what we're coming in your ear holes uh that's right what's up everybody it's time for some patreon update from don's pinball podcast what's up everybody man i can't keep my finger away from that button so i want to drop some uh reviews and things on you. Reviews of some drama that's been hitting. I didn't release this on the regular podcast and I'm going to get into it. The long and short of this, this is the Puny Factory drama from my viewpoint. I know both parties involved are also Patreon subscribers and I do appreciate that. The thing is, I'm friends with both parties here. The story is the quick and dirty, the long and veiny of it is the first engraved edition of Puny Factory went down to Donald in Georgia. Puny Factory went down to Georgia. He was looking for a pinball game room to steal. Anyway, the first engraved edition went down there. It was unboxed, and apparently there was some blistering with the artwork or some little grumbles of grit or something. It didn't have the finest polish on it. And there was some words exchanged and some e-mails exchanged and a lot of text messages exchanged and heated exchange between the buyer and Pinball Adventures and Mr. Andrew. So the reason why I haven't weighed in on this is because I don't know all the details firsthand personally. I know what I've heard from my good friend Donald. I know what I've heard from my good friend Andrew. And I just can't wade into the drama with any kind of certainty. What I do know for sure is it appears that there were some play field issues with the art. That was evident in the photos. I've seen photos of that. The photos were posted publicly. The photos were posted all over Facebook. It might have even went to Pinside. But email to Canada, I mean, the works, right? So this is out there. That's public information. There was an issue with the artwork on the play field. The customer wasn't totally satisfied. And then what is also for sure is that there was some attempt at reparations from Pinball Adventures. Now, whether that was in the form of a populated play field that would be sent or whether it was in the form of an unpopulated play field that would then need to be swapped was sent. uh one of those two things happened as far as like what was said by this guy and what was said by this guy i am not a lawyer and i didn't want to wade into that i don't want to get in between two friends having this argument but what i would like to do is kind of like you know advocate for cool heads on either side there's a way forward here without resorting to any you know threatening things so i don't know how to appropriately sort this out on like a public family friendly podcast right especially with it was heated emotions and you know i think everybody is entitled to the emotions that they feel, but I still think we should try to meet each other from a place of, you know, kindness and understanding and, you know, kind of work together and work through this. So, you know, hopefully, I think we'll all come to an amicable, all, the two people that are involved with this will come to an amicable conclusion, because I don't think it really serves either party, you know, to be just completely, you know, off the deep end and raging, you know. You know, Donald, if he gets completely cut off and isolated, you know, he's going to be left with a game that's losing value. You know, and if Andrew would do the same thing and say, you know, tough crap, you paid for it, you keep it. I'm not going to do anything to repair this, you know, process relationship. You know, that will harm the reputation of Pinball Adventure. So it's like, you know, coming together would be such a great thing to do, and I'm happy to help mediate, you know, as much as I can. But I'm not going to jump in and officially officiate because I'm just not there. I don't have all the information. Um, you know, so it's, it's hard to, you know, cut one slice, you know, through this, because from my perspective, you know, I don't have the perspective of someone's actually involved in it. So that's why, you know, before I get any more, uh, you know, text messages, that's where I stand on it. Right. Um, you know, I, I agree with kind of, you know, both perspectives here, but I think there's a way to move forward through this. Now there's a corollary to this. Um, years ago, uh, I was fairly big into the, you know, theme park and rollercoaster, you know, hobby and entertainment. right i was a member of the clubs card carrying i was traveling around the world going to these different theme parks and riding roller coasters and we would keep counts of how many coasters we rode you know and like getting your 100th roller coaster you know was a big deal because you had to like travel outside of your area in order to get that many you know even the biggest coaster parks like they only have like 16 roller coasters and that only two parks really in the world that have that many uh they in ohio and they in Southern California So you know to travel around and hit 100 you have to you know travel to at least you know, four or five different states. You know, so I got up to the upper, you know, hundreds, you know, 700, 800 or so, and I was involved in what was the pin site equivalent in the coaster world as part of this website called Theme Park Review, which was run by this kind of narcissistic personality, this guy, Rob Alvey. Some people, you know, have come across him, too, because there's a little bit of overlap between the hobbies. But, you know, at that time, you know, I was producing content. It was right before YouTube. So I was making DVDs of edited footage from parks that we would travel to, you know, and I would sell these online for five bucks and 10 bucks and 15 ended up signing to this label that this guy had at theme park review. And then there was a falling out. And there was a recurring pattern with this, you know, big personality that ran this site. You know, he seemed to run through people. You know, he'd be friends with people and like take them on trips and things and show them in footage and videos and things. And then all of a sudden you wouldn't see that person anymore and there'd be someone new in the place. And so it's like anything he did to wrong him. I mean, he had like an iron control over that website. I was part of another website called the Ghetto Ass Paradise or Gap. So this was kind of like a counterculture, not mainstream roller coaster page. right, based out of South Carolina, where we could be a little bit, you know, less family friendly, a little more real, a little more tolerant of alternative lifestyles, that sort of thing. So I fit in there because my humor is kind of, you know, broad based, especially in my 20s. So, you know, somebody from The Gap had run afoul of the theme park review guy. And then he just made a declaration that anybody that was associated with this site could no longer be associated with his site. And his site was offering tours, you know, of Europe, going to coasters and things, you know, where if you were just like a solo traveler, it was beneficial to go with a group like that. So even though there was, there was people that were in both camps, they were forced to make a decision. And this decision was known as the decision, right? So, you know, it tore people apart to like leave their friends group over here because they still wanted to be a part of this friends group over here. And, you know, I had a lot of ties in theme park review. I had a lot of friends that I'd made there, some reputation that I built. So when I got eventually banned, you know, it was like personal because I was I was deeply invested in it. So I kind of learned from that experience not to, you know, get my persona associated too deeply with these, you know, kind of fandom hobbies. So, you know, if I got totally banned from Pinside, I mean, that's fine. That's OK. I mean, I'm not out to do anything, you know, to get there. But I've learned to have like a barrier, right? or like be one step removed from that and from internet drama in particular. So that's why I hope for an amicable solution here because I'm not going to say, you know, you have to, you know, if you want to be friends with the guy at Pinball Adventures, you can't, you have to swear off, you know, Donald and Oasis Arcade or same, you know, vice versa. You know, if I'm, you know, friendly with Donald, I don't want, you know, Pinball Arcade to hate me. You know, if I'm friendly with Kaneda, I don't want Flip N Out Pinball to hate me, you know. And I'm trying to convey that because there's various levels of passion within hobbies like these. There's flipping out straight down the middle diehards that can't stand Kaneda for what he does. And they may have legitimate reasons, and they're entitled to their feelings on that. Initially, I was on Kaneda's live streams because he's one of the most frequent live streamers on Facebook. Right. So and then when I went ahead and launched my podcast, I'm like, you know, gosh, are some of these guys going to think that, you know, I'm like officially affiliated and aligned with Canada and all of his views. And then, you know, people from Broken Token to Flippin Out to whoever, you know, Spooky Pinball, do they say, oh, this Don guy, he's like a mini Canada, you know, so we can't associate with him if we want to stay in the good graces with this group. I'm cutting straight across all groups here. I'm cool with a group that's cool with me. You know, if I don't have any reason, you know, to have any beef with anybody, then I'm not going to have it. And really, I'm just not about that energy anyway. So I'm trying to float between, you know, the little groups and fandoms and just kind of stay neutral in the whole thing. And if you can jive with that, like, that's cool, man. Let's hang out. Let's party. You know, people have been kind of abrasive towards me, particularly, you know, Kaneda. He's done that to me a few times. So I get why people can have a bad experience with him and then not want to support him. Um, you know, and I've kind of like treaded that line too, but you know, as long as, as long as I having a good time and it more good than bad I okay to associate with that group You know there the poor man pinball podcast group I seem to gel pretty well with those guys So far I had really good interactions with Flippin Out and Zach and all that I've texted him personally. I met Greg Bone. He seemed like a cool guy. I met him in person at the Louisville Expo. I met Brian Coz, dude. He's like a solid dude. So, you know, I don't have any reason to dislike any of these people, and I'm not really playing for any particular faction except for I like pinball. So if you are down with pinball, then I'm down with you, man. And I like giving away stuff. I think that's fun. I did a thing when I went to the Louisville Arcade Expo where I took four of my, you know, branded packages and I put a T-shirt in there and some pins and some stickers, and I announced on the podcast, you know, if you see me at the podcast or at the expo and you tell me the secret phrase whitewater, you get a free T-shirt. And so I had people come up to me like, are you Don? I'm like, yes, I am. I'm like, super cool, right? And they're like, Whitewater. And I'm like, here's your shirt. Let's take a selfie. Like, it was just a fun interaction. And, you know, that was worth more than the price of the T-shirt for me, you know. I'm doing this as a hobby not to necessarily become my sole income, right? You know, Kaneda's talking about he makes, you know, around $40,000 a year from his – between his Patreons and the stars that he gets and what have yous. I'm not at a tenth of that level But I'm so very thankful for the people that have sought to You know what, we dig what you're doing Here's five bucks a month Go get a drink Go get a McDonald's Sunday Buy your wife a Grimace shake Something every month That's super cool to me So I want to contribute and give back I'm definitely losing more money on t-shirts than I'm making But what I'm making is fun connections And you see someone's face light up when you hand them a t-shirt And then, like, they're wearing my stuff, like Jason Roop, Josh Roop from Loser Kid. You know, we kind of connected. They mentioned me on their show. I reached out to them, you know, sent them a T-shirt. He was in his live stream wearing a Don's Pinball Podcast T-shirt. That's so fantastic. You know, I'm at the core still just a fan of pinball, right? It's fun to play. It's fun to talk about. And, you know, I created this podcast with really no expectations on it, even getting any ground or really any viewers or listeners. and then people are like, hey, we really dig what you do. I'll wear your shirt online. So that's super cool, man. My distributor that I came across, Mad Pinball, they've been super supportive, and I love it. Yeah, I'll mention on my podcast where I buy things from. I started a trusted dealer spotlight little segment in my early episodes just because I didn't know initially online who's legit and who's a scam. So if I made a successful purchase from somebody, I wanted to highlight them. And so I got my Godzilla premium from this company called Mad Pinball. And I'm like, you know what, I'm going to shout them out. And they responded well to that because they're trying to build up. Part of the reason I go with them is because, you know, I don't have a several-year history of interacting with a coin taker, you know, or a pinball Joe. Joe Pinball. Gosh. I got two games on order from them. Who's Joe from the pinball place? I'll think of it as soon as I hang up. you know or flipping out you know i haven't been dealing with them for a decade where like my name's in on their list you know and they might get 50 le's but i might be you know number 150 in line so i'd never get one but a smaller company starting out they don't have that you know long waiting list so i've been able to kind of work myself in there and you know when i was on a year-long waiting list with coin taker and kingpin and all the big ones and flipping out um you know he was like hey i got one for msrp you want it i was like heck yeah and then i highlighted him and And then since then, he's been working with me, keeping me in the loop. Elviras were all spoken for, and he knew I wanted one because I had asked him. And then he just reached out like, hey, I got a couple extra. Do you want one in this next run? I was like, heck yeah. When it came to a Godzilla topper, he's like, hey, the Godzilla toppers are being revealed. I've got space. Do you want one? Yes. I was able to get in on those. I got one of the first Foo Fighter premiums that was made. So I've got a good relationship with these guys. And so I'm happy for them to send me promotional things and I will promote their content and what they have because they've been cool with me. And I just kind of want to share that. I don't know where else I was going with that. Mainly, I wanted a way that I could kind of like speak to Donald and Pinball Adventures and be like, you know, here's where I am on everything. You know, I'm friends with both of you guys. I want that to continue. and you all entitled to your feelings and everybody entitled to the reality of the situation I just can say for certainty what that reality is So I don want to speak ill of you know one party or the other you know from my perspective here you know behind a microphone and a mixer you know You know, maybe if I was involved personally, I'd be able to give more of an honest take. But I did reach out, just put the word out there. You know, anybody else with Puny Factory is like, have you had any other play field issues? And what I've gotten back was no. So that's helpful to know. You know, I don't know. Like, I told Andrew I didn't want to wade into this, you know, but there's a considerable expense in, you know, sending somebody a completely populated play field to swap out, you know. And it seems like he was okay with sending an unpopulated play field, which would be reasonable. Would it be reasonable to send a populated play field to exchange and receive a populated play field back that you could then depopulate and repurpose and then end up the same in the balance. I don't know because I don't know everything that's involved in those decisions or anything. But, you know, I want to stay in communication with both parties of folks, you know, and not make any other real value judgment. What else is going on? Man, I launched my weekly podcast on Fridays because that was a time that worked good for me and seemed to work good for everybody else. And then, lo and behold, Mr. Kaneda takes my damn time slot. and then lo and behold i had taken tom tucky's weekly time slot so we're all competing with each other but it was so funny watching um you know todd tucky like come into my podcast live stream for a little bit and then like go back into his and then i re-watched canada's that was taped later and you know he's mentioning my podcast he even brought up my live stream on a laptop during his live stream oh so crazy last night man he was you know drinking and he was in rare form and uh it It was just like, what a wacky night that was. He went ahead and went into my live stream and showed it right when I was doing a pretty, not even a two-minute talk about pinball speakers. It just came up, and then he made fun of me for the rest of his thing about talking about pinwoofer speakers. Oh, Lord. I'm so glad that my skin is nicely thickened after my interactions that I've had in the coaster community and other fandoms and things, and so this stuff doesn't really bother me. I do this chiefly for fun. And as soon as it's not fun anymore, I'm just not going to do it anymore. So I guess that's the take-home point here. You know, good self-care is super important. You know, worry about the things that are worth worrying about. The other things, just learn to let them go, and you will be happier. Keep reaching out, guys. I love the feedback. Don's Penal Pockets Gmail. You know how to find me. The Facebook page. I'm hoping to build the Facebook page up to 100 followers because I don't know if I do a live stream, I could actually get some stars. and I would love to just get a star at some point in my career. I'm working on some plans to hopefully build up a YouTube channel through streaming. I don't know that there's any way possible through pinball content creation to get 100,000 subscribers so I can get a silver play button from YouTube, but that would be an absolute stretch goal. If there's a way to do it, I'll try to figure it out. Thanks for listening to me. Thanks for being a Patreon member. I really do appreciate it so much. You have no idea what it means for somebody to, you know, look at this podcast thing that I started in my downstairs basement. And, you know, people are actually spending real earthly money in my virtual tip jar for this every month. So if you haven't got stickers and you want them, just let me know. Otherwise, come meet me at a show, man. I'll definitely be at Expo in October. It's going to be fantastic. Colin from the Kineticist reached out. He would like to do, you know, some sort of event there. He's asked me to do an article for the site So I'm thinking through some ideas that I can do It seems like it's up to time Andrew from Pinball Adventures Offered me some spot at his table To post up I can sell some merchandise, see some meet and greets I'll definitely do some giveaways He's sending me some stuff too That I would like to give away The Pinball Paws is a fantastic product Andrew, I love it I use it every day So I'd love to at some point you know hopefully you're sending me a ton of them and i'll give some away uh to somebody because those are fantastic thanks for joining me here on the sunday night before the venom reveal it's going to be nuts this week there's going to be you know the reveal of the game and they just everybody's going to be dropping their podcast and i'm going to listen to them all um and i'm going to listen to my most stringent ardent supporters which is y'all thanks everybody hope you like the bonus content i'll keep it coming all right later