Hello and welcome to episode 13 of the Pinball Studio Podcast. I'm your host Sterling Martin and today I'm joined by my good friend Kerry Hardy. And today we're going to learn his story and how he found this crazy hobby we like to call pinball. But first off, let's mention the sponsors. Old Town Pinball. If you're ever on the market for a new or used pinball machine, check out oldtownpinball.com. Also, The Electric Playground. Looking to level up your game room with a new topper? You can find them at teppinball.com. And last but not least, one of my favorite companies in the world, Spooky Pinball. Order your Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Looney Tunes, or Scooby-Doo today. Just visit their website, spookypinball.com, to learn more. Anyway, welcome to the show, Kerry. It's great to have you, man. This is going to be a lot of fun. How are you doing, my friend? I'm doing good, Sterling. Thanks for having me on here. I'm episode 13. Lucky number 13. Absolutely, man. We want to hear your story and how you got into this crazy shit. Oh, man. It's going to be a four-hour long episode. Everybody buckle up. This is a long story. So it all started back when I was in the womb. The womb? No. no that's uh i mean what do you want to know where do you want to start um so did you play pinball as a kid and uh the whole like did you play arcade machines first or did you play pinball or did all of this just happen later on in life so for me i mean i started as a console gamer like with regular nintendo i think was probably the first console i remember getting that for christmas but that's where i played most of my video games was at home right but our local mall we had a arcade called pocket change okay and that's where we went whenever mother was shopping or doing whatever she'd give us a couple of bucks and drop us off at the arcade and that was basically like our babysitter essentially so we go in there and spend a bunch of money but the thing is like as a kid and growing up my money tended to go into the machines that were more redemption style right so i would get like tickets in return kind of thing and i would play some of the other games like the sit down racing games they didn't give me tickets but they were just more fun they were more and now that i think about it i guess i kind of fancy those because they were more mechanical right yeah i was in the same boat man i was playing all the ticket redemption games and racing games and pinball was just kind of in the background yeah and then like i remember like a helicopter game i can't remember the name of it but it was one where you'd sit down and you'd move the stick and the chair would move also and it was i i like i said i'm just now realizing this about myself is that i think i fancied those games due to the mechanical nature of it and at this point in time i haven't really dove into the digital world you know as we have today right but when it came to pinball it was there was like and this is me going by my vague memory of it we had probably five pinball machines on the back wall in this arcade okay and the machines that i know for sure that we had at least one point in time was indiana jones we had terminator 2 adam's family twilight zone damn and i and i remember i have a buddy of mine he you He was older than me, so he knew far back when, before that, that they had other older games like Earthshaker and a number of other games. But I do remember, like, hey, I got 50 cents. Let me try this stuff out. And like anybody else, when they first played pinball, it's a matter of putting money in and plunging it and just flipping those flippers, just trying to keep the ball alive and don't know anything about code or how to accomplish tasks or whatever. I mean, I just remember getting the ball to do every once in a while something kind of cool But above that, it was merely like, I got 50 cents to blow, let me put it in this machine And just see how long I can keep the ball alive kind of thing Yeah, it was like the world under glass that kind of caught me I was like, man, it's just so cool looking into these and seeing their own world That's pretty much what caught my attention as a kid at least Yeah, it was interesting because you had games like Terminator 2 and Adam's Family for sure, as well as Indiana Jones, these were all movies that I was pretty savvy about as a kid. Those were the early 90s, and these were movies that I'd seen, so there was a little bit of an attachment to that. I'm like, oh, I love Terminator 2. Let me play this. I'm like, oh, you can actually hear Arnold say some stuff. And Adam's Family is a really big movie, and there was a lot of stuff on that play field. And just seeing these movies that I actually really enjoyed as a kid put into a machine was just interesting enough let alone you know what later on in my life i would come to learn about it right right um did you continue to play as a kid or did you at one point take a break from all of the whole arcade scene and pinball and all that it was a very lengthy break actually in good and because it was one of those things where eventually i'm I'm not sure how it is over there where you're at, but malls started to get phased out. And so the mall that is nearest to me eventually died. It was no longer there, which was kind of sad. There were no stores inside there, so it turned into basically we have like a strip mall. That's where we have now. But no longer a giant indoor mall with a theater and arcade. Just not around me. There's nothing like that anymore. Yeah, it all died here too. And what did stick around, it seemed like it was more just like claw machines and coin pushers and shit like that. Yeah, and I think it was one of those things where we know the story about arcades. They started to die down mainly because the consoles and the digital world started to rise up. And people were playing really awesome video games at home instead of going to the arcade and spending money. you know but there are still i think i think i probably went to the arcade probably all the way up until maybe the 2000s like early 2000s like 2002 i would say probably around there maybe and even then when i went there to play i wasn't playing pinball they didn't have pinball at that time i think pinball was like gone right and this is when we were just like spending a bunch of money on house of the dead 2 or something you know just keep bumping those quarters and let's just see how far we can get in this game kind of stuff and there was also there's also the dance dance revolution oh man remember that i i didn't do i stayed away from that damn game i'm not getting on that i tried it once and i was like okay i can't do this and so i never played it again because this is not for me kind of thing so it wasn't until let's see here uh i don't know the exact year but i it had to have been around 2010 2011 where you know the years have gone by i've got my own house and uh my co-worker he was like hey man you want to you want an arcade machine i was and i was like yeah i was like that'd be awesome i mean like that was always the thing i remember watching movies as a kid and seeing that people had like arcade machines or pinball machines inside their house and that was just like wicked cool it's like man that's only available at arcades and to have it in your house yeah next level yeah so like well i'm like the first time i remember seeing that was in the movie big you remember in the movie big where he got his own place his own loft and i remember what what pinball machine was it that was that he got i think it was like comet i have not seen that movie in years i could not tell you he got a pinball machine and i remember that and i was like i was like wow because he was playing with it on the truck and then he eventually went up there i think it was a comet or something like that but uh or pinbot one of those anyways but so like yeah he offers me i think it was tech and tag tournament and i think it was like 175 bucks fully working game and everything and i was like yeah sure i mean like i'll make it a gift for my son you know who at the time was probably i don't know six or seven years old and so i got it got in the truck and i brought it home and i had an arcade machine in my house and i was like yeah you know and he was telling me about how they have auctions and you can go these auctions and you can get you more arcade machines and they go for cheap and sometimes there's pinball machines there and i started thinking about it i was like man we kind of cool to have a pinball machine too right yeah kind of cool so i go to this auction And to this day, it's the biggest auction I've ever been to, my very first one. This was one that started at like 8 or 9 o'clock in the morning, and it went all the way until like 1 a.m. Oh, wow. It went like all day. There was hundreds of machines there going through. But I was keeping track of what the machines were going for. But at that time, I was literally only looking for like spending maybe 50 to 100 bucks on an arcade cabinet because I started getting myself educated on building a MAME. I wanted to build a multiple arcade machine emulator to where I had multiple games to kind of conserve on space. I was like, I want to be able to get more out of, you know, one machine. And so that's when I was like, I'm going to get me a MAME cabinet. So I was basically looking for a showcase cabinet and I managed to get one for 50 bucks. it had a full-fledged working game and i got it for 50 bucks because i guess you know people damn wanting that the display work yeah everything worked on it wow and for 50 bucks full-fledged game i forgot what the original game was that was in there it was it was a shooting game i don't know if it was a point blank two or something like that but i was like all right sweet and it's getting close to the end but a part of me is like man i wonder if i could get me a decent pinball machine for a cheap price and i saw that there are some machines towards the end so i was like i'm gonna stick around to see if maybe i can get some of these kind of thing and so i'm starting to see what the prices are going for and i'm just like yeah that's that's that's out of my price range and honestly my my honeymoon was literally like a couple of days away at this point okay yeah probably not the best time to buy a pen yeah so it's like uh and at that point in time we were really strapped for cash anyways kind of thing so like i wasn't like you know making what i make what i am today kind of thing is so and we i was like oh you know damn it so i was texting the wife i'm letting her know like hey i didn't get an i didn't get a pinball machine that i did get an arcade machine and then i hear the auctioneer i hear all i hear him say is um no one here wants a pinball machine for $25. I was like, I raised my hand. I was like, yeah, I'll take one. I didn't even know what I was bidding on. I was like, yeah, I raised my hand. He's like, sold. So during the time where I'm texting my wife, evidently he was throwing out numbers and no one was bidding on it. And you can imagine why no one was bidding on a pinball machine and why I got it for $25. It had to have been a deal. Once it was sold and he had the number that I held up, everybody that was in front of me parted like the Red Sea. And I got to see what it is I just bought. And it was a 1971 Bally Sea Ray. And this game had definitely seen better days. The art on the back glass, maybe 40% still there. It obviously didn't turn on. And it was old. and I was like, man, I was really hoping to get something a little newer. This is, man. And then my brother was making fun of me. He's like, you just, like, bought a $25, 300-pound paperweight. You bought a table. Yeah, basically. But the thing is, you know, you bid on it, you want it, you have to take it home where you're going to be charged for, you know, a fee of leaving equipment behind, which was a lot more than what I spent on the machine, honestly. So anyways, we got it all on the trailer and drove it home. And I was excited still, though. I was like, oh, sweet, they got me a pinball machine. You know, I'll have to tinker around with that, see where that goes, and they got me an arcade machine. And so it wasn't until, like, after we got back from our Antonio Cruz and everything where I started to dive into getting the pinball machine to work. And this is where I started to become self-educated on pinball, like why it does what it does. What am I seeing? What do these things do? How does this work? why am I not getting power to my pinball machine? Why is it not working? And that's when I first discovered fuses in pinball machines. And so that was one of the many issues that I would discover in regards to learning how pinball machines work. So I got it to turn on. And like I said, that was just one obstacle. And then after that, I had to replace end of stroke switch. I mean, the machine caught fire at one time. I told my son, I was like, whenever you're hitting your left flipper, do not hold the flipper button down right i was like because the lights start dimming in the house whenever you hit the left flipper button and sure enough he ends up holding the flipper down and then he started screaming for dad dad and i run in there and there's smoke coming out of the coin door little fire nothing nothing major but so then i had to buy a new coil so and then i learned about buying pinball parts a little bit in that regard oh man i was horrible at that first i was on like eBay and shit. Yeah, so like just, you know, what happened with that machine is that little by little, bit by bit, I got the machine working 100 But I was like this is not a machine that I want to hold on to And and I remember like okay like what can i sell this machine for what can i get for it kind of thing so at this time i think it was like craigslist before facebook market became like a a bigger thing so i i put up a number on there i forgot what i was trying to normally get for it i think i was trying to get like four or five hundred bucks for it and uh in hindsight it's a what a joke i was trying to get for it kind of thing but so then this is when i meet someone who's very savvy in pinball that actually lives in the vicinity of me and he comes to check it out and he starts pinpointing out the things that are wrong like he's like you don't even have the tilt bobber i didn't know what the hell that was uh he's like uh you're missing this this isn't working this is he's pointing at all the things that i definitely would notice now but at that time i didn't notice or what he what he talking about so he offered me a much lower price and i turned him down and said no i'll you know see if i can get a better offer right anyways i i end up finally finding a buyer for it i think i sold it for like i don't know maybe 200 250 bucks something like that and i only spent 25 bucks yeah and i probably spent like 50 bucks on parts but it was like i took that money and i was like man, I wonder if I can find me a newer game, something a little more interesting that would be nice to have in the house. And that's when I stumbled across the very first time I got a solid state machine, and that's when I got Spy Hunter. And I was like, sweet, Spy Hunter, that speaks to me. I played a lot of the arcade game, and I played a lot of it on console and Nintendo and everything. So I started watching YouTube videos in regards to the game. This is when I was like, well, is this a game that I want to keep kind of thing? And this is when I discovered Todd Tucky TNT Amusements. And I got to see at that point in time what these games could potentially be if you put the time and effort into cleaning them up, restoring them, making them look pretty. And I was like, man, that's awesome to see what they were doing to these machines. And I was like, maybe I can do that too kind of thing. and so when I got the Spy Hunter there was a lot that wasn't working on it a number of things including the sound and it was one of those things where little by little, bit by bit I progressively got the game to 100% working and that's when I really got the pinball bug is that when I took something that didn't work and through troubleshooting and learning about wiring and schematics that I brought the game back to life. And it was 100% working. And I was like, man, that was really fun. That was interesting. And then eventually I started working on, I say, restoring it, but getting it cleaned up. And this is when I learned that whenever you take apart a play field, you need to take pictures. Oh, hell yes. Oh, dude, I took everything off of that play field. And video. Everything, everything. I took everything off, and I'm like, oh, I'll remember where this goes. everything was in a giant pile everything was in a giant pile all the screws all the posts all the plastics and i was like all right time to get it all cleaned up and then it came back to putting it back together and i realized i don't know what i'm doing i don't remember any of this i've slept since then so that's when i had to really find pictures and watch plenty of other todtucky videos and kept pausing and going okay so that looks like this is here and eventually i got the game put back together and it was better than what it was well that's good and then yeah so then eventually i stumbled across uh going to another auction and that's when i got my last action hero and that's whenever i started putting in the effort and getting the game really cleaned up going to texas pinball festivals by bringing games i already had gone to at least one texas pinball festival or two at that point in time but i didn't start bringing the games but once i got two that's when I knew that I may have a problem because I wanted to keep getting more and part of that infatuation was you know getting a game that doesn't work and bringing it back to life and I was like oh you know what I can do I can buy these games on the cheap because they don't work because that's what happens and I can fix them up and then I can resell them and I could I was able to do that for a little bit of time but at also at that point in time pinball was on the rise so at the because i want to say even was it like i said 2010 2011 that was a point in time where even stern pinball didn't know if they're going to be around right yeah i didn't buy anything until 2016 that's when i joined in and things were still cheap then yeah that's when the you know everything was cheap and then over time it turned into where there was no longer a margin for making money off of buying low and selling higher after you get it cleaned up and all that and the parts are so freaking expensive too man it adds up quickly yeah and so that's what it turned into like me just like man i want to get more machines and then i started finding deals and i got up to like i don't know four or five machines at the house and I was like yeah this is this is awesome kind of thing I want more but and then that's when we uh I think at one point in time we had to move or something happened but uh that's really what got me into the hobby is it took one machine to bring it back to life that really hooked me and it was the mechanical nature of it and that's when I really found it interesting is that you take something that's not working or ugly and you turn it into something beautiful or working it's just it's it was the whole on and off and it's something to look back on and look at and you just know that hey i did this now my actions took effect on this now do you have like an electrical background or anything that kind of helped you through this have you ever like dabbled with electronics prior to this no yeah i'm a mess my career is that i'm an equipment technician for you know in the semiconductor industry so that definitely helped it was one of those things where so the troubleshooting factor was pretty easy it was just learning the systems because you start that's when i had to start becoming a little bit of a historian i was like well why is that this game has this type of board system and now this game has this type of board system so i had to start learning about the differences between the companies like data east to valley to williams to stern and i was like oh okay so there's all these different companies and they had all these different systems and they had all these different revisions to these systems so it became you know a point where i had to just you know educate myself on all of this but as far as like you know basic troubleshooting and how the things work that wasn't the learning curve for me it was just learning the different systems okay um when did Was the YouTube channel started by now, or is this something that came after these four games that you had collected? Oh, the YouTube thing for me, I mean, I already had a YouTube channel, but it was merely just me every once in a while posting some stuff. I'd be playing video games, and I'd be sharing some stuff all the way back to Battlefield 2. and uh i think i had something on there with my media room for all those years ago but i always had a youtube channel it's the current one that i am known for today it's my same channel i've had for i don't know 14 15 years it just evolved into pinball over yeah it just turned into pinball and how that happened is that i was like i found myself doing these facebook i guess you could call them reels today but at the time it would be like a short video and I would just be talking to the camera. I'd just be like, oh, you know, I went and saw this movie, you know, or I saw this commercial or, you know, just personal thoughts. Like, you know, I was in the bathroom with the movies and whatever, whatever. And it just came little stories. But then I was like, you know, I'm going to dabble into the whole playing, streaming video games aspect of it and make video content with that because, you know, that's not saturated at all. I mean, there's not. so it's that's where it started on youtube was on a gaming channel with a buddy of mine we were playing all different sorts of video games and recording them and then i remember like i think the last call of duty i played was like world at war or something like that and i recorded the whole series and it's still on youtube if you look hard enough i play through these games and i have commentary as I'm playing through it but I found that recording the video editing and doing all this was um I don't know I just didn't find it very fun it's like I enjoy playing the game it just by the time it got to the point to where I was uploading it and it was on there I was like man I just I don't know I just didn't really have a lot of fun creating that and then it was even more diminishing whenever I go through that effort and I'd only get maybe 20 views kind of thing. I mean, I guarantee you on that channel, there's still plenty of other videos that probably only have single digit views on some of those things. So that was definitely a little bit of a motivation killer on that. And so at that point I was like, oh, you know, let me try uploading something pinball related to that channel. And I think that's like the first time I did some kind of pinball-related content, and I think it was in regards to pin lights. The first time I put pin lights on my last Action Hero, I did kind of like an install. Pin lights or pin stadiums back then? Oh, you are correct. It's pin stadiums. I do prefer the pin lights, though. Yeah, yeah. I have transitioned since then. But, like, so the pin stadiums, I did, like, an install and review before and after type of ordeal. And so I remember posting that. And one thing for sure, I enjoyed the whole process of the recording and editing. But two, there was more interest and more views in regards to that type of material as well. So that was also a little bit of a motivator. And so I was like, okay, that's kind of cool. Then I went back to playing video games, and it was back to just like, I don't really know if I want to do the whole video game thing anymore. and it was one of those where I was like yeah I think I'm done with the whole you know doing video games and putting on YouTube thing and this is about the time where I was notified that my mother had been diagnosed with stage four lung cancer and that she only had a couple of month to live and it was one of those where for me i i definitely needed a distraction i was like i need to take my mind off of what is the inevitable of losing you know someone that has been dear to me since i can far back as i can remember type of thing and that's whenever i managed to get a an x files machine for a local arcade or a local laundromat sorry and he wanted it cleaned up and working and everything and i was like you know what maybe i'm going to start you know recording me troubleshooting and cleaning cleaning the machines up and posting them on youtube kind of thing and it was a good distraction it kept me hyper focused on something else other than the fact that i'm about to lose my mother type of thing and so it but the whole process of recording the before and after the during and just the editing process of it was was fun i'm like this is entertaining as well as keeping me occupied on something else and so but along with that came more interested people and viewers and the subscriber base started to grow and i think by the time i even started doing pinball content i was in the low double digits on subscribers maybe like i don't know 30 or 40 and here i am now over 12 000 and that's been growing since when i first started this in 2018 i think it was uh definitely around june or july 2018 where i first like basically was like i'm doing pinball content on my youtube channel that's what i'm doing yeah i loved your restoration videos that's actually your videos are what got me to like take the leap into like i'm gonna do a playfield swap and now i've done quite a few of them but uh some of your your videos are what inspired me to even like take that step so i'm glad you make the made all those videos and i do miss your restoration and your your fix fix them up videos and all that but uh yeah they're they're they will be a time that they're they're coming back i'm in the process of working on something big project that we can get back to doing that and it'll be uh much better content in regards to what it was before and everything in regards to restorations i'm excited and i cannot wait to be done with it honestly but i want to get back to it as well i've got two or three games that really do need some uh tlc and i'm going to get back to it and i know there's people out there a lot of fans and followers that miss that content as well and it is coming i promise yeah that's that's some really good material you had out there um So I know you've won some awards for some games, too, that you've restored, if I'm not mistaken, and you've taken to like TPF and stuff. Can you tell us about some of those games? Yeah, because it was one of those where when I started going to Texas Pinball Festival, it became like a yearly thing. We always brought the kids. We always took pictures in front of the DeLorean and and go in there and we'd stay all the way to the end where they had these awards. And I started seeing that people were getting awards for like, oh, best restoration or most customer, whatever, going through all these things and winning these awards. And I was like, oh, that's pretty interesting. And I started comparing these people that were winning awards to what I could potentially do with some of the games that I've got kind of thing. And I was it was one of those things where I was like, well, I could do that. And so I started working at it. and I, so every year I would do a little bit more to my last action hero I was like I was like all right I going to go leds or i gonna change the rubbers and i gonna powder coat this and like every year my game would get prettier but i never got an award and for the first i don't know for the first like i don't know five or six years and that was the thing also is that as i'm bringing in my game and i'm setting it up and i'm thinking yeah my game is sexy it's definitely gonna get a reward i start walking around and i see that a lot of these games people put a lot more damn effort into it than me i was like oh snap i was like i need to step up my game because i now i know why i wasn't winning an award is because there's a lot of talented people out there that put a lot of time and effort into these games and they definitely deserve those awards so that's when i started going okay well i need to start stepping up my game and so and it was one of those things where i was like i think it's going to be the getaway like that's the machine that i want to make beautiful like this is a because like it was it was also one of those things where i hadn't at that time seen a really beautiful looking getaway i'd seen a lot of number of other machines that people had done but i don't like doing what everyone else is doing and that was one of the reasons why i kind of like postponed my doctor who uh pinball machine restoration is because at that time i knew two people that were doing one and i was like no i don't want to do what everybody else is doing so it's on the back burner but i was like the getaway this is one that i know a lot of people love the game and but i want to do something that no one else is doing for sure and it turned into like a multi-year project of all kinds of trials and tribulations of just issues and me just trying to be different and i still have this playfield i think it's on the wall back here yeah but i removed every insert from this playfield and I installed clear inserts. Oh, wow. And I was like, I'm going to make it to where, you know, there's going to be a lot more different colors on these inserts and it's going to be... Oh, you're going RGB? Yeah, I was like, this is going to be wicked. And then it turned into a huge mistake. I was like, oh, man. And it's one of those things that a lot of people probably wouldn't notice, but it was bothering me. The decals that would go on the inserts were not opaque enough. and so there was a lot of bleed through whenever the lights would turn on and i was like no i can't do it i can't do it so i and it was like i was already over a year into this project i think i had the cabinet good to go and for like many like the first i don't know two or three years at least i had a dead getaway behind me in my videos it was almost like it was the uh the ongoing joke of my channel is that i was doing all these machines making them look pretty but i still had this getaway behind me that was sitting there dead and people were always asking me when are you going to work on the getaway when you're going to do the getaway so whenever i finally like made the decision to finish the getaway i made it kind of a monumental moment of me going it's time and i had like a christmas special episode in regards to it and yeah i remember when you brought it to tpf it's it's a beautiful game yeah so like i spent a lot of time and effort uh put into the game and this is also I think whenever COVID hit so then TPF got canceled so I was like well hell now I've got another you know year to put even more effort into it to tweak this or make this better and so that's what I did and it was one of those where I brought that that year and I was like if I don't win an award just a award I wasn't trying to go for best of show and that is the ultimate goal obviously absolutely but i was like expecting at least like you know runner up 90s kind of thing i was like i've got to at least get that and it was the same year that a couple of my other restoration buddies that had some really nice machines they brought to you may or may not remember the batman 89 that was in the same circle area and that was a buddy of mine that did that but you know i remember your getaway and it was beside another getaway maybe three getaways i can't remember oh that was a different year that was uh after i already had one that was my buddy's getaway and another getaway that someone else owned i was like screw it let's just have them all in a row kind of thing and but yeah i brought that getaway and it was one of those that that machine got a lot of plays and a lot of attention and i get to the point to where it's like all right here comes the awards kind of thing and they're going through all the awards i didn't win best restoration i didn't win anything for best or runner-up 90s and it got to the point where i was like man because i knew of two other games that could potentially win best of show because i was when you bring a game and you're in competition everybody that does walks around to see who else is going to be in the running for this kind of thing and so i already walked around and I had an idea of who could win. And once we got past, like, the best of 90s or whatever, you know, even the wife had already been like, all right, well, we're going to head towards the car kind of thing, you know. And I was like, you might want to come back. There's a chance that I might get best of show kind of thing. And they got back just in time, and it was one of those where I didn't expect it. I was hoping for it, but I didn't expect it. but it was one of those things where, you know, when it got revealed, I'm so glad that I've got the video from Emoto that she recorded it, but it was an overwhelmingly positive, like, moment for me. And I'm not going to lie, I cried a little bit. It was emotional. It was something that I worked towards. I was working hard. I was really hoping, and I'm glad that everybody appreciated the work behind it, and it was just nice to finally, after all the damn years, to win an award on something. I felt like I was almost being avoided when it came to awards. I'm like, man, I can't win anything. But since then, I've been getting at least runner-up on all my games kind of thing, or best of, like my Johnny Mnemonic won an award, my Last Action Hero finally won an award. I don't know. I've got ribbons and stuff all on the wall over here now, but yeah. and you brought uh what was the other one earth shaker eventually i think oh yeah earth shaker that one yeah yeah earth shaker got an award as well last year or the year before that yeah that's the funny thing is like yeah it got an award i think for runner-up last year i think it got runner-up again and i merely only brought it last year because um i think someone uh was wanting to like buy it or whatever kind of thing it was one of those games where i remember i restored it and fixed it up and brought it back from tpf and it literally sat in my dining room and didn't get touched for almost a full freaking year and i was like i need to sell this i was like it's just sitting here i mean like you know i it's it's it's an all right game but it wasn't a game that i felt like you know needed to stay in the collection type of thing sometimes it can be hard to sell those restorations man i've put so much money like i did i did a taxi and i chromed it all out and everything and i spent a damn fortune on this game and like nobody would like appreciate what i put into it i'm not asking like 10k or anything but you know it's trying to somewhat get my money back and people are like man i can get a taxi for 3k yeah it's one of those things like yeah you can get one but do you do you want one that's basically already done and cherry that you don't have to worry about anymore or do you want a project yeah you want a project and more power to you that new playfield mirrored back glass rad cows you know playfield you name it it was it was beautiful and chromed out you know that chrome is freaking expensive or especially if you go through uh what's his name that does all the pinball parts pinball plating yeah oh chris royalty over there yeah and uh that's the thing is like every every like you know restoration that i do i learn something or i'll learn a better method or an easier way to go about doing something you know And a good amount of the things I do know and have learned is from Chris at HEP. I mean, he does tremendous work. Oh, man. I would love to be on his tier at some point in time, but I don't think it's going to happen. But if I can get just to where it's somewhere up there, I would be totally content. The man creates work of art kind of thing. I found out about him later on, and I was already doing a couple restorations, restorations and then i i found some of his material and i was like all right i suck and i thought i was doing a beautiful job yeah it's one of those things where yeah i've had those moments too where you think you're great like yeah i do great then you see what else is somebody else doing you're like oh never mind i suck he takes it to another level man it's like yeah it's crazy crazy that's where i met one of my good uh pinball buddies actually is because i was excited when i finally got a back to the future pinball machine and part of the reason why i wanted it was because i wanted to restore it and make it a sexy looking game because the one that always gets brought to tpf is kind of run down no one made ship for that game when i had it too i looked for a damn ramp for that game for like three years now they got them on like marco's website i'm like what i think ramp-o-matic makes it or whatever it was a very weird shape ramp too there was no easy you know making duplications of that or anything but yeah so like my goal was to eventually in like restore that which i did but definitely not on the level that my my buddy lonnie did he i remember setting up my spy hunter and setting up another game of tpf one year and i see him setting up this back to the future and i see the sides of it look like glass i'm like what the And I walk over to it, and everything is just – I know which one you're talking about. Yeah, he's got the DeLorean on top of it, and he's got the plutonium case underneath it. And I looked at him, and I was like, I hate you. I was like, this is – I already knew that this was a much higher tier level than I was planning on doing. And he already did it. Clear coat of the play field and everything. Everything just looked like it was just glistening, just glossed up and covered in clear coat. and uh we've been friends ever since dude the whole time i i had my back to the future all i wanted was a damn pen soundboard and i kept emailing and he's like it's coming soon it's coming soon yeah that's always the response been years i think they finally got it yeah they did yeah that game would be so so so much better if a pen soundboard but uh that game is long gone yeah so i sold that one too i was like i realized i was like why do you have this carry i was like you've got it because of the theme yeah you don't have it because it's a great game you don't go man it's great this game's so fun no you don't you got it because of the theme it's time to let it go and get something that you're actually going to play well that is great with the themes like all the great or a lot of their games are awesome themes but man just not so much on the fun side yeah and that's where i'm at now is that i'm i'm moving games that i do not find myself playing and uh uh sadly enough i think uh that my getaway may be on the chopping block no don't do it and i know it it's it's it's sad but it's over there in the corner right now looking at me like are you serious and i was like i i don't play them he's it's just a pretty toy that i won best of show one and it just sits there and it's like i go up to it and i might play a game but i don't go man i gotta keep playing kind of thing and so it's one of those where i don't know man i'm leaning towards probably selling it and i already know somebody up there in the northeast that was willing to buy it well they're always replaceable you could get another one but it ain't gonna be as pretty yeah they got it they just we've got some good games coming this year and i've only got so much room and it's like i've got to get rid of some of these games that i don't really play just to make room for games that i know i'm going to be playing yeah well so when did you buy your first uh modern pinball machine like i guess yeah what was like your first turn or you know oh first new in box was teenage mutant ninja turtle oh wow how long did that last that i had that one for i don't remember let's see i i was it i i had turtles and i so i had that one and eventually i traded that for someone that had a jurassic park okay not a bad trade so i was it was one of those where it was someone near me and they were like oh jurassic park pro for trade and i was like would you be interested in a turtles pro kind of thing and he was kind of iffy about it he wasn't sure he's like if anything we could do a temporary trade no just like i'm cool you know my daughter would you know would love to have a jurassic park and honestly i love playing jurassic park more than i love playing turtles and after a few weeks he was like he's like he's like no i'm good dude you want to just keep a permanent trade like that i'm just like yeah jurassic park is the better game yeah so and i still got that game to this day kind of thing Yeah, Jurassic Park's good. I've had the Pro, and then I finally upgraded to the Premium, and then I was pissed because my Pro played so much better than my Premium. But the whole time I just wanted the T-Rex to move, and now I don't even notice the T-Rex moving whatsoever. I've got the T-Rex moving mod kind of thing. Oh, you got that. Okay, cool. Yeah, so that kind of satiates that. But I don't know. So that may be a machine that may be up for grabs as well kind of thing. Yeah, well, you've had it a while and you've got some other new games in the game room. Yeah, and there's, like I said, there's games coming out this year that I just like, I've referred those themes over these themes. And but you know I would have no problem getting rid of Jurassic Park I be fine I love the game but I had no problems letting it go There a million of them out there too You can get another one Yeah my daughter she the Jurassic Park fanatic And that's when I had that video of, like, showing it that I had it to her just by her listening to it. She knew it was Jurassic Park. And so she doesn't want me to get rid of it. But, you know, if I tell her what I'm going to be replacing it with, then she'll probably be like, okay, yeah, we can do that. Does she know you're getting Beetlejuice? Are your kids fans of Beetlejuice? Yeah, she's got a giant flag of Franchise Art in her room on her wall. I know the banner you're talking about. Yeah, they like those darker Tim Burton-esque type of movies. And I remember when we went and saw part two of it, they were both like, I think I like the first one better. And I was like, good, because so do I. Right. Yeah, didn't your kids like Texas Chainsaw Massacre too? like over looney tunes oh yeah they were having a they were having a hell of a time with that texas chainsaw massacre my daughter was all like you're gonna die you're trying to just like i was like my kids are sadistic i was like what is going on here oh that's crazy well uh yeah so you got beetlejuice coming is that the only game you got on order at the moment that's the only game that you know we could talk about there's other stuff coming but i can't talk about oh yeah absolutely i have a feeling your back wall is going to be like half spooky games in about two years oh my god it's it's it's no that and jersey jack oh yeah jersey jacks finally they're doing some decent themes man for the longest time i just they were just missing the mark i mean toy story four and all this crap and now they're now they're doing it right yeah so it's it's it's going to be an interesting year this year i think a little bit more interesting than last year for sure yep absolutely um when did you start this patreon page that's kind of how i got to know you better you know we got on there and i like how everybody is always you know very active in chat and we do the monthly meetups and stuff uh when did you finally pivot and say or didn't pivot but also had a Patreon channel alongside your YouTube. Well, it was one of those things where I don't know if it tells me on my Patreon page. I'm kind of looking right here. I don't know if it tells me somewhere in my settings or something when I started this. I know a good way to tell. I know who my first Patreon subscriber was, and it'll tell me basically how long he's been a patron. Oh, nice. but uh so it looks like i've had it since around august of 2020 oh wow so it's been around for a while yeah and um yeah so that's whenever i started it up and you know i've had patrons since then and uh he's one of them but uh and then some and some of them definitely got on because of the restorations and that was the thing where i wanted to do more with the channel but it's like i didn't want to be like the one like my money that's going from like work you know into this kind of thing because i was i was like you know there's a way that if i could like keep the channel going buying different tools or you know all the money that i get from patreon goes right back into the channel it's a separate account and everything it's not something that i get and go oh it's time to buy that new stereo system i've been wanting to get like no it's something it's all going into pinball related items whether it be my travel to these shows travel to visit these uh manufacturers to do the tours uh all that my patreon is dedicated to solely pinball related content creation and it's just basically investing in myself type of thing that's awesome yeah it's kind of like my sponsors at the beginning of my podcast i'm not a sellout Actually, all that sponsorship money goes towards trophies for my pinball tournaments throughout the year. So that's how we provide trophies to our group. It's not actually just going in my pocket and going on vacation or anything. That's what I do. I know people want a little bit more of the inside look at certain things, especially when I get back into doing the restorations. Then I'll be getting back into showing more content behind the scenes in regards to all of that. I'll be doing what I'm definitely going to start doing from now on. I should have been doing this a long time ago. But all my videos I create, I'm going to have them uploaded or at least available on my Patreon. So there will be an ad-free version, and the one that goes out to public will have the monetization on it kind of thing. So that way people that don't like advertisements at all – I typically disable the ads, but whenever it goes public, then I re-enable it. But this at least will have it to where there will be two versions, one for Patreon and one for the public. And I noticed also on your Patreon channel, like you get some of your videos and stuff you might get a day prior to you actually posting it up on YouTube. So you get content early. Yeah, and there's a lot of things that I'll put on there that I'm just like, I don't feel like putting this out in the public, whether it be various types of information. information but it's like oh it's it's one of those things where i i love having it the whole patreon thing because it gives me the ability to do so much more and have a further reach and be able to like have much more of a i don't know closer relationship with a lot of people out there that you know like to follow along or contribute or donate and i've got plenty of people that donate on a monthly basis for a long time and they and they don't even follow the page at all really they get it like they they get like a probably a thing in the mail or the letter a text message or whatever like oh here's your five dollars it's been sent to be and they probably keep meaning to cancel they just haven't done it yet but i know a lot of people out there they send support and they then they're they're happy to do so and i've been lucky enough to meet a lot of those people in person and they've been uh great people out there but it's it's one of those things where um i love being able to i don't want to say hide behind the the paywall or anything but it just kind of gives me the ability to share and it's just really nice to have kind of thing is i don't make barely any many people think like oh carrie just doing it for the clicks just clicks and i'm like i'm like if you knew how much i made on youtube it's kind of pathetic i've been on a bunch of patreons too and you're very active in your patreon which i like and you're always in chat so uh i think it's well worth the five dollars i mean it takes their own i don't sit out there and promote it as much as i probably should i don't know i just feel dirty when i self-promote i'm like i'm like i just feel you know what made me join i was watching one of your many youtube videos and you always have all the credits like thank you to my patreon members and i was like who the fuck are these le members i want to be a le member and i'd only had uh canada off and on as a on patreon i had never used it other than that and uh that's when i joined your uh your patreon and been on there ever since he likes to say he's the first one to have a paywall i know i've always had the patreon but he was the first person to go strictly behind a paywall but i've had a patreon for a you know longer than i think he's been on it but like it's like i said it's one of those things where like with youtube when i create stuff and i i don't care about the monetization aspect of it so like i i care more about the art behind it honestly so there's times where i'm like no i really want this song and i i don't care if i get a copyright freaking demonetization on it because i just feel like this song is a part of the story or a part of this that makes it better to me it's like could i change it out with a a different song yeah and i could make money off of it but i'm like no i don't want that version i want this one to have the song and so i kind of sacrifice potentially making more money just for the the art style of it kind of thing crazy yeah but i i definitely enjoy the the the ellie meetups awesome and uh if any of y'all haven't checked out carrie's patreon definitely go over there because the LE meetup every month is a lot of fun. You get to chat with a bunch of pinball people. We've become a pretty little tight-knit group, too. It's been pretty interesting because a lot of the same people get in there. I think this most recent discussion got a little heated at one point, which I thought was a little interesting. I was like, whoa. I was like, where is this coming from? I kind of backed up after a couple minutes. I'm like, I'm just going to shut the fuck up. I was like, man, I know that people like certain games or certain manufacturers, but this is the joy of pinball. We all get to state our opinions, but I think when someone said a certain opinion, everybody was shaking their heads like, no. I can't even remember what it was. I know exactly what it was because even I was like, dude, come on. I was like, you could say – Oh, I do remember what it is. Yeah, yeah, that is bullshit. I still call bullshit. in a friendly way yeah i was like you know you you had the right to your opinion you're wrong but you have the right to your opinion kind of thing yeah the other the other georgia fellow that's in the group he uh he did not like it yeah he was like he's like no i'm gonna have to strongly disagree with you are there but anyway yeah everyone should join us it's it's it's fun we we don't we don't argue or anything yeah good good chunk of us are going to be at pinball at the beach coming up here pretty soon I'm sad. Were you going to make it? So I thought, you know, I wasn't really planning on going. And then I was like, you know what? I think I'm going to do this. And I started looking at it. I'm out of town working, of course. So there's like no way around it. But you'll be at TPF? Yeah, yeah. I got TPF. I'll have a booth there with Don. Just a month apart. Yeah, it'll be fine. A little over a month. And Florida's cool. I mean, especially for all you guys coming from, you know, you're in Texas and, you know, far away. Carl Weathers's crap i'm in florida all the effing time so it's yeah i understand the appeal kind of thing it'd be like people telling me like oh my god you gotta go to tpf because there's barbecue over there and i'm like there's barbecue everywhere i mean like it's like big whoop no that's what i tell a lot of people i'm like i just really like that part of texas it's it's just nice to go out there and you're probably like dude this is like my home this is like yeah this is every day it's just hot it's horrible there was snow in florida today that that blew my mind um there's snow here in georgia or south georgia but yeah i think we're supposed to get ice this uh coming weekend and i say ice i mean actual ice not you know the whole minnesota thing yeah yeah yeah but uh well cool man i really appreciate you coming on and telling your story is there anything else you wanted to talk about i was trying to think of any other kind of past moments of like pinball in my history there was one time whenever i was young i did play pinball at someone's house because they had a machine i don't recall what it was though uh but my brother told me i was like i was like do you remember that time we were at someone's house and they had a machine he's like yeah i was like what machine was that he was like it was that elton john machine oh i was like captain fantastic and he's like he's like he's like yeah whatever it was i remember it was elton john because i'm i recognize that well it's got to be that game yeah so i was like oh man i remember playing a lot of that i didn't know what i was doing but it was i was just happy i was able to play pinball over and over again without having to chunk a bunch of quarters in there i thought that was really cool but uh other than that man it was it was a different thing that grabbed me when it came to pinball it was the whole the mechanical nature of it and i've said this is on a previous video in regards to you know why i choose pinball and i think it's it's a nice thing to get away to to escape our digital world yeah pinball's been awesome to me i've gained so many friends from pinball and that's what i really do like about it and that's why i started my pinball group um but i mean i've got like 150 friends out of pinball it's crazy yeah that's the thing also is that i've gained quite a bit of uh friends through pinball as well and that's what one of the reasons why i go to the shows in the first place is like to meet up with these people that I only see once or a year, potentially maybe twice, depending on if they go to those shows. But I'm about to go to Florida, about to meet up with a good couple of people that I've met in pinball, and we've become really close. Yeah, it's a fun hobby. And, yeah, it's, yeah. Well, anyway. Other than that, I think that's pretty much the whole kit and caboodle right there. But it's like anybody else. It starts with one machine, and whether it be you enjoy the gameplay or you enjoy the troubleshooting or you enjoy the restoration, there's just something about it that will grab you and say, hey, you should get another one. Yeah, I've got a buddy right now that bought one, and I was like, there's no way to own one. He's like, well, I don't really have room. It wasn't a month later. He's already got another machine. You start figuring out if you need a refrigerator. He's like, I don't really need that shit. well cool well uh carrie tell them how to find you and how to contact you all right you can find me on youtube uh just do i think if you literally just search for pinball you'll find me somewhere in the search but it's carrie hardy c-a-r-y-h-a-r-d-y and or you can find me on patreon at patreon.com slash carrie hardy uh email at hardy pinball at gmail.com but uh yeah i think the quickest response is honestly through patreon i prioritize them first awesome well thank you so much for coming on carrie it was uh a great time and it was really interesting hearing your story man all right well thanks for having me sterling all right we'll take it easy man later you