Aaron couldn't make it yet. I don't think Aaron was in town yet. So we go up to this house and it's a beautiful house. I mean, he has got a, it's a beautiful, beautiful home. And we walk in and he's got name tags to put on. He's got donuts laid out. And then you look beyond the sort of grand entrance and there's a guy making bloody, he hired a bartender. I mean, he hired a freaking bartender. So Russell knows how to do up a party and his game selection was just, I mean, he didn't have a lot of older classic games, but holy crap, he had like almost everything that's been new in the past like five years, maybe even 10. It was just everything. But what struck me about his house the most outside of their amazing hospitality, by the way, they did have people making food for us too. So there was this whole spread of food. They had this like grand, I didn't take any video footage of this. I wanted to be like, you know, Russell didn't have any problem with it, but I don't know. I was in someone else's home. I didn't want to be like that guy that just got his camera out all the time. And I did film some stuff. Oh man, my zipper's down. My wife always, I just looked down at my, I felt a draft. My wife always makes fun of me whenever we go anywhere. She looks at my zipper and she's like, your fly's down. Like I always have my fly down. I don't know why, but yeah, that's a really interesting sidetrack. But I didn't have my fly down at Russell's house, luckily. So yeah, so I was enamored with his collection and just his passion for pinball. There was a lot of people there. There was a lot of community people there. I got to meet, I think it's Jerry. I always get his name. I think it's Jerry. I think it's Jerry from P3 Multimorphic. He was there. A couple of guys from Barrels of Fun were there. And then there was just a bunch of community members there as well. But he had like in this one room, he had this spiral staircase in the corner. He had Big Lebowski. And this room was like this like old mahogany wood. Like, I don't know. It just it fit the vibe. And he just had he had a spiral staircase. And then the Big Lebowski was right there. and then in that room he had a couple more pins and i can't remember which ones he had in there i want to say maybe he had guns and roses maybe and then john wick and something else in that one room but it was like this really cool vibe in that room and then upstairs if you walked up that spiral staircase there were more games up there there was a bunch of games in the grant in like the grand entrance area which i don't think were there normally his wife was like look we're we move these here for you guys coming so it's just it's just really cool for him to do that so the reason why I'm telling you all this is that next year, you know, the plan is to host the Twippies again in Houston. I think the plan would be to do it at the wormhole. And this, these activities that I'm going to, that I'm talking about would be things you'd be able to do as well for next year. And we're probably even going to plan more for next year. So anyway, so Russell, thank you. If you listen to this, he was awesome. Uh, the game that I was enamored that he had is he had an immaculate pirates of the Caribbean with that topper. And I can't remember the name of the company that makes that topper. It was, it was, I want to say it was like 2,500 bucks when it came out and it's got like an LCD screen of the ocean and it has, uh, it's like ocean waves and it's got like thunder and lightning effects. And then it has, it's just, it's just really cool. Uh, for those of you that are watching this, I'll try to overlay some footage so you can kind of see what I'm talking about, but if not, and you want to, you want to see what I'm talking about, just go watch the video on retro Ralph. It's it's the, my latest video and it's all about this event. So then from there we go to the wormhole wormholes vault so wormhole pinball has their own location but this is their vault location so in their vault location it's all games that they've acquired that are kind of coming in um it's a little bit of like an overflow of the collection but some of it is also things that are brand new that they just got right so they're in various states of repair some of them are working fine but it's like all these crazy rare european titles like things i had never played before. And it's weird when you start playing these old games like the Zachariah. I always say Zachariah, Zachariah, Zachariah. I don't know what the proper I never get it right. Some people say it different ways. So so whatever. If you want to correct me in the comments, go for it. But there was this one game and I can't remember the name of it. It was a Zachariah game. And in the play field, it was a time machine, I think it was called. Right. So there was a shot on the left and I just it made me think oh my gosh the innovation for a game made this long ago you'd hit the shot from the left and the playfield looked flat and then the whole playfield would come up so that it was like hidden under the under the playfield and it would pop up and all of a sudden you'd have all these other shots to hit it was so freaking cool the other thing that's really cool that I'm not as I'm not as in tune with these Zachariah games but I almost wish that like modern titles would take on some of this cool stuff that they used to do. So when you drain on ball three, depending on how well you did, you get another ball. So it's like your final, it's like your final attempt. And then depending on how you play, you have a timer that times down. So if you're playing better, I don't know what the criteria is in the code, but if you're playing better, you get more of a timer of this last ball and you just play and that timer is ticking down and you have that fourth ball to play and then once your timer's up like your flippers just die it's like kind of cool because the whole game just like sort of dies i think that's really neat the other game that i played that's i think zachariah 2 is called robot and that one it had like a shot on the left and when you'd hit it these little robot heads would pop up like almost like whack-a-mole and you'd hit them down like there was just so many cool innovative old games that I got to experience that some of them were like one of one or one of not many, like maybe like five that still exist. And then you start looking on pin side and it's like no location has them. So like they're the only ones. So it's really cool. This other game I played was this horror theme game called Terrific Lake. In my mind, it's terrific, like terror, but it's spelt terrific it was weird man like the audio was super i don't know like it it was an older game so of course they can't exploit like some of the modern technologies that they have in like modern audio packages with the technology that they have in today's world but but man they had like a heartbeat and just the tension it built in a game that was that old i was just fascinated so i was really so the vault was really cool you could have spent hours in there we were there for about an hour and a half. I think that we stayed a little bit longer than that, but it was just so cool to see all these games that will eventually end up in the wormhole in there, you know, for people to play. So I think the thought is that they kind of cycle games in and out. I know I was talking to Jamie and he said they have this rule that if it ends up at the wormhole, they have to at least stream it once. Like it has to be documented before it goes back into the vault. And then obviously, I think there's probably staple games that are probably just always going to stay on the floor. So anyways, the vault was really cool, and everyone really enjoyed the vault. So far, this is only Friday, and we've gone to Russell's house, which was epic, and then we go to this wormhole vault. So you're playing all of these super rare games. There's some modern ones in there, but not much. It was mostly just like rarities, oddities, and like one-off games like that. Lots of conversions, like really cool. There was one, I can't remember the name of it. There was basically a straight ripoff of Neverending Story. It was an old game, though, so it didn't have like modern music in it really. But all the artwork, like these European games, like they didn't care about licensing. They were like, yeah, cool, whatever. Like there was a play field that had like Starsky and Hutch and RoboCop on it. It was like a cop themed game. I can't remember the name of that. But yeah, like super cool stuff over there. So this, keep in mind, we're still on, we're only on day one. So I would urge you if you want to go on a cool trip next year, and I don't know, there's some debate going on of when the Twippies are going to be next year. So just kind of hold off. I don't know when it will be, but just start thinking about, like, this could be a cool thing for you to go to. And I know they're going to limit the tickets. But anyway, so that's two events in one day. But boom, there was one more event. So Eureka Heights Brewing opened up their doors to anybody on the tour. I mean, you could have just gone there, obviously, but the whole thing was this was the third stop on the first day. And then we did an IFPA tournament. that was also a Dungeons & Dragons launch party. That was super fun. They had a food truck that was making tacos. The tacos were amazing. The beers were pretty good. I got to meet Craig, who, so this guy Craig helped me fix my, you know, rest in peace, uncanny X-Men, because you're no longer in the collection. But I did play the new code at Russell's house. I'm actually, like, it's getting there. They're making some improvements. I'm sure I'll actually regret it at some point if they keep making improvements. But I don't know. I don't I don't want to say bad things about Uncanny X-Men, because honestly, I love Jack and the design is really innovative and it is very fun to shoot. It's just I want more out of the code for me personally. And I think a lot of others feel that way, too. But but I can appreciate the effort that Jack put into the design, like the design of that game is really cool. I mean, he won at the Twippies. They won for for top innovation, you know, for the danger room. so anyways but uh i don't know where i was going with that oh so i met this guy craig that i had only talked to on pin side and he the one that helped me fix my auto plunge issue before there was an actual fix and he got me to like basically 85 success rate so it was kind of cool to meet someone that I had only talked to on Pinside in real life And then I'll tell you one more thing about the Eureka Heights. So I was playing pretty good in the tournament at first. I got Rick and Morty and man, I suck at that game. I just suck at Rick and Morty. And it's weird because I know I never play good on it. So I get in my own head. So I was terrible. I think I played with Mark Seiden, for those of you who don't know Mark, Mark is actually the designer for Avatar. I think I played that game with him. I played one of the games, I played one game with Mark and one game with Mark's wife. They're freaking very cool people. Like, oh my gosh, super, super cool. The Sidons are like quality people. Very, very nice people. So anyways, I hung out with them, you know, and it was really cool because fast forward to the Twippies, they won for the best art package which i thought was very much like they deserve that oh my gosh avatar is beautiful the game is freaking beautiful so anyway so one more story from the eureka fights that was fun is i was playing with ian in from nudge magazine aka doc monday and i usually do pretty well on jaws and tournaments and man i just was struggling ball one and ball two were not good and ian put up like dude like 800 million on jaws in a tournament and i'm like there's no way there's no way i'm to come back. I came back a little bit, but not like I had a really good ball three, but that was kind of disappointing. I get a little stressed. I love Ian. He's a really good friend of mine. I get a little stressed when I play with Ian though. Like he's, he's kind of intense and I feel like I let him, like he also likes getting in my head, but I had a couple of cool games with Ian. I actually did beat him in Dungeons and Dragons by about 10 million when I was way behind, way behind. I started the game with like 20 million and he was up to 210, I think, million. and that was his ball three. And then I finished at 220 million. So, and by the way, speaking of Dungeons and Dragons, because this was a Dungeons and Dragons launch party, I'm really liking Dungeons and Dragons, guys. I can't sit here and tell you that I could explain the rules to you. It takes me a while. I'm not like Joel, who's just like a computer when it comes to, I really don't know. I don't know if Joel listens to the podcast, but he's a unique individual, man. I don't know how he can remember everything about a game like that. It takes me tons of plays. And even then, I don't think I could explain it as good as him. Like he just digests the code and knows it. And I, and look, you don't have to be that way. Like you don't have to know every little thing about a pinball game to enjoy it. But I think once you start learning the code well in any game, you will have more fun because you start understanding the progression of the game. I will say this though. I've been thinking about this ever since my trip from playing some of the older games and then playing because I was playing a lot of old classics and rare, rare games, all every different manufacturer. And I'll say that like modern pinball can be difficult to understand. And but I think I don't know. I don't envy the designers and the developers trying to figure out how do you make a game that has enough accessibility so that someone new can have fun and not be discouraged by it. So that's a that's a that's a tough thing. I think for the hobby to continue to grow, you have to serve both customers. You have to serve the person that's really good, right, that's been in the hobby for a long time because you don't want them to be bored. But you also can't be so – you can't make it be so unapproachable that the new person is like so turned off because they can't have fun not understanding the code. So anyways, I'm going on a diatribe there. So anyways, I had a really fun time there. I talked to one of the guys over at Barrels of Fun. And for some reason, I can't remember his name. Not David, but he was really nice. Really nice guy. And I met him for the first time. We played Toy Story together, Toy Story 4. And I beat him. He owned the game, and I did beat him. I think I got first on Toy Story 4. You know what's funny about Toy Story 4? I don't hate that game. I actually find that game pretty fun, and I think people hate it. I don't know why they hate it. I think Toy Story 4 is pretty fun. Would I want to own it? No. Do I think it should have been Toy Story 1? Yes. or maybe like all of them. But yeah, like it's a, I had fun with it. I have fun with, every time I play Toy Story 4, I have fun with it. I love that little ramp that you can shoot the ball off of. I don't know, man. Some people just, some people, I wonder if they just hate it because other people say that it's bad. I really enjoy it every time I play it. But again, you know, asterisk, would I want to own it? Maybe not. Okay, we got to hurry up because we're not going to get through the rest of the day. So that was Friday. Epic, freaking epic. Oh, by the way, on Friday night, So Friday night after the Eureka thing, we didn't get out of there until almost 11. And I was talking to Jamie, and I was like, dude, we got to go back and test the freaking streams and test everything. We have to make sure everything is good. Test the internet. Test all the scenes that he had for the show. Because it was very complex. I mean, I'd say Jamie was really pushing the limits of what OBS can do. I use OBS to record this podcast. I've used OBS a lot. I used to do a lot more live streaming. And OBS is like an open source piece of software. and he was really pushing the limits of what it can do. So anyways, there was some last minute things that, it wasn't my job, by the way, to help in a technical way. That wasn't really, I was just a host. But I asked Jamie, I was like, can I help? Like, I want to help. So I did get stuff, you know, kind of, I pushed some of the limits on some of the things. Like the mics weren't sounding like I thought they should. It was picking up a lot of like background pinball noise. And I just said, hey, that might not sound great on stream. So I kind of tuned all that stuff up to sound as good as it could. We had some issues during the show. I'll get to that in a minute. But yeah, like there was an actual internet outage, which sucked all of the upload speeds. So the download speeds were fine. Upload speeds were completely crippled. And it just happened to happen in like 15 minutes into the show. So that's not easy to do. I used to do lots of live streaming. I don't as much anymore. It is difficult when you have a technical problem. Like now I get a little bit more calm and cool with that because I work in a technical field. I used to have to do live demos for a customer. You just got to like, when an issue like that happens, you just got to stay chill and you got to like be level-headed. Don't freak out. And that's kind of like Aaron and I were like Jamie's calmness. Like, hey, Jamie, we got this. Like we'll stop the stream and we'll figure it out. And that's what we did. And we just continued. We had a couple of other technical glitches, but I also got to hand it to Jamie. He was producing and hosting at the same time. I don't really think that's – I don't think he should do that next year. I think we need someone to produce and then the host to be host, you know, because then they can deal with the, you know, it's more seamless. The hosts are fully engaged and not doing two things. You know what I mean? So anyway, so that was Friday. So we went back to the wormhole. Then we went to eat after that. So I didn't get back to my hotel until a little after 1 a.m. So keep in mind, that's day one, and we haven't even got to the Twippy Day yet. So then Saturday morning hits, and we go to Barrels of Fun.