Draco Franchi over there. Draco Franchi, the newest addition. Our Sheepadoodle to go with our Goldendoodle. And if they did have babies, which we're not going to do because we don't want to be back here, you know. I mean, they'd be worth like three to five grand each. We would not do it. if our two dogs made beautiful love and had little dog puppies they would be so rare you can't even find go try i've tried you cannot even find a video of them on youtube they would make golden sheepadoodles they are known to be very stubborn not very smart very hard to train they like they're they're just they're i don't know how it is but like they sort of get the i don't want to make fun of sheepdogs don't come at me now i don't like the band the sheepdogs from Canada, so I guess it's okay, but sheepdogs are, they are, they are highly intelligent, because they can round up sheeps, but they're also a little bit like, I don't, I don't know how to say it nicely, they're also like a little bit, they don't really pay attention often, they're a little, you know, they get easily distracted, they're kind of like me, they're like me, that's Orby, there's me, so I don't like that saying, so I shouldn't do that, but what else am I talking about on today's show, we're also going to count down the top five DC pin themes. So we have seen way, way, way too many Marvel. And I love Marvel. I collect probably 80% Marvel, 20% DC. I'm a huge comic book nerd. But let me tell you, I'm sort of getting sick of it. We've seen lots of X-Men. There's been like three Avengers pins. There's been two X-Men pins. You know, we've had it all. We've had Iron Man. You know, we've had a lot of it. let's bring back some DC already right am I right am I right or am I right or am I right that one's for you Tim the Lion Manly all right so let's get into it number five on this list is Aquaman so Aquaman is still very uh fairly relevant fairly relevant I think Amber Heard what did she what did Johnny Depp say she took a dookie in my bed I forget what he said but she took a deuce in the bed that was the funniest part of that whole trial um I think Franchi and me are probably the only two pinball content creators that couldn't stop watching that, but oh my god, I used to have a big crush on Amber Heard, uh, not so much, not so much, I mean, after seeing an Aquaman, yes, uh, after, uh, uh, listening to that trial, not so much, I mean, I, you think I'm unstable, like, I, I probably am a little bit ADHD and histrionic, but, like, Amber Heard, she made me look like the most calm down-to-earth, she basically made me look like Tom, okay, uh, and speaking of Tom. Tom, of course, of Triple Drain, Tom Graff, Fox City's Pinball Extraordinaire as well. He was there at IFPA 19 helping out, and I honestly think that Carl, that was so smart to, I don't know if Carl asked Tom to help or if Tom offered, but that was so smart because Carl, you knocked it over the park, but having Tom there obviously helped. Tom was moving the rigs. Tom was helping out in commentary whenever he could. He was just basically there, like sometimes you wouldn't hear him talk in the commentary for like an hour and it would be just making sure the whole thing was going but I'm sure that Carl D'Angelo was very very very happy and the other thing if I were Carl wow take a bow I looked at the numbers on Twitch recently um the Saturday feed I think it had 55,000 views one of them 55,000 another one was like 40 some odd thousand another one was 33,000 so we're talking about already 150,000 views between these and then you know I don't even understand how that works if that's consecutive or in a row or whatever at one point i know uh uh ron from slam tilt pinball podcast just listen to their show they put out great job by the way fellas um they they said that there was like 11 000 people at one point that must have been when they were on the front page uh also huge shout out to pluto who's working hard to make sure that pinball stays relevant uh it really feels like it was doing great uh shout out to all the people doing commentary steve bowden as i said many times does a great job love hearing Dalton in there um but my favorite my favorite rack was actually uh Zoe and I not going to try to pronounce her last name because I looked at it and I have no clue how to pronounce it but she I did in in researching her a little Zoe is currently ranked number 20 in the world and she uh used to be when I was googling her there was a video from like 2020 where she at one point was the number one a women's player in the world. So Zoe and Debra Tallman, Tallman? Oh no, I messed up her last name now too. But Debra Tallman and Zoe were in there and they were doing such an awesome job with the commentary. Now I had already heard them do commentary in the past at a lot of things. I know Debra's been doing commentary for years and years. I've heard her at other IFPAs I believe or in disc before and a few other things. She's extremely knowledgeable about pinball. I think she's ranked 45th and Zoe's extremely knowledgeable about rules, but maybe more important than that, especially Debra, I found was being really funny, doing great comedy. They're both being funny, but especially Debra was being really funny, doing awesome color commentary. And it's different because like I had heard her do commentary before, but then I got to meet her on my trip out at Lumberjack Johnny's. She was there, of course, which was kind of like the after party. I won't call it an after tournament. I'll call it the after party after D82 is all pretty, you know, pretty straight and serious. Now, maybe on a Friday night when it's not Nationals and you're not there for pin masters, it's a little bit more laced down. But anyways, I got to meet Debra and I really connected with her. I remember we played on the very final game of the night. I think I got an X and I think Debra kicked me out of the tournament. She gave me my final X, I believe. I could be wrong, but I remember after that, not only did I get to play with her, but I got chatting with her for a while. And then we, I think we hung out for a little bit after that and even watched some of the pinball on the big screen happening at the Nationals. had a really nice time chatting with her and catching up with her, or really, you know, meeting her for the first time. I found she had a very similar, she's kind of like my twin, she has a very similar nudging style and playing style to me. She's more accurate than I am, but she's a really, really, really good nudger, and so I'm not trying to say I'm as good as her, I just feel like we play in a similar style. And anyways, I feel so bad because she was doing a great job doing the commentary, I believe, on the Saturday morning, or was it the Friday morning? I think it was a Saturday morning. Anyways, go back and watch all of them on IE Pinball because they're incredible. But she was doing commentary with Zoe, and I couldn't remember how to spell her name. And I hate misspelling people's names. So I was like, Deb-er-ah, or Deb-bra. Is it like a bra, like B-R-A, like a bra, like a woman would wear? Or is it like, you know, and I couldn't, I didn't know how to spell it, so I just put Deb, and I just, I was running around trying to do, we were doing our, I think we were doing like our Saturday morning, no, was I at ECC? I don't remember what happened. But I wrote in the chat, hey Deb, it was really rad to meet you at Lumberjack Johnny's. And she said it was good to meet you too, Albert. But then she explained that she prefers to not be called Deb. She prefers to be called Debra. And I felt like such a donk because it's like, obviously, I've only met her once. She's called herself Debra right at the start of the podcast, or right at the start of the commentary stream, which I had watched the stream the day before, which she was also on. and anyways the point is she did correct me and thank you for letting me know I'm sorry for being a dog um and for years and I really get where she's coming everyone's like oh it's just a nickname no no no like call people what they want to be called it's that simple I know that when a certain pinball podcaster calls me orbiter orbiter well my name is orbital like anything that else is orbital like when you shoot an orbit it's orbital shot right and orbit al like albert because my name is Albert so Al like Albert a whole bunch of people in high school and especially I hated this in grade seven grade eight I started going to a new school and everyone's calling me Al hey Al what's going on Al do your friends call you Al or Albert well if you say oh my name's Albert then they're like they think of a 75 year old man like who's the second youngest Albert on planet earth he just had his 101st birthday right uh no I think there's there's like one other Albert on planet earth that's like under 50 years old but anyways they used to call me al well if you remember what was big in like when i was in grade six that would have been i don't know we're early 90s uh i think yeah yeah yeah 12 years old something like that 1992 i would have been 12 i don't know somewhere around there married with children was like this big tv show and i i did watch it i watched it because my dad watched it i kind of got some of the jokes but i also found it really gross and weird and like he came home and stuck his hand down his pants in front of his whole family, I was like, uh, well, that part's, you know, that part's a little strange, I don't know, whatever, he's making space there or something, hopefully, but it's still weird, the point is that I hated when Peggy said, oh, Al, oh, Al, so for years, when people called me Al, I'd be like, please, you can call me Bert, you can call me, my cousin Brandon always called me Alcha, you can call me Alcha, I think that Jack Danger always called me Albie, I thought that was awesome. I love Albie. Nowadays, you can call me Al. Ain't nobody remember Married for Children. I do have Married for Children 1 and 2, the photo variants, including the hot one with Kelly on the front. Comic books from a long time ago. Nobody cares. But anyways, sorry, Debra. That was my bad. She did say, like, you could call her Debo if you knew her better. I don't know her that well, Debbie. Oh, see, I'm in trouble again. I said Debbie. And this is the problem. I short form everybody's name. I just do that. Okay, it's a bad habit I have to stop doing. Deborah, I'm sorry. Now I don't just, oh yeah, beer the next time I see you. I'll tell you this, Deborah, if you, wait, I think I saw you are going to Yagpin. Derek, if you're listening, somehow get me into Yagpin. I don't know if there's a wait list or not. I noticed it was sold out. I did find four cheap flights so I could actually go to Yagpin in a week and a half and I even got the okay from my rad wife who was like, you know what, you got that money back from the other thing. If you want to go, as long as you do it on the cheap and split a hotel room with someone, go fill your boots. So if somehow, someway, y'all, I make it to Yagpin, don't be shocked. But if I don't make it, also don't be shocked because I saw the two main things are sold out. I'm not going there just to like high five people and cheer. It is nice as it would be to see people and like buy, wait, I think that you are a celiac or gluten intolerant. So I'm probably not buying you beer. I'll buy you a cider. I'll buy you whatever you drink. Maybe you don't drink alcohol. I'll get you a tea, a coffee, whatever you like, but if I don't make it to Yagpin, Deborah, the next time you make it out to, because I'm sure you come here all the time, the East Coast of Canada, I will take you out for a drink, and if you don't drink, I'll take you out for a breakfast or brunch or something like that, and we can go play pinball at Zero's and Spin It Records, and you can check out the rad East Coast, and if you don't have any plans to come out here, come out here and visit, and I'm talking not just to Deborah, I'm talking to everybody out there. Why is no one coming to visit or be on the East Coast? even, I gotta call you out, I'm sorry Mike Dynas of Pinball Shenanigans he even let me take over the camera and videotape with Jeff Teolis at Maple Pinball in the last tournament, but what wasn't cool was that he came all the way to Newfoundland, you came to Newfoundland, you were like had to fly over Nova Scotia and you didn't visit me, even Joe Salvaggi has visited me out here you know, but I hope more pinball people come visit me, because I get bored in the summertime here I mean, okay, every Saturday I'm busy the market, but if y'all are coming out to the East Coast, I will hire some local teenager or get one of my son's friends or something to take over my booth. Sure, they can't upsell like a boss like me, and they're probably not as efficient, but you know what? I will take that hit in my bottom line and my pay just to hang out with you. Come on out to the East Coast. Let me show you all the cool places, all the awesome beaches, the awesome oceanfront places we have here. Let me show you Halifax, Moncton, St. John, and maybe Fredericton. Fredericton's pretty far. I mean, they do have David Dennis, which is great, or Dave as I call him, but you know, anyways. And I apologize, Dave. I did see you reached out to me after my little stern freak out. I'm sorry I didn't write back. I got burnt out of writing back to people and explaining everything. This is a comedy show. This is the SNL of pinball podcasts. I'm not just the pinball podcaster with the best hairline and the worst temper, but I also like to think I got a funny bone, funny bone. Okay, it's not funny when you just make sounds, though. You actually have to, I'm not as funny as Martin Robbins and Jeff Teoles. Come on, no final round here, guys. I'm working on it. I'm working on it. All right, let's get into this top five list. I've apologized. I've done everything I can say. I will say this. Let's do the top five, because I know some people aren't tournament players. Let's do the top five list, and then I'm going to talk about IFPA 19. I'm going to do IFPA 19 in five minutes or less, so it's like your IFPA recap, and then the two things I want to see be different. Okay, number five on this list, like I said, for out of DC, is Aquaman, and I think I started this. I think I started going over this, and I somehow went off the rails. What would you expect here on the Pinball Nerds podcast? So Aquaman, I think, is still enough in the zeitgeist, is still cool enough. Someone said I look like that dude once. No, no, not that guy. The guy who plays Wolverine. Yeah, that guy. That guy with the big, like, lamb chop... What do you call those things? Lamb chops, play along. Stay a while and play along. What are those? Mutton chops. Sideburns, sideburns. The guy with the big sideburns. The guy who plays... Someone said I look like him once when I had hair like that. A long time. One person once. Wow. Okay, let's move on from Aquaman. Now, I know y'all are thinking, when you're saying what women should be included in this list, a lot of people, including probably my boy Christopher Franchi there, would say Wonder Woman, because he has awesome Wonder Woman art. And I agree, but there was already a custom Wonder Woman pin done by my friend Julie Dorsers. That one is absolutely beautiful and incredible. Could it be made better? Maybe. I don't feel like Wonder Woman's really in the zeitgeist of society anymore. What would Don say? The inner dysphoria or something like that? I don't know. Those words are too big. I am, alas, not as smart as Don. the manager of the local Burger King there. I am not quite that intelligent. But, and my word vocab is not as big. However, I'm sorry, it ain't Wonder Woman. And no, Hal Berry, I love you girl, but it ain't Catwoman either. Meow. And y'all know how much, meow, I love Catwoman because she's sexy, she's fun, she's got nails, she's got bite, you don't want to piss her off. She's my type of strong, kind of sexy, you know, black haired woman. I love her. I love everything about her. She's awesome. She's great. She's probably could even kick Batman's ass most days, depending on if you got that suit on yet or not. Right. But that's not who I'm picking. My pick right now for number four of the top five DC pinball themes that we need to see yesterday is Poison Ivy. Now, it's not just because I have a little bit of a thing for redheads it's not just because i love all the new artwork if you just google poison ivy comic book and type like 2023 or 2024 and click google images oh my god i forget the artist's name it's not sarzoa i can't pronounce it but the uh the new person that's doing the covers for poison ivy has been legitimately insane so i've been collecting like like almost every edition of every Poison Ivy cover for like the last year and a half. The storyline is incredible. The book is incredible. Poison Ivy hasn't had her day. Catwoman's already came out. I think that movie came out in 2004. Wonder Woman was already in the zeitgeist for decades, but it's Poison Ivy's time. And I don't even want to guess at who we could get to play Poison Ivy. No, I'm not going to. Back in the day, I would have said like Jennifer Lawrence. Yes, I know she'd have to dye hair red. Didn't you have red hair for one movie already? Anyways, the point is, let's see a Poison Ivy. I think that's the future of where DC's going, and I don't know who it is. Like, Stern is, like, already locked in with Marvel, so I don't know if it would need to be a Jersey Jack or even maybe a Spooky that could latch on to DC, but once you have one good working relationship with DC, you can kind of just do one after the other of these. Like, every few years, not, like, every single year like Stern, sorry. You know, you want to go a couple years in between. That being said, there is lots of rumors about X-Men 97, and I have watched the first three episodes of X-Men 97. Wow, Saturday morning cartoon vibes galore. The nostalgia's through the roof. I don't care who you are, man, woman, or child, you will probably enjoy watching X-Men 97. It's over there on Disney. Go watch it. It's great. I don't have Disney right now. I always take a couple months off. Like, we usually only have try to have I am cheap I do live on a homestead we're trying to be sustainable here okay uh but I do only have um I think we have crave right now and Netflix and we try to only have two at a time because she gets pricey speaking of pricey I pay another $20 a month right now just during the Stanley Cup playoffs to watch the Edmonton Oilers lose again last night dry side of what the F I'm trying not to swear on today's episode I don't want to have a rant over the top but conor mcdavid you get paid more money than sydney crosby now get out there and go get it you get paid more per year than wayne gretzky got per five years maybe not including inflation but you get a lot of money mcdavid get out there and get a mcgoal already or i'm gonna have to eat another freaking mchappy meal you son of a mc jerk no i'm just kidding mcdavid's trying hard i know he's trying and dry sidled getting that stupid penalty okay this is not a sport or hockey podcast Let's get back to it. The comic books is like the opposite of sports, which is funny. It's funny how I see a lot of pinball people that are like, I don't like sports. And I'm like, come on, come on. Most people at least like one or two sports. Or maybe you have a family friend or member who likes sports. Come on, why can't we like sports and comic books and pinball? You can be, you just have to be an uber nerd like Orby. All right, let's get into it. Next on this list is... Now, if it was Black Cat, if we were talking about Marvel, Black Cat would be at the top of that list. I actually just recently got the first appearance of Black Cat. I believe in its spectacular Spider-Man 181. No, no, it's not. What am I thinking of Anyways I got the first Black Cat recently Can wait to get that graded I brought it home from London Ontario Bought it from a friend of mine He used to do the covers for one of our teas shout out to Stephen let get back into it though so next on this list is Superman now did you know that every single episode of Seinfeld had at least one shout out in some way, shape, or form to Superman, or the universe of Superman, interesting, look for it, look it up, or you at least see something in the background every single episode. It's awesome. Check it out. Maybe not like the first pilot or something, but pretty much everyone pass in. And just remember, like we learned from Seinfeld, do not buy a pinball machine unless they are the two things that you need from Terry Hatcher. They must be real and they must be spectacular. So people taking money for a pinball machine, you're going to get years or maybe even not get years in advance. They're not real. And spectacular means you don't go, yeah, it's fun. I like it. It's got some cool. No, it better be spectacular because at these prices nowadays the only way to guarantee that you're not going to lose any money on pinball or lose the least is by holding on to that pin for two three four even five years pinball machines have typically typically since the 1980s anyways beat inflation at least slightly so if you bought a 500 pinball machine in 1980 it would now be worth more than the differential of that in inflation that being said it would have to be in a comparable condition, which most pinball machines from 1980 aren't, of course. So that being said, if you bought a pinball machine, say, from the early 2010s, say you had like a Guardians of the Galaxy, I guess that'd be more mid to late. If you had a Game of Thrones pin, okay, if you had a Game of Thrones or even say a Metallica or an Akadaka, an ACDC, and you had it still new in box, I guarantee you, even if you took it out of the box and you put a couple plays on it, it would be worth more than the differential of that in inflation. So that being said, if you're buying a pinball machine and you're only going to put four or five plays on it, you're probably going to lose money on it. If you're going to buy a pinball machine and you absolutely love it, you know you want to have it in your house because you've already, like my new motto says, play before you pay. This is the way. So if you play it ahead of time and you know you love the shots, you think you like the code and the code's just getting better and better, even if you want to buy it new in box, go ahead and treat yourself. Buy it new in box, but make sure you've played it first and make sure you've shot it and be willing to keep it for a few years. If you're willing to keep it for three to five years, you're probably not going to lose any money. In fact, you might make money on it, right? So that's, I guess that would be my biggest piece of advice. And maybe stay clear from LEs for right now until either Stern or the other pinball companies have kind of figured out the pricing of the market a bit better because it seems like those are the ones that you're losing the most money on anyway. So I've gone off topic. Let me put on my cape and let me go faster than a speeding bullet. Here we go. Flying in with another cape going from Spider-Man to Batman. I'm Batman. So Batman, why Batman over Superman? Traditionally, Superman was better than Batman. Obviously, a lot of people do like Superman better than Batman. Batman has actually had more pinball machines than Superman because Superman had that one wide body that I played that sort of sucked. I used to work at Collective Earth Brewing in Hamilton. That was so rad. And at our staff parties, I would like sneak into there under the guise of needing to go get more beer for everybody at the party. And I'd play a quick game or two and maybe run out for a vape and then play and then usually they'd be like hey were you supposed to go get beer for everybody albert and i was like yeah i just i this pinball machine was sitting here and had credits on it i may have put the credits on myself because i had the key for it but you know uh so no shout out to collective arts they had superman uh um batman though batman batman we've had like three pinball machines up we have had the dark knight um they're all kind of like the one with the really big the really big bat ramp right in the middle that one no that's a turdling uh the other one's okay the one with the joker and that though there's a lot of mechs in it but those shots are kind of funky and the code's weird and but we need a more relevant new batman that's better we need a modern batman we haven't had a batman in like two decades it's time yo now i know what you're thinking wait you already had aquaman you already had superman you already have batman what's number one on your list orby what could it be? None other than my girl. She's coming up. It's going to be played by Lady Gaga. Yes, Queen. That's right. Harley Quinn herself. Now, I know it was played by Marco Robbie and some people didn't love her doing that. I thought that that was fine. She certainly was crazy. She makes me look like a sane. Oh my God, it's 1135. I should have turned off the phone so it wouldn't be going in the background, and I know that my wife goes for her lunch walk every time around this time, so of course I should have expected a phone call. But alas, I'm Orby, and I don't think these things out ahead of time. And now the phone call has woken up Luna Elowen, and now Luna Elowen is walking over to Draco Franchi's...