, I'm rocking it now. Not so much. So, yeah, I don't take naps, though. If I did, I think that would be helpful for an expo. I think it'd be cool to like do a quick power nap and come back. And that is what I like about staying on location there. It is kind of really convenient. All right. Anyways, let's go on to the next thing. I have some notes here. Oh, the other thing, too, that was really cool, I think, is that so my regrets would be not hanging out in that free play room a little bit more. but one of the cool things is I did get to meet several people I hadn't met before but also I did get finally got a chance to meet Travis and I feel like I've met Tom this is all the triple drain guys I feel like I've met Tom before but I can't remember but we had a second to talk it was really Travis and Tom I don't know where Joel was though like I didn't see Joel I feel like I never really get any time with Joel I don't know why like I see him and then he's gone But I was kind of joking with Travis. I'm like, for a while, I really thought you guys, because they rip on Joel so much. I'm like, do you guys just not like him? I know they do. It's just like a joke now. But I think there are people that probably message them to this day and think that they really dislike their friend. And it's obvious they're just a group of good guys who have become friends over time. But, yeah. So I guess if there was another regret, it would have been nice to catch up with them later and get more time with them. And then Ian, my buddy from Nudge Magazine, I really didn't get a chance to hang out with him much. We did hang out for a little bit, but it was brief.