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 Myth of syrup and honey, hopes to laugh with his family And a random tangent, stories of his boys He's on the poor man's pod network We're gonna get more listeners for the Pinball Nerds Podcast. Coming to you from beautiful River Hibbert, Nova Scotia. Welcome back, Pinball Nerds, to episode 554 of your fifth favorite pinball podcast. My name is Orbital Albert, and on today's show, I am as close to speechless as I have ever been in my life, which all of you know is challenging for me. But I somehow, someway managed to get a win at the right time and win the new Brunswick Pinball Championship. So I will get to go to District 82 and hang out with all the other pinball nerds who won in their province or state. And I will probably mention this several times during this podcast, but I am well aware of the fact that I am not that good of a pinball player. and in fact much like Bruce Nightingale of Slam Tilt Pinball Podcast and also Tim Sexton also known as Tim Balls lovingly when I used to watch him on Twitch before he worked for Stern and they both retired and it did wonders for them because Tim went on to have his best placing ever at InDisc I believe he got third or fourth he was top four he did really well and then Bruce Nightingale went on to have not just one, but I think he's had two wins since he's retired, right? So, wow. But I was taking a look at some of the other names of the other pinball nerds that I'm going to be playing with at Provincials and it was astounding. But before I talk too much about that, I wanted to see as part of a challenge that this guy that always goes off topic and that probably talks too long on almost every subject, longer than he should, could I possibly wrap up the entire tournament? Because I know some people don't like hearing tournament recaps. Of course, if you don't like tournament pinball, you probably shouldn't have clicked on this. Or maybe you just want to hear it straight from the horse's mouth about what happened to me at the tournament. So I will get into that right away, but I'm going to try to wrap it up in less than five minutes because unless you're there with me or I have video to show me, if you could go watch the live stream, yes, so we could drag it out to being longer, more interesting content than this. All you need to know is I had zero expectations going into the day of the New Brunswick Pinball Championships because I knew that without a doubt I had no chance of winning. In fact, the reason I had told you all, and you haven't heard the episode from two months ago where I told you I think I might be retiring, was because this year is the first year in seven years of playing, eight years of playing competitive pinball, that I didn't make it to the finals once. In fact, my very first pinball tournament ever, I made it to finals. And do you know that it was an accident that I went to my very first pinball tournament ever? An accident. A complete accident. In fact, I almost didn't go. And so I would like to save that story for the end of the show. The story about how I accidentally played my first competitive pinball tournament, my first any type of pinball tournament, and what got me back into pinball. and you know that even the pinball nerds that have listened to all 554 shows have no effing clue about this story. Okay, okay, there's one or two of you out here who might know part of this story and one of them is at work right now. That would be Drop Target Danielle. She's not here right now. Both of my sons have probably heard me talk about it too much. Before I go any further, I did want to give a huge, massive shout-out. Shout-out to Hayden Agar. he got second, my oldest son, he did get second at Provincials. Probably a big part of the reason why I actually was able to get second at Provincials was, in fact, due to the fact, you might be able to hear Elowen snoring over here. She's actually snoring. That's not my speaker, but if you hear a gentle snoring happening over here, that's just Elowen. She's got some rapid eye movement happening over there. I don't know. She's probably eating a giant bone or like chasing a fox like she does in real life or even a deer. I don't know. Anyways, by the time that I get down to my son and I, I went to go use the bathroom and I just stood there and I caught my breath and I leaned my head on the wall above the urinal and I didn't cry. I wasn't going to cry at this punk rock bar in front of all these other pinball nerds, but my eyes might have welled up a little and I was like, holy shats, either my son or I. And at that point, I had no stress because I've already promised my son if he had won, I would not only pay for his whole trip, but I would go with him because he probably, at 19 years old, having never flown on an airplane by himself and only been on an airplane twice, and I don't think ever have been on a... No, he's been on a train a couple times, like for short trips, but never traveled by himself on a train. You know, he would have to get a ride to Amherst, then he would have to take the bus to Halifax, and he would have to fly to either Toronto, Kitchener, Waterloo, Hamilton, or London, wherever he could fly and do closest, and then either rent a car, which at his age I doubt he can even do, or borrow a car, which would be challenging to do, or he would have to take a train, which would be more likely to get to De Beere, which is in Wisconsin, but it's further than Milwaukee? I don't know. I don't know. I'm sorry, I don't know Wisconsin that well. I think De Beere is near the middle. whole bunch of Wisconsinites, is that what they are or are they just cheeseheads, no is that a different place oh my god I'm in so much trouble I'm sorry, to be fair I probably know more about American states than the average not pinball nerd but the average American would know about Canadian provinces so anywho I already told Hayden I would go with him if he won so by the time it got and it was just like the very first thing that happened by luck that day was that just I had not won all year long. In the last two years, I did get to play, this is my third year in a row playing the provincial championships. I knew that those other years I had built up all this like angst and all this anxiety and like this pressure, like, oh, you have to play well. And those two years, even though I thought I played well, I didn't, you know, I didn't get through very many rounds. And if the first one, if any, now the gentleman who beat me, Justin went on to win for the whole province. Oh, excuse me. Escusi. One of the things I will say, though, is that even though I wasn't nervous because I was so happy one of the two of us were going to win, my hands were sweating. Like, I had to keep wiping my hands down. You know when you see people playing, like, professional pinball and they keep wiping their hands down or they bring, like, a cloth with them and you're like, come on, that's too much. Just wipe your hands on your jeans before you start playing each time or something, like, if you have to, right? Especially if you're eating the Doritos or the, you know, pizza, really greasy pizza or something, you know, in the arcade. You definitely want to be. I'm not saying don't take care of your hands. Take care of your hands. What I'm saying is that, like, wow, in finals, my, I just, like, even midway playing through, my hands were, I was so nervous. I could not stop thinking, oh, my God, either you or your son get to go. Like, me, and I'm not nervous for me going. I know I won't, I know I'm not, there's almost zero, like, I don't even know if Tim Stexton still does the pinball betting or whatever. But I looked last year, and the lowest ranked person that played, that represented their province or state last year was 1500th. Like 1580-something. Before I had played this tournament, going into, before the points came out, in fact, this Monday, just two days ago, before the points came out, I was ranked 8600-something. And now I'm like 6200, because I got nine whoppers. I got nine whoppers. Most people could go get nine Whoppers on a small little Tuesday night pinball thing. I got nine Whoppers for winning my province, which I'm more than pleased with, believe me. And going up 2,000 spots is just incredible. Especially for a guy like me who used to be ranked, I think my top ranking was like 1,400th in the world or 1,500th in the world. But I had not been playing good for the last year. I had never made it to finals. I had almost made it to finals like three times. In fact, in the last tournament, I think there was only 18 people playing and like four or five of them had never played before. and two of the people who had never played before beat me. I end up getting 10th at zeros at the same place I had to go for provincials. So how do you think like my ego is feeling and like my confidence is feeling knowing that the last time I played at this exact location, I got 10th of 18 players. Now I'm going to be playing and that wasn't even close to the top 16 best players in the province. Now all of the top 16 best players in the province are going to be represented. To be fair, minus Patrick who won last year and has now legitimately retired from pinball that I don't think he wants to go and do the provincial stuff anymore, which, Pat, if you change your mind, you want to play more? Totally up to you, of course. Obviously, you want to have higher-ranking players who are really good. Pat was, for years, number one or number two on efficiency on IFPA just because he won such a 95% or 96% of his games. He won, right? So, anyways, I cannot tell you how excited I was when I finally won. I did have to play Rod in the very first round, my buddy Rod there from Moncton. And Rod played very well. We had a lot of close games. I think I beat him 4-1 or 4-2. But we had a very, like, you know, I think it was 4. I might have been 4-1. And don't quote me on this because I'm not going to lie. Even though I was going beer, pop, beer, pop, beer, pop, I was actually having Bublé or Bubbly, depending on if you want to give it, which name you want to give it. But I was just drinking like a pop in between. So I was having like a slowly drinking a low alcohol beer, then water, beer, water. Because when you're playing from like noon until, what do we stop at? Quarter after seven at night. So an hour of practice. And then, so almost like, you know, six and a half, seven hours of pinball. Obviously, you can't be drinking the whole time. Not if you're going to win the province or state. Am I right? Am I right? No, I'm just kidding. I'll try not to mention it too many times this show. I promise I will not mention it. Someone winning the Twippies and mentioning it too many times, I will not do that. I will try not to do that. Or someone winning a pinball tournament in Australia and mentioning it every episode. I will try not to do either of those things. I will try my best not to do either of those things. So I was very, very, very excited to win. I'm at 10 minutes now. I'm seeing that. I got to play Haley, actually a good buddy of the show here, Dylan's girlfriend, and she did really well. I don't think she won a lot of games off me, but it was really really close almost on most of the games and she played great and I think she was just happy to even make it to the second round, so that was cool. The third round I had to play this gentleman Keith, and Keith was actually shocked he had got through that many rounds. He had gone through arguably, he was like I think the lowest or second lowest person there who had made it to the final. So he was really shocked to make it to top four. Keith played very, very, very well. He did not win a game against me, though. So I was feeling pretty good going into the finals against Hayden. I think I'd only lost one game all day in like six hours. And just to keep your intent. Maybe I lost two. Maybe I lost two. Don't quote me on it. I can go on Match Play and check. But just to keep that focus and that intensity of just being 110% and not allowing yourself to like start to get tired. Like I had to make sure I kept my caffeine up. I had to make sure that I didn't crash from eating too many carbohydrates or eating too much sugar. I had to make sure that I, it sounds really silly. Like all this nerding out that I'm talking to you about is for your ears only because you guys are pinball nerds and gals and girls and women and ladies and men and boys and girls and everybody who listens. We're all welcome here. He, she, they, I don't care. Everybody's welcome. My point is, is tomorrow I'm going to be doing an interview with CTV News Atlantic. So Atlantic plays to a much larger region than, say, CTV News Prince Edward Island or Nova Scotia or New Brunswick or Newfoundland, which only play to their particular provinces. But it's all good. I'm going to set up a nice area. I'm actually going to put blackout curtains up in the Pimble Arcade so I can have Christopher Franchi's beautiful art on Guardians of the Galaxy in the background turned on behind me. I'm going to turn off the volume completely so the volume not distracting And if they really ask me to turn off the pinball machine I will but I think it will be fine to leave it on And I going to be doing an interview so I don know if that interview will be put on tomorrow night or the next night I don't even know. Maybe I say something really stupid or really dumb like I did on a couple of my shows last week, and it never gets aired. I don't know. I promise you one thing, pinball nerds. I will not play Pinball Wizard or make any mention of it. and if he or she, well, it's supposed to be a gentleman named Sean that has asked me for the interview. I don't know if that's who's conducting it, but if that's who's conducting it, if they start playing Pinball Wizard, I will just shake my head and say, I'm going to have a sign already written. I won't put it up if I don't have to, but it will say, no Pinball Wizard song allowed in this arcade. And I'll hold it up. I'll hold it up. I don't even care if it's CTV News. No, this is the type of dumb thing I can't do. I want to try to remember to tell people they can look for a tournament in their local area by going to ifpa.com which is ifpa.com and they can also look at the pinball map or if they're locally in Halifax they have to hit up my favorite location Propeller Arcade, Zero's in Moncton, Seven's in Charlottetown and Arcade 83 in St. John yes so those are like the main but there's some other places to play in St. John now as well, but those are like the main places that have supported us and that I've been to and that I love and that I support. So if I were only going to, you know, shout out a couple of arcades, I have those already in my head. I'm probably going to make sure I'm like all coffeed up and extra sober. I will actually have a shower. Like right now I'm sitting here in my pajama pantaloons. And so I can do that kind of thing. You know, I will try to make sure that I cut out my ums and yas for like all my filler words of course doing an hour long podcast by yourselves a little bit different than just doing questions and answers and believe it or not I can hopefully maybe try to keep it together back when I was a television show host for Rogers TV uh doing the Bruise Brothers of course which if you're ever bored head over to YouTube and type the Bruise Brothers uh you might have to type the Bruise Brothers Rogers like r-o-g-e-r-s that's one of our big TV channels here in Canada many of you have heard of the Rogers Stadium where the Blue Jays play that sort of thing so if you type that you'll actually watch one of two or three episodes that's on there with me a much bigger boy I was about 250 might have been between 250-260 pounds I am proud to report I'm down to about 227 now so I'm down almost 12 pounds just coming off a 48 hour fast that's right where I ate no food I was allowed coffee with no sugar and no cream, of course, but I was allowed coffee, I was allowed a tea, I was allowed lots of water. My voice is kind of just coming back from that, so I apologize for that. That's why I didn't record, but I am feeling better, and of course, I got to have beer for the first time this year on Saturday, Saturday, Saturday, Saturday. Wait, didn't I say I wouldn't sing? No singing today, no singing. I am going to talk about the story about how I accidentally played my first pinball tournament. Of course, I'm saving that for the end. I did want to first start by talking about just a couple of the awesome people that are going to be playing with me at the tournament coming up. So this is just a couple of the state and provincial winners that I found. Okay, you ready? Bowen freaking Karen. So Bowen Kerins, the pinball royal himself. Bowen Kerins is the gentleman who has taught me. I mean, I was just watching his Whirlwind tutorial right before I went, and actually I picked Whirlwind every day at the tournament or every round, and I think I won on it every time, and that's partially due to Bowen Kerins. And now I've got to go play Bowen Kerins, the guy who wrote the book on pinball rules, basically, right? Walt Wood. I'm going to get to meet Walt Wood. That's so awesome. Travis Murie, Triple Drain. I'll get to meet him. Jared August, you know, former number one, arguably the best, if not one of the best players on the entire planet. Greg Pavarelli, really interesting guy. Got to meet him at the Degenerates after party. I believe he was there with me. Or was that Neatsan? I sometimes confuse them. No, I don't. No, I don't. But I met both of them at Pemburg, and I think they were both at the D.D. Jennings after-party or the Degenerates after-party, as it would have been known then, at Pemburg. But, yeah, Greg Pavarelli, congratulations, won his state and also won a lot of money at the Borgata or whatever it is, the poker tournament he was most recently at. I thought that was really cool. I'm just going to run through the people a little bit quicker here because they're all awesome. They're all incredible players. They're all way better than me. that's for sure. You've heard of them before, but I just wanted to give a quick shout out and thank you to the first few people I saw when I ran through this list. Names that jumped out to me like, holy cow, I get to play with them. Pinball Royals, so to speak. Jason Zoller. Colin Urban. Alec Alexander. I was going to say Alexander, but it's Alexander. Kazmarchek. Eric Stone. I get to play with Eric Stone. Oh my God. I got to interview Eric Stone after he won this whole tournament, like, a long time ago. Or was it the World Championships? Not the North American Championships. I don't know. After he won a large tournament, I got to have Eric right here on the Pinball Nerds podcast and interview him on his flip phone in between him doing Carl Weathers updates for the TV channel. Really cool. Really fun. Right there in the studio. Escher Lefkoff, who I got to hang out with over Christmas right here on the Poor Men's Pinball Network. I got to hang out in the tribe-like video hangout over Christmas holidays there, so that was awesome. And I'll actually get to maybe play with them now. I suggest maybe because, you know, the chances of me playing with most of these people in my first round is extremely low, or playing with at the Nationals, and I know that. But what I'm most excited about is going to Pin Masters, because Pin Masters, If you didn't know, Pin Masters is like the largest pinball, it's the largest pin golf. So pin golf is like pinball, well it is pinball, but instead of having to see who gets the highest score, you have to see who in the least number of balls can get to either a set score or a set mission or a set number of things you have to get done in the game. And so year after year, I have enjoyed and I love, as a huge golf fan, I love watching pin golf. I love playing pin golf. I actually went to the finals and either did I get second or third. I think I might have got second at a pin golf tournament actually in Toronto, just beside the CN Tower there. I forget the location name. But anyways, it doesn't matter. But the thing I'm most excited about, because all these players' names I'm telling you, like Ray Day and all of these other people that are going to be there, who I would love to meet, especially Ray Day. I mean, he's got the show with Rachel Risto right here on the Poor Man's Network, the Ray Ray Show, where they talk about rules and they talk about tournaments. Those, I mean, Rachel and Ray Day are the two people I should probably be talking to most about this because I am so underprepared. Think about this. Like, the largest tournament I've played in the past, I don't know, three years was maybe like 22 or 23 people at my buddy Dylan's house, which has like one awesome, awesome, incredible collection. He has my old Flash Gordon from Mike Dimas on Pinball Shenanigans showed out. he has he has my old future spa he's got I think he has more but that's all I can remember for now and he's also got like his only modern game though is Stern's Metallica and I forget where I completely forget where I was going with this I've gone completely off topic what else would you expect here guys let's get back into it let's get back into it I think I'm I think I'm actually partially distracted because I know that I have this CTV interview tomorrow. And I don't want to mess that up. I'm actually more nervous. Oh, yeah. So I was saying the largest tournament that I had played in the last five years was about 24, maybe 26 people at Dylan's house with one Modern Sturm. And now I'm going to be going there and possibly perhaps in competition. And maybe I shouldn't be saying it because obviously whoever I'm playing against can hear this. But, like, I've played one ball quickly on Stranger Things. I've played one ball quickly on the Mandalorian. I've played maybe five games in total, six games in total, maybe seven now on Godzilla. Absolutely love it. But I've only played it a couple times. And when I went to go play it, it was $2. I was like, oh, man. Now it's $2 Canadian, so don't freak out, Americans. That's only like a buck your money or slightly more. But anyways, I am really excited about playing in the Pin Masters. And even though it's $300 US, there's no chance on earth I would miss playing in that because basically of the 144 spots, from what I understand, 100 of them are reserved for people who just enter Pinmasters, which I don't know if that's sold out. I should, I'm a bad podcaster or be a bad podcaster. I should have looked into this. But if it's not sold out, you want to ever play in a pinball tournament with me and you live anywhere within a couple hours drive or even a short flight that would, you know, and you have some time. I mean, if you're already coming to D82 anyways, you might as well just play in the Pym Masters with Orby. If you're one of my big fans and you ever wanted to meet me, if I even have a big fan outside of Glenn the Skateboarder, maybe Tim the Lion Man Lee, I don't know. But if I, Ryan Barry, of course, my new pin turn, he has accepted the pin turn position, so I now have a pin turn. And any shows I don't go to this year, you can expect a little Orby presence there with the Pinball Nerds podcast. I may be firing off a pin turn, but I plan on attending most of them. TPF is the one I'd really have to hire a big pin turn for so if you think you could help me pin turning for that send me a message either through my Facebook page Pinball Nerds Podcast Facebook page or pinballnerds at gmail.com and let me know why I should pick you maybe I'll do a little competition and maybe I'll have on like the two top people who want to be the pin turn and like ask some pinball related questions and trivia and see who's more prepared maybe we'll turn it into content would that be fun? I think that'd be fun. So anyways, what I'm most excited about is playing because for two days straight, I'll get to play round after round. Now, for instance, Patrick, who won for New Brunswick last year, he got to play with Raymond Davidson, Escher Lefkoff, and Roger Sharp. I'm like, could you have got a cooler group to play with? I don't know. Yeah, I guess maybe if they did five player groups and they added Elwin. I don't know. You know what I mean? Or six player groups and you added, wait, can't one game play six players now? And they added, like, Jack Danger. You know what I mean? Or, like, if they added seven players and you had George Gomez. Do you know what I mean? So, anyways, I'll stop saying that. You could just go on forever. What if they added 47 players and then you could just add so-and-so? Anyways, I am so excited to play with all of these pinball royals. It is really just something I couldn't be more excited for. It's going to be live streamed, which is neat. I have played once on one tournament live stream. The tournament was what I jokingly called the launch party. I, believe it or not, yes, Spooky Pinball, if you're listening, I did the launch party, the unofficial launch party, that is, for Rob Zombie. and now to be fair it was a long time after the game came out that was at my buddy's shout out Sean Russell's house in St. Thomas and we just did a tournament because he had just got it newly from Mike Dimas and we decided to go there and do a live stream and I realized after the live stream that I had the play field mirrored the wrong direction the entire live stream so anyways that was fun I think we only got about maybe you know five to ten people watching at a time but still really fun. It was great. That was the only time I've been on a live stream actually like playing in a tournament. I did do a really fun live stream with David Dennis of Silverball Chronicles. One, the only live stream I've done in the last five years that was also fun, but I haven't done like ever like a big major tournament. I mean, I was at Pemberg, but you know, they didn really I never made it on camera for that I played in the Intergalactic but I didn make it on stage or get to the finals of that So I never been in like like I just I know been in like I know me and my brain it will make me more nervous I think most of you listening can admit until you probably played like five to ten times with a camera watching, it would make most of us nervous. Even though most of us in front of our buddies would be like, oh, camera doesn't make me nervous, I can still play perfect, watch me tap pass, here I go. Like the first time that you have to do like a tap pass on an EM with everyone watching, it's going to be like very, very, very embarrassing. Alas, I am starting to lose my voice. I'm going to go into the second part. I do want to thank, first of all, Tom MacArthur from Fundy Flippers. Thank you so much for being a TD. Tom has let us all know publicly now that 2024 will be his last year. I wasn't even sure if it was possible, but he has actually reached out and heard back that it is possible from IFPA that if I wanted to, even though I do not live in New Brunswick, that I could possibly become the tournament director for the provincial rep, the state rep. I don't know if I want to do that. I know I would have to learn a lot, lot more, and I would have to read the entire rulebook, and I would take that very seriously if I were able to do it. I don't know if I want to step up and do that yet. For now, I'm just going to worry about going to the Nationals and getting to play with the top players of every state. but Tom thank you so much for organizing and everything that you do and I know it's a pain in the ass especially the day of you know he would like to go represent his province or state as well and he's trying to be a tournament director but also play himself and I'm sure that's very very very challenging but I want to talk about the story about how I accidentally and thanks to all the other rad pinball nerds who were at provincials if you're wondering how the hell did Orby win believe me I'm also thinking that every person I played in every one of those rounds, I would not have been shocked if they didn't beat me. Rod, before we even started playing, I told Rod, I said, dude, you're going to beat me. You've beat me every single time this year. Like, I think maybe once I beat Rod out of, like, the nine tournaments we played together this year, I beat him once. So, like, I had less than a 10% chance of even beating him, right? That's just the first round. And then Hayden, Hayden got way further than me in Provincials last year, and Hayden has beat me here at home almost every day, including every day since that we, in the morning, I haven't shared this before, or maybe I have, but in the morning Hayden and I will play a simple game of pinball, just one game, no 12 strikes or anything. We'll play just one game. And we'll play that one game to see whomever gets last has to be the one that goes and feeds the chickens. And also has to be the one that gives them water. You have to give them new water each day because it goes, it's like, it was minus 17 when I woke up this morning. So like you could, you know, you could spit in the air and it'd land on you as freaking hail. Like, it was cold. Like, that's no joke. Okay, maybe it would just be snow by the time it hit you. It wouldn't quite be hail yet. But it would be nasty. It wouldn't be. It would no longer be a liquid in liquid form. Put it that way. Like, it's cold. So nobody wants to go outside and walk the dog and feed the chickens and clean up the poop. And nobody wants to go do all that stuff. But that's why we play a game of pinball. Well, I will tell you what. I think Hayden got... Well, actually, he did give me... I asked him first. I asked Hayden if he wanted to come on the show and he told me he would prefer not to. So I don't want to push it too hard because if he doesn't want to come on the show, that's totally up to him. But he did give me a quote here, which I'm now looking for. Where is it? Come on, Hayden's quote. Here it is. He said, you may have beat me this year. No, he said, yeah, you may have won this year, but don't get your hopes up for next year, Dad. okay so there's my quote from the hey dude the gentleman who got second that was so cool to all the fathers and sons out there that play pinball or maybe uh fathers and daughters or in a lot of cases i know it could be a you know a son or a daughter trying to get their parents into pinball or vice versa because i've had you know struggles with both or enjoyments with both depending on who you ask and just just be patient with them because eventually it's possible they do get into pinball and it's possible they also qualify with you for provincial or state finals and you get to play with them and i can't imagine like a more i joke that like my life is complete now with danielle uh i didn't quite like break down and like sob into my i had guy i'm not gonna lie i took those New Brunswick winnings. They were gone within about half an hour. We went to good old Swiss Chalet. No, it's not a high-class restaurant by any means. It's certainly not low-class. It's not a high-class fine dining restaurant. I think it's only in Canada, but basically it's just really good chicken and decent freaking ribs with mediocre at best craft beer selection, but we did manage to get the one blueberry craft beer on the menu that you could get in a pitcher. Hayden and I got to split it. That was Hayden and I's first time having a beer together and playing pinball. Like, I guess playing pinball in an arcade, or during a tournament, having a beer together, because we played at home together. Excuse me. Anyways, this is the story of how I accidentally started playing professional pinball. So many years ago, I had a company called Hummingbird Homestead, and we originally started making canned goods. Then eventually we started selling things like fresh peppers and tomatoes and onions and green peppers. And then eventually we started doing canned stuff like hot sauce, like Hayden's Hot Sauce, Owen's Dills Will Give You Thrills, Danielle's Best Damn Jam, Albert's Applesauce. We had all these different products that we would make on our homestead, our urban homestead in London, Ontario, and then we would sell them at different farmer's markets. and you're whoa whoa whoa this is non-pinball related i'm getting back to it don't worry i'm getting back to it so i was working at this little market called ogle v's and this really nice couple had been talking to me for quite some while and they were really cool they were dressed really cool i really liked their vibe and they told us that they designed all the clothing they were wearing they were actually called at the time they were called dpms they're now called illberry and goose they're a canadian wide you guys no matter where you live doesn't matter if you're in vancouver Montreal, Toronto, Quebec City, even Halifax out here, you'll see the people, I think the bottom half is an anchor and the top half is a Canadian flag. But they are a really cool Canadian-based lifestyle brand company. And we were really, really hoping to get involved with them and work with them. And they said, oh my gosh, there's this cool event tomorrow we're going to be at that there's going to be some vendors that you might want to consider, not come this time, but come take a look at how it's run and consider setting up next time. I said, oh, what's the event for? And they said, well, it's actually at this bar that's kind of grimy, this old punk rock bar in downtown London called, and I said at the same time as the girl, Megan, called the office. She's like, oh, you've heard of it? I'm like, yeah. I went there pretty much every Friday, like, growing up to go see bands. And she was like, okay, well, they're actually bringing in a special pinball machine, a brand-new pinball machine. She goes, I can't remember the name of it, but like a brand new pinball machine. And then they have this other pinball machine that's there, their top pinball machine there. They're going to have actually two tournaments. And both tournaments, 100% of all the money is going to Youth Opportunities Unlimited. And Youth Opportunities Unlimited was the company that encouraged her to start her company and start selling her clothes and going into the markets. And they were coming and checking out our market to see if they thought it was a good fit for them. And I was really wanting to work with them in the future and help make their lifestyle products. Now, we did go on to make their bug spray, their hair spray, their hair gel, their room deodorizers, their, not room deodorizers, like, it's more like a body spray kind of thing, but you could use it as that. And then we ended up making, like, I think mustache wax? I don't know. We made a lot of products for them. A lot of their soap, their beer soap, their charcoal soap, their detox soap. We ended up doing a lot of custom products for them. I think in our top year, like, they ended up putting in like 20k worth of orders, just custom orders, just one company ordering from them to us, right? And they were putting their own labels and everything on it, similar to how we do the coffee. But they were the ones coming up with the custom scents that they wanted and what type of, you know, they were using our soap base. Anyways, I've gone off topic, guys. I've gone off topic. Let's bring it back to Call the Office. So the next day, I go to this pinball tournament thinking, yeah, yeah, yeah, I like pinball. I get to play some pinball. I'm not going to do very well, but whatever. It was the KISS launch party, and ACDC was like the backup game. So however long ago KISS came out, that's when I played my first competitive game. So when I was there, I met the likes of Mike Dimas, Julie Dorsers, quite a few other players that I went on to play with at Monday Night Pinball and the London Pinball. Oh my gosh, it's been so long, I can't remember the name of the club. the LPC, the London Ping Pong, oh my gosh I'm voted out of the club I'm off the pinball promoters database, I'm gone, I called it Ping Pong but anyways, I ended up going there and somehow on my third or fourth game, and in my head I'm going, oh it's all for charity, it's all for charity the bar was open so I could have craft beer they had the one game like right on stage or maybe right beside the stage with the lights and I think it was the secondary game, I think it was maybe ACDC I don't remember but one of the two of them I had one of the top three scores so I had to stay for finals and I'm going what like 30 people tried playing this pin and they're like and then I just remember the one guy saying like oh yeah like you did that well that's only your third time playing that pinball machine I said the third time playing that I said I haven't played pinball in about five years the guy said excuse me you haven't played pinball in five years you just put up that score and play a 20 minute game now to be fair I think you know Kiss is a pretty easy game to figure out you shoot the ball in Gene Simmons mouth it's so easy it's so simple they did it seven years ago they couldn't do it now with a shark but they they couldn't do it nowadays with a shark but they could do it with Gene Simmons mouth that long ago anyways you didn't want to see the shark regurgitate the ball that would just be weird am I right or am I right or am I right oh my god guys I'll get to play Jaws Oh my god. I might get to, I don't know what games are there, but I think Lumberjack Johnny's also has a whole bunch of tournaments nearby. They'll probably have pins. I might get to play James Bond for the first time. Wow. So I didn't even know I was going to be playing pinball, and then because I did so well, and then in finals I blew it and played horribly. But whatever, I still got to finals in my very first pinball tournament ever. That was, actually it should be on Ithpa. If I went on Ithpa and scrolled back, it should be on there in my past tournaments that aren't my top 20, in their past, you know, three years or whatever. But all I want to say is to each and every person who listens to this show, thank you so much for your support. Just listening is more than enough. You don't have to buy coffee. You don't have to buy collectibles. You don't have to share me on nine different sites, even though that would be pretty rad. You don't have to vote for me during the Twippies, even though that would have been awesome as well. But you just, you're listening. You're being part of my vlog just by me seeing the number go up. You know, like for the first two to three days after I put out a podcast, more so hopefully with today's podcast which I think I'll be more proud of than the ones from last week I had a couple last week I didn't love I think there was some good content in them but overall I didn't love them so I did delete them but I tell you guys all the time consider 100% of my podcasts LEs most will stay up for 3-5 days or typically a week but if A. I didn't love the podcast if B. I thought I ranted too much if C. I was a bit too much of a negative Nancy or a Debbie Downer gone so hopefully I created some FOMO and if you see right here that there's a new podcast by Orby, make sure you listen to it and get to listening to it sooner rather than later because you don't know when it could just disappear. I don't think I said anything in there necessarily cancelable, cancel-la-la-la-la-la-lable, but either way, I had a wonderful, wonderful time. I was so happy to get to be part of the provincials. I'm not looking forward to the travel that I'm going to have to do to get there, but you know what? Each and every one of the other 44 state and provincial people who won will have to do the same thing as me and get there. So good luck to each and every one of you. Like I say, you've already won by getting there. I know that Tom, our provincial rep, explained to me that because we have way less tournaments than a lot of other locations I have to play a place with a lot of other higher ranking players which means I probably going to be playing an Escher Lefkoff or something like that in the first round Now, that being said, the one time I do want to play with someone awesome like, say, Elwin or something like that would be, of course, in the Pinmasters. In Pinmasters, no, I don't think I'll necessarily get last place. I'll probably get last place from all the state and province reps, but I don't think I'll necessarily get last place out of the hundred other normies, so to speak, that apply. Normies including people like I saw on the video Keith Elwin was there. So, you know, all these normies who are just mediocre at pinball, previously ranked number one in the world of 112,000 players. Can we have a round of applause for that as well? 112,000 ranked players now. That's incredible. Anyways, guys, I'm sorry my voice. My voice is just coming back. apologize for that I wanted to get this out timely I didn't want to make you all wait too much to hear about my story about winning nothing crazy happened I didn't get to a game 7 with Hayden or anything like that I think he only won 1 or 2 off me so I may have lost 3 between all 4 rounds which is pretty darn good stats I felt pretty confident especially on the machines that I picked the machines I picked were Jurassic Park but then it died but then I ended up picking Whirlwind Twilight Zone, I won every game on Twilight Zone I believe, World Win I won every game on, and then oh, I end up picking South Park, and I almost felt bad on South Park, because on South Park I'm not gonna it feels like cheating, I know it's not cheating but on South Park I can very, very very easily all day backhand the Kenny shot oh, I killed Kenny, like it's just so easy like, I'm not trying to be rude or anything like, I'm not even that good of a player I'm not that good of a player considering I've played like 147. I think I counted on IFPA that might be off by one or two, but I'm getting damn tootin' close to 150 official tournaments. So it's not that good. I would say 99% of competitive players who've been playing at least 10 tournaments or more, including a couple tournaments with South Park, know you could just sit there all day. Now, eventually, someone's going to actually... And it does become riskier because it's not worth that many points after you've already beat him once and stuff. But I was able, and I only killed Kenny one time on all the times I played, but then you can also figure out a way with two balls to backhand that hole on the right. Let's be honest, the shot, the chef shot in the middle, ridiculously easy. The Terrence and Phillip, Terrence and Phillip are from Canada. But why, if Terrence and Phillip are from Canada, do they sound like Marc Silk? No, I'm just kidding. But they, Marc Silk sounds way better than that. But Terrence and Philip are the Canadians, the Canadians in South Park. And they sound British. I swear to God, go listen to them. They sound like just, they sound like, okay, maybe a little Canadian. But like, they're not like, hey, hey, you bunch of hosers, let's go for a rip, bud. You know, they actually sound like, oh, I'm Terrence and I'm Philip. I could be from the United Kingdom. Anyways, I've gone off topic. I did want to finish with just a little story that had reminded me of how I came from nothing. And believe me, if you're only here for the pinball content, it's done. Goodbye. See you later. Arrivederci. Adios. But until next time, remember to eat, sleep, and breathe. Pinmasters. District 82, baby. But for those of you who want a little extra content, I'll just say this is part B of it. I was thinking about this whole thing and which songs I could play while doing this and it reminded me of how one of the very first times I ever went to call the office was to see a band called Creepshow I was actually there to see a band called The Matadors but The Matadors had like two or three opening bands and my buddy Pete and I lived out of town and we would always go for like the opening opening opening band so we could just have pre-drinks I think beers were only like a buck seventy-five till nine p.m. at call the office back in the day. And also because we lived out of town, if we didn't have anywhere to pre-drink at or anywhere to hang out with, there was just nowhere to go. We weren't going to just sit in our car and just like, oh, the show doesn't start for four hours. So anyways, we went in one time to go see a band called the Matadors that we saw about a dozen times. And the Matadors' wife, the lead singer Hooch, his wife, excuse me, her name was Jen and she was in a band called Creepshow. And we had seen Creepshow play a couple times since we heard they were the opening opening band. Pete and I made sure to make sure we were there for doors opening. But of course, it was, alas, a nice summer night, and there was hardly anybody there. In fact, as far as Pete and I could remember, we were the only two people standing in the very front row watching this band play. And we felt so bad, we kept looking around like, oh my god, these girls, they're singing their heart out, and there's like a stand-up bass guy, it's like a rockabilly type band. And we're thinking like, wow, the Creepshow is here playing, and nobody's watching them. but we did notice that the lead singer looked slightly different, a little bit younger and someone told us later yeah, the lead singer she got pregnant but the band had all these tours set up and everything so they got her little sister who looks almost identical to her and sounds very close her little sister to come play in this band and I thought I felt so bad for her little sister coming and playing this tour and having literally, they only came from Burlington which is just up the road from us in London, but it's like, that's a good hour and a half, two hour, hour 45 drive from Toronto to get in. So, you know, and here they are and no one is watching them. No one, not a single solitary soul is there watching them other than maybe like the sound guy and like a boyfriend at the back or something. But like, we were the only fans. We were the only people on the dance floor in the front row anywhere to be seen the whole time. So afterwards we got to talk to them and I particularly kind of had a crush on Sarah, thought she was really cool. I had more of like a crush on her like, wow, your vocals are incredible, you're great at guitar. She also was very attractive, but that wasn't the main attraction. The main attraction was just how musically inclined she was and what a showman she was and what a performer. And how even though it was only my friend Pete and I out there, they gave it 110% as if they were playing to thousands of people. And those are the type of people that end up being successful. And so I looked her up on Wikipedia. and the neat part was if you look, her name is Sarah Blackwood but you have to put Canadian singer in for Wikipedia because there's another Sarah Blackwood but anyways, the point is here I'm reading straight from Wikipedia so I don't have to sound like a dork and try to explain the story myself in 2008 Sarah published her debut solo album oh geez okay, I started reading the wrong part Blackwood was born in Burlington, Ontario most widely known as the front woman for Walk Off the Earth. Blackwood, though, got her start in the psychobilly band The Creepshow at the age of 27. Blackwood was initially supposed to fill in temporarily for her older sister, Jen Helcote Blackwood, who was pregnant at the time. When Jen decided not to return to the band, Sarah became a full-time member. Blackwood has a brother, Ian Blackwood, who's also a musician, and Blackwood continued with her and the siblings, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then she ended up being in a band called Walk Off the Earth. Well, Sarah no longer plays to pinball nerds at Call the Office with only him and his best friend, Pete, watching. I almost doxed Pete. Sorry, Pete. Watching. And, geez. Wow. I got to be there and see her. And now, when I typed in Walk Off the Earth, the top song I saw had something like 100 million or 103, where, where, where, where, where, where, where is it? No, okay, well, this song only has 24 million, 17 million, okay, so now she's got to play songs to like 18 million, 17 million, 24 million. To be fair, to be fair, their top songs, They are kind of more known as a cover band. They have made their own songs. One of her top songs, if you want to go listen to it in your own time, is called Rule the World. But my favorite song by them is a cover. It is a cover, in fact, of Royals, which is by Lorde, an Australian artist. And, oh my gosh, why can't you just stay connected? Come on, JBL, I talk too long again. So anyways, as I am, well, let me just play for you about a minute of this really, really, really, really cool song by Walk Off the Earth. It's by Lorde, but cover by Walk Off the Earth on the way out the door. And when you hear Jen's strong, powerful voice, remember, she started singing and going in a band basically by accident because her sister got pregnant and the band didn't want to miss all those shows. and she's now in probably one of the top Canadian bands on the planet called Walk Off the Earth, and this is the Walk Off the Earth doing Royals. Hopefully you enjoyed the show today. Have yourselves a wonderful day, pinball nerds. And until next time, remember to eat, sleep, and breathe. Walk Off the Earth, Royals. I cut my teeth on wedding rings in the movies And I'm not proud of my trade In the torn up town, no postcode and V But every song is like old T-Pain Who's tripping in the bathroom? Bloodstains fall down Stress in the hotel room We don't care We're driving Cadillacs in our trees But everybody's that bristac We're black diamonds on the copies Chip and diamonds, tigers on the leash We don't care We aren't caught up in your love affair And we'll never be royal It's a run and a hop life The Cadillacs just ain't for us We crave a different kind of buzz Let me be your ruler You can call me Queenie Baby I will Don't cloud my vision I'm telling you I'm not today Cause I'm seeing straight I made my decision Made it through the shades of grey Made my own way I materialized the feeling To carry on, to carry on I know some would say I'm dreaming But I carry on, I carry on This ain't a world of ice and I'm on the wall And I'm afraid of the walls and I'm breaking down They say the same, but I'm feeling high as a bird I'm afraid of the ground, I'm scared I'm singing, yeah, yeah They say no, no, no They say so, so, so I say go, go, go They say no way, oh I say I rule the world I say I rule the world I've changed the place I cut my teeth on wedding rings in the movies And I'm not proud of my address In the torn up town, no postcode envy But every song's like gold teeth, gray grooves Tripping in the bathroom, bloodstained ball gowns Tripping in the hotel room, we don't care We're driving intercourses in our dreams But everybody's like Cristal Made back diamonds on your timepiece Jet planes, islands, tigers on a gold leash We don't care We're kinda caught up in your love affair And we'll never be royal It's the one in our blood That kinda loves us, ain't for us We crave a different kind of buzz Let me go to D2D. Wait, District 82. I want those pinball limited editions and a different kind of poo.