Don't let it show, get all inside, like a pain in the shard, get out this time Your attention, cause I can't let it show, please don't give it all your attention You are the only one for the process, live with the best and some will leave your space This is cause I'm a rock, this is my ground, can't get the fuck away from all your Alexa, Alexa, pause. Let's do this. Saturday morning. Camino. Oh. How's everybody doing? We're coming in. We're preaching to the choir. Can I get the mic a little bit higher? What up? Live video blocked. resume. They blocked my live video because of the music. I love it. How's everybody doing? Let's do this. Demon Hunter style. My hair's all over the place. Let's get this over here. Am I in the front or the back? I can't even tell if I have this on straight or not. I think so. This is going to be hard. sad boy baby 100 buckaroos have fun at expo my man use this towards your balling out dinner and make sure to light predator on fire in front of everybody to see oh gee sad boy i'm not gonna light predator on fire but i am curious to see how that game plays how's everybody doing welcome to canada's pinball podcast i got a new wire here we are all good let's turn it up can i get the mic a little bit higher ah ah it's like hairs are like in my face how's everybody doing how's everybody doing we are here we are jamming it is a week before it's a week of expo i think everyone realizes that expo is gonna be it's gonna be star wars and nothing else right no walking dead nothing predator dune we're gonna talk all about what's going on in the pinball world I've been lighting fires talking about Eric Gilly I got someone else reached out to me gave me some more inside information on the whole deal with like stern pinball what's going on over there are they losing it are they losing the swag or the momentum how can they beat a guy like this Don's pinball podcast we're getting close to reconciliations he's back on the page it's nice to see next on the list retro Ralph gotta look me in the eye he's you know Ralph's gonna have to look me in the eye like this big what's up baby Ralph are you saying that you you don't want to be friends because you think I'm an immature 49 year old man child who who will say stuff unexpectedly. I'm going to get your Ralph, we're going to get you back into the fold. It's not the dark side, this is the light side of the force, I think what everyone's realizing is that maybe just maybe Canadian's been right all these years. Maybe he's been right. Maybe these guys keep getting burned and they're tired of getting burned. And maybe they realize that Stern isn't the answer. They make fun games, but lots of stuff happening over there that I think has a lot of people nervous. It's a boutique moment in pinball. It's a boutique moment. You're looking at Demon Hunter, baby. Demon Hunter. If you haven't seen Demon Hunter, if you have not seen K-pop Demon Hunters, you're just missing the biggest thing in the world right now. You want to talk about selling pinball machines? It's not about John Wick. It's about Demon Hunter. Hold on. I got to turn off my audacity. It's messing up my volume levels here. Let's force quit this bad boy audacity. You're gone. Quit. What else we want to quit on? Let's see. I got to get the mic a little bit higher. I can't even hear it. How's everybody doing? don you've seen you've seen demon hunters man i know don's the kind of guy that gets into this stuff you gotta geek out over the stuff that's like the fun stuff right now demon hunters man it's all about k-pop demon hunters i like literally it is so good it's it's it's all right output wow was that was i not outputting through the mic let's see input volume there we go all right so now I hear something in my ear how's it sound output all right is that good are we good are we sounding good all right now I mean okay there we go Kaneda I can hear myself now uh is it better than Akira yeah it is it is better than Akira it'll k-pop demon hunters will have more of a it it hit with more of an impact on the global culture than akira will ever the songs are insanely good is right jeff like if you don't if you don't like i tell people all the time like you can't be prejudiced in this world you got to give stuff a chance it's like you know many people like wouldn't listen to the new machine gun kelly album MGK, and then they listened to Lost Americana. It's one of the best albums in the last five years, and I think you guys will have an amazing time if you listen to it. Don't go into it thinking old MGK. It's an incredible album. What are you and what have we done? Ah, can I get the mic a little bit higher? Oh. Okay, so we're going to go around the pinball horn today we're gonna talk about all the companies i got a lot of work to do this weekend i'm going to expo uh i land thursday morning very early i'm out saturday midday and i can't wait to go i've managed to make it to this year's show without being threatened that the police will be called if i show up you guys know that happened to me one year they were like if you show up We will call the cops on you, Kaneda. Can you imagine being in the Chicago Police Department and you're battling violent crimes and a phone call comes in from a cargo short wearing coward and is like, sir, we have a Chris from Connecticut, 49-year-old father of two husband with a nice career. he's about to descend upon our pinball show and wreck havoc. He's about to create an incredible disruption to a bunch of middle-aged men with cargo shorts who are spending $15,000 in a city where most people are struggling to put food on the table, and he's about to walk in here with his Gucci on and make us feel ashamed of ourselves in Schaumburg, Illinois. Okay, let's get the cops on Kaneda. Let's ban Kaneda. Can't do it. Can't do it. I'm coming, baby. I'm coming. When you think about, you think about these grown men wanting to cancel other grown men who have opinions about pinball, you know, you got to think about like, you know, how micro can a penis get? And I think they've got some pretty micro penises on those grown men who, ah, Canada, he said it again. He said nobody wants to buy Dune. It's not that nobody wants to buy Dune. And Dune is a beautiful game. You know, I was watching, was it RF Pinball? Was it over there in Europe, like cleaning a Dune machine? Dune is like such a beautiful machine I still don't want. It's just my opinion about Dune. I just I just if I never see the Timothy Shama movie again, I will feel fulfilled in life. It's just not what I want. It's just it's a beautiful rendition of a theme that people just don't want. Look at Tron Aries. The new movie bombed, bombed. Thank God Stern didn't go all in on a Tron Aries pinball machine. Forget it. It would have bankrupted the company. You know, you've got to make stuff that has staying power. You know, the Dune TV show on HBO bombed like nobody watched it like Dune. Dune's like Avatar. It's an IMAX spectacle. Think about the new Avatar. Nobody cares about the new Avatar movie coming out. Nobody. Nobody's like, oh, man, I wonder what happened with Jake Sully and his family. Nobody gives a damn about Jake Sully and his family. Nobody. I don't even if I asked you to name me four characters in Avatar, you'd be like, I'm going to get back to you on that. Name me four characters from Dune. Like right now, can you guys name me four characters from Dune, the movie? Four. Huh? Just four characters from Dune. Anybody? I'll wait. I can name you four characters from Die Hard, from Top Gun. I can name you four characters from Karate Kid, four characters from Star Wars, four characters from Avengers, four characters from Big Trouble in Little China. You know what I'm saying? That's it. Can't name you four characters. Let's make the pinball machine. And now I'm seeing like, well, Barrels, man, they got an announcement. They got a personnel announcement. Did you see that, ladies? Now we're promoting. We don't have any news at the show, so we're going to promote a new hire to Barrels of Fun. who's it gonna be Steven Bowden Bowen Kerins is he already over there like it's you know it's gonna be some pinball person we all know the only hire that would make sense would be hired Jack Danger maybe I don't know I just I love it when pinball companies like we have to have news we have to stay relevant we got to sell these damn labyrinths man we've got 75 unsold labyrinth games how are we gonna sell these bad boys are we gonna sell them before beetlejuice comes out we're not we're not gonna sell them are we gonna sell these hundreds of dunes left to be sold big news from barrels wayne what's the big news wayne wayne what's the big news brother is it gonna be big news wayne are we gonna be like wow they got who they get who'd they get the problem is is like whatever they announce think about it whatever barrels announces on monday when are you going to see their end result of whatever the hire is when are you going to see it i mean they literally going to make dune for another year jeng is in the house don is in the house you know look we're gonna talk all about these pinball companies the eve of expo let's call that the like the theme of this show you know i i got a savage note do you want me to read this like i got a savage email from someone who's like bro you've got eric gilly all wrong i mean let me know if you want me to read this later like let's say this if we get to um if we get to 5 000 stars and 200 bucks on YouTube let's do this let's do a little let's try a little orbiter Albert let's hide stuff behind the paywall let's hide stuff yeah I love that all this is free now let's let's both make it free and pay wallet if we get five thousand stars and two hundred dollars on YouTube I will share with you a savage email that is a takedown takedown takedown if you don't know demon hunters you don't I'm talking about a savage takedown of eric gilly stern cgc planetary and stern's relationship with williams um so yeah but you know what you're gonna have to pay to hear it because it was a personal email now the person did not identify like brian brian with the 99 cents we only got 99 to go um but that's those are the terms and conditions five thousand stars 200 bucks on youtube and you get it you get it um fizzy two bucks i love it we're getting there we're slowly crawling there um look i think that it is so much fun it is so much fun where we are all at right now in pinball we are going to get a teaser to beetlejuice maybe maybe doesn't matter like it doesn't matter like like literally if bug and luke were like chris how do we or kaneda right how do we get hyped for beetlejuice like uh the game is sold out not only that i i still think some of you have not got on a list with your distros to get it i i are Are there some of you out there that think you're just going to like get one the old fashioned way? Like, I'm just trying to warn a lot of you out there that if you try to get this Beetle Juice the old fashioned way, you're going to get locked out. And this will be a game, mark my words, where scalpers will buy multiples of it and flip them for 18K. I'm on the record. I'm on the record for saying that looking at the market of Evil Dead at 15k a pop That Beetlejuice's will be 18k a pop And I'm seeing a mass exodus of Stern ownership and machines. I'm seeing it like they're all going up for sale Everyone's kind of because here's why and I mean this when I say this I would rather have one $18,000 Beetlejuice in which there will only ever be 999 in the world versus a $10,000 Stern premium, which there will be thousands of them in the world. And even any $13,000 Stern LE, because here's the thing about a Stern LE, we all know Stern LEs now mean nothing. And so if you own a Jaws LE, okay, cool. Thousands of people own Jaws premium, which is the same exact game. Thousands of people or a thousand or more people have jaws 50th so you literally have nothing special nothing unique nothing like you literally are paid for decals there will only be a thousand beetle juices in the world for the rest of eternity that's why these games are going to go up to 18 000 because i'd rather have one beetle juice for 18 then have two stern premiums and the good news is is beetle juice will not be $18,000. It'll be $9,999. $999 is not a lot, Jeff. Jeff, there's only one trim, brother. It's a lot when it's the LE of a game that also has a mass-produced premium. $999 of Beetlejuice, nine times I can say it. Jeff, it's going to sell out in nine minutes. Beetlejuice is a horrible theme. Okay. This is where we go. These guys. Okay. Pat, Pat's Arcade. Pat probably bought John Wick LE. Pat probably bought Venom. And Pat probably bought Star Wars Fall of the Empire. So, Pat, enjoy those games you have. You really get it. Beetlejuice is like the best theme we've had in a long time. John Ehrlich. Is that John Ehrlich? Ehrlich? I don't know. I don't think it's spelled the right way. I can't even read. Pat. Pat, I mean, I could use numbers to prove you wrong, but, Pat, you know what will just prove you wrong? If it was a bad theme, it wouldn't sell out in nine minutes. So when it sells out in nine minutes, Pat, and you're begging Kaneda to give you one of the games Spooky's going to give me to give to my fan club members, we'll talk, brother. You guys are out of your minds. Beetlejuice is okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Tim Burton classic that has spawned millions of dollars in merchandise and Broadway show and has stood the test of time and is an iconic property. It's okay. Like these dudes. Oh, you know what? Okay. Is John Wick King Kong with no assets. I love it. I love it. I love it, people. Yeah, with pinball boomers, guys, I don't know what you guys are smoking, but here, have some. Beetle juice is just okay. Yeah, how many of you clowns just bought Star Wars Fall of the Empire LE? Show of hands, how many clowns out there just lost $3,000? Because you guys all just lost $3,000. I love it. I love it. I love the Stern. Look at Neil. Neil McCray went on Pinside and said that Stern has a backlog of orders. What did this guy is a joke. He's turned into a total joke. Stern's got a backlog of orders. He's like Stern's got a backlog of orders as long as you're on. No, they don't. Neil, only only you are the one ordering from them at that volume. like like seriously like as these games pile up as they're like basically demoting their director of sales as you know direct designers and people are unhappy yes stern's got a backlog of orders come easily this is like the stern apologist right now what they're grasping onto is so comical and it's so off base they don't have a backlog of orders they're in trouble everyone everyone knows it it's like so funny to me though these dudes can't just wake up they can't wake up and just accept the reality of and and then neil's out there trying to give spooky advice like they need his advice they don't need his advice trying to tell spooky what they need to do to be successful uh uh neil last time i checked stern pinball is the one that's floundering that's in big trouble and look i'm talking to people that work at stern i mean this is like legit inside information it is not good it is not good so we are 50 bucks away from the savage email but i love it because what's gonna happen next i what's gonna happen next is um is we're all gonna we're all gonna win we're all gonna win yeah see see jack danger knows who roomie is it's it's it's time jack you know people have no idea like k-pop demon hunters of the pinball machine uh this is where like if i'm if i'm David Van Es if i'm spooky if i'm brett abbis and if i'm george gomez or jody dankberg go get k-pop demon hunter ip k-pop demon hunter as a pinball machine would sell to every single pinball buyer that has any child that is age like 6 to 60. but they don't do it they don't know how to hit relevance when it's hot they don't like the fact that there's still no barbie pinball machine is just goes to show you how out of touch how out of touch these licensing people are we don't buy pinball machines for our kids yeah you yeah what do you also like and this is i this is my challenge to all of you out there go watch the movie and tell me it wouldn't make for an amazing pinball game it's just an amazing movie and like if you call yourself a nerd or a geek and you like okay let's just let's just like break it down do you like animation do you like great music do you like an amazing storyline do you like like memorable moments okay so it has all of that so remember when you used to be like a little kid and you had an open mind and you actually like engaged with things that were special there's a reason why k-pop demon hunters took over the world took over the global music charts and when netflix put it into the movie theaters it became the number one movie in america so you could you could hunker down in your cargo short world and say that stern should make pantera or we need an ozzy osbourne pin like you could you could be that guy or you could actually go listen and watch what is one of the greatest animated movies of all time and it's like if disney made this movie it would be one of the biggest disney hits of all time or you could just you know go go on thecargoshort.com and order one with 18 pockets and you know put all of the five thousand dollars you're losing on every stern le in each pocket and walk around feeling dejected. I mean, it's your choice, not mine. I mean, look, I'm just living my life. I'm just living a golden life. It's going to be going to be golden, you know, ready for the takedown. You have to understand this. I mean, I've never seen a song just like stay at number one for so many weeks. No, no, no, no. patrick like avatar avatar soundtrack was a hit you listening to the avatar theme song if i offered a thousand dollars to someone who could actually hum the avatar theme song nobody would be paid nobody you know you know bug you get it you get it you get it brother um Um, bug, I got a, I got a gift for you guys. I don't know. Like, are you guys driving to expo? I don't know if I should mail it to the hotel or I should mail it to your house or your, your offices. But like, can you text me after this? I got a, something I want to send you guys. Um it you love it Oh my God You got you Ozzy guys Man man man Jack, that's not the avatar. Oh, man. Brian Gilley. Yo, Jack, how's Brian Gilley's week going? Like, literally. You know, like, not hearing, why did I say Brian Gilley? Eric Gilley. How's Eric Gillies week going? Yeah, big shakeup. So Eric, so Seth is bringing in his sales force. I don't know, man. So I thought like, you know, I was like, oh, Eric's been like they're like backstabbing Eric. And then I get this like email that's like a savage takedown of Eric and Stern and like, you know, Seth is is trying to fix things and shake stuff up. and uh Brian Eddy's kid is part of sales i don't is that even true i don't even i don't even know if this stuff is valid like does Brian Eddy have a kid who's part of stern sales for like all i know is this none of you on star wars the biggest pinball company in the world with the biggest ip of the year fumbled it. Ray Day is going to save it. No, Ray Day ain't going to save. No, no, no. Every time I see someone unbox a Star Wars LE or premium, I'm like, yeah, that's cool, man. That's cool. Hey, Chico, you could have just gone out back and lit some money on fire, bro, because you could get the same game in three months for two to three thousand dollars less. Good job buying it now. Beetlejuice is going to knock it down. I can't wait. Walking Dead will not be at Expo. Not only that, I've heard about the Walking Dead remastered. I'm not gang. I'm hearing it's not going to like, it's not going to like, whoa, it's not going to make your jaw drop. What I'm hearing is the next Stern Cornerstone will be at CES. and I believe it's going to be Transformers and it'll have the full Spike 3 platform CES. It's usually January. Well, you know, look, gang, I don't know who to blame. I don't really care about blame. I don't blame anybody for Star Wars. I don't blame anybody. I just think the game is mediocre. It lacks creativity. And it's a silly buy at $13. To me, there's one part on Star Wars. Every time I see it, I'm like, this company is out of ideas. You want to know what that part is? that every time I look at Star Wars LE and I look at this one part of it, you know, it's kind of like putting a, you take a beautiful, well, it's not even a beautiful pin, but you take a beautiful car and you just put like a clown nose on the front. You know what I'm saying? Like the one part, whenever I see it on Star Wars LE, I'm like, this company is out of ideas and they don't know what to do. and they're just it's it's that little is it the ad at on the side armor next to the flipper button there's like a image of uh let me let me pull it up because it's just like hold on it's so embarrassingly bad star wars pinball le fall of empire which is really appropriately titled but let me see if I can get a high res of this thing. I mean, it's just, it's so embarrassing. Hold on. And I'm going to flip it around so you guys can see here. Share screen. Share screen. I mean, it's this. Look at that. I mean, this is, quite honestly, the most embarrassing. Like, you're out of ideas when you're a company, and this is, that's the best you can do. Like, it doesn't even look good. This whole thing. Like, it's so bad. And I love watching Stern put this stuff out in the world and thinking we're going to spend $13,000 on it. I mean, it's embarrassing. And I think the Stern apologist out there, I don't even know how you even defend this stuff. They all look so bad. It's so low effort. And, you know, again, I just think. I don't know. I don't know if I want to say this, but like. I really think Stern LE stands for loser edition now. can i mean i have five years of data that actually supports that that stern le now stands for stern loser edition because you're losing money you lost money on foo you lost money on james bond you lost money on venom you lost money on john wick you lost money on star wars you lost money on Jaws now. It is below 13 now. You lost money on Dungeons and Dragons. You bought the loser edition. And for over 10 years, not a single person ever lost a dime on Sternelli. And this is the part that nobody wants to address at that organization. From WWE to Mustang. It doesn't matter what the game was. You never lost anything. Now we have four years in a row of every LE. You are losing money. At best, you're losing 500. At worst, you're losing 5,000. Go look at John Wick LEs now. 8,500. $8,000 on the table if you want to move one quickly. the stern loser edition and i told those guys if you want to fix this company you need to fix that first and you're going to put up that crap on the star wars armor seth george that's the best you could do that's the best you could do let's put a little add-add stick up What is wrong with you guys? Wake up, chicos. Wake up. I know you sold to all of us bored cargo short wearing mofos for like a decade. And we handed our money over. We handed it over. But I'm not doing it. I'm keeping my money in the ostrich skin, baby. Ostrich skin. You feel that, Seth? Smell that money in there? You're not getting it, brother. Because you stuck an ad ad sticker on the side of crappy side armor for $13,000. I have to make $26,000 before taxes to buy a little ad ad sticker, Chico. and then you want to send that game over to Europe and charge like 18 for it? And then these idiots in Australia spending like 19, 21,000 on every league. Marty Robbins shoes are still missing. Where you at, Marty? Come on. What happened to Jeff Teolis's effort to get Marty Robbins back into the hobby? They failed. You stole our money, Marty. You stole our money. I have friends that lost $18,500 on a Centaur and they never got their damn bike helmet or leather jacket. Marty, sell your little couches. Sell your little sneakers on the real, real, whatever they call it over there in Australia. Pay those people back. Nobody talks about Haggis no more. You just get to rob $2 million from people in the pinball hobby and then what? What? Is Damien Harden? Did he sell his Lotus? We just let him go. We just let him go. Skippy, Kevin Kulik, we let him go. People saw him at shows, did nothing. Keeping the 13,000 in the ostrich skin, baby. Canada keeps coming out with these weird ass analogies that people can't figure out. you know but all is going to be good because barrels of funds got a new hire what what what david what what stop stop stop stop stop stop stop you got to sell dunes brother i don't want to hear about some new dude joining the company he's not going to sell you one more dune or one more labyrinth yeah i keep telling david like he's david's stuck in this place where he's i want to get credit i want to get credit for what we have that david make a theme people want brothers stop with all this nonsense make a theme for a grown man that's been laid like seriously like that's that's my brief to David Van Es make a theme for a grown man that's been laid labyrinth Timothy Shama lay dune what what are we doing here what are we doing here come on what's next what's next you know beaches the first white you know sisterhood of the traveling pants okay what are we doing here um all right so sad boy just gave another 50 bucks you want me to read this email all right I'll read this email. I don't really care. Now, I'm reading this with the caveat that, you know, look, there's two sides to every story. And this is a side of the story. So let me pull it up. Let's see. Let me. Let's see. all right can i read this all right you guys ready you got eric gilly all wrong the guy is a hot-headed battle axe that strong arms dealers with complete and utter BS. The effing guy was supposed to be gone a long time ago. They moved him over to Europe sales a while back when Eddie's kids started working with them. He's a, okay, I'm not gonna read this next. It's a little too derogative. He's a something, strong arms dealers and makes them jump through hoops over everything. The report cards and being penalized for not following their every little micromanage reporting mechanisms. Or if we report incorrectly, then they F with allocations and put limits on them to outright calling our content creator a fraud because he doesn't have an online presence when we put in our MDF compensation. I don't even know what that means. Does anyone know what that means? MDF compensation. Also, this BS with Planetary and CGC. Planetary acts like CGC gives them allocations based on merit when Planetary has it in their contract to get the biggest allocations, but yet pretend it's just because they're such a great company. Stern was not a beloved company. This is where it gets savage, people. Get ready. They took Harry Williams's empire and torched it to the ground in order to pave the way for Sam's little boy to run a monopoly on pinball in a strategy that started when Sam got in there and started setting up the hostile Two-Face takeover that was a 50-year endeavor. However, there is a reason that Norman and Stern, cousins in crime, made a bunch of turds for Williams. Norman only had a few net positive titles to maintain the illusion while twisting the knife in deeper. Williams was able to blast out 200 units a day before the tiny hats got in there and slowly put a stranglehold on Harry's legacy. Savage takedown there. Not sure who wrote that, but I I don't know I I can't confirm or deny any of that um who knows I I you know look there there are three sides to all these stories I mean I I don't know I don't know I mean Ian you don't know the truth behind any of this I mean look Ian I love you brother but you have absolutely zero zero whoever's writing that clearly has some more specific information than Ian our friend in over at nudge magazine is saying that that is fiction and come on like let's let's not I know you want to sell some copies of nudge brother but like to say all that is fiction I don't know bro I don't know it's not like Nordman's been crushing it galactic tank force I don't know yeah you know there's like this new thing now where if someone writes anything like anything now it's like everyone accuses of being chat GPT written I don't even when someone when they were writing that thing there Rob Burke complaining about me going to Expo there was a someone said that was jet chat gpt i i don't know look the way i look at all of this is i don't think anybody cares man it's like i just want good good games i mean i don't care what happened in the history of stern pimo i don't care about nippo babies i don't care about Dennis Nordman you know he's had enough chances to make hit games in modern times and he hasn't been successful i don't care you know it's not personal it's just like you've been you were given the stage to make a great game and you made galactic tank force you were given the stage uh you know at other places and you didn't you didn't make the most of it joel balser was given many moments to make a magical game he didn't do it so like i don't really like in the end like you know actions speak louder than words and i don't know the history of stern i don't care about the history of stern i really don't i really don't what i want is stern to release products that are magical in modern times and they're not doing it right now now. And I think there's going to be a real interesting winter when Star Wars sales are not there and Walking Dead Remastered is going to flop and then they're going to have to rush out probably Elliot Elliot Eismin's Transformers. And I can tell you based on John Wick and Star Wars, I bet you Transformers is just another Stern. And this is the problem is another Stern at these prices is the reason why people are just kind of over it all. You know, I want more Sterns with ambitious designs like X-Men, but I think a game like X-Men needed more time to be perfected and they didn't give it to Jack. And so like, you know, what do they do? They burn them out. They probably approach Jack. You know, all great creatives are a little difficult to work with. And all great creatives have a little bit of a mixture of arrogance, ego and insecurity. It is a I've seen it in every industry I've been in. The best creatives are a little bipolar by nature. And so, like, I bet Jack is a little difficult to work with and doesn't want to hear from everyone and, you know, is a little stubborn at times. But in the end, it's worth it. And I don't think Stern knows how to deal with people that are like that. And that's why I think we get a lot of mediocrity is I think they want people to just tow the company line, make the game with the bomb. And I'm so happy Steve Ritchie quit when they wouldn't put Stairway to Heaven into Led Zeppelin. I mean, just think about that for a minute. Now, not that Ritchie's game was any good, but I love the fact that like that was it. You're not going to give the guy you're going to ask the guy to make Stairway to Heaven. then not put in it I mean I mean what ask the guy to make Led Zeppelin and not put stairway to heaven in it yeah French yeah I the hairs do keep going into my mouth it's it's uh it's a little annoying I but you know I'm committed to this look today it's happening it's not how I thought um I hold on a second let me let me let me go let me go change real quick hold on because it is this thing weighs like 10 pounds oh wow All right. I'll support Brenda's company. FanDuel. That's where Brenda works. All right. This is much... I'm much more comfortable now. All right. Oh, my God, Christopher Franchi. Okay. Never keeps it. Here's the thing. These Ban Canada t-shirts will be available shortly on Silver Ball Swag. the silver ball swag is not going to expo that's why they won't be at the show but we're gonna sell them and and and like like viva la raza shirts canada will get um a cut of everyone sold so that'll be a nice thing oh that'll be a nice thing to do i'm i'm happy that i have help again making merch tell bernie to stop sending me junk mail no i know these Let me ask you guys a question. How many of you have Beetlejuice on order? How many of you are on a list for Beetlejuice? How many we got? Let's just like say yes or no. Like we got 41 people here, 96 on YouTube. Yes or no? Mike, yes, yes. Really simple question. Yes. These are all yeses. Okay. Wow. There hasn't been a single no yet. Two no's. Canty and Elric. Okay. Matthew said no. More yeses. No. Mostly yes. Jason, yes. How many can afford it right now? Dave Sanders, man. Ten grand. Ten grand in his hobby is kind of like the sweet spot for most. Majority of people are saying yes. More people know on Facebook here. It's interesting. Split. Split. I love this split. Pete Rosen, what's up, brother? pete i missed your 5 000 stars today we were i was like i was looking forward to it's not over yet he's like it's not over yet um bill brandis is on with tommy at nitro thank you bill for not just saying yes but also who you're buying from um how many of you how many of you ordered a dune now i want to i want to just go through the current games let's we're gonna go through all of them How many of you ordered a new Dune game from Barrels of Fun? Yeah, we got 135 people watching right now. This is 10% of the potential buyer base of Dune Pinball. Nope, not me. F that. Okay, Sadboy, it's making him upset, the question. No, no, no. Is Tommy here? I did but switched to Star Wars too long of a wait. Why'd you buy Star Wars, Mr. Gunnit? I love it. This guy didn't buy it but his friend has Dune and loves it. Okay, so most people know. How many of you bought Star Wars Fall of the Empire? How many of you saw something the rest of us missed and ordered one of Stern's latest game? Star Wars Fall of the Empire. No, no. Absolutely not. Hell no. Nah. LOL no. No more new inbox Stern for me. I can't afford new inbox. Not a chance. Hell no. Hell no. No Star Wars. No Dune. Burned by Labyrinth. it sucked i did but i buy everything cancelled my star wars le smart move matthew very smart move i was in on star wars le list and thank godness yes fizzy i i saved you three thousand dollars there's nose everywhere so who who bought these games i i haven't seen a single person admit to buying this is the problem now it's why i say that stern le's are now like the stern loser edition because not only are you going to be losing money but now when you publicly admit you got your hands on the latest stern le people are like you're a loser or is it this one i don't know it's backwards on like my facebook why would you do that why would you do that stern has turned its own collectible product into a joke and it what i told them a year ago they had an entire year to rethink their LE strategy and they just don know how to do it You know what happened with them is like a few things A, they still don't have the themes people want. B, they're not making their games stand out enough. And they still don't know how to just like consistently roll it back to 500 LEs, and that's it forever and never make more. They don't know what, they don't know, they're like afraid to do that. They know the pressures of what they need to achieve, but they don't understand. When you limit the LEs and you make them special again, and you make them worth money on the secondhand market, I mean, over MSRP, you got to figure out how to get there because that is what will lift the premium and the pro sales. The reason why premium and pro sales were so good is that we legitimately were most people were locked out of the le's and so it and you didn't feel so bad because only 500 and it was hard to get and those things are not moving or trading hands very often nowadays it's like only an idiot buys a premium for 10 because you could get the le for 10 in like two months so they've really created this like house of cards has come down on their entire marketing strategy their entire golden goose they had, they killed it. And when the house of cards falls, everyone's losing now significantly. So it's like the only kind of smart buy is like the Stern Pro. They flipped the whole thing on its head. It used to be pros were for hoes. You bought a pro, you were a hoe. It made sense for operators. But nowadays, it's like if you buy a Stern Pro, you're basically playing the same exact game as everybody else, probably better because there's more flow in the game and you're not going to lose so much money. You know what I'm saying? You buy a pro for like six, you're going to sell for five. Maybe at most you lose a grand. You buy an LE, you could lose five grand on an LE. And they didn't see the problem in that. And they didn't figure out a solution to that. They had a whole year to figure out a solution to that. So I don't really care where they send John Bruscaglia to Europe or Eric Gilley over here screaming about something or how he hates all his eight years of work. I don't care. I don't Seth you come from Disney's George you Gary you guys like literally literally these aren't very here's the problem I want to break it down right now this is the main problem this is why Stern Pinball I think will ultimately ultimately drive themselves out of business and I mean this and I don't want them to but here's the problem here's the here's the big mistake they are they this is the problem with the industry they're in and the lack of understanding of this industry by the people they're bringing in to guide them from a marketing and strategy standpoint. The problem is this. It's one thing if you have a product, a universal product that is consistently the same and you want to grow sales, right? So if I want to take a Snicker bar, which is amazing and people in America love it, and I want to increase the sales of Snickers, then I can introduce Snickers in interesting ways to Latin America, to China, to Japan, find where people have sweet tooths and introduce them to this delicious candy bar that never changes, right? It never changes. A Snickers bar is always a Snickers bar. A bottle of Jameson is always a bottle of Jameson. A Bud Light is always a Bud Light. The problem with pinball and trying to just grow it exponentially is that at the same time you're trying to introduce it to new markets, the product itself is radically changing every three months. And so what once was a delicious snicker bar, aka a Godzilla LE at $10,000, what once was a delicious bar that a lot of people said, hey, I like this. I like this product at this price. I'm willing to go in on this you then are trying to scale up as the product is changing and all of a sudden that delicious snicker bar doesn't taste so good anymore all of a sudden it tastes a little bit sour all of a sudden you know people aren't enjoying it and and so like every three months Stern has a new game or every four months a new game which radically changes the product Right. Because you can't just be like it's almost like they have this arrogance, this delusion that people just love pinball so much that if you just keep serving up more pinball, regardless of how good the game is, regardless of how magical it is, like they'll absorb it. Yeah. And that works with the diehard enthusiast side of the buyer base, which they ignored and turn their back on. So the only people that actually have that mindset are the pinheads, are the people on Pinsight, are the subscribers to Canada's Pinball Podcast, are the people, the only people that actually treat this as a lifestyle brand are the people that think about it day in and day out every single week. And they turn their back on those people in a mission to attract new audiences to the brand, they turn their back on the only people that like keep them in business basically. And so, yeah, I don't believe Neil McCray when he's like, Stern's got a back order, like, you know, as long as your arm, I, well, maybe, maybe my arm, my arm, Neil is maybe what? Two feet long. Yeah. Maybe they only have two feet of orders when they need, when they need a country mile back order lists to justify the size of the company. So I'm just saying like, I think they don't kind of get it. It's like they had a moment of like Godzilla, most popular game of all time, COVID frenzy. And like everything we do from a company standpoint is going to be based on us expecting tomorrow to be as good as today. Tomorrow is going to be even better than today. So we're going to scale up and we're going to see the same results we see in 2021 every single year as we release dog games like John Wick, like Venom, dog games like King Kong. We're just going to keep growing and people are going to keep buying all this and we're going to make 500 to 800 games a week. And here we are. Here we are. And the problem now is, is how do you get smaller and better, not bigger and worse? And they're stuck in a place now where they need growth. And this is the problem is they're not a publicly traded company. Stern Pinball growing too quickly or too big is like such a silly internal self-inflicted wound. You know what I'm saying? They don't, none of us are investors in Stern Pinball. There's no outside people making money on Stern. They did this to themselves. So what I don't get is if they had stayed in the old factory and been a little bit smaller and leaner, their margins would be better. They would make more money per game. You know what I'm saying? They could probably cut 50 employees and make more money. Instead, they're like, they became so big and now the pressure's on. And why? Like, why? Like, why do you need to keep growing? It doesn't make any, it really doesn't make any sense to me because you legitimately could just have it really good at this volume every year forever. Is it not enough to make your $10 million, $20 million, $30 million profit? Whatever it is. So you put all that at risk to grow to a level that the consultants said you could reach. And your consultants don't know jack shit about pinball. The outside people that you brought in don't know jack shit about pinball. and the people that know about pinball, you turned your back on. I don't know any other way to look at this. I'm not wrong. They're stressed out. It's not working. You know, they wanted to find a buyer. They wanted to find a buyer. And they didn't find one. And man, those books look good, right? Those books looked real good in 2021. The sales looked good. The data on the secondhand value was incredible. Those books looked real good. They had a little window where they could have like cajoled someone into buying. You know, my brother, my older brother, he sold his liquor store. He had a liquor store, was successful, making good money, and he sold it at the height of COVID to a nice Korean couple. He was telling me, he's like, after a year later, they called me up. They're like, why aren't sales where they were? It's like COVID created a boom in liquor sales. People are going out more. People are spending money on other stuff. It's not going to be what it was. gotta you gotta always ex you know plan for the best but expect the worst um i i i know what i know for i know for exactly what stern pinball was asking as to buy them okay i know i know exactly what it was um and it's not a crazy number all things considered the problem is is who wants to absorb the headache you know i'm saying it's like it's not like you're because again like if i was buying snickers you know i'm saying if like if i was buying snickers and snickers sales were this good year over year I'm willing to buy Snickers for this much money because I'm you know I might take a little bit of a loss in the next three to four years but I see the future the problem with buying Stern is you got to think about like that the uncertainty of what you're actually buying because I can't you know look they could show me all the data in the world about how successful all the those older games were but i can't make those games again because if i make those games again i'm gonna like burn all the customers and they'll never buy from me again so what i now need to do is r d games as good as those games but i'm but i'm still i'm sorry to curse on this but i think i need to curse i'm still because i can't make a game as good as lord of the rings because even if I did, I have to charge twice as much as Lord of the Rings cost. And it's going to cost me maybe even twice as much to even make it from a manufacturing. It's just like for it to make sense, for those numbers to work out for any future owner of Stern, you need to feel like you consistently will have hits. And then I would be like, and the vulnerability of like, what if Keith Elwin leaves? What if Jack Danger left? Like, just think about the reality of that. If Keith Elwin left tomorrow and went to JJP, it would just be an instant kill shot. And again, like, like spooky pinball only needs to sell. They only need to sell a thousand games a year. Same thing with barrels. Same thing with Dutch. not even Dutch like Dutch makes like 500 a year I mean Stern is Stern just how are they going to keep selling hundreds a week of mediocrity and and my connection's unstable let me try to let me shut some stuff down hold on again of course quit Stern's trying to pull the plug they're trying to pull the plug on my show This should help. It's all this stuff open. That should be better. All right. Sorry about the. You know, it's crazy now. All of a sudden, I have 144 viewers now, 121. I feel like the moment I start talking this, there's like a bat phone goes off at Stern, and they all start listening. I mean, the answer is so simple. Get back to your roots. Get back to what made you great. Get back to what made you successful. It's not about the money. It's about the brand. And it's about the way they talk to the community. We don't want patches. We don't need badges. You know, Stern's big mistake is they went all in on Insider Connected. And they thought that Insider Connected was going to be a good idea. All right. Let's see. Did they get me? Did they knock me out? Are we back? I feel like Stern's – here's the thing. Here's the thing. I don't mind Insider Connected, gang. I think it adds great replay value to the machines. But, man, it's like you know what the strategy was. It was to get everybody connected and then sell you DLC. But, again, why? Why? When you are making good margin per game sold, why? Why do you need to see how much you can bleed your community? The notion that I would buy something for $13,000, a toy, and it's incomplete, and I have to spend more to get the full game? You know, Stern, Fortnite is free. It's free. I don't mind spending a few bucks on DLC for a free video game that, by the way, is 100 times better engineered than anything you've ever made in the pinball space. There's a reason why these games are... You know, like Grand Theft Auto. Like I will spend $100 on Grand Theft Auto 6 and it'll run circles around enjoyment levels. And that's the problem, Stern. It's like, all right, when people have like five to ten pinball machines in their home, you don't think these guys will find other areas of entertainment for this much money? Or just don't get more. You know what I'm saying? You have five to ten great pinball machines. wait what what's why would you buy like a star wars le for 13 when you can go buy a nintendo switch 2 and play donkey kong bonanza and for like freaking 490 dollars you can have more fun for months than the price of a stern topper i i i don't get it it. Look, Anthony, nobody cares about King Kong, though. It's like, I get it. All the code in the world will never have the right assets for King Kong. It doesn't matter how much fun they make. It's like the game is tainted now because the game is symbolic of cutting corners. And if they couldn't get the assets, then Stern should have came out and explain why they don't have the assets when they can get everything for Godzilla. Happy Saturday, everybody. I don't know. You know, look, I've just I've felt this way lately. and I'll say it again. I think when you become more content with who you are, content with what you have, you will be happier. That happiness is not defined by consuming more new stuff that brings very little new value into your life. and unfortunately you know for these like these big pinball companies that need to sell thousands of games a year they are going to struggle with that and it's not that we don't we we won't buy new stuff but to actually feel like i need this new game it's gonna make my life better and at these prices it needs to be magical and it's just that simple and everything else is going to be dead on arrival and i think beetlejuice is going to fly off the shelves back to the future is going to fly off the shelves they're going to sell all razas when they make raza there will be much less than 500 razas um you know it's just the way it is now and i don't you know i i love covering this hobby. I cannot tell you the amount of fulfillment I get from making content in pinball. I've met some of my best friends in this hobby. I've lost some great friends in this hobby. I've had some friends politically quit me because I didn't vote for Kamala Harris. I don't care. like fine I don't it's not that I love Donald I just you know if you go back and watch some of those Kamala Harris interviews like I don't care like the word salad and answers to everything dodged a bullet now now we've got a at least a peace treaty happening in the Middle East that nobody wants to give the dude credit for I mean at least he got it done you think she could have got that deal done you think she got it got you think Kamala Harris could have talked to Hamas and then in Yahoo and brokered something. Come on. Again, don't have to like the man, but can like the results. And again, like I'm very in the middle. I'll lean left and right. But, you know, if I had to make a decision, who's right for the climate of the world right now? We got war going on. We got this going on. We got this going on. Like we got people just running to the borders. Like who's right right now? Who's right right? You know, we want to put men onto women's sports teams so they can beat them up and walk through the locker rooms with their penises hanging out? Sorry for the language, but come on. Silly times are over. Common sense. And both parties are going to have to speak commonsensically if they want to win. I mean, that's just where we're at. Common sense is most important. How's inflation going? I don't know. you know what the inflation was in the 1980s tolbert like 18 percent no that was the interest rates whatever just make more money i don't care you know what i'm saying like you got to make more you got to find ways to make money sorry cory back to pinball it's funny it's like whatever man i care like you know me you guys know me by now i am not like some political extremist on either side I just love that we live in a world now where if people do something good, even if you don't like them, it's okay to say good job. Anyway, yeah, I agree. I hate politics. I absolutely hate it. But I also think discourse is important, and you can't just shut down discourse. I'm just kidding, but the final thing I'm going to say is this, and I mean this when I say this. The number one problem in culture nowadays are the universities. They are raising these kids to be victims, and they are raising these kids to have stupid points of view on the world. Can I just give you an example? I was hanging out with one of our Gen Z employees, and we were going around the table. What are your hobbies? tennis golf pinball bomb bomb bomb we land on the young gen z employee and this is with a client like a founder of a company that makes a hundred million dollars a year you know what she says her hobby is you know what she says they did this is these are kids what's your hobby she says sustainability as her hobby the sustainability as a hobby like what what who how did we get here like how did we actually raise kids to consider sustainability as a hobby like you could be for sustainability i i get that like you could be an environmentalist but it's not a hobby like what are you doing you're going around like replacing plastic straws which by the way paper straws suck have you ever had like a moment with a paper straw and you're just like i don't care how bad this is for the environment i want a plastic straw with my mcdonald's milkshake all right literally you could take everything else from me but give me my thick mcdonald's milkshake straw back okay and keep boys out of women's locker rooms can we just start there carl lutz yeah no it's sad to me it's sad to me because like it is like it is like you know the reason why i do love this community this hobby is you guys are like you we're in a hobby i mean we're literally in a hobby every few weeks we get to talk about a you know a new game a move by a company it's great it's great yeah gary i'm so happy we're done i'm so happy we're done with this rollout of these pinball legends figures does anyone else like feel my excitement that it's over you know i you know carrie and i are good friends with melvin and like i i legit told melvin i was like bro i i don't what what is this this like slow he's like i'm gonna give it to carrie i love it too because like melvin like was acting as if like i would be upset i wasn't upset at all to be honest like like the the silhouette first then the fit like i this is like melvin like i don't just release them all at once sell them you know the price is not bad just didn't need is like week-long rollout how many are there I only saw two There like six Dave Sanders There like six You know what I love about being a father of two young boys is the honesty that's in this household. I know exactly who I am now more than ever. I love being a dad. I love being a dad so much. I feel like half of my life I was rudderless and just lost and all about me and all about my own enjoyment. It's so rewarding to see life develop and seeing young Cassian beginning to form words and just hearing how my kids talk and process the world. And the way they are reminds me of what makes life so damn special and what childhood is so damn special. And I can't wait to continue to raise these two little boys to be gentlemen, but to have fun, to get out there, to enjoy this world. The short time we have, enjoy it. Don't spend it online trying to change the world. It's addictive, man. I was doom scrolling last night at 3 in the morning. And they just keep serving me like Bill Maher clips or something. You know, it's like you can't help but watch all this stuff. You can go from like the algorithms. They know what we want. You know, I get fed the pinball stuff. I get fed like political stuff, automotives. It's like it knows everything about me. Transformers, Care Bears, hats. Like I've probably bought more dumb stuff recently, like cheap stuff, just from Facebook algorithms, knowing if we show Kaneda this Starscream jockstrap, he's going to want it. And who knew I wanted a Starscream jockstrap, but apparently I do. No, I'm joking. But it's really a fun time to be alive. And for those people that think the world is going to hell in a handbag, life is better now than it's ever been for the majority of people that ever lived on planet Earth. there's more opportunity now for more people than there's ever been on planet earth there's more diversity living together than there ever has been on planet earth so for all the people that feel like being alive today you're a victim of something or like life was better back in you know ancestral times wake up it wasn't this is it if you have a good idea and you're legally allowed to be in a country you can be very successful and you can climb up the ladder and yeah it takes a lot of something that nobody wants to do anymore. You know what it takes? Work. And work takes a long time and making money and building wealth is slow and arduous unless you have like a crazy investment that pops, which is basically the same as winning the lottery. It takes work. And we all work hard for our pinball. And that is why as I look at the pinball landscape, Let's go over each company right now. Real quick analysis. Stern Pinball, they're in the doghouse. They are painted themselves in a corner. No one wants Star Wars. Nobody's going to go after The Walking Dead Remastered. I've already heard from people that have seen it. It is not going to set the world on fire, which means we're going to get nothing very interesting until we get Elliot Elliot Eismin's Transformers, maybe sometime in December, January, most likely January at CES. So nothing from Stern until after Beetlejuice. Beetlejuice, Spooky Pinball's next game, going to be a juggernaut hit for the company, going to instantly sell out. I think it's going to change the guard of pinball. I think Franchi is going to make the most beautiful pinball machine of all time. I think Bug and Luke and everybody over there are going to make sure this game is a new level of special. And I think it's going to change pinball. It's going to do for pinball what Godzilla did for Stern. This is going to be what it does for the boutiques. I think it's going to raise the bar of what boutiques can make. And I think the other boutiques are going to witness the possibilities of what they can do. They need to stop making stupid themes that nobody wants. Stop making, you know, Predator without Arnold. Stop making Timothy Chamolet Dune games. Get where it's at. It's with nostalgia. It's with games that connect emotionally with people and it's about understanding what your target audience wants it's really easy you know as I told David David Van Es you know David Venice is like Chris I got five titles I said David I can tell you four of them are gonna suck I was pretty mean I can be mean at times he's like Chris I got five themes I'm like I can tell you right now without you telling me that four of them are gonna suck he's like whoa how do you know that I'm like because you picked them. You picked them. That's how I know. I love you, David David Van Es. I'm looking right at you, brother. What you need to do, you need to hire Kaneda as a consultant. I'll consult on the themes. I'll help your creative people understand what needs to be in these games, but never would have landed on dude. I mean, my friends over there, they've stopped talking to me. Like, they used to be my good buddies. They don't talk to me anymore. They should have spoke up. You know, there's a great saying. I want to read it for you right now. Because this is like, to me, this is what David David Van Es' biggest problem is. and I think he needs to like I want to read this quote and I think it's the smartest quote ever and it's by Norman Vincent Peale the trouble with most of us is that we would rather be ruined by praise i added a d in there let me say the trouble with most of us is we would rather be ruined by praise than saved by criticism and i know i i take a quote like this and and and it makes me feel good because I feel like I'm I do feel like I'm trying to save these companies from making bad decisions and I think David David Van Es is in that camp like he'd rather be ruined by praise than saved by criticism because the criticisms are what are going to help all these companies and I think spooky pinball is the opposite I think spooky pinball was saved by criticisms I think they heard all the criticisms and they improved. But if we praised Rob Zombie and we praised Rick and Morty and we praised Halloween and we praised Ultraman. And there are those people out there, and that's why I do believe the guys like Colin who come out and say, we're all about pinball positivity, and that's what we just need is every content creator should just be about spreading pinball positivity. So cool. Colin, you're the kind of guy that wants to ruin people with praise because I haven't seen you save any company with criticism. And when I look at the pinball hobby and I look at the companies that are now friendly with me, that have listened to a lot of the advice I've been giving over the last decade, they've been successful. The ones that never listen to me, I'm fine. I haven't been wrong. I'm still here. I'm still doing this. CGC. You know, the thing about CGC, Pat, is this. They are a unique organization because the pinball is not their annuity. Chicago Gaming Company is a byproduct of Churchill Cabinets. They make all of their money on the other side of the fence. The pinball is the hobby of CGC. They don't need it to survive so they can take their time, so they can not talk to their customers. I get it. I just don't like a company like that. I don't like a company that eventually gets around to handing in the homework. I just I personally don't like how they operate as an organization. It doesn't excite me. I don't want to go on those journeys with them. And I don't even feel like I know them as an organization. And I know Franchi. I know Bug. I know Luke. I know Ben Heck. I know Don, who's now over there. I like that I know who these people are. I know Seth, I know Gary, I know George, I know Jack, I know, you know, I've heard of Keith, I don't know Keith Elwin. I like that I at least know who these people are. You know? And I think it matters. I know Brett, I know Tom Caparra, I know Eric Meunier, Meunier, Eric Meunier, you know? I know Steve Ritchie. I mean when I meet Steve Ritchie at a bar, like, he's nice to me. We have a great photo with Kale, Steve Ritchie, me at the Avatar launch. Mark Seiden, I know all these people. Now knowing them personally helps a lot. Doesn't change how I feel about their games. I do think like, Mark Seiden is a good example. It's like if you praise Avatar, you will ruin Mark Seiden as a designer. But if you criticize Avatar in the right way, like these lower playfields are not fun, like maybe you put too much effort and bomb into something that's not rewarding for the player, that will save Mark Seid in his career. He'll do better. He won't make the same mistake twice. Again, most people would rather be ruined by praise than saved by criticism. It's a quote to live by. It's hard to do. It's hard to exercise. And look, there's an important balance between empathy, criticism, and people's feelings. Because you have to be hard on the work, not on the people. It's a hard thing to do. It's a hard thing to do. well i mean i'm reading about the quality of these merlin editions and it seems pretty you know imbalanced of course roger sharp is a nice man nobody's like there's not like you're not going to meet many people in pinball in real life that are jerks you're not absolutely not And that's what kills them about Kaneda going to these shows. It's not that I'm going to be toxic. It's not that I'm going to be dramatic. It's that I'm going to be nice. You know what I'm saying? When these Pinside babies who call me all sorts of names, you know why they don't want to come up to me at a show? Because they don't want to be wrong about me. They don't want to be wrong. And they don't want to have an open mind about me. They'd rather sit in the corner and type away on Pinside. there goes that loser wearing you know silly clothes like he's such a chump in real life like you know he's he's 90 pounds wet like you know like okay or you could come over and we could have a fun conversation about pinball and you could put your drinks on my tab which you won't do for anybody you know when when they have the pin side meet and greet is that all on the house because canadas will be at expo so if you're going to expo we'll be drinking my card will be down and none of you are going to have to pay for it it's how i roll you're my fans you contribute every month um you know so they they would rather just go back to me throwing a drink in tim sexson's face as a sign that i'm a jerk and i look i've done jerky things i've been an a-hole at times i i mean i would love to meet the man who hasn't ever lost his cool or done something they regret i would love that perfect person to expose themselves to us and be the modern day jesus i don't think there's a pin side meet and greet i don't i think there's a is there a media mixer is there i think people forget i mean it was colin who said he was going to call the cops if i showed up at the media mixer that time he uh he said the authorities will be notified if i show up at the media mixer that was that was like last time yeah i know Christopher Franchi can you imagine like just just that 9-1-1 call he's here with his louis vuitton and his ostrich skin briefcase ah smell it's vintage but this was my grandfather's my grandfather had good taste the the my my grandparents came from some from italy from sicily some from greece no money whatsoever. They were broke. My grandfather worked in the textile business. My other grandfather had a diner or restaurant in New Jersey. Made all the sacrifices in the world. Put my dad through college. Made my dad pay them back for college because they didn't have any money. And now he was pretty successful and very successful, I would say, in the world of pharmaceutical mergers and acquisitions we now live in a beautiful town the grandchildren are happy people want to hate on America it's funny to me it's like then when there's an day no privilege they had no privilege they had no privilege my aunt who was a fashion designer sold her business you know she she kind of pissed it all away because she didn't have children and she didn't make smart financial decisions, but she sold her business in the 80s for millions of dollars. There was no Me Too movement. There was no one to help her out. There was no social media. She didn't act a victim. She wasn't a victim of anything. She was just talented and did what she loved. We raised these damn kids to think they're victims, to think they're all victims. and the victims are always losers. No one's a victim here. No one's a victim of anyone else's privilege or anyone else's opportunities or inequality. It's such BS. It's BS. And I will never apologize for the success of my family, for the success of my friends, for the success of any of you. I will never apologize that we all worked hard enough to make enough money to buy pinball machines right should i make you feel guilty should i tell you that there's starving children in the world and how dare you how dare you show your inequality to those individuals because you want to like have a little fun for you know in your spare time it's the greatest country in the world no one else can do it like this nobody you know my my sister-in-law came from the netherlands right she's in the netherlands and of course she's at university in amsterdam and she's like, everyone hates America. And then she comes here to this town and she's like, this is nothing like I thought. And then she's like, why are there US flags everywhere? Because we love, we love everyone who's here. Everyone is here. Like they made it here. Like one of my neighbors here, like I could tell, she's like crazy all the way to the left. Like, yeah, I just got back from Spain. I'm like, where did you make all your money? You act like you don't like America, like you're ashamed of America. Let me just ask, where did you make all your money? And then she shut up right away, got back into her $100,000 Audi, EV, Audi, SUV, and goes and drives to go get her lobster rolls in America. I love you guys. If I did more of this talk, I'd have much bigger follower, I'm telling you. How you guys doing? Look, I just love being alive. I love the opportunities I've been given. And I love that we found each other in this hobby. I mean, that's kind of where I'm at. And I think when you wake up every day, you can choose to be a victim. You can choose to complain about everything. And look, complaining about pinball machines is fun. Isn't it? It's way more fun for us to complain about, like, why did you make Dune? why isn't arnold and predator you know we're like these middle-aged men yelling at the pinball clouds like it's fun it's fun because what we really just want is a game that blows us away that's all we want we want a game when it comes out it makes our jaws drop it's like ghostbusters le we want batman sle that's what beetlejuice is going to be i wish i stayed in the u.s after my master rather than going back to france well you know look i i was this close to moving to Ireland, like this close to moving to Ireland, taking the fam dam. We were so close. We were trying to get a mortgage, a mortgage. There was only one bank in Ireland that would actually consider us for a mortgage. Okay. And this is what the crazy part is. We add in cash on the property. We were looking at 80% down 80%. on where we wanted to live. We had 80% in cash and the bank refused to look at my income in America and give us a mortgage because they said I needed a work visa for them to allow me to buy the property. And I was going to buy it as like a second home, like a vacation home, right as a way just like okay because i still have my apartment in new york city and they refused you know and brenda and i were like you know what screw them they don't want us there they want to make it hard like we're making good money dual income a lot of money these idiots we would bring ideas creativity opportunity like they don't want us there then i'm you know and we And we made the best decision ever, and we talk about it all the time. We made the best decision of our lives not moving to Ireland. Not to mention that Ireland is headed south fast, ultra-socialistic. Talk about open borders. Talk about everyone ... Irish people are mad. They're in big trouble. And Ireland is more expensive than America. It's the second most expensive country in Europe. You can't get anything for your money, but the problem in Ireland is you can't make money. This is the big issue. It's hard to wealth generate in these extremely socialistic European countries. And if you ever want to buy something like a pinball machine or a Civic Type R, you're screwed. Do you know how much a Civic Type R is in America? 40 grand. Do you know how much is it in Ireland? Like $65,000. You talk about tariffs and taxes. people are hammered whenever they want to buy anything that comes from anywhere else and the second America tries to do it everyone's in our world's over anyway everybody happy Saturday I'm gonna go I think we stopped talking about bitball a while ago I think we stopped talking about it what do we We could talk about Pitbull, man. Everybody losing money on Star Wars. The kids are home. My family's so beautiful. Just little kill, man. Literally when I walk by his pictures, we have this digital frame, and when I see pictures of him, just the last three years of what a difference the three years have done to him, I start crying in my kitchen. It makes me so happy and sad at the same time. He went from this little baby that I would just hold in the bathtub and was very nervous about that to the little kid he is today. I'm so happy that I get to redo all of that with Cassian. Cass is amazing. He walks around this joint like a little Stay Puft Marshmallow Man and he's starting to say dada and mama and point at things and you know he shakes his head when he doesn't want food and when he wants something it's just the most beautiful moment of existence and for those of you who have been through it and have children you know exactly what i'm talking about and none of these pinball machines and clothes or watches or anything bottles and nothing nothing will ever compare to the love of a child and a parent. That is it. You could strip everything in your house. If someone walked into your house today and said, I'll give you $20,000 for each of your pinball machines, you'd sell every single one. If someone knocked on my door here and said, I'll give you $20 million for Killian, I'm not selling. That's love. We really do try to put onto these items all this value and meaning, and it doesn't mean shit. What means the most is our friendship, our relationships. This is all that's valuable. Buying the machines is just a ticket to get to this relationship that we all have. It is really the most valuable thing. It's why these companies that don't invest in the relationships with the people and the community are are driving their organizations off a cliff and they they need to get it back and that is what they don't get and it doesn't cost money like stern stern thinks they're going to advertise their way out of the hole no the only way out is through us and through the community and through building more meaningful moments with each and every one of us and i don't think they know how to do it i don't think they know how to do it i don't think they know how to talk from the heart anymore i really don't i don't i think they're kind of lost and i think they they're operating with too much pressure and not enough passion and not enough you know transparency everybody enjoy your saturdays big hugs and kisses to all your your families and all you guys out there and if you wear cargo shorts it's okay like i get it like there's a place to put your wallet like they're con you know it's comfortable i get it it's just hard to match cargo shorts with anything else like what do you what do you wear on top like i just i don't they i you just look like you're about to go fishing and you're not like so it's just a bad look like anyway everybody be good i'll be expecting free drinks at expo next week buy me stuff and thank you I think Buy Me Stuff and Things is going to be the new call to action for Canada's Pinball Podcast. Everybody, see you guys next week. I'll see you at Expo. The next time I see a lot of you, we'll be at the show, all right? Can't wait. Thursday can't come soon enough. Peace out. All right, let's do this. Let's turn off YouTube. I love fanny packs. So the fanny packs are the way to go.