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PNP 603- Road Trip+NEW Dave Fix?+ Tarrif Trouble+ SUCKED Into A Wormhole

Poor Man's Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 4m·analyzed·Feb 7, 2025
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.036

TL;DR

Road Tripping review, David Fix/American Pinball updates, tariff concerns, Wormhole interview

Summary

Orbital Albert discusses Road Tripping, a new homebrew-turned-commercial pinball machine from a newly established manufacturer, giving mixed impressions on design and features. He also covers David Fix's departure from American Pinball, Jersey Jack Pinball's Toy Story sale, potential tariff impacts on the international pinball market, and his first on-camera interview experience at Wormhole Pinball with Jamie.

Key Claims

  • Road Tripping features a load-your-own-songs capability that allows players to customize audio via Wi-Fi or USB dongle

    high confidence · Orbital Albert describes researching the feature through NAP Arcade and the manufacturer's website

  • The rotating freeway mechanism on Road Tripping is a unique innovation similar in complexity to Godzilla's breaking bridge, raising durability concerns for a new manufacturer

    high confidence · Orbital Albert's detailed mechanical analysis and cautionary recommendation to 'play before you pay'

  • David Fix has left or been let go from American Pinball; the departure status is unclear depending on the source

    high confidence · Orbital Albert states the ambiguity: 'David Fix was let go, or depending on who you ask or which news source you go to, he stepped away or he's left'

  • Jersey Jack Pinball is running a fire sale on Toy Story pinball machines

    high confidence · Orbital Albert mentions 'the Toy Story sale... fire sale at JJP' as an announced topic

  • Potential 25% tariffs on European, Canadian, and Australian imports could devastate pinball manufacturer margins and require mass layoffs across the industry

    high confidence · Orbital Albert's detailed economic analysis projecting 60-70% sales decline overseas and the mathematics of margin compression needed to break even

  • Howie Mandel's reaction to pinball discussion and his attempt to change the topic suggests possible Gremlins pinball machine in development

    low confidence · Orbital Albert's speculative reading of Mandel's body language during a live chat interaction; describes this as non-definitive evidence

  • Road Tripping is production-limited to approximately 500 units

    medium confidence · Orbital Albert states 'I like that they're only doing 500' and compares this strategy to Ninja Eclipse pricing model

  • The new Road Tripping manufacturer is expected to be more successful than American Pinball, Home Pin, and Pinball Adventures, but less successful than Barrels of Fun and Spooky Pinball

Notable Quotes

  • “David Fix was let go, or depending on who you ask or which news source you go to, he stepped away or he's left.”

    Orbital Albert @ early segment — Highlights ambiguity around David Fix's departure from American Pinball and indicates unclear internal/external communication about the move

  • “If 60 to 70 percent of a company's sales almost disappear overnight that that company has to double triple or quadruple the differential in their margins to even break even”

    Orbital Albert @ tariff discussion — Core economic argument about tariff impact severity on pinball industry viability and survival

  • “I think there is room to do them [original themes], but they've got to be sharp as hell. They've got to be funny. And this theme is not that.”

    Orbital Albert @ Road Tripping critique — Establishes criteria for successful homebrew/original-theme commercial releases and positions Road Tripping as missing the mark

  • “When you're a newer company like this... I would not only say play before you pay, I would wait till it's been either on location for a few months and we've heard some feedback”

    Orbital Albert @ Road Tripping mechanical concerns — Risk advisory for early adoption of new manufacturer's complex mechanical innovations

  • “I think Gremlins pinball's coming... I think I saw a little sliver in his eye... this man is trying so hard not to break NDA.”

    Orbital Albert @ Howie Mandel speculation — Speculative but entertaining reading of Howie Mandel's alleged reluctance to discuss pinball, interpreted as NDA constraint

  • “No, Albert, tomorrow. Then the next day I send him and he says, no, Albert.”

    Orbital Albert (quoting Christopher Franchi's alleged responses) @ Franchi/Goonies segment — Humorous illustration of Franchi's consistent NDA enforcement regarding unreleased game details

  • “The playfield's like a C minus... I wouldn't want to, like, just, I'd rather walk in and see Walking Dead. That would be less scary to me than that weird trash panda just staring you down”

Entities

Orbital AlbertpersonRoad TrippinggameDavid FixpersonAmerican PinballcompanyJersey Jack PinballcompanyChristopher FranchipersonJamieperson

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Tariff implementation projected to cause 60-70% sales decline for overseas markets, requiring margin quadrupling or mass industry layoffs

    high · Orbital Albert's detailed economic modeling and risk assessment for pinball manufacturers

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Road Tripping manufacturer positioned as potentially outperforming American Pinball, Home Pin, Pinball Adventures but underperforming Barrels of Fun and Spooky

    medium · Orbital Albert's comparative market analysis based on early impressions, team assessment, and production model

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Original/unlicensed pinball themes require exceptional design, humor, and execution to compete; Road Tripping fails to meet threshold despite novel features

    high · Orbital Albert's comparative analysis of original theme success criteria using Soccer World Cup, Foo Fighters, and World Cup Soccer as positive examples

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Road Tripping manufacturer pursuing limited 500-unit production strategy similar to Ninja Eclipse model to ensure profitability and scarcity appeal

    medium · Orbital Albert states 'I like that they're only doing 500... that sweet spot where they could actually perhaps make a profit'

  • $

    market_signal: Potential 25% tariffs on European, Canadian, and Australian pinball imports creating buying panic and secondary market acceleration

    high · Orbital Albert reports Facebook selling groups and Pinside lighting up with activity 'probably since COVID'; connects directly to tariff announcement and perceived implementation timeline

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.195

0:00
All get around, he's on the rebound, hear the sound of our buddy, oh lordy, it's Orby, pinball now to rejoice, he's tugging pinball, craft beer and coffee, mixed with syrup and honey, he wants to laugh with his family in a random tangent, stories of his boys, he's on the poor man's pod network, we're gonna get more listeners, Welcome back, Pinball Nerds, to episode 603 of your fifth favorite pinball podcast. My name is Orbital Albert, and on today's show, we're going to be talking about road trippin', that's right, From the team, or at least the one gentleman who brought you the Alf homebrew that people absolutely loved a couple years ago, we now have a theme that might be questionable, as all non-licensed themes are. We have road tripping. Now imagine if the theme was actually my fellow countryman, and I dare say friend, even though we have partied together now a couple times, Mr. Tom Green. He was in a wonderfully underrated movie called Road Trip. That was hilarious. He did some wild stuff with some mice. There were some other things happening, albeit funny or not. And it was a hilarious movie. And also, the rights for the licensing would probably cost less than it costs to get hand-drawn art. Now, usually I prefer hand-drawn art. But in this one particular case, I thought when I heard there was a chance that it was a road trip pinball theme that maybe, just maybe, just maybe it would be Tom Green. I have loved Tom Green since probably grade 7 or grade 8 when I started watching him on Rogers TV. In fact, when I heard about the job at Rogers TV for the Brews Brothers, that's right, that was the television show I was on in London, Ontario, showed out. the Forest City, when I was there, part of the reason why I even agreed to go to the audition, not thinking I would get it, part of the reason I agreed to go was because of how much I loved Tom Green. And then even after that, I loved watching, of course, even closer, growing up even closer than Ottawa to me up there in, what, Brampton, I believe, or Etobicoke. We have, of course, Wayne's World, rock on, doodly-doot, doodly-doot, doodly-doot, man, that machine sure does suck, but it also cuts, okay, I am so sorry, I've gone off topic already, let's get back to it, but we're also going to be talking not just about road tripping today, we're going to be talking about, that's right, the old David Fix, David Fix, so David Fix was let go, or depending on who you ask or which news source you go to, he stepped away or he's left. He was, you know, taking some time off from good old American Pinball. But in the meantime, they have hired some new hires. We're going to be talking about them. Can they possibly fill David Fix's tiny little shoes? Could they perhaps grow a mustache big enough to use the same amount of mustache wax as he did. Could they get a head big enough for that giant, beautiful Jurassic Park hat? I don't know. Could they learn to do interviews as good as David Fix? That one, probably. But we'll see. I'm going to talk about that and so much more. I want to start with five rad and one bad for, of course, road trip. And then later on, I'm going to talk about getting sucked into the wormhole. Okay, that was, I was going to try to do a sucking sound. That wasn't very good but I got to go chat with Jamie first time ever getting interviewed on camera since I was actually on Roger's television and I was the one doing the interviewing of course I was not being interviewed but that's been like eight or nine years and of course you know we don't have a production crew you do your own lighting when you go on wormhole believe it or not so I tried to make sure the lighting looked good I had just shaven so just shout out to Ryan and Kimba I know there was a request over there at Phantom Tilt that I never shave again, but in the wintertime, I need to do absolutely everything I can to be able to exfoliate and moisturize my skin, because it gets very dry up here, and when you're walking, your dogs Draco Franchi and Luna Tuna, Elowen Agar, four, five, six times a day if they're lucky, it's been like teetering between minus 20 and minus 30 the last four or five days here, so it's been so freaking cold. Yes, the beard would keep my face warmer, but also it gets very dry in there. And in the wintertime, also, I need to get as much sunlight as I can and vitamin D. So in the wintertime, I just don't like to grow a big beard. But anyways, I apologize. It's a little jarring. It's a little shocking. Okay. It's almost like as shocked as I was when I found out that my dream theme, my favorite movie of all time, maybe perhaps besides Back to the Future, Road Trip, the movie that proved that a little, weird, awkward Canadian comedian who lived up the 401 for me could get hired not only by Rogers, but then by Comedy Central Canada, and then by MTV, and then at that point be one of the top-watch shows on MTV, and go on to go get a movie that should have won so many Oscars, like Freddy Got Fingered. Well, I'll tell you what. Freddy Got Fingered will probably never be a pinball machine for a multitude of reasons. the least of which would be the mech that I always wanted for the topper which would be, Daddy would you like some sausage? Daddy would you like some sausages? Daddy would you like some... Okay, alright. No more singing today. I'm being banned. I'm banning my own self five minutes in. Alright, we have too much to talk about. We're also going to talk about the Toy Story sale. That's right, we've got a fire sale. A fire sale at JJP. Thank you for listening, Jersey Jack. Sometimes you don't listen and put toys but you did put a couple toys in Toy Story that interact with the ball. I was probably the only pinball podcaster at the time who liked Toy Story. I think my expectations were so low. It was just a movie I watched in the background. I mean, I like Tom Hanks as much as the next guy, don't get me wrong, and his son, the Rastafarian. But I didn't watch, I think I watched Toy Story 3 once, Toy Story 2 four or five times. Toy Story 1, yeah, maybe, I don't know, a dozen or so times when my sons were really young. And I liked it. I enjoyed it. I liked it more than most animated movies that I had to watch with him growing up. I, thank God, did not have Daughters because I would never be able to let it go that I had to listen to that Frozen song a million times, I'll tell you that. But we're also going to be talking about, at the very, very, very end, and I promise not to mention politics, even though it seems like it's, that's, you know, a lot of the other pinball podcasters are talking a lot about it, and how could you not, because the tariffs really could change the game. And I think that like the 70% of my listeners that are American are assuming that the tariffs that would be put on for up to 25% for places like Europe and Canada, and even perhaps, hopefully not, God forbid, Australia, if these tariffs were actually to come to fruition, how devastatingly bad that would be when we know that 50% or more, this was several years ago, I would levy a guess that between China and Japan, Asia, Eastern Europe, Okay, there's not that many going to Romania or anything, but even Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Holland, France, Germany, England, I don't think there's a ton in Scotland and Ireland, but it's definitely taking off and picking up the same way it is here all the way across the world. and they're so hungry in a lot of those places to play pinball. I remember searching out pinball when I was actually in, I think it was a little village outside of Uden, and the only place I could go was like this cafe, and I was just in the back by the bathroom, and everyone was giving me the look like, what are you doing playing pinball back here? Of course, I don't speak Dutch very well, oostebelief, but I don't speak Dutch very well other than swear words and a couple other things, so I have no clue what they were saying to me. It's probably just, why are you playing that machine? because it wasn't played a lot. But nowadays, I think it's really taking off in Europe. It's taking off in Asia. I think I would guess year per year for the last 10 years, the amount of pinball machines sold throughout Asia, whether it be, and again, I would assume a higher percentage were sold in Japan. But even now with other parts of mainland Asia taking off, I would assume that every year they're seeing an increase of 1% or 2% or 3%. And maybe that doesn't even make up 4, 5, or 6% of Stern's sales yet. I would say that if 5 to 10 years ago, Stern was selling 50% of their pins overseas to places like Canada, Europe, and Australia primarily, you could assume that sales would have increased in those other countries as well. So, I think that Americans are forgetting that, I am seeing a lot of discourse happening on Facebook and even in Pinside. seemingly a lot of Americans don't realize that when 60 to 70 percent of a company's sales almost disappear overnight that that company has to double triple or quadruple the differential in their margins to even break even the same way they were before because now they're going to be selling 60 70 80 percent less pinball machines right so I if that were to really happen they would have there would be mass layoffs at every pinball company very few would survive if that actually goes through in a month from now thank god it's on hold for now but i promise i wouldn't talk too much about politics i will not mention any politicians names i'm not going to talk about any specific groups i'm simply going to talk about the trouble with tariffs and what i think it would mean not just to companies like jersey jack or spooky but even stern even stern needs to take a pardon the pun stern look at you know how disenfranchised and how many other pinball new in box buyers are already on the verge of slowing down if not quitting their new in box buying when you add 25 to 30 percent game over those sales are unless you're like a bar that needs the newest elwyn you're probably even then a bar that would maybe buy five to ten new in boxes per year like maybe the top five biggest bars in all of canada they're going to go down to maybe one or two i would guess at max right or they're going to start buying like you know used older pins, right? You know, they're going to wait for, let someone else that just loves Elwin take the hit on the new King Kong. And then later on, they're going to, uh, going to buy it. But we're going to talk a little bit more about that later. Not too much, but I want to save it for the very, very end of the show. Um, so let's just get into the road trip top five right now. So number one on this list, okay. Number one on this list is the load your own songs feature. Now I understand there is the DJ feature that you have that I believe Jack Danger was the one who came up with the idea to do that on Stern. But from what I understand, it doesn't really interact. And we don't know, we haven't seen a video, thanks to Jason Knapp and Knapp Arcade over there. That's the thing that I did my entire research from and read from, and I did link over and look at their website as well. It was kind of confusing figuring out who the manufacturing company is, because there's the two different names. But I'll talk about that in a second. For right now, let's talk about this feature about loading your own songs so reading it again it wasn't that clear are you loading your own songs and then after you load your own songs um like it said there's several stations so what it wasn't clear about is and i hope they've done this i hope they let you have five or six stations with say 15 to 20 songs in each that would be great that would be ideal but if what they meant is you have like five stations so you only get five songs no you'd get sick of five songs fast. Now, if you have 20 stations and you can have 20 single songs, I think for me personally, with how sick I get of hearing music and pinball machines, if I were to get something like this at home, for me to be able to pre-program easily and simply, like if it's as easy as just, you know, using Wi-Fi especially, don't make me get out a dongle and my old iPod and MP3 player and try to load up my MP, no, just let me use Wi-Fi. But either way, if you have to is a dongle. It's not the end of the world. It's not the end of the world, but I would prefer it to be done Wi-Fi. It is a brand new company. I know he's built a homebrew before. I don't really know the rest of the people behind the company. Obviously, this is very new developing information. So remember, guys, this is just my first impressions of everything. But from me looking at it,

medium confidence · Orbital Albert's comparative market positioning based on early impressions and team assessment

  • Christopher Franchi is working on a Goonies pinball machine and is constrained by NDA regarding back glass reveals

    high confidence · Orbital Albert jokes about daily messages to Franchi requesting Goonies back glass preview, stating Franchi consistently denies access

    • Orbital Albert @ Road Tripping aesthetic critique — Expresses aesthetic discomfort with the trash panda cabinet art and playfield design cohesion

  • “If this pinball machine was either the Tom Green one or like Trash Panda pinball... I am not going to be a content creator that says there's no way you can have OG themes”

    Orbital Albert @ original theme discussion — Positions Orbital Albert as open-minded about original themes while maintaining critique standards

    • Wormhole Pinball
    company
    Howie Mandelperson
    Tom Greenperson
    Jack Dangerperson
    Spooky Pinballcompany
    Barrels of Funcompany
    NAP Arcadecompany
    Jason Napsperson
    Kyle Forgardperson
    Stern Pinballcompany
    Metallicagame
    Zombie Eddieperson
    Godzillagame
    Getawaygame
    Ninja Eclipsegame
    Home Pincompany
    Pinball Adventurescompany
  • ?

    personnel_signal: David Fix departs or is let go from American Pinball; replacement hires pending

    high · Orbital Albert explicitly states departure ambiguity and discusses search for successors; indicates uncertainty about internal vs. external communication of the move

  • $

    market_signal: Jersey Jack Pinball running fire sale on Toy Story machines, indicating excess inventory or production adjustment

    high · Orbital Albert mentions JJP 'fire sale' as distinct episode topic

  • ?

    announcement: Road Tripping commercial pinball machine officially revealed by new manufacturer; features custom song loading and rotating freeway mechanic

    high · Orbital Albert's detailed breakdown of official website and NAP Arcade documentation; treated as confirmed release information

  • ?

    product_strategy: Road Tripping rotating freeway mechanism represents advanced mechanical innovation; durability concerns raised for new manufacturer's first production run

    high · Orbital Albert's detailed mechanical analysis and cautionary 'play before you pay' recommendation pending location testing feedback

  • ?

    product_concern: Road Tripping playfield design and artwork quality below Stern/Spooky standards; trash panda cabinet art disproportionately sized and aesthetically dissonant

    high · Orbital Albert's detailed critique: 'C plus' back glass, 'C minus' playfield, aesthetic comparison unfavorably to Walking Dead cabinet art

  • ?

    rumor_hype: Gremlins pinball machine in possible development at Howie Mandel-associated production; evidence based on NDA-apparent behavior during live chat

    low · Orbital Albert's interpretation of Howie Mandel's body language and topic avoidance during semi-private live chat; speaker explicitly states this is 'not definitive proof'

  • ?

    technology_signal: Road Tripping introduces Wi-Fi-enabled custom music loading feature (or USB alternative) as unique innovation for homebrew-derived commercial machine

    high · Orbital Albert's feature analysis and preference for Wi-Fi implementation over dongle/iPod MP3 loading

    • 13:07
    I'm just going to be honest. I like, I like, I don't love, I like. I give it like a C plus, the back glass artwork I like the right hand side cab kind of with the dude kind of walking away from the Volkswagen bug the left cab with like the big I'll call it the trash panda actually there's so many trash pandas on this thing if you look on the play field there's like 50 of them this could actually be called trash panda pinball there's like at the very back wall where you can see one of the ramps going in and out breaking the fifth wall if you will at the back there it says welcome to New York but it really could say welcome to Trash Panda Pinball someone mod that someone listening mod that that would be so funny because like if it was humorous like that it was called Trash Panda Pinball you could actually call this Trash Panda Road Trip or something or Trash Panda Pinball and it would be funnier but because it's just called Road Trip but you're seeing lots of pandas it's like I've been on a lot of road trips okay I was a driving instructor. I put on 100,000 kilometers in two years on my Nissan Altima. Okay. Yes, I did have that cool break over there. No, your wife will not love it if you slam on that break while you're drunk sitting in the passenger side. She's not a fan of that. We found that out the hard way.
    14:25
    No. If this pinball machine was either the Tom Green one or like Trash Panda pinball, or trying to like be funny a little bit, I don't want to say it. There's not too many things I love about Galactic Tank Force, other than the artwork and kind of that funny storyline once Franchi finally explained it to me on my podcast,
    14:45
    I think there's... I think it's possible to have room for original themes. I am not going to be a content creator that says there's no way you can have OG themes, but they're going to have to be either funny as hell, slick as hell, like really like like even if you did like i'm just trying to think out of the box but if you did some type of generic baseball or basketball or god forbid hockey okay probably not hockey but if you did a baseball or or like soccer think about soccer world cup soccer it's not based on any one soccer player yes we all love that that machine though because we love the callouts it has that it's supposed to be funny he's got the funny dog who's hilarious it's got the mech that moves with the goal. You know what I mean? So if it's something like that, I think there is room to do them, but they've got to be sharp as hell. They've got to be funny. And this theme is not that. This theme is just not that. But I don't want to get into the bad too early. Let's get back to the rad. So the number one rad is that you can load your own songs. I don't know how it all works, but I'm excited to see.
    15:51
    They did mention it has its own stereo, and I feel like saying, yeah, but don't all pinball machines really have their own stereo? Do you know what I mean? Like, for the most part, don they Anyways number two on the list is The Rotating Freeway and this one I really the most excited about The only reason I didn write it down first was because I had absolutely no clue what it was called So reading on further on their website and it explained a little bit as well on the NAP Arcade one I think it's the exact same verbiage, actually.
    16:24
    It looks so cool. It looks like it floats across. So there's kind of like three different directions the floating freeway could go, the rotating floating freeway.
    16:33
    The one hesitation I have about it, it looks really cool. It looks interesting. It looks neat. It looks like they kind of did what they've done, you know, in Godzilla with the bridge that breaks away. So that's kind of cool. But they've upped it. Like, it's that on steroids, right?
    16:47
    But here's the thing. When you're a newer company like this, and I could be wrong. I am not an engineer whatsoever. I am a lot of things. I'm definitely not an engineer. I know almost nothing about engineering, to be honest. but me just as like a regular civvy or whatever looking at it i'm going it looks like that's a big lot of moving parts there and if they move independently it's almost sure as shats there's a very good chance the thing's going to break down so i would say as i always do play before you pay in this particular case i would not only say it will it looks like it will be up at uh pinball at the beach so i'm very excited about that but i would not only play it first i would wait till it's been either on location for a few months and we've heard some feedback and some reviews just because they're a newer company that's all just because they're a newer company if a newer company were doing a mech as advanced as like the godzilla building which this doesn't quite look that advanced even though maybe i don't think it has like as many unique different moving parts and everything, but if it's that advanced, if a company were making something as advanced as that on their first pin, I would want to know there's some engineers working there that have worked on stuff like this. Oh, and now, if I get to it, I'm also going to briefly talk about the Alice in Wonderland that's up on Kickstarter. Let me have a little sip-sip of my happy dad here, guys. I got a frog in my throat, and I'm not just, I'm not just from Quebec. Hold on a sec here. what you drinking i'm drinking a watermelon happy dad why am i not drinking craft beer a i try not to drink craft beer for the first 100 days of this year but i failed at least on two days number two could you pass me another happy dad please i left one out there thank you uh number two hayden my oldest son who loves happy dad uh which is it's weird because it's like bottled in Toronto, and it's ran by, the head guy is from Toronto, Kyle Forgard, but what you drinking?
    19:00
    Oh yeah, just opened up a lemon lime, happy dad. It's a seltzer, which doesn't have hardly any sugar, and it doesn't have, like, it doesn't have any added sugar, I think it's all natural flavorings, anyways, it tastes really yummy, but as soon as we heard that all the American alcohol was going to be pulled off the shelves here in Nova Scotia due to the tariffs. See, I'm trying not to bring it up, but it just affects so much parts of my life. And on top of that, my son thought he might lose his job. Everybody at his work was like, no, like, I'm sorry, if you haven't worked here for X number of years, you're probably gone. More than half the products they sell go directly to, I don't think it's Maine or New York State, but it's like, they go to the States, like the products where my son works. So like, if my son had lost his job, I might've had to end this pinball podcast to go work full-time somewhere to help bring in the differential of the income. for a couple months until he's back up on his feet or found a new job that played nearly that well.
    19:53
    Certainly at this point, his income that he helps out in the household is needed, especially in the wintertime when we're not working in other markets. But I don't want to make this about politics or talk about politics, and I apologize. I'm going to try my very best. You guys know the whole year leading up to the U.S. election, I tried very hard and very rarely, if ever, mentioned politics. It's just at this point, it's coming into my, it's seeping into not only my pinball life, and I'm seeing all my Canadian brothers and sisters out there worried that they're going to have to spend more on new boxes. So that's causing a little bit of a, you know, it's causing a little bit of a feeding frenzy here, actually. It's probably since COVID, since I've seen some of the Facebook selling groups or the pin side or like all the other selling groups really light up like this. So that, I guess that's a good thing. That's a positive thing coming out of it. But let's get back into road trips. So that rotating freeway, that's really unique. I've seen nothing like that. I guess the closest to that would be the getaway high speed 2 when it has that one part that lifts that can allow it to come back in. I get no fear. No fear has something kind of similar to that as well.
    21:00
    That one's not working either. Oh, boy. Okay. Okay, guys. We're having electrical issues here, so hopefully I can keep the lights on. Well, the outdoor light is not turning on now. So we think because it was minus 30 recently and we had an extra space heater plugged in and we thought it was a fuse and then we thought it was something to do with the outlet and then we thought it was something to do with the cord and now we don't know what's going on. We've got gremlins. We've got gremlins. Speaking of gremlins, my boy there, Howie. I'm still trying to find that evidence. I haven't given up on it yet, but I have somewhere, somehow, the recording of me actually being in the live chat with Howie Mandel in a semi-private, like, think of it like a gate, a gate, a money wall. What do you call that? paywall thank you think of it like a paywall there's like a paywall for you know to be a member and it was in there and as he walked by a bobby's world uh machine i said wow is that a pinball machine over there and he went pinball no why and i said oh because that machine over there looks like a pinball machine he goes no it's not pinball why would you think i'm working on a pinball machine or something to that extent and uh he walked over and he showed it and it was like this arcade Bobby's World machine that was very limited edition or custom, but he kind of seemed startled, and I said, well, it wouldn't be for Bobby's World. I would assume if you were going to make a pinball machine, it would be for Gremlins, and I swear to God to you pinball nerds, he was like, uh, okay, we're going to change the topic. I don't know why we're talking about pinball here. This is supposed to be about blah, blah, blah, whatever he's talking about before I, you know, there's only like 40 or maybe 50 of us in chat, so it was very easy for him to actually read everybody's chats coming in so no is this definitive proof that gremlins pinball is coming no but howie mandel this man he is not a poker player okay he wears his heart on his sleeve i can read him like a freaking book i'm telling you right now i think gremlins pinball's come i think i saw a little sliver in his eye i thought a little a little when he was talking about pinball when he said it that many times in a short period. And he said distinctly he wanted to change the topic. I was like, whoa, this man is trying so hard not to break NDA. I mean, just from talking to Franchi, I could tell this man does not. When I'm saying Christopher Franchi every morning, once a morning, right before breakfast, I send him a message and say, can I finally just see the back glass for Goonies? And he says, no, Albert, tomorrow. Then the next day I send him and he says, no, Albert. And I say, Franchi, come on. No, I'm just kidding. Hopefully you're doing well there, buddy. We did chat about you a little bit on Wormhole. Sort of hoping you didn't see that one, but you probably have now that I mentioned it. But I'll be leaving the link in the chat so y'all can watch my awkward self, especially the first 10 or 15 minutes. I think I kind of like got a little bit more comfortable about 10 or 15 minutes in, but even watching it myself, especially on the big screen, I was like, oh, I'm so uncomfortable. And I know I did. Jamie, I'm sorry I cut you off a couple times. I think, you know, that's, there was a little bit of a delay, but he is like halfway across, three quarters. no probably 90 across north america like i couldn't be much further to the north or to the east and he can't be he couldn't be much further to the south or to the west really right well he could be further to the west but he could can't be much further to the south i believe isn't wormhole in like texas or something or houston or darn it i should know where wormhole pinball blah blah blah all right let's get back into it number three on the list okay let's bring up the website right now and just read through it one by one because this is going to make it far far far easier wow i really what i didn't like is i had to zoom in a lot to kind of i would rather have at least a short video when we start it's so hard to do these first impressions with only guessing at like you know looking at these pictures okay so yeah what what i had here for number three is this weird trip i want to bring up the picture so i could talk about it a little bit more intelligently or as as much as possible i'm orbital albert i love orbits ramps are overrated now there is two awesome ramps that go all sorts of weird places here which i love when you don't know where they're going or when they're coming back i will say i don't love the part about the ramps that I love the least is the red powder coating or whatever, or even worse if they're plastic. I just don't think it matches with the color palette. I'm not really sure. It looks kind of disorganized. I think, as I mentioned before, I'm not a huge fan of the play field. I just feel like Zombie Eddie or Franchi, you know what I mean? Like, honestly, any of the artists working with Stern right now could probably do a better job than this. But again, if they're only doing 500, I think the artwork is like a C plus on the back glass. The one side of the cab also a C plus. The play field's like a C minus. And the cab with the big giant trash panda just poking out at you, I don't know. The trash panda looks too big. It's like taking up too much. And it's not like detailed enough and it's not doing anything. It's just like looking at you like really weird. Like, I wouldn't want to, like, just, I'd rather walk in and see Walking Dead. That would be less scary to me than that weird trash panda just staring you down, giving you the eyes, right? Like, let's go for a road trip. I don't know why he sounds like that, but he sounds like a dork in my head anyways. Let's get back into this, though. So, this triple orbit system looks neat.
    26:44
    One of them, it kind of reminded me of Foo Fighters a little bit, or even X-Men. You shoot kind of to the left. It looks like you could only hit it from the right flipper, but you kind of shoot through like a mini gate to the left, and then it shoots out across the left orbit, and then across the path of the left ramp, and then across the path that goes up to the toy, the car that's, well, it's above it. They JJP'd the, it looks like an FJ. Tell me if I'm wrong, guys. This car they have in there is an FJ. Again, I don't think it's a custom car. Maybe it is. No, it loops around and it goes into this other, the third of the smallest orbits. And that looks really neat. It looks extremely hard to hit from the other side. And then this second orbit in a row, it looks like it goes up to that other area with the fourth flipper. And at the very bottom of it, it has its own flipper, which you could use to hit the far left orbit or the far left ramp. or perhaps, yeah, it looks like maybe it might be a tough shot, but you could put it up in that area with the little tiny mini flipper that has the car with the three stand-ups. I do like the stand-up in front of that ramp. It's not going to make my top five rad, of course, but I do like that you've got it like, you know, it's probably, I'm assuming it's a ball lock or something, and you have to hit the targets, the stand-up targets, on the left and right of the ramp to hit the drop-down.
    28:11
    Let's get back into it here. Let's get back into it here. We don't want to get lost in the sauce too much. number four now was I scratching my head here a little at this point yes but number four it wasn't that easy to do five rad I think the last time I did a stern pin the Metallica one there was like 10 that I just couldn't stop babbling about which I still can't wait to play shout out to Ray Day um shout out to John Borey looks like this whole thing was done very well The artwork looks, the new artist looks incredible.
    28:41
    Yeah, so I like that they're only doing 500. If they were doing 600, 700, 800, if they were trying to get cheeky and do like 500 of one and 250 of another, it would be too much. I think that 500 is that sweet spot where they could actually perhaps make a profit. I mean, we've seen the ninja, the ninja eclipse, right? I think they're trying to follow that ninja eclipse path. They don't want to go. And we don't know yet. That's the interesting part about this company. It gives us content creators something to talk about. I'm hoping, and it seems to me like I'm getting the vibes, like to me they're going to be more successful than, well, I almost said American Pinball. I think they're going to be more successful than Home Pin. I think they're going to be far more successful than Pinball Adventures, even though I'm a Canadian, I'm sorry. And I think that I don't think they're going to be as successful as Barrels of Fun. I don't, it doesn't sound to me so far like there's the same team working behind them that they have over there. I don't think they're going to be as successful as Spooky. Obviously, this machine arguably kind of looks, I would say it looks better than America's Haunted. To be honest, there's more going on in it. Okay, but let's just move on to the most important thing. So cheers to you guys. I think if you did, I think if you did $250, it'd be a day one sellout depending on the price. 500 you're going to have to price this like almost like less than a stern premium maybe a bit more than a stern pro i still don't think you'll see a day one sellout just just because we don't know too much about the company but if the live stream comes out and it's good and the people playing it most importantly the people playing it down there at pinball at the beach shout out to uh i know emily has gone out there with jay with her new husband congratulations on your marriage i think already said that, but they're gone there for their honeymoon. I told her as a joke to say hi to Carrie Hardy and Franchi for me. I always say that when I know they're going to be at a show. I'm sure there's other people I'm going to know there, but I am excited to watch that tournament. I am excited to be part of that. I do have a show this Sunday, a collectible show, but other than that, I'll make sure to be in the chat for that. Who is live streaming that? Does anyone know? I'm hoping Tom. I'm hoping Fox City Spinball is doing it, to be honest. Obviously, I don't think, as far as I know Wormhole only does the TPF and the Houston Expo, I think. So I don't think it would be them.
    31:04
    Maybe Batcave or who is it that... Where is it that Eric Stone plays? Maybe they'd be live streaming it.
    31:12
    I would hope anyways. All right, let's get back into it here. So number five, again, I was struggling a little. I was grasping for straws, okay? But what I came up with is so much. there's just so much included in the base model there's so many things here that like this is they've undonafiable this almost like even good old donald donald garrison there who could mod anything couldn't mod this i don't think because like it i'm sure he'll find a way to but like it comes with multiple ramps four pop bumpers drain save that sounds really cool so i don't know what that is too this almost made the top five list could have made the list but i'll just group it in here to number five there's just so much stuff included in the one model it almost reminds me of like the spinning uh top on totem on tales of the arabian nights uh but it's on the left i like anything that makes it like a non-traditional italian bottom and this is a non-traditional italian bottom it's got that spinny kind of save thing maybe that's what they're talking about there the drain save it's got a pop-up buck that of course we haven't even seen her i i didn't see in there It got four flippers which I love More left to right action Just more options for more shots It doesn look like it got the best flow It just doesn Just looking at it it looks like the ramps are very very very open so those should be fine. But a couple of those left-to-right shots look like... They look challenging. They look a little bit tight. The middle orbit especially looks a little bit tight. But who knows? It might shoot really well. I don't know, so it's neither nor. It does have a magnet, which is always kind of fun. A little adds to it. It has a visiglass. So it's, you know, it's base model. The starting model has a visiglass. This is what I was talking about. It does have the car basher, but they pulled a little bit of good old avatar here and they put the toy above it. I'd like to see it actually like, you know, like the bridge. The bridge interacts with the toy directly, right? I'd like to see more stuff like that as opposed to like you're hitting a drop target that causes something near it to do something. But it's still kind of cool. Like it's all right. It's all right. so uh rotating raccoon who cares i mean the raccoon looked okay uh trash panda it should be see it'd be so much funnier if it was like rotating trash panda rotating trash panda will come and fart on your face rotating freeway and interchange i don't know i went into uh wrestling voice there robert byers would be proud of me macho pinball would be proud of me shout out uh matthew mcgothan my best friend who joined there for the Orbeez Christmas episode would be proud of me because he's such a big wrestling fan. And also shout out, he had an event and I think I forgot to shout it out on time, but one of the most, used to be one of the most hated men in America. That's right. Johnny Fairplay himself, the man who tricked the world into thinking that his grandmama was dead so he could win a million dollars. Then he brought her to the show and She was like, I'm here, Johnny boy. Let's go spend the money. It was actually very brilliant. It was kind of funny, but it was also kind of douchebaggy. But he wears it like he's proud about it, and he actually was looking for more wrestlers. And I think he's actually been on WWE or one of them at one point. So shout out to him. And my other IRLer I love to watch, Speed, I Show Speed, he was just recently on there and he got his leg all fricked up and he had to go to the hospital. and yeah, that was wild. That was so wild. While I'm talking, just as a quick offshoot while I pour my drink here, who watched the Grammys? That was so, oh, I got to give my flowers to Chapel. Chapel Roan won Best New Artist. She probably should have won Best Pop Star. Screw you, Sabrina Carpenter. Espresso. Do-do-do-do. No, you don't win. I'm sorry. It's fine, but it's not. It shouldn't be winning anything. It's good. It's a good summer bop and she's a great singer, but Sabrina, you just ain't cutting it for my wood carpenter. I'm sorry, it's just not. But Chapel won for Best New Artist, so that's important. And Billie Eilish won nothing. She was nominated for six Grammys. They gave her the old donut, or as we call it here in Canada, the old chocolate Timbit.
    35:30
    Wow. Okay, so. So there's just so much stuff that's added to this. I could go on and on and on. A real stereo, you need some help with your marketing with that one. That sounds very, in fact, they probably need a lot of help with their marketing. I'm not going to lie. Animated dyno, real shaker motor, real knocker. So there is a shaker motor and a knocker both included. Then it has a quiet power supply. So you don't need to spend another $100 or $200 on getting a quiet motor if that's something you want, which a lot of people seem to like. I don't, yeah, Gardens of the Galaxy did get kind of loud at a certain point when it had been running a while. And then there's two three-bank drop targets.
    36:13
    And you know me, I frickin' love drop targets. So these things are all good. These things are all very, very, very good. I think for their first offering,
    36:26
    the one bad is theme. So if you think about it, Let's say we had to do the numbers for any one given theme. I would say that probably 75% or more, maybe 80% of the people who bought Dungeons & Dragons pinball. Okay. These people love pinball or operate a pinball bar and love pinball. They're people just like they love pinball, but they're like adjacent to or they kind of like Dungeons & Dragons or they might have played a couple times. but they're not people who are like going out every Saturday playing Dungeons and Dragons still 20 years after high school na na na na na these are casuals maybe they saw the movie, maybe they didn't maybe they had some friends that played it like me and they went and watched one time but they never played themselves okay, I like to play with myself alright, I don't like to join the team I'm not a team player no, but I really really really really think that for your first offering especially. Now, I know Spooky didn't do it. Spooky is different, okay? And that was a different time. That was a different pinball market. The market is far, far, far more of a wet noodle, a soft little Kraft Dinner Noodle. Wait, you guys don't have that there. I felt so bad. I was on Wormhole with Jamie, and I said I started talking about how burgers just have way too much crap on them, which is true. but I mentioned how like the Caesars here, how they always put too much Caesars on it, but you guys don't call it Caesars you call them Bloody Marys there, but all it is is tomato juice or I think in Canada it's Motts Clamato, I can't have Clamato because I'm allergic to shellfish, I don't mean to be shellfish and tell you I've never had an actual Caesar, I have had a vodka and tomato juice and I don't love it but I don't hate it, you know you get that Rimmer in there with the Tabasco or whatever the frickin' hot chili sauce is. And then, I don't know why, but we put celery in it. And then some bars you go to, they put like 15 different things on top of the Caesar. It's starting to get a little bit silly. I'm sure they do with the Bloody Marys in the States. But my point was still the same. It's frickin' ridiculous. The one question I was so excited for Jamie to ask me that he didn't ask me, which I had a blast on there, by the way. So, you know, there's nothing, you know, this doesn't really matter. but I suspected he might ask me about the episode that I know he really got a kick out of because he messaged me afterwards telling me how funny he thought it was. But I thought that he would message me about doing my top five rad and one bad in the shower.
    39:07
    And he didn't ask me about that, but someday I'll be asked on some type of show and I'll have a funny answer for it. So I had a great time doing it. My sinuses are getting more clogged up by the moment as I talk to you guys, which is why I have to keep taking sips of my drink here. It's not because I'm trying to get the alcohol into me faster or anything like that. I just got a little bit of a frog in my throat, and my sinuses are completely congested. It's probably the altitude or amplitude or atmospheric barometric pressure change, something like that. Something happens. I'm Dutch. I have a big nose, which means I have big sinuses, and they tend to get a little bit clogged up. But let's just move on to what we were talking about. The theme in itself is just never going to be huge for people.
    39:55
    Even when you think of like a small, even a small theme would be better. Like, well, Spongebob Squarepants or something. You know what I mean? Like it doesn't have to be, it doesn't have to be Back to the Future. It doesn't have to be even the Goonies. It doesn't have to be even Spielberg. It doesn't have to be Jaws. It can be something smaller like Rick and Morty. I wouldn't be shocked if Cartoon Network was just so excited that they were going to get Rick and Morty made that they just kind of said, like, I don't know. I can't imagine they charge that much for that license. I could be wrong. But I can't imagine it would be the same as a big movie or like a Spider-Man or a Transformers or a Jaws or even Game of Thrones or anything by Marvel. I honestly think anything by Marvel would cost way more than Rick and Morty. And I think Rick and Morty, because they could use the artwork, also helped sell it. And that's the thing is, I do appreciate the fact, and I would feel so bad, I highly doubt it, but I would feel so bad if the artist heard me talk about this art this way, saying it's a C. Because it's not a C overall. If I saw this artwork at a local art show or something, I'd be like, oh my god, this is really cool. But I'm just saying as far as pinball art goes, when we're talking in comparison of the heavy hitters, the top you know when you're looking at the top five even top 10 pinball artists on planet earth their stuff blows this out of the park i'm sorry or they're you know vice versa right it is night and day it is a big difference and i love i love the the originality and the creativeness that goes into doing an original theme what i don't love is that there is no nostalgic pullback and because you've made the trash panda the main thing you didn't even make it like about stopping at 7-Eleven or whatever the frick wherever Bucky's or or like you didn't make it about oh no we're almost about to run out of gas or oh no we need more energy drinks or oh no we need more cheeseburgers or just like you know you can't really I don't know maybe there is humor added but they do have that one little screen I don't know how much that one little screen the middle play field can really add in in my personal history of playing like full throttle and a couple other pins. The little screen doesn't usually help you that much. But we'll see. I mean, I wish them well. I wish every company well. I really do.
    42:10
    I would give them, like, so far on their launch, like a solid 4 out of 10, maybe a 5 if I was trying to be nice. The marketing material is okay, but could be a lot more polished.
    42:24
    Again, I think the artwork is decent. I think there's really interesting shots and neat mechs. That one big giant mac rate in the middle of the play field that really interacts with the ball, that could be the make or break. If that looks cool when it works and it doesn't break down nine or ten times in one weekend when it's getting bashed on all day all the time at Pinball at the Beach, we'll see. We'll know within a few days. So this was just my first impressions. I could be wrong. Maybe you're listening to this and you just love that artwork style, and I'm totally wrong. art is thankfully subjective just like music but still one of the coolest parts is that you can implement your music in the game and if they have implemented the music and the sounds and all the software correctly that would tell me that francy just woke up and went to the other side of the couch but it looks like he it looks like he's he's going for the double nap man isn't that the best it's not the best when you don't have to work or something and you get to go for a nap in the afternoon. That's pretty much like, once you hit around 45, you're like, that afternoon nap, it's really better than roller coasters. It's really better than winning pinball tournaments. I mean, it's not better than winning the New Brunswick Pinball Championship. Come on.
    43:34
    Another thing I want to touch on very quickly, Jeff Teolis, watch out. Mike Dimas, watch out. okay Joe Chervino uh Matthew Megaphone everyone who plays at Maple watch out something's coming and it's Orby with glasses man I was playing Jurassic Park just yesterday and with my new glasses I swear to god I didn't hit the like usually I get the you know the uh the skill shot for Jurassic Park I'm sure many of you know uh it's very easy to get like the first shot up like under the t-rex it's fairly easy to get the ramp shot on the right then the third one that one's where I sometimes have problems. I would say like 1 in 10 times I hit all three. Maybe 1 in 15, to be honest. I hit it yesterday 3 out of 8 times. I got the super duper rooper pooper jackpot. And one time I hit another combo after that, and I swear to God it gave me something else. But anyways, maybe not. Maybe that just was like a regular combo that built into the game. Of my 8 games with my new glasses on, I put scores in. Pinball Nerds Podcast, PMP. If you're at Vortex Game in Sackville, New Brunswick. I'm sorry, man. You're just going to be looking through all the, like, Spinner Champ, blah, blah, blah, Champ, everything. PMP, PMP. I couldn't believe it. And I only put in $2, which gave me three games. And of those three games, I won four more games, and then I got a, like, a match on one of them. So I won five games. Like, I only spent two bucks. And there was a free game on. They have the old, lesser loved Star Wars there with the 3D. So, anyways, go check out Vortex Games if you're ever in and around New Brunswick or Nova Scotia.
    45:15
    I had a great time there. The Pinball Nerd himself had a wonderful time. I also had a wonderful time on the Wormhole. I'm going to leave the link down there. Go watch it. Go have fun. Go have a beer or two with me. I was having a couple rye and gingers because I was a little bit nervous. I've never done an on-camera interview. I've done telephone interviews, but I've never done an on-camera interview. And then, of course, you've got to worry about lighting and how close I am to the mic and don't slouch and don't pick your nose and don't scratch your butt and don't be smoking anything on the camera. I was trying to be like a good boy. I tried not to swear, I think, on it. I tried pretty hard. I might have let one little tiny one slip out, but Jamie was just such a great host. You can tell that what I like about Jamie so much is he's just so authentic and genuine and shoots from the hip and tells it like it is. He doesn't candy coat it, which annoys me and makes feels inauthentic but at the same time he's not just doing it for the game he's not doing it to sell you a mod or get you to join his patreon or sell you a t-shirt or get you to like this video or get you you know he's yes of course he might want all of those things and he wants you to come to wormhole and love playing pinball and he wants you to go to the twippies which i'm getting really excited for when's that that's in like 12 days and i think even between now and then we have the degenerates one with joe chervino that one's coming up i know the voting's happening for that So make sure if you're a pinball degenerate, you're over there voting left, right, and center. And maybe the nerdies, maybe the sixth annual nerdies will be coming up. Who knows? Who knows? But I'm very, very, very excited to be on the wormhole there. I was so stoked to be asked. I hadn't been asked to be interviewed anywhere since I kind of had a little bit of a crash out on the good old final round there when I had probably a little bit too much fun before, after, and during the podcast. but yeah Pete Pinside Petey beat me come on come on Ryan say I even Ryan say could tell you someday Ryan C is going to be sick or he'll be hiking for his 1000th day of the year and and Jeff Hewitt's going to be like all right Orby fine you're up or maybe after I go to a Pemburg which in which I didn't get into Pemburg shout out to Dimas and uh Joe and everyone else I thought tons of people tons of people Drew C got into it shout out to Drew C everybody else who got into Pemberg congratulations good for you I didn't try this year has nothing to do with the politics and stuff like that I just don't have a great deal of extra money and I'm really trying to save up my dinero to go to pinball expo and or at least one maple this year I don't even think Yagpin is going to be in the books or possible even though Yagpin would have been if I got to go one year of my life one if not one at least one year in my life I have to go to Yankpin at least once if not more I have to go to Expo um Maple I'll go to all the time because I can fly there for super cheap I have a free place to stay whether it's at one of my sister's my dad's or wherever you know one of my friend's houses so it costs me next to nothing I can fly in for 80 to 120 dollars stay there for a couple days usually get rides pretty much everywhere someone loans me a car or something like that. Anyways, let's move on to the Toy Story sale. Thank you, thank you, thank you, JJP Now I understand Look do we talk about what would have been better and be a negative Nancy and Debbie Downer and say well you should have originally had it priced at that amount so that the current owners didn feel okay listen but sometimes markets change would you rather know that you got to have your toy story for years and years before everybody else you got to be perhaps one of the first people to open one perhaps one of the first people to live stream one you were that guy on the street you were that guy at the workplace who was like no I got the newest JJP come check it out it's Pat Lawler he is one of the pinball gods it's got the Canada ramp on it or Canada ramp or lovely that that is cool that's like the no good gophers ramp it's I don't care about the bow p loops okay I don't care about the bow p loops but it has like four or five toys that interact with the ball it also just looks hella fun and I think if you had a family arcade it would bring over so many children who would not look twice at 90% of pinball themes and make them come over there. And I believe even the likes of Todd Tuckey, shout out Todd,
    49:35
    has said that that Toy Story does very, very well with children. And I would believe it. It probably perhaps the best. I did also want to take a second to recognize that Todd lost his wife some time ago. And that would have been very, very, very challenging. and my heart goes out to him and his daughters and the entire family and everyone else there. So sorry for your loss, Todd. But I'm glad to see you're still out and about in the community and I'll make sure to watch every video and like every video that comes out from you. So yeah, if you guys can support Todd in some way, shape or form, especially if you're locally, check out their selection of used pinball machines. If you're not local like me, make sure you go watch a TNT video, I believe. Make sure you go watch a video. make sure you support them that way. And if you're friends with Todd, make sure you reach out and just see how he's doing once in a while. I think I've chatted with him like once or twice on Facebook Messenger, but like we're not super close. So if you are much closer to Mr. Todd Tucky than me, please reach out to him and just say hello or how are you doing, that sort of thing. Because certainly this is going to be a very challenging time for him for a while. So I am very still excited at some point to meet him and shake his hand and tell him how much all of his videos meant to me over the years. Even going back 10 years ago when I was playing in tournaments, I would watch his videos just to learn a little bit about the machines and where to shoot and what to do, because many other machines had no videos except for Todd's videos. And they were always entertaining and funny. You wouldn't always necessarily, he wouldn't talk about all the rules, sometimes, a little bit, right? So I've gone off track. What else would you expect here? The kids are both actually out for the night, So it's a very rare opportunity that two parents don't have any kids at home. It happens but once or twice a year. So I want to make sure I don't go over on this, and I want to get you guys back to your day. So let's hustle through the Toy Story thing.
    51:33
    Do I believe that it's great that they are realigning their prices? Yes. Do I hope to God moving forward they attempt to realize that it's better to earn a slightly smaller margin but get more of their beautiful pinball machines out there in the world than it is to gouge and try to have diamond hands and get the absolute highest price on every single solitary bin because if they had originally launched this toy story at two thousand dollars less the initial sales would be 30 40 or perhaps even 50 bigger the initial response from content creators would have been probably 60 70 better everyone just kept saying fine it looks cool but like not for that price that's what everyone kept saying that's why it was judged so harshly right i understand people want toy story one that was the main objective but the second one was like but that price right so the rules seem to be implemented well the uh you know the artwork even though it's copy and paste it looks great it's composed well the the color palettes obviously gorgeous like it's got great animations you know what i mean it's got a lot going for it it's really is a cool pin i think that's i think five to ten years from now. I know it's not the toy story that y'all wanted, but it's a toy story you got. I still think that at $2,000 under or however much you could get it for used wouldn't be a horrible, especially if you were going to hold it long term. You know, if you had young kids in the house that you knew were going to enjoy it, say you had two or three kids or you had one and you knew you had more on the way. If you're going to have young kids in the house for the next five to 10 years, I can't think of like a, what are you going to do? Go get Shrek. You know, you can't get Family Guy or Simpsons. Well, not until we get Simpsons probably once they're like, I guess Simpsons is fine. I don't think there's anything actually in the Simpsons pinball machine that would prevent kids from playing. You know where I'm coming from. You definitely can't get a Walking Dead. You know, you could probably get a Guardians of the Galaxy. I had that with my sons and I don't think there was anything in there in any of the songs or anything that was bad whatsoever. But all right. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I have been one of the people asking for the longest to readjust your prices and I've been saying there's nothing wrong with having a sale yes you there's a certain percent of your previous buyers that will be disenfranchised but the differential of the new buyers that got the better price that you've now gained possible customers for life at is probably higher what you have to do is show them that they had a big advantage for being first buyers which they did in this case they had two years off so I would suggest that you never like two months later take like two or three grand off avatar because then you could have like then you could have a lot of people really really upset if it's been two or three years i think everyone can say okay i recently got some gummies that were like half price in new brunswick okay but they were made in 2022 so everybody knows thc thc efficiency goes down 20 or 30 percent once it's been a couple years so that's why you're getting them for a better deal. No one is bragging right now like, oh my god, I just got a Toy Story. It's so cool. Come check it out. You know what I mean? That was two, three years ago, right? At least two years ago. So it makes sense that it's discounted now. But moving forward, Jersey Jack, pay attention to your pricing. I don't give a shatz if you have Harry Potter. What you want to do is sell the perfect number. And the perfect number at the perfect price usually means it sells out not on the first day because then you either had them priced too low or you didn't make enough pinball machines if they take over three months to sell out you probably made way way way too many so to them if they kept the prices identically the same and they limited harry potter to a thousand i think that's perfect if they increase the price by 20 or 30 percent and they do like 2000 or whatever they did with guns and roses even though it's harry potter we are not in the same market we were during Guns and Roses, I think they will sit for a while. I do. Now, if the game plays incredible and it's Eric Menyer, so it probably will be, and he loves that theme, so if ever Eric Menyer was going to make an incredible theme he loves, it'd probably be now. So I, OE of Little Faith is not me. I have faith. I think Eric Menyer will make a banger. I think Harry Potter's going to be what, I almost said Dwight Schrute, what Dwight Sullivan D&D is to him.
    55:58
    So, okay, we've got two quick topics here. Let's get through them lickety-split. So recently, in fact, moments before I went to record,
    56:08
    I saw that Dave Fix's replacement, possibly, depending on who you ask and depending on what you read in the Facebook group, got hired. So it looks like Nate and Amanda Steen. Now, it did say something about they have years of customer service, but with Dave Fix being fired and there being no director there at this point and no one really experienced to take over from what I understand.
    56:33
    There was the other sales manager, but he's still doing the sales managing, so who's the vice president, right? I have no clue. So I'm assuming this person might be taking the spot. And if they're not, let's just say I said in Minecraft, okay? I don't want to be getting sued. American Pinball is more litigious than... I almost said something bad, but I didn't. So here we go. Let's just get into it for a second. I don't know Nate and Amanda Steen. They look pretty fun. They look pretty rad. They look like they're partying in their professional pitcher. That was uploaded to their Facebook. I did see some comments about that, so thank you for whoever mentioned that, because it was kind of my thought as well. You don't have to be in a suit and tie for a pinball company, but, like, it doesn't have to be glamour shots. You know what I mean? We don't have to be, it doesn't have to be Napoleon Dynamite here, and you're doing glamour shots. But what you need to do without a doubt is you have to go out of your way to use your most closest to a perfect... When your company is struggling with such a PR nightmare right now, like everything in disarray over at AP, people's consumer confidence in AP right now is at an all-time low. And that's saying something because it was already low. It was probably a 2 out of 10 like a year ago. And now it's like a 0 to a 1, right? so when you're hiring people to try to get people to change their opinion of the company and make it seem more professional and more likely that if you bought a cuphead you'd actually get it you need to do everything i'm sure like in you know even a golf shirt and like standing up not looking like you're at a big party or something anyways it doesn't matter about the picture if nate and amanda steen can do better interviews than david fix which i mentioned shouldn't be hard and if they can have a more clear, concise vision, if they can choose to do Whitewater 2 instead of Berrios, if they could have, if they got in the time machine with Doc Brown, would they choose to go back? And if they said, yes, I would choose to go back and instead I would do Whitewater 2 instead of Berrios Barbecue Challenge, I'd say you're hired and Dave Fix, you're fired in Minecraft. I love you, Dave Fix, working at Expo, not at AP. But anyways, Dave Fix doesn't listen to me. Why would he? let's talk about the tariff trouble real quick now i'm going to give you the old franchi if you want to get out of here get out of here because i am talking about personal stuff a little tiny bit and i will say this that to each and every person listening are you listening stern especially i would guess that american pinballs 90 of their sales are in america or canada or the u.s okay and I'm guessing only to maybe 10% of that goes to Canada. I could be wrong. They don't need to worry about 10% of their sales being soured.
    59:22
    But if four or five years ago, either George Gomez, Gary Stern, someone over there, one of the big guys, I remember this, said that more than half of, or I don't want to quote them, half of or more than half of their sales were no longer domestic. And that's why they shipped to like Europe first so that it kind of gets there at the same time. It's going to travel across the sea, of course.
    59:44
    So if Stern has to go from making, say, 1,000 pinball machines a week to 500 a week, that means they only need half the designers. That means they only need half the production people. That means that they're even doing that, you think, oh, well, if the cost of a pinball machine goes up 25%, it's not a big deal. No, no, no, no, no, no. When you get rid of 60% of your sales or 70% of your sales are almost gone to zero to like 90, 95% gone. That means that all of your fixed costs for that giant, beautiful factory that Stern has. So all the costs of just keeping the lights on, even if there's no pinball machines being made. The costs of all their garbage getting picked up weekly, which doesn't change if nothing's getting made. The costs, all the fixed costs of just running, maintaining, all the costs on the building costs, their taxes, which is probably astronomical in Schaumburg. Okay, all those stay the same, but they lose 50, 60 or 70% of their sales overnight because of a political decision. I'm sorry, but Stern would have to do layoffs within a week or two. I think even if they wanted to be nice, their shareholders would be like, yo, if we just lost more than half our sales, we're going to need to look at who we need to get rid of ASAP. I'm not suggesting they're going to fire half their designers day one, but they could. I'm not suggesting they're going to get rid of half their coders day one, but they probably should. If you know your sales for the next four years are going to be 70% to 80% less than they were, and keep in mind, a pinball machine, We've been told this by George Gomez multiple times. A pinball machine has almost as many parts from almost as many distributors and different factories as a car. It is only second to a car out of all the consumer goods. So that means there's products that probably touch China once or twice, Canada, the European Union.
    61:46
    And so if the parts coming in are 10, 20, or 30% more expensive, going into the pinball machine. But then their sales drop by 50, 60, or 70%. That company is gone. Sturm would have to go down to about 70, 80% less area. They would lose more than half their production people. Like, just that's what they would have to do to survive for four years. Now, let's hope that this doesn't happen in a couple weeks from now. I hope it doesn't happen. You hope it doesn't happen. I hope my son doesn't lose his job. I don't want to have to go get a job and quit this podcast.
    62:21
    I know me personally, if I'm working 40, 50, 60 hours a week, I don't have the time and energy to do this podcast, nor do I have the will, right? And I don't mind that I don't get paid any money on here, nor do I even necessarily think I deserve to. I haven't asked for and haven't even mentioned any type of donation since my birthday, July of last year. I do have a little bit of a long game in mind that, and Jamie did mention this at Wormhole, talked about going behind the paywall. What I would like to do and what he even mentioned is I have way more than enough episodes that are already out there that I want to release one episode per month. That is what the F happened last month. And I probably swear a little bit more on it. I have a couple of drinks. I talk even more off the cuff. I maybe gossip a little bit more, tell you a little bit more about content creators, even though I've been trying to avoid talking about that kind of thing. and I also released one previously released podcast that I had taken down for a multitude of reasons. I probably have 15 of those. And when I run out of those, I'll just start doing one interview per month that I put behind the paywall along with the What the F happened in the month of the month before. So I'm really excited to do that. Maybe when I do the What the F, I'll do a live stream with like my Patreons or something. I don't know. I know I'm not going to get tons, but it would be really nice to bring in a little bit of limited income. I felt like I talked about coffee and asked for donations too much for a couple years there and I didn't want the listeners to be misconstrued and think that I didn't put pinball first because I love pinball first and foremost I just like getting paid a little bit for my time and hard work but I felt like a couple people had said I brought it up too much so I just stopped bringing it up and honestly I've been happier that way my numbers have slowly got a little better they're not incredible but they're a little better and I'm happy with it I hope you're happy with it I know that this is one of the most L.E. or limited edition pinball podcasts on planet Earth. And I promise, especially if the tariffs don't come into place, okay?
    64:20
    I hereby promise, Scout's honor, hand on my chest, I will try my very best to not mention any of the political stuff happening over the next three, four years, especially if the tariffs don't come into place. But anyways, I love you pinball nerds. I hope you had a rad day. Go play some pinball. Until next time, remember to go road tripping and eat, sleep, and breathe pinball.