welcome to wormhole pinball presents my name is jb virtual i am here with my co-host on all streaming things donovan wait donovan wait how are you back from the north welcome back uh today is january 3rd yeah 2024 and we thought hey let's do a podcast with just me and you and what you know we're going to talk about the podcast later yep uh that we've been doing but uh at least once a month donovan and i will sit together and do a podcast together but we wanted to do one today really to talk about the great things that happened in the wormhole in 2023 and our 20 2024 goals so we're doing a year review with our 2024 goals and we're going to handle a couple other subjects and go from there so all right so let do you want to start us off what do you want to hit first what's two or 2023 major events okay i don't i don't have mine in any particular order so i don't have mine in any order just go back and forth what do you think you want to go you go first i go first uh you go first i kind of have mine in sequential order a little bit of like when they happen but you know it just so happened that way but uh really one of my favorite events that happened to the wormhole in 2023 was Wolfgang Van Halen's birthday party here. Oh, yeah. And I've never really described how that happened. Do you mind if I give it a three-minute kind of soliloquy? I saw his. He had a 2023 recap of his year. He got married. Yes, he did. And I met his fiancée at the time. Oh, she was here? Yeah. In March of 2023, me being a recruiter, Donovan, I kind of have access to – I spend a lot of money on this thing called LinkedIn Recruiter, which I probably shouldn't talk about, but I don't care. Okay. And I can get phone numbers and email addresses and talk to pretty much anyone. All right. Okay. If you're on LinkedIn, I can get to you. I'm not on LinkedIn. All right. Well, I can get to anyone who's on LinkedIn. You got my phone number. So I found his management company, and then I found his talent manager. And who's he? Who am I talking about? Well, his name is Mark Mark Tremonti. And I knew that Alter Bridge, I'm a big Alter Bridge fan. I'm actually a bigger Miles Kennedy fan. And Miles is the lead singer of Alter Bridge, and he's also a lead singer with Slash and the Conspirators, whatever. The reason I bring that up, because the conspirators are the band of mammoth, Wolfgang Van Halen's band called Mammoth WVH. And they were opening for Alterbridge. And Alterbridge had a two-day window in between concerts from here. They went from Dallas. They went to Houston, then Dallas the next day. But they had two days in between. mean so me being the recruiter donovan wade and hopefully i'm not boring you with this no i'm messing with you i've got him right here he pulled up on my instagram okay there he is so uh i reached out and said hey if you guys are in town why don't you come to the wormhole and i pitched this as a private event space which is what we really that's how we make any money here is is pay for anything is really our private event space uh rentals so we didn't really charge them very much in fact we didn't charge them anything because i was like if mark termani wants to come here mark termani can come here and we will pay you i didn't really hear anything and then so i sent him a video of me walking through i should send this video to you because it would be really cool have i of me doing the walkthrough and showing velvet taco and everything around us Oh, no, no, no. Wouldn't have. Have you seen that? No. Because what I wanted to show him was that we're not this crazy underground thing that we are an actual place. It's just not advertised. Yeah. Right. And we're only open publicly three days a month. And so I did the video, the walkthrough. And Janine was like in the back cleaning and all this crap. Anyway, I then get a text from the management company saying, do you have time to talk? And once that happened, my recruiter instincts went in, and we booked Wolfgang Van Halen's birthday party here. His mother came, Valerie Bertinelli, okay, who I had a crush on half my life. And her entire family, the Bertinelli family here, was here, and Alter Bridge was here. And they came, and they rented the wormhole for Wolfgang Van Halen's birthday party. And it was just absolutely amazing. John Spates set up a flip frenzy with who else with Mark Mark Tremonti Miles Kennedy Wolfie didn't want to play and neither did Valerie Janine served Valerie Bertinelli shots it was really a phenomenal night the craziest sons of bitches in the entire planet were the crew though oh my god those roadies are bananas. So that was really fun. And then the next night I got to, I played a dollar game with Mark Tremonti real quick. It was, behind us was 007. Remember how long ago that was? 007 just came in. That was double behind us. And so 007 was behind us and it was brand new and Mark Tremonti and I played a dollar game with John Spates and his head of security. Who won? I did. You did? Did you keep the dollars? I did. And then the next night when we went and we went backstage and met with Mark, the first thing he said to me is, I can't believe you beat me on 007. Practice up. I'm like, yeah, man, I'm sorry about that. Pinball map, Mark. Get on it. And then his wife came out, and he goes to her. I know. Can you hear that? It's tech night. It's okay. He's going to fix some high speed in Andromeda. That's good. his wife came out of the restroom, and he goes, hey, honey, these are the wormhole guys. This is Mark Mark Tremonti's wife. And she goes, oh, you guys messed up Miles Kennedy's hand. Apparently, Miles Kennedy was moving the machine, trying to, he was bumping machines, nudging his pinball, and he hurt his hand, and he couldn't play the two acoustic watch over me. Yeah. So, because I would, well, because Mark Tremonti, the next day, he played Watch Over Me. And he goes, yeah, did you notice why I played Watch Over Me? And I was like, yeah, that made no sense to me. And he goes, yeah, you injured him. You injured him. No, I didn't. All right, so that was the long story short. That is Wolfgang Van Halen's birthday party at the Wormhole, one of my top events of 2023. Please, your turn. I think we'll probably. I bored you on that story. We will share the next one, I think, because it's Labyrinth. Yeah. I mean, the whole reveal, you know, and I've told you this story. Like, I had no idea what was going on. Yeah. And that Friday when the thing dropped, when all the videos were getting ready to drop, that morning I was on Facebook and I saw a post from Steven Bowden. Okay. And he reposted one of our YouTube streams. I was like, wow, this is cool. Steven Bowden or, okay. Steven Bowden is from the bonus. He posted one of our things. In the comments, Bowen Kerins said, wow, this looks like a really cool place. Yes. And I took a screenshot and sent it to you. Yes, you did. And I said, dude, we need to get Bowen down here. Five minutes later, you send me a picture of you and John and Steven Bowden. No, Bowen Kerins. Bowen Kerins and all these other people. I was like, what in the hell is going on here? You were just like, stay by your phone. You're going to need to post a lot of stuff this afternoon. All right. And then when I saw it, I was like, wow. See, because I got signed into the NDA a week before or two weeks before. And I was like, I need, you know, we need Donovan in the NDA. And they were like, we can't sign any more NDAs. That's it. No, it was just shocking. And, you know, it was so awesome when it came out. And I was watching the videos and seeing Aaron in the videos. It was just like, so awesome. Well, we've told those stories a lot. And you can go to the Aaron podcast. She talks about that. And then just getting them here and having them play the game with us. That was a great night, too. David Van Es on for so long talking about the game. Travis, who works on the game, was on talking a lot about it. It was just a lot of fun. We had a lot of fun. And it was a good – if you see us going down our phones, that's because we made the list on our phones. And we're not interested in each other because we are. We're just looking at the phones. But the Labyrinth reveal really was a great night. And you know who saved that night was Tim Hood because he was the only one that really blew up. Leslie had a pretty good ball one. Yeah, none of us really killed it that night. All right. So that's one of your top events. You heard that one too? I had a Labyrinth reveal on here, yes. I also have winning streamer of the year. Oh, okay. So you want to talk about that now? I guess we should talk about that now because it was a pretty great thing that happened to us, right? I got that one too. Well, you know, Chris over at Canada Pinball Podcast created an award show called the People's Choice Awards. We know why because Twippy's, you know, folded and such. They kind of dropped the ball. I mean, we're not going to blame anybody. It's, you know. No, Pasa nada. But it's gone. Or is it back? I don't even know anymore half the time. But, you know, he created this award, and he said, look, go out and vote. And, you know, we went out, and we got some people to vote. And a lot of Canada's followers have been watching us a little bit more now. And NAP's followers and all these great people that we've had on the podcast. And, gosh darn it, we won 32%. He really did, you know. That was awesome. We were involved in that last year. And it's just a process You know, you gotta get in the database And then you gotta qualify There's voting to qualify for top ten And then you do another vote It was just too much to like get people Hey, okay, I need you to vote Hey, I need you to vote again Hey, we need you to get back He just made it simple It's like one week It's a Facebook chat post You go on Facebook, you vote once That's it That's how easy, you know, it's just that easy Yeah, but I mean you can go I think next year he could do it Not in just Facebook Live Maybe he'll do it the Pinball People's Choice Awards, which I think is here to stay. And I'm really happy that we won the first one. Look, I know it's stupid. I know it's a word. Whatever. It was fun. It was nice to be recognized. And some people were like, who the hell are you? And I'm like, come and check us out. These people are like, oh, you know, I don't really care. We're all competitive. I mean, it's not saying that we're better or worse than anybody, you know. I mean, there's other great people. The whole category got 1,000 votes. Whatever. But it was fun. And I got a chuckle out of it. Yeah. All right? I mean, we wouldn't be in this if it wasn't Tim and Christine giving us this spot, giving us all these games. Lots of people bringing games in. We played your game this year. We played some of John's games. Upkick brings games in here for us to stream. It's a village, and I'm glad the village got recognized. That's all. You know what I mean? But the biggest thanks needs to go to you. Oh, my God. All the work. You know, I think. Oh, no. What is this? When you guys found me at 82 about two and a half years ago and said, hey, you need to come to Wormhole and play. I was here for about a month, and you said, hey, I want to stream on Twitch. I said, all right, let's do it. Yeah. And that first month or two. Because you had said to me that you used to do these YouTube videos. Yeah. I said, let's do it. And those first couple months, they were dark. A lot of trial and error. Well, look, look where it's coming. You know, it's all, you know, you put a lot of money into these cameras and this setup. And I know those. No, we got them on sale. Oh, we got them on sale. Yeah. Yeah. Phil was Phil's closing out. We got a lot. I mean, we did. We get Phil's closing out. So big, big bravo to you. Oh, God bless you. Thank you. And, you know, you continue to do such an unbelievable job as our social media expert. And I really appreciate that. That takes a lot of time. Here's the deal. We'll pause it for a second. We'll do a 20-second timeout. Do you know how much work goes into this? It's a lot. And we're not making any money, right? We're doing this because we love it, and it's a tremendous amount of fun. And I don't want to be called a content creator because it's totally absurd of a phrase, but we like doing it, and the fact that you're downloading it is really kind of cool. Thank you. Absolutely. I appreciate it. So we had that one in common. So let me go next. Okay. I had the Star stream. I thought that one was a lot of fun. We had a lot of people here. Yeah. Was that the Elizabeth Dornay comeback stream? Yes. Oh, that was a really good stream. You should go back and watch that on Videos on Demand on YouTube. That's a really good stream. The whole thing was fun. It was a lot of fun we had. And, yeah, Howard and Elizabeth, final game. Howard put up a huge score. We're like, no, no, she's not going to do it. She plunges ball three. somehow it doesn't trigger, like, you've got that pop bumper up there. You've got those rollovers. Yeah, it doesn't hit a switch. She drained straight out. Didn't hit a switch. Oh, I remember. Yeah, it was really good. Oh, she got all her stars. She hit the wow. I mean, it was. I don't know particularly if Elizabeth loves to be streamed, and hopefully she doesn't listen to this. But I don't know if she particularly likes it, but she rose to the occasion there. Rose to the occasion there, yeah. She's a champion on the stars night. She did great there. I think it was also the night we had somebody from the Chronicle here taking pictures. I don't know. Was Dwight Cameron Silver not here that day? Because that was another great thing in 2023. And I'm going to talk about that next. So that's a good segue. Okay, you ready? Yeah. I think the coverage that we got media-wise was really cool in 2023. you know we got featured on what is it channel 11 kta khou yeah khou as uh our cbs affiliate cbs there you go buddy so that was a kind of we did they did a segment about us there and uh then we also were put in the houston chronicle yeah really space city that was a better article about space and we were featured in that article if you will which was great And so those are my, those were really top events for me because I was like, holy cow, we're really, something's happening to us. Yeah. You know, and people are starting to take notice that this is a really great place and that our vibe is kicking good. Yada, yada, yada. All right, you're up. I think we had the same one here Space City Open Yeah I mean it was i didn get to stream for long but i had so much fun with you and aaron and it was just all these you know what we did were competitive people i mean i'll tell you what we did a little differently from tpf to space city open right because there's a lot of similarities uh same equipment same everything right all right But what we did is we kind of controlled the booth at Space City, and we made it a wormhole event, right? And nothing wrong with Teolos, and I'm not disparaging that. It's just that they're not our vibe. That's not what we, right? But we made it professional. We're not asshats doing something stupid. I think it went really well. I knew what we were talking about. We knew what we did, and we had a good, I really loved it. I loved the vibe of that room. TPF had a good vibe. TPF had a good vibe, but this vibe was a little bit louder, and I think it was really good. And Wesley did a phenomenal job. Great. I loved streaming that event. Phil did a great job, as usual. I loved it. That was really one of my favorite things that happened. I think you had on there, putting the TV in there so that everyone could watch. You can't stand on top of the machine and watch. We learned that at TPF, truthfully. Oh, yeah? They had something like that? Yeah, they had. I don't know if it was the same monitor that David Pollack lets us borrow, but they did put a monitor at TPF. And we ran a long HDMI cord, and that kind of started us thinking, hmm, okay, now let's put it here, because the room is a little bit bigger at Space City, honestly. That's not saying much. But it's a tiny bit better lighting, if you will. I mean, it's not just glare, just yellow. everything's freaking yellow in that room yeah but um anyway where we put the the me and uh phil grimaldi really went through and like where do we want this tv where do we want people to watch where do we want them to come and i don't know it did good it did good all right anymore you know the last thing that happened was our unboxing of galactic tank force and that was just a fun night and a fun day yeah and it's it's we're so happy that it's here that that was it's worth a mention so unique it's so unique and we're just starting to learn it i'm really close to a billion i'm really close to getting wow i haven't been since we unboxed a lot of time i'm really close i'm really i'm really digging it i'm digging it and uh things are uh progressing in my play in that game. Cool. Yeah, you'll have to walk me through it. I'll totally walk you through it. I know nothing about it. I'm totally walking through it. They're working on something on it right now, but it's perfect. All right. I had one more. All right, let me hear it. This is more my personal thing, is my rivalries. I got to keep my rivalry going with Culpepper. Okay. So from the previous year, we had battled out on Six Million Dollar Man and Black Belt, which I had both won. He beat me on counterforce. I like that you know these things. It's kind of sad. These are Monday night events, ladies and gentlemen, that we have here at the Wormhole. They mean nothing. There's so many of them. There's so many of them. They mean nothing to anyone but us. And I've won like six or seven of them. But I got a new rival, I think, Clint. I never realized how many times I played him in the finals. We played finals on Circus, Comet, and Baywatch. And how did those go? He beat me on Comet and Baywatch. Remember, I absolutely flubbed Comet. I beat them at a circus, which is surprising because they own one. Yeah. I don't know how that happened. Well, circus. You never know. I mean, you never know. It's a rough game. And the winner takes home $30. Who cares? But we care. And this is our stream on Monday nights. You know why you don't care? Because you're not in first place now. You know who is? No. This guy. This guy. I'm standing alone at the top. Did you have any? Let's talk about this real quick. Did you have any 2023 pinball goals that you wanted to accomplish this year, and did you accomplish them? I had, well. Because I didn't really have any pinball goals. John and I were just talking about this. Back in the spring, we were like, yeah, let's make top 24. Yeah. And he did it, and I didn't. What number were you? I don't know. I can look. Come on, Donovan. You're my producer. You've got to be ready for stuff like that. Oh, geez, I lost it. Don't worry about it. We'll look it up later. I was looking up who's in the tournament coming up. My pinball, I have to say that I'm kind of glad 2023 is gone. What was your goal? My goal was to play better pinball, and it got worse, dude. I had a really bad, mediocre pinball year. In fact, it was so mediocre, there were times where I was in the top ten, and people were looking at me going, how are you still here? They literally said that to me. Two times at Tom O'Neill's house in his tournament, I made top six, and Fred Revenue said to me, how are you still here? Somebody drop out? What happened? Fred, that hurts feelings. Somebody played out a turn. That hurts feelings. Here's real quick. I had a personal goal to lose weight. Mission accomplished. I did. I got healthy in 2023. three but 95 of people when they see me and haven't seen me in a while go god you look so good dude you look great way to go what'd you do i worked hard i worked my ass off i got on the peloton yada yada yada five percent of people say i don't know man what's wrong with you are you okay i went to pick up my mom because she's a great grandma and uh so i pick her up and i hadn't seen her in a year and she i go to get her luggage and she goes what are you not telling me what's wrong with you is she the italian side no it's a puerto rican side oh so hey how come are you not either here hey what do you go what i don't know what accent that is we're gonna move on from there uh 2024 pinball goals let's go back and forth on these these are pinball goals for either the wormhole or yourself these are more for me personally these are so you're going to know No, I had a couple. I had a couple. I got a couple of both. I only have four, though. Only have four. You want me to go first? Yeah. I couldn't come up with a fifth. I want to play in at least one tournament, non-wormhole tournament a month, whether that's Game Preserve or Einstein's or something. I just don't play in them anymore. You know, I used to live down by NASA, so that was fine. But now that I'm in town, I mean, it's just too far. I need to go to at least one. Where do you want to go? Like, why don't you come to Abilene with us? Well, we'll get to that. I've got another goal coming up. All right. But, I mean, at least. You want to go further to where? No, at least. Like, Einstein's? Yeah, at least once a month. That's not a wormhole. Go to Einstein's once a month. Yeah. They're on Sundays, and they take off. Every time I've played in one, I've made the finals. Those last, like, six or seven hours. You know what I'm hearing? I'm hearing excuses already. It's January 3rd. It's like, that's a whole day. My number one pinball goal of 2024 is to get the second rig fully functioning by the Texas State Championships on January 20th and 21st. All right. I've got to get those ready. You making progress towards that? It's right there. It looks like shoot. Oh, that is? It looks like shit. Look at it. Okay. I got a lot of work to do on that. And then I've got piles of technology. I see. Very cheap, Janine. It was very cheap. I listened to Bad Cast. They talked about it. I wish they would not do that. Well, just don't let her listen to that podcast. Well, she's not going to listen to a pinball podcast, so you're right. All right. All right, go ahead. So to go along with that, whenever I put something up on YouTube or on social media, I want to make sure it's in 4K, even though YouTube doesn't really support that just yet. How long is that going to take to upload? It takes a long time. Give me a number, over or under. If it's a two hour stream It takes about four or five hours To render it In my software And it takes another Usually eight or nine hours For YouTube to upload it Oh wow Is this dial up? No it's not dial up I'm in town here I don't want to dial up It just takes a while Holy smokes You know I won't be able to do it If we do like a Nine hour TPF If I mean that, that would just take weeks to do. But everything else I want in 4K. I just noticed I screwed this up by having this here. We could have just gotten the whole thing. You want me to do that now? I thought this was going to be live. I thought we were going to have people. No. I want to be able to say something stupid and be able to edit it out. Okay. All right. Everything in 4K. I've gone back and looked at some of the old things that I used to do, and it wasn't in 4K. 2024 we'll be in 4k from the wormhole perspective i like it i want to get our podcast to a thousand downloads a month oh we're close i mean you know we've done very well on the podcast i'm real happy between you know started with folk romani aaron i did keith christensen who's the head of the space uh houston arcade expo Canada. That did very well. Not surprisingly. While you're on that, can I talk a little bit about those? Yeah. I haven't talked to you since some of those came out. I listened to some of them on the way home. First up, Jim and Dina Lindsay are just the greatest people. I would move in with them tomorrow. If Janine kicked me out, I think I'm moving to Germany. If they told me you can meet anyone in pinball, I would say I want to meet Jim and Dean. They just seem so genuine, so down to earth. I'm really thinking how, and John asks me this all the time, how are you getting to Germany in 2024? I'm like, I can't. I just can't see it happening, right? Because one of the, we'll talk about 2024. Like, there's a week, a three-week period where you can come to the Space City Open, all right, come to the Houston Arcade Expo, then go to Chicago Expo, all right, Then come back for Bayou Bash. Jeez. So it's, I don't know, it's so murder me. Yeah, they were great. And, you know, I mean, I really, when you talk to me about streaming stuff and cameras sometimes, like, my eyes glaze over. I gotcha. But when I was listening to you guys, I was like, this is interesting. And I loved hearing his philosophy and how he likes to build it like a story. Yeah. The games are the centerpiece, but it's really about the people and the competition and how do I best edit this and get it out so people can see that too. Oh, I like that podcast. That was one of my favorites. I love their philosophy. Yeah, Jason Knapp was a great podcast. Jason Knapp. Go back and listen to that, kind of his philosophy on how he got into it. I like to do origin stories with everyone, right? Yeah. So I like to just – Kaneda, how did you get into this, right? You know, Jason, how did you get into this? Don, how did you get into this? Don Pinball Podcast. Jennifer Rupert, how did you get into this? It's fascinating to me to see their pinball journey, and then we'll take another, you know, path. Well, Don was great. I mean, he always has lots of energy. I love how positive he is. He's, you know, you brought up, you know, some things like the Twippy. He makes everything positive. He's not going to be negative about anything, and I like that because there's a lot of negative people out there. he's got a little Tony Robbins in him he's exciting and Jen I've been trying to get her on because she you know when you guys told me hey we have a TikTok and as soon as you type in pinball it's her videos that pop up yeah she's great I've been a fan of hers for a while and I really enjoyed that podcast that podcast could have gone on for another hour honestly I could have done two hours with her and I was just like is anyone else going to find this as interesting as I'm finding it and the podcast has downloaded have been very very well so i'm very happy i mean i totally related there because she you know we do the same things we come out with the stuff on instagram and and uh tiktok and it's i could totally relate to her talking about you know there's some of the videos that she does where she spends so much time planning okay i want to do this and this and this and so many edits and so much i'm going to put filters and music and doesn't get any interaction and then there's sometimes Hey, I'm just going to video somebody who's got a funny plunge and it gets like thousands of views. I know. But you can't chase it, right? You can't. You can't. You can't chase the views. You can't chase. All we're trying to do is just provide good content and let's see where it takes us. You know our TikTok video that has the most views? No. Clinton Travis sending me a video of them playing putt-putt and the holes look like a pinball machine. No kidding. That's our top video. How many? How many? Do you know? It was about 2000 or something. We do this. All this. We're busting our ass. And it's their little video of them in some podunk town playing. No editing. No music. No nothing. Just throw it up. That's hilarious. People love it. All right. One of my pinball goals. Oh, no. That was mine. You're up. I wanted to go to an out-of-town event, whether it be Abilene or TPF. Where's the one in Oklahoma? I think it's in Oklahoma City What is that, Cactus Jacks? Yeah That's not that far Ease you in on Abilene maybe Then 2025 you go to Cactus Jacks Get you in another state Something Let's do something Or Austin or Corpus or something I really want to go to What's Brewing in 2024 That'd be a good one God, I really want to see those guys up there I definitely have to go to Abilene I've already promised, so I'm going So I'm going Thursday. It's a Thursday with two Friday tournaments, Saturday, and then a Sunday. That's different. Last year you guys were just kind of warming up on Friday, right? Yeah, but they might get 80 people. That's too many tournaments. See, you're already making excuses, buddy. I'm already hearing the negativity. You get tired with it sometimes. Well, how are you going to get better if you're getting tired? So he needs to work on his positivity and stop the negative thoughts creeping into his head. That should be on your vision board. All right. Give me some riddling. Dead bouncing and more dead bouncing is my goal in pinball in 2024. I've got to start dead bouncing this ball. I'm so wanting to catch it that I'm flipping into danger, and I've got to be able to dead bounce. And if I, well, gosh, damn it, if I don't start doing it. I do it too much. Sometimes it has no mustard on it. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Whoops, that didn't bounce. I want to get to stage 10 on Dungeon Door Defender. I made it to nine the other day. You have far surpassed me as a Dungeon Door Defender. But I didn get a high score even though I got to stage nine They just blew me up on stage That would get so tough We got fast guys who take three hits Really I had double power on my ball You had double power Yeah, it still took... So, can I give a little advice for the creator again? Michael Ocean? Okay. It's too hard. I got a little... It's hard, dude. That game is really helping me shoot shots on the heist. On heist, yeah. I'm wiping people away on heist, and that is simply because of Dungeon Door Defender. If we could get the crane to work, then we might be able to play it. So I had it in a tournament, and I was crushing it, and then the crane doesn't work. You know what we're doing? The crane just doesn't work for everybody. Yeah, but it dropped three balls when it wasn't supposed to for me. We'll work on that. You know, I don't want to disparage them. Jesus, you guys got to work on that. We want to do Dungeon Door Defender in tournaments. You might as well just do Dungeon Door Defender. You don't need a crane. You don't need anything. Awesome. Yeah. All right. Anything else? You know, I'd like to have 1,000 people watch our TPF stream. Oh. You know, we've gotten in the 6, 7, 800s. Okay. I'd like to eclipse that. I think that'll happen. And I think with the two-rig system, ladies and gentlemen, that I can get to 1,000 active people watching the Classics and the Wizards Finals, especially the Wizards Finals, and then stick around the next day for the Women's Championships. Well, I need to do a better job. I've got to promote that. We've got to make sure people know where to go for that. That's on me. I'll get on that. It's not on you. No, we're doing fine. We're going to make that happen. I've got one more. All right. Because I don't have another one. I wanted to make top 1,000. Oh. And I was on my way at the beginning of the year. I was doing great. And then I just, I was like you, I just. Oh, my God. Went in the toilet. My skill set just completed. Now, I just think the games got harder in here. But I think my skill set just went poor. Yeah, well, they were hard for everybody. So I still didn't do anything. You can have one. Of course. I'll take one more. Yeah, go for it. Hey, can you give me one, Christine? Christine Hood is here. It's tech night, and we have our own bartender tonight. It's pretty cool. And Tim is here. And that's why the lights are on. Sorry, ladies and gentlemen, why we're a little lighter than we normally are. It's because it is tech night here on Wednesdays at the Wormhole, and that's where Brian Foytick and his crew come here and fix these machines and make them play the best, I think, our machines. We've had three people come in from out of town recently and say they've never played a tournament where their machines are kept as well as ours are. Were they from Arlington? Hey. That's between you and DFW. That is not on me. The opinions of Donovan Wade do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the world. Not necessarily. Call the people out here. All right, go. All right, what do you want to do? So that's our moment, or that's our goal. Yeah, that's our goals for 2024. Thank you. I'm good. Thank you. What else do you want to talk about? I don't know. Did we talk about everything? Did we talk about Jaws? I guess we might as well, because you had all these things that you wanted to talk about. Yeah. And we already did it. Well, I haven't really seen it. I mean, I've only seen the pictures. You've seen more, though, haven't you? I saw the illegal video of it. The illegal? Oh, that's why I haven't seen it. I'm not in the dark web like you. I saw the illegal video. I saw the pictures. Well, by the time this comes out, it'll be out. The trailer comes out the 4th. How's it look? Yeah, I think it's going to be ahead. I think it's going to be ahead. Breaking news. The playbill looked pretty open, but a lot of his games do. I think his games look pretty open, yeah. I think it's a shooter, and, you know, the orc will be up on the top, and we'll see where it goes. You know, the premium will have the top upper play field, and it's in the upper left-hand corner, and that will be the orca. Okay. He's never had an upper play field. He's never had an upper play field, and he does now. Wow. Yeah, so that's kind of cool. All right. And then there's just a boat in the middle, and I think it's just a regular boat. I don't think it's not the orca, which is Quint's boat. Do you know the movie? Vaguely. It's been a while since I've seen it. I know the movie. So it's just a regular boat, and it's not Ben Gardner's. It's some other people on the boat. Anyway, then you hit the ball. It's a captive ball. Here. And then you hit that, and then it pops up, and then there's a shark underneath. You know what the boat looked like? Sopranos. No. Yeah, they should have done a Sopranos lock on that. No way. Yeah, that would have been awesome. That's the best lock, the Sopranos. The Sopranos vote lock is really cool. But I like Sopranos, so. Well, that's it, man. Do you have any 2024 personal goals that you want to do? Like, personal. Like, do you want to. I, in 2024. Because I lost my weight in 2024. 2023. Personally, I'm going to try to tighten it up a little now. Yeah? Yeah, I'm going to get through some. Oh, no, no. You're not going to be one of these new gym people, are you? No, I have my shit at home. I'm not going anywhere. Because people at the gym, we know you're new. We see you, and we don't like you. You're taking our parking spots. You're taking our benches, our free weights. They're going to be paying their dues in March. You'll never see them again. Thank you. Please. Because right now it's just a bleep show. Stop whining. They're trying. They're trying. Get out. They're trying. Not everyone has the willpower of Jamie. Texas State Tournament. You want to talk about that a little bit? I do. Texas State Tournament is going to start on the 20th. But on the 19th of January, we are having a max match play here for anyone that is out of town that wants to come in early and play these machines and beat them up. Only if you're out of town? Well, anyone here. Okay. I'm going to play in it. Are you going to play in it? Maybe. I mean, I'm expecting Kyle Colin MacAlpine. I'm expecting Robert Byers. I'm expecting Preston Monk. I'm expecting. Oh, Preston's playing. Yeah. Oh, he's not playing in Louisiana? I think he's playing here. Okay. So Pinball Mafia will be here. And John Spates made it. John Spates is 24th. First round matchup against Fred Revenue. This is what's exciting. Some of the first round matchups. Did you see some of the first round matchups? Yeah. I had a pulled up a second ago. I had it rolled up, too. There was multiple, like, Preston versus... It's good matchups always. I mean, the first round, second round, whatever. God darn it. I blew that. Because I had it all written down. This is why. You talk for a second. I'll see if I can find it again. It was on Facebook. Yeah. Anyway, so we have the top 24 Texas State Championship will be held here at the Wormhole on January 20th. we will be utilizing and implementing the exciting two-rig system. And I'm real pumped about that. So we'll be doing two rigs, and we'll be able to follow two groups at the same time. I am not as good as J.D.L. Pinball, never thought I could be, so never going to have a three-rig system here in 2024, but maybe a 2025 or 26 initiative. Well, this is definitely a museum initiative, if those that know, we have a museum. So who dropped out to get? So we got Jack at number one. Yeah. Garrett, Wes, Phil, Lee at five. Yeah. He whips those guys up. He dominates up north. Great. He gets a lot of points up there. Brian Kravonick. Yeah. Krivenak. Gilbert Herrera. Collier. Collier Collier Whitefield. Kevin Rodriguez. Is number nine. Fred Revenue is ten. Robert Byers is eleven. Keith Shahan, 12. Jimmy will be 13. Ken Kemp at a DFW is 14. 15, David Pollak. 16, Kyle Colin MacAlpine. 17, Jonathan Morales. So I think Morales, is this the one you just saw? This is, I mean, this is just the ranking. That's not the new one. I don't know if somebody's dropped out. So I just read that for nothing. We're going to have to cut all that out. I mean, these are how they're ranked. I don't know if. Yeah, it's on Discord today. They sent out, and yes, this is how they're ranked, but there's people in here that are not coming here. Okay. Like Jonathan, Mark Meserve is not playing in it. All right, so he's out. Jonathan Morales is going to Oklahoma, so he's out, right? So that moved up Craig and Escher Lefkoff. But Escher Lefkoff is not coming from Colorado to Texas to qualify. He's going to California, so that moves John Spates up. You're doing California or is your new Wisconsin again? You know what? I don't know what that's just doing. Maybe I'll have him on the podcast. Look at that. I'm 40. So, yeah, you just need a bunch more people to drop out. That's terrible. I don't even think I'm in the hundreds. I think I'm 90th. Go to 90. We got a Canadian here next to me. That's sad. Canadian who's played one event here. Go to 90. I think Jamie's 90. Oh, there I am, 80. You're moving up. I have no chance. and will never be in the top 24 in Texas. Look at you. You're right next to Neil Graff, who played in one of the DPF. Now you're just hurting feelings. Ray Day. You're right next to Ray Day. Now you're really hurting feelings. Am I bigger? Am I better than Ray Day? Well, you're only two spots behind him. Oh, that would have been nice if I was better than Ray Day in Texas, even though he only played one event. Well, how was your holidays? I had a good holiday. Well, I was sick for so long. And I know I don't want to talk about it, but, you know, I have an immune disorder called Crohn's disease. You got a new one? No, that's all I have. And it took me out for about four weeks. And that was fun. I ended, I literally got a Crohn's attack on the Monday after Thanksgiving. And it stopped on the 19th of December. I've seen those commercials. Those were fun. You've seen them, right? Well, that shit doesn't work. No? Not for me. They're sitting on the toilet in the trailer. No, and they're just coming in trying to see where their bathroom is on every place they go to. No, it's just the immune system took a little kick in the butt, and it ended the year pretty badly. So I'm happy that 2023 is over, just on a physical standpoint, because now I'm on the roids, and it's a nightmare. being on bread and zone and anyway i am now officially the crones uh ambassador for the pinball world oh okay i'm really excited to be spreading the word of uh crones disease awareness awareness awareness me and one of the guitarists for pearl jam mike mccready yeah mccready oh is he still in there yeah stone gossard is he still in pearl oh stone gossard has crones Yeah. See, I know my Pearl Jam. Yeah, but it's Gossard that has gone. It's Gossard. Okay. Yeah. We're like brothers. Mother Love Bone. He was a Mother Love Bone. Yeah, he was. Mm-hmm. All right. How is this dribble? But, hey, your Cowboys are going to make the playoffs. As we're talking, my Dallas Cowboys look as if they're going to get the second seed. Wow. Yeah, the Eagles fell apart. They could choke this against the commanders this weekend. I will lose my mind. I don't think that's going to happen. And as you're listening, my New York Yankees failed to sign Yamamoto. Oh, who do you think? The Japanese? Yeah, of course. I don't even know what the Dodgers are doing. So that irritates me, Brooklyn. That's our friend Brooklyn Penn, who is a sport not like the three of us, two of us. And what else? Texas got a shot this weekend. They can make the playoffs with a win. Who? The Texans. Our hometown Houston Texans. Who cares? No, C.J. Shaw is a good player. He's fun. I lost my fantasy when Christian McCaffrey couldn't get in the end zone. Speaking of McCaffreys, my freaking owls lost against Texas State. Oh, I got a new tattoo. Oh, yeah. Where is it? It's right here. Oh, okay. I am officially going through a midlife crisis, Donovan. You are now the fifth Beatle. I am seriously. Do you want to show it on the stream? No. Are you sure? Yes. But I shouldn't have worn this stern shirt because now I have to put this lotion on it. And look, I've stained it. Oh, is it bleeding or something? No, it just bleeds through. Yeah. You never got a tattoo, huh? No. Really? My body is a temple. I've got like 10 of them. I'm going through a midlife crisis. I need to talk to my therapist. Hey, why am I getting so much ink at 51 years old? 50. 50. I'm not 51 until guess what day? It's coming up, isn't it? Yeah, it is. You going to be here this weekend for the 4X? Yeah, sure. Because that's my birthday. Oh, on Saturday? Yeah. Sweet. Yeah, so we're going to do a little celebration here. Not a big one, just like we might stop and sing happy birthday to me. which is always embarrassing. I'll try to go outside. Is Southern Star going to be here? Southern Star, you know what we are? If you are coming this weekend, I don't know if Southern Star is bringing beer, but I do know for a fact that our new sponsor of beer is. You have a new beer sponsor? Yeah, you don't know this? No. Well, congratulations to the Wormhole on their new affiliation with. St. Arnold's is now sponsoring the Wormhole. Love it. We will be sponsored by St. Arnold's for the next few months. And we are also sponsored by Joysticks, which is a distributor, pinball and arcade distributor. And we're going to get you more information as that unfolds. So all of our streams will also be sponsored by Joysticks. I mean, how exciting is that? We have sponsors now. That's awesome, yeah. Holy smokes. I love me some St. Arnold's. Selling out all over the place. Little tip, people. I know it's past the season, but Sailing Santas. You take half a Christmas ale, half an Alisa IPA, mix them together. Oh, so tasty. Yeah? Because that Christmas ale, it's heavy. You have one of those. I'm a big fan of St. Arnold's. And if you ever are in Houston, go to the St. Arnold's Brewery. Oh yeah Do the tour if you can and do the whole thing It really great And their outside is outstanding And they have a hell of a pretzel You know who I saw at St Arnold Zane Lamprey Comedian. He did three sheets, like a drinking show. It was hilarious. Hilarious. Just look it up. Three sheets. It's like a travel show for drinking. Like, you'll go to Chili and, hey, what are you drinking Chili? Oh, yeah? Throw them all back. I've never seen it. Is it good? It's really good, yeah. And then by the end of the show, he's, okay, what's the hangover cure if you're in Iceland? And I go jump in a freezing lake or something. Oh, really? That sounds pretty cool. That's really funny. All right. Real quick. Podcast. Who is your, oh, my God, Jamie, you got this guest on. Who am I going for? Jack Danger. We can probably get Jack Danger. You think? I've never heard him on a podcast before. Oh, really? No. Not that I know of. All right. So that's your mount. That's who you want. That's your top. He would try to get me. I want Jason Sudeikis. Jason Sudeikis from Ted Lasso. Does he play pinball? Fuck. Hell yeah, he does. He does? Loves pinball. Oh, wow. I didn't know that. Him and Jack Black. Those are two guys I'm going after. I'm using my LinkedIn skills, trying to get in touch with them. Wow. Yeah, that'd be pretty good. Wouldn't it be great? Now, don't you, pinball profile, try to go get them or somebody else just because I mentioned that that would piss me off. Yeah, no, that'd be really good. Wouldn't that be cool? Yeah. I'm going to get it. Absolutely. And I'm going to get, I really want to get Slash in the wormhole. Oh, jeez. I'm going to get him. Wow. I'm going to get him. because I know Slash has a band called Slash with Miles Kennedy and the Conspirators, and I know all the Conspirators really actually, I hung out with them all night long, and I think they want to come back. So we're going to get Miles back here, but we're just going to tell Miles to be easy on the machines. Are they on tour? They're going on tour at the end of 2024, and they're coming through Houston. Oh, wow. That would be amazing. Isn't that going to be awesome? I think they're going to come through Houston. I told you, Slash is my number two favorite guitarist. Sorry, Stevie Ray Vaughan. Oh, well, yeah. Stevie Ray Vaughan's not walking through those doors. No, unfortunately. I think that's enough dribble. Yeah. Dribble or dribble? Dribble. Dribble. I think. Yeah, not dribble. We're not actually physically dribbling. I'm not dribbling down my mouth. I'm not a wordsmith, Donovan. You are. Yeah. Proposed to be as a teacher. I hope so. All right. Thank you so much. Once a month, me and Donovan will be doing this, just talking about what's happening in the wormhole, talking about our favorite events. Shooting the stuff. Making it happen. And then the rest of the month, my goal is to have about 35 podcasts this year. Yeah. Two interviews a month. Already have two in the books. You got anything lined up? Yeah, I have two. You want to talk about it? No. Well, the guys from Memphis Pinball are interviewing next Wednesday. Oh, I wish I would have known about it. I just drove through Memphis. I could have. Oh, no kidding. Yeah. So I'm interviewing those guys next week, and they have like a 25, 28 camera system on their stream, and I can't wait to pick their brain. It'll be more than just a technological, but what we're going to do is put it in OBS and on Zoom and so that we can go and show each other the operations. Wow. And that should be kind of neat. And then this Friday, I have a test stream, a test call with Erin Winnick, who is on the vessel. And if you follow Erin on social media, you really need to because she is on the JODES expedition in the Mediterranean, I believe. Now I think it's in the Mediterranean. And they are drilling core earth samples, and she is a social media expert on the vessel and doing that. And so we're going to test the Zoom equipment with OBS because OBS sucks and make sure that it works. And once it works on Saturday when we are doing the tournament, she is going to co-host with me and you on Zoom on one of those. That's awesome. Isn't that awesome? So I'm really pumped about that. And then, of course, Jack Revenue is going to Indisc this weekend. And for those that you don't know, Jack Revenue is a young man out of Houston, Texas. And the Wormhole sponsors Jack. We sponsored him to go to Florida Free Play. And he did very, very well in the classics. He got very, very sick for the Wizards or whatever they call that, the other, the regular tournament. It's probably the Florida food. Well, he might have gone to Chuckers. You know that I'm not sure. and then uh and then wait a minute your frat brother could have been and then uh he did very very well there and so we sponsored him to go to indisc and he's going to be playing in the classics the uh the main and the high stakes that is big when is that's this weekend that's this weekend yeah he leaves on thursday wow he leaves tomorrow yeah jeez i gotta watch that so we're gonna put that up on the big screen here. I ought to watch that, yeah. And so, you know, for those that want, I think, who's streaming that? IE, right? Yeah. So IE will do that. Carl D'Python Anghelo. And, you know, he's the GOAT. He's the GOAT. He knows what he's doing. So that should be fantastic. Yeah. It's going to be fantastic. He has a solid two rig system, so he's going to be fine. Yep. And that's what's upcoming in the wormhole. Other things that are happening here, you know, we're going to do a Galactic Tank Force stream. Uh-uh. Uh-uh. We know what's coming up. What? Are we doing trailer this Monday? Oh, we're doing trailer Monday, yeah. There it is, right behind Donovan's head. And get that the hell out of here. No. No, it's got to stay for the state championship. It's the only one I can win anymore. This whole row kicks my rear end, from Cosmic Princess to Warlock. That's the only row I do good at. Oh, I get that row, and I just know I'm getting a strike. Just know it. I feel it. We've got good ones going up. We've got Trailer. We've got Kiss back there. Yeah. We can do Barricora. Yeah. We're going to do that whole row. All right. And then get High Speed in there and Andromeda. We've got Rick and Morty, Andromeda, yeah. There's a lot we need to stream here. So we're in good shape stream-wise, and we're in good shape with some great pins here. We've got Diner, too. Oh, I know. Yeah, Tim's bought a bunch of System 11s. And they're in phenomenal shape. Diner came in in really good shape. A little issue with a ball search after a lock, but we're working on that right now. I say we a lot, but there's really no we in that. There's no we. You don't know what we're doing. I'm just going to get out of the way. We're sticking our lane. Stay in your lane, dude. Stay in your lane. And I always do. I always do. How about talk to me a little bit about GTF. I know you are kind of reaching out to some people there. Maybe you're talking about getting them on. Yeah. You know, have we had any? I know there's been a lot of people having issues with this or that. You've played it a lot. I've played it a lot. Have you noticed anything that's, you know? We had a fuse blown, but that can happen to anyone. Oh, a fuse. And so that can happen to anyone. Yeah, I played the hell out of it, and I love it. I had the GC up until two days ago, and John Spates came up and blew it up. sometimes you get some ball searches i think doesn't it lose tracks of balls from what it sounds like from other people i don't know if that's you know we haven't had an issue with that if there is one issue in galacta tank force what i would say and we're very fortunate that we got number four signature edition yeah and uh the signature is absolutely gorgeous it's hand painted and i can't wait to show everyone that yeah but uh what was i gonna say the issue that So we had, if there was a slight issue that I think that they can fix in code updates, though, it would be, is the transition from the video to get ready to play now. Like the cutaway scenes to Professor Sputnik or whatever his name is. And, you know, he's a lab technician and he plays this goofy guy. when you lock the ball into the scoop there okay the cutaway to him is like three seconds all right so then he does his spiel okay and then it'll end and then the ball pops up maybe two seconds now it just feels like an eternity from the cutaway and i think that they can fix that on code updates. And so when, you know, experienced players are like, oh, something's wrong. And I said, no, there's nothing wrong. Just give it a second. It's just a cutaway scene. It takes a millisecond. And it really happens, not so much in the lab, but when you go and shoot modes. You have to shoot modes in that game. This is a mode-friendly game. If you spend all day on the tank, you're dead. It's going to just murder you. And it would take 100 shots in the tank. What you have to do is hit the outlanes and build your methane gas shots. And once you build your methane gas shots, you can get the blue shot and kick the tank's rear end a lot better. Basically, you're a tank commander that is in charge of a planet that is now being attacked because of the zero-gravity ice cream that they want to steal. It's campy. It's stupid. But it's great. It's fun. It's a much better shooter than you think it is. They fixed a lot of the ball error problems that they were having at TBF. You didn't see – not one – we haven't had one issue there. And so I'm really happy with it. Good. And, yeah, I am trying to talk to them about it because I think it's a better machine than people are saying. I really do. I think it's a machine that people need to get time on. And they're listening to people that played it at a TPF or that played it where it wasn't completed. And that there were some serious issues with that ball was flying all over the place. Really? And they fixed it. Okay, good. And, you know, the first thing that we said, I'm going to tell them this if I interview them and if it does happen. The first, when we unboxed it, what did I say? Were you standing there when I said they moved the tank back? Oh, yeah. Right? I said they moved the tank back. And Clint and Travis are engineers, and they go, no, they didn't move the tank back. Right? Okay. And John Spates walks up to it now, right? We're lighting it up. He goes, that tank's a lot further back than I remember. Right? And I think it's a Mandela effect. It really is. It's almost a Mandela effect where people say, oh, my God, that tank is so close up here. The ball's flying all over the damn place, right? And now that they fixed it, the ball's flying all over the place. That tank is not that close. It is close. You don't want to just go pummeling the tank. You want to hit the red shots and the blue methane shots. But it also has a ball, what is that called? The death save that pops up. Oh, yeah. And it's awesome. I never played it, but I'm going to trust the engineers on this one. The engineers were like, it's not back, Jamie. You're having a Mandela effect. They never said Mandela effect. I just threw that in there. But, no, and honestly, I think we all misremembered it. And then there is, honestly, a negative perception on this pinball machine. And if they come and play it, and you can play it at the Wormhole this Saturday on our 4X, starting at 1 p.m come and play it it's going to be in the tournament and uh it's shooting really really well i love it i really like it now it's shooting a little easy so we got to work on the tilt and we got to work on uh take a lot of these rubbers off because you know these experts are going to come in and they're going to hammer it and they're going to all my scores are going to be wiped away so let's put it let's put it on there let's do that tonight so that i can at You don't think, well, Jack won't be here. You don't think, I don't know who else is coming. I don't know who's coming. If I was someone that's trying to get out of Texas and win the Texas State Championship, I think I would make a trip up this weekend. Oh, yeah. Don't you think that would make sense? Don't you want to get some time on Andromeda? Don't you want to get some PT on Labyrinth? I mean, how many times have they played Labyrinth? Maybe a Ray Ford. Maybe a Brian Krupak. Yeah, I'm talking to you, Ray Ford. Makes it up here. you never know we'll see tune in Saturday and find out 1 o'clock or no well 1 o'clock when it starts so this will be available and if you're listening to it wherever podcasts can be downloaded it will also be on our YouTube channel videos on demand thank you so much Donovan Wade we just talk and talk sometimes we got our rhythm yeah it was good these people need this they're going to the gym they're freaking taking up my benches they need something to listen to yeah they do Not so much me. Can we take you? Oh, I'm not going to the gym. I've got everything I need. I got it all. Harrison says I need one of these machines. What is it with the wires coming out and you just pull? Like a cable pulley? Yeah, he says I need a cable machine. He says that's all I'll need. But I want the Peloton Row, but they're proud of that thing. Hey, those Peloton things. Yeah, they're proud of their prices. All right, ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much. Tune in on Saturday for our 4X, and we'll probably start the finals. I'll be knocked out around 4, 430. 5-ish. We'll get something to eat. And so 5. Janine's going to bring some pizza for me for my birthday. So I'm thinking 5-ish I should be able to get on the stream. That Detroit place down the road? Have you had it? You brought it, I think, once. Was it Gold Tooth? Gold Tooth Jollies or something? Yeah. but John ate one of your slices. You only got one slice. I didn't pay, so it didn't matter. I know, but John did. He ate one of your slices. I go, I was going to say that for Donovan. He goes, oh, really? Boom. That's all she wrote, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you so much. Wormhole Pinball Presents. We appreciate you so much. Thank you. Adios. Are you ready? Yeah, let's go. All right. Oh, God damn it. made me nervous alright one two I don't get nervous with anybody else but I don't am I intimidating no I just start them and I nail them I get that from parents a lot at teacher conferences I think I'm intimidating that's why they don't come to me and talk to me about stuff are you I don't think so do you wear tight shirts at your well I mean that could be it welcome to wormhole pinball I'm going to do that one more time