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Ep 86: The Big Reveal with Amanda Hamilton

LoserKid Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 15m·analyzed·Jun 7, 2022
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TL;DR

Loser Kid announces 'Flipping the Script on Autism' charity stream at Pinball Expo, raising funds for Utah autism program.

Summary

Loser Kid Pinball Podcast Episode 86 features guest Amanda Hamilton from Free Play Pinball Podcast discussing her journey into pinball and revealing a major charity initiative. Josh (host) announces 'Flipping the Script on Autism,' a 12-hour stream at Pinball Expo 2026 (October 20th) benefiting Learning Solutions, a Utah-based autism program. Multiple manufacturers and industry figures have committed to donate products and attend, with 100% of proceeds going directly to the charity.

Key Claims

  • Josh's son was diagnosed with autism 18 months ago and has made significant developmental progress through Learning Solutions programming

    high confidence · Josh (host) discussing his personal motivation for the charity event, describing his son's progress from non-verbal to speaking words within two months of therapy

  • Eric Menier (Jersey Jack), Keith Elwin (designer), and Sam Stern have committed to attending the Pinball Expo charity stream

    high confidence · Josh listing confirmed guests living in Chicago area who have committed to participate

  • The 12-hour stream will run October 20th from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. Central Time during Pinball Expo vendor hall

    high confidence · Josh and Amanda confirming the specific date and time window for the event

  • Multiple pinball manufacturers (Jersey Jack, American Pinball, Multimorphic, Stern) have agreed to donate product for auction

    high confidence · Josh listing manufacturer commitments during the event announcement

  • Amanda Hamilton has been involved with Free Play Pinball Podcast for just over a year

    high confidence · Amanda directly stating 'We've been going for a little over a year now' regarding the podcast

  • Amanda and her husband purchased a Pirates of the Caribbean Certified Edition from Jersey Jack that had fewer than 5 plays

    high confidence · Amanda describing the purchase story: seller's wife became pregnant, they got the game cheap and later sold it to fund two Limited Edition games

  • George Fisher (Don't Panic Flip) is providing production equipment and stream resources for the charity event

    high confidence · Amanda confirming George Fisher's equipment and time donation for the stream

  • Michael Bernard designed the event logo at no cost

    high confidence · Josh mentioning they reached out to Michael Bernard who 'did the Rush art' and donated the logo design

Notable Quotes

  • “None of them have hesitated. They've all stepped up and said, what can we do to help?”

    Josh (host) @ ~28:00 — Demonstrates the tight-knit community support and willingness of industry figures to contribute to charitable causes

  • “100% of all monies raised goes back to this. It's nothing is coming to anybody else except for Learning Solutions”

    Josh (host) @ ~31:30 — Clarifies the transparency and charitable intent of the event, distinguishing it from other fundraising efforts

  • “I thought pinball was just something you guys collected from the 50s and the 60s, a ding, ding, flip, flip.”

    Keith Meeks (Learning Solutions owner) @ ~45:00 — Illustrates the disconnect between mainstream perception of pinball as nostalgic vs. modern active community

  • “We don't take any of the money. The money is coming in and we are giving it right to the organization.”

    Amanda Hamilton @ ~30:00 — Reinforces the charity's purity and lack of overhead for organizers

  • “He's like, it's just astounded them, the support that they're seeing so far.”

    Josh (host) @ ~43:00 — Indicates the charity organization's surprise at the pinball community's mobilization

  • “My husband's very good at pinball. So I was really bored a lot waiting for him to finish.”

    Amanda Hamilton @ ~16:30 — Amanda's motivation for acquiring a second machine, leading her deeper into the hobby

  • “I run Free Play Pinball Podcast with Bill Webb... we focus on the positivity of pinball. There's a lot of guys that do serious shows, but there's not a lot of women in pinball.”

    Amanda Hamilton @ ~12:00 — Identifies a content niche and community gap that Free Play Pinball addresses

  • “It's truly about the puzzle pieces and the colors. It's all the autism spectrum together.”

    Josh (host) — Explains the thematic significance of the 'puzzle pieces' marketing approach tied to autism symbolism

Entities

Amanda HamiltonpersonJosh (Loser Kid Podcast host)personMatt Scott LarsonpersonBill WebbpersonZach SharpepersonEric MenierpersonKeith ElwinpersonJeremy PackerpersonDwight Sullivanperson

Signals

  • ?

    community_signal: Major pinball industry collaboration for autism charity event with 20+ direct participants from manufacturers, content creators, and designers

    high · Josh: 'We have like 20 plus people involved directly with this between companies and whatnot have all just been fantastic. None of them have hesitated.'

  • ?

    content_signal: Free Play Pinball Podcast established successful presence within Pinball Network, with Amanda now serving as administrator

    high · Amanda: 'I am now an administrator for the Pinball Network now. So I get to oversee and talk to and meet and collaborate with some of the most amazing content creators'

  • ?

    industry_signal: Multiple manufacturers (Stern, Jersey Jack, American Pinball, Multimorphic) rapidly mobilizing donations and support for community charity event

    high · Josh: 'Jersey Jack Pinball, American Pinball, Multimorphic. All these people have agreed to donate product.'

  • ?

    event_signal: Pinball Expo 2026 (October 20th) confirmed as venue for 12-hour autism charity fundraiser stream with vendor hall integration

    high · Josh and Amanda confirming October 20th, 10am-10pm Central Time, vendor hall location at Pinball Expo

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Cross-organization participation including Stern, Jersey Jack, Flip N Out Pinball, Don't Panic Flip, and independent creators in unified charity effort

    high · References to George Fisher (Don't Panic Flip), Zach Sharpe (Stern/Flip N Out), Eric Menier (Jersey Jack), Michael Bernard (artist), Tommy McNichols (Jedi McMuffin) all contributing

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.225

0:00
thanks for tuning in to the loser kid pinball podcast we are on episode 86 with me my co-captain as always scott larson and scott we got a guest on today we do have a guest on today and i bet they even use flipping out pinball i think they do i bet they do oh yeah She even bets we do too. Yeah. You know why she uses flipping out pinball along with us? She's flipping out pinball. Probably because Zach owns part of my soul because she's probably also part of the TPN. Wait, did you? Okay, so that's what you got for your soul? I only got like some Hubba Bubba for my soul. Or Alf Pogs. You remember that? From the Simpsons episode when Bart sells his soul. It's awesome.
0:54
I like how we've already went off track and we're talking about our sponsor. Yeah. Okay. So speaking of selling your soul, if you need to buy a pinball machine, contact Zach and Nicole and Ania at Flippin' Out Pinball. They will be able to hook you up with all your pinball needs. And if you need that new, you know, Jurassic Park was just on the line. Or if you want to get that Godzilla, maybe you want to have a lizard group. You can put Jurassic Park and Godzilla next to each other. But anything that you want, they are certainly willing and able to figure out ways of helping you out. So contact Zach and Nicole at FlippinOutPinball. So the real question is, would you sell your soul to Zach for a 40th, number 40, 40th edition Elvira? That's true. You know, Elvira is not really my theme, but I'm sure there is an audience for her. And you know what? Definitely. He has the 40th edition, number 40. That's not the only one he has. He has another one, I believe. He has number 69 as well. If that one has not sold yet. He just sold that one. He did. Okay. Yeah. We had a House of Horrors and we sold it before the anniversary edition came out. It's a great game.
2:06
Yeah. Okay. I need to properly introduce. So this woman, if you ever go to a pinball show, she's probably either going to be hanging out with like John Borg or Zombie Yeti or Dwight Sullivan because that's that's her homie. I love my Dwight. She's like the life of the party. As soon as you walk in, she knows she's there. It is Amanda Hamilton with the Free Play Pinball Podcast. How are you doing, Amanda? I'm good, guys. How are you?

20+ people are directly involved between companies and individual contributors to the charity event

medium confidence · Josh stating 'We have like 20 plus people involved directly with this between companies and whatnot'

  • The autism puzzle piece symbol is the official logo of the autism spectrum, motivating the 'puzzle pieces' marketing approach

    high confidence · Josh explaining 'the official logo symbol of autism is a puzzle piece' and how their logos integrate with the four-color spectrum symbol

    • @ ~38:30

  • “Pinball is a very close-knit community and we band together.”

    Amanda Hamilton @ ~33:00 — Characterizes the fundamental ethos of the pinball community as collaborative and supportive

  • “I want to do this for you guys. You're helping me. You're doing life changing things for my family that I feel like I could never pay back.”

    Josh (host) @ ~40:00 — Articulates personal gratitude toward Learning Solutions and motivation to give back

    • Jim Sullivan
    person
    Ken Cromwellperson
    George Fisherperson
    Michael Bernardperson
    Tommy McNicholsperson
    Keith Meeksperson
    Flip N Out Pinballcompany
    Free Play Pinball Podcastorganization
    Pinball Networkorganization
    Learning Solutionsorganization
    Don't Panic Fliporganization
    Stern Pinballcompany
    Jersey Jack Pinballcompany
    American Pinballcompany
    Multimorphiccompany
    Pinball Expoevent
  • ?

    community_signal: Free Play Pinball Podcast explicitly addresses underrepresentation of women in pinball media and community

    high · Amanda: 'There's not a lot of women in pinball. And there's also a lot of focus on the bad when there's so much good'

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Learning Solutions staff surprised by modern active pinball community, previously assumed it was only for 1950s-60s collectors

    medium · Josh describing Keith Meeks saying: 'I thought pinball was just something you guys collected from the 50s and the 60s, a ding, ding, flip, flip. And he's like, it's just astounded them, the support'

  • $

    market_signal: Amanda Hamilton's Pirates of the Caribbean CE purchase story exemplifies secondary market deals and game trading within collector community

    high · Amanda: 'we picked it up. It was actually, it had like less than five plays on it... we picked it up... for like dirt cheap' and later 'funded us a new in-box Yellow Brick Road and a TNA'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Puzzle piece autism spectrum symbolism intentionally incorporated into charity event branding, not literal puzzle gameplay

    high · Josh: 'It's truly about the puzzle pieces and the colors. It's all the autism spectrum together. And so it's funny because we've had a lot of people that have just been so focused on like, this puzzle makes no sense'

  • ?

    operational_signal: Charity stream running full 12 hours (10am-10pm) requiring significant volunteer coordination and equipment resources

    high · Josh and Amanda discussing the full-day timeline and continuous operation until security ends the event

  • ?

    business_signal: Charity event structured with direct handoff to beneficiary organization, eliminating financial intermediaries to ensure 100% fund transfer

    high · Josh: 'I bring up pinball and all the stuff... I don't like to deal with the government if I don't have to... the less my hands touch money, the better, because then it just goes directly to them'

  • ?

    community_signal: Josh publicly sharing his son's autism diagnosis and therapeutic progress as motivation for community fundraising effort

    high · Josh's 18-month journey from diagnosis to therapeutic outcomes, describing son's progress from non-verbal to speaking within two months of Learning Solutions therapy

    • 2:34
    You know what? It's the start of summer and we are just starting to get in the groove. Same. You can get to your garages again to play pinball. You don't have to shovel snow now. Absolutely. Yeah. Don't joke about it. It snowed two weeks ago here in Utah. Are you serious? Well, okay. Out by you? Did it not snow by you? Well, okay. Yeah, in the mountains. What do you live on? Hoth? I technically do live in the mountains. So, yes, it snowed up here like two weeks ago. Okay. What is that like?
    3:06
    They had to get their tauntauns out and run around. Oh, man. I hear those things smell if you cut them open. That's true. They do. Yeah. it's not very fun to go from 75 degree weather down to a 40 and snowing. So I will say these two months happen. They are my favorite months in, um, in Utah, like the June and July up until July 4th. And then it starts getting really hot in July and August. But I, like I was out putting together a, an umbrella outside and it's beautiful temperature. It's perfect.
    3:40
    Define hot for me, please. Uh, You live in Florida, so Florida is not. Yeah, no. Okay, so I have not. We don't have that here. I don't want to live in any place that has a season named after a natural disaster.
    3:56
    That is true. We have four seasons here. So for your listeners who are not familiar, I do live in Florida. I live in Northeast Florida, and I have for a very long time. And we have four seasons in Florida. We have summer. We have hurricane season. We have football season. and we have love bug season and they all overlap. Love bug. Okay, I'm not familiar with love bug season. Love bugs are abominations created by man at the University of Florida to help control the mosquito population. And they're literally these two little black bugs that are conjoined at the butt and they have orange heads and they get on your car in the spring and in the fall and they eat your paint. It's disgusting. They're so nasty. and they're everywhere and they climb on you and you think you're being attacked by spiders and they're harmless they just are annoying and this is this is a bad genetic experiment yeah basically and because florida man i don't know i don't know why we do the things we do here you do realize they have things called mosquito hawks like they could have just used those and like it's always dangerous when you uh introduce a new species into an ecosystem Yes, controlling two bugs at the butt does not. Yeah. However, it's probably more safe than introducing an invasive species. I did like during COVID, though, when people were talking about like units of measurement, someone said, well, I'm from Florida. And so during COVID, they were saying, stay an alligator apart from your co-worker. Yep. And depending on which part of Florida you're in. And I mean, because our alligators will get big. We'll get 12 to 15 foot alligators. So that exceeds that six foot rule. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Is that a guy measuring the alligator? It probably is. I'm suspecting it's wrong. I mean, sometimes they measure them by Python. Yeah. You know, we have that Python issue down in South Florida, too. Yeah, that happened in, didn't that happen with, like, Hurricane Andrew? Like, a whole bunch of pythons got into the Everglades, and they just took over? Yeah, basically, pythons and boas. People would buy them for pets, and they'd get so big they couldn't handle them, so they just let them go. Sure, that makes sense. Yeah. Why not? Yeah, we can't release mosquito hawks, but we can release pythons. Come on now. Come on. But Josh, you would appreciate this. I was going to say, you would appreciate this. When it does get cold in Florida for the three days a year it does, they put out warnings because the iguanas will fall out of the trees and land on you.
    6:24
    That is awesome. Iguanas falling from the sky, cats and dogs living together. Okay, meanwhile, pinball. Pinball. Hey, pinball, guys. Pinball. Tell us about yourself, Amanda, and about free play and all that jazz. So I am almost pinball legit. We have been in this, my husband and I have been in this hobby now for almost five years. So I am almost allowed to talk about. Almost Dave Fixworthy. Yep. I am almost allowed to talk about it with authority. So I run free play pinball podcasts with Bill Webb, who some of your listeners may remember. He co-hosted Special When Lit with Ken Cromwell. And he also is on Flippin' Out Monday Night Pinball stream on Twitch.
    7:10
    And we're kind of a fun show, real laid back. We focus on the positivity of pinball. There's a lot of guys that do serious shows, but there's not a lot of women in pinball. And there's also a lot of focus on the bad when there's so much good and we forget. Right. So I try to make it fun even as long as I've been in it. I'm still very new. So there's a lot of me asking silly questions that other people may be embarrassed to ask.
    7:41
    A lot of cutting up and having fun. A lot of talk of how we would build a Harry Potter pinball machine. And that's usually if we have to wait on because Bill has nothing to do with that.
    7:54
    Yeah. It's awesome. It's something that we really love my husband and I do, and I kind of attached to it. And in doing so, I kind of got attached to a lot of the people involved in it, you guys included. Yes. And I've made some great friends through it. Definitely. So what was your gateway to pinball? Oh, my gateway drug to pinball was my husband and I bought a house, and it was in an area that we didn't really have many friends. so we were trying to figure out something we could have at the house to like get people to come over like we were literally trying to buy friends and in florida it's so hot if you don't have a pool you you stay inside so he one day was like let's get a pinball machine and i'm like what so we started playing them we went to a couple different places and started playing them and we both kind of fell in love with star wars the stern star wars and picked that up and then And we picked up a Pirates. Did you pick up the Pro, the Premium, the Pin? We got a Premium. Okay. Yeah, and it was fun. But I'm not good at pinball, and my husband's very good at pinball. So I was really bored a lot waiting for him to finish. So we got a second game, which happened to be a Pirates CE.
    9:10
    The JJP Pirates CE. Wow. Yeah, we did it. We like, yeah, we didn't. We had to go home. We've got a house. We have $15,000 laying around. Yeah. Well, and I mean, this was when nobody wanted it. So we picked it up. It was actually, it had like less than five plays on it. The guy bought it and turned it on and played a couple of games. And his wife walked into the room and was like, hey, I'm pregnant. This is a nursery now. And he turned around and sold it to us for like dirt cheap. Wow. Yeah. Lucky. Do you still own it? No, but I own two more pins because of it. Nice. Yeah. Funded two more. I miss that game so much. Two LEs from Stern. Yeah.
    9:49
    It got us a new in box yellow brick road and a TNA. Dang. Wow. That's impressive. Yeah, we did okay with it. But yeah, I hated pirates at first and I started watching Eric Menier from JJP play it on his stream. And once I learned how to play and kind of how the rules worked, I really started loving pinball. And then it just went downhill from there. It just got bad. You went down the rabbit hole, Alice? Yeah, it's one of those ones where we have games in multiple rooms. So now it's getting ugly.
    10:21
    So let's fast forward then, because obviously, I mean, you got into pinball, but then what started Freeplay? Like you just one day woke up and you're like, and it's time to do a podcast.
    10:30
    Kind of. Special when the head stopped, Ken took a position at Jersey Jacks. So it became a conflict of interest for him to have his independent podcast because he was doing one for the company. And Bill and I had become really good friends. We never met in person, ironically enough. Like we had not met in person, but we would I was always on their stream talking to him and we would always text back and forth. And we finally started talking on the phone and we would literally talk on the phone for hours, multiple days a week about pinball. And he reached out to me and he's like, hey, we should do a podcast. And I was like, OK, I mean, sure, why not?
    11:09
    And ironically enough, Zach had asked me to be a special guest on the pinball show. So I kind of got my feet wet, like trial by fire with Zach and and that started it. And there was pretty good reception. So Bill and I started our show and we've been going for a little over a year now.
    11:28
    It's been a blast. We've had so much fun. And you you release on the pinball network. So if you're subscribed to the pinball network, it's one of the shows that you'll be getting. Yes. We try to do a show every two to three weeks. I have an incredibly busy schedule and so does Bill. So we do what we can. I don't want to make it work. It's something I love. So I don't want to turn this into work.
    11:53
    But I am part of the Pinball Network. I'm actually an administrator for the Pinball Network now. So I get to oversee and talk to and meet and collaborate with some of the most amazing content creators outside of the Loser Kids. I know. we're kind of on island aren't we you guys kind of are you guys are on the island but everybody loves to go visit your island so it's cool it's the fun it is we love our castaway key you can't stay there forever but it's fun to show up every once in a while it is it is it's better than hotel california i guess yeah exactly or uh the island where pinocchio goes to the uh oh the lost boys or whatever it was yeah pleasure island yeah yeah i think it was pleasure island yeah that's not going to be in the remake no man I would love to see that live action pleasure I don't think that's safe for the show seriously you're taking the kids to it and you're like wait it's x-rated this is not what I remember from the movie kids I think we went to the wrong movie it's like those memes it's like I think I downloaded the wrong hocus pocus hey by the way hocus pocus that is a terrible show we watched it on a sequel okay it's a terrible show we watched it last year with our kids i've never seen it and i was like how is this even a thing it's a terrible show i might have to drop off now because my daughter and i watch hocus pocus like year round wow okay love it all right so uh yeah it's a cult classic okay all right Josh, we're going to drop Amanda and we're just going to get someone else on. Oh, okay. Okay. Well, before we drop her off though, I at least want to talk about how we then got tied in and roped in with Amanda because she has been very helpful to me at least. Okay. This last month or two. Okay.
    13:51
    You're teasing, you're, you're talking about the puzzle pieces that we've been leaking out, right? Yes. I am talking about the puzzle pieces. We are, should we start from, Let me start from square one. Sorry, because that's where my brain... No, let's go. Or piece one. Let's do Tarantino style. I want to start at the end and work our way back from the beginning. It's more memento. It's Christopher Nolan. He's the one who first started. Or the Seinfeld backwards episode. Yes. The official reveal is we have been planning a get-together at Pinball Expo this upcoming year. TPN Loser Kid is working together to do a 12-hour stream for autism. We're calling it Flipping the Script on Autism.
    14:33
    It personally affects me. This is where we're going to go back to the beginning now. But we want you all to come join us at Pinball Expo. We're going to have guests. I'm going to talk about the two that have committed that I know will be there because they live in Chicago. We've got like Eric Meunier coming on. We've got Keith Elwin. We've got Stern, JJP, American Pinball, Multimorphic. All these people have agreed to donate product. We're going to be having signings. We're going to be auctioning all this stuff off. And it's going to go directly to Learning Solutions. It's a Utah-based autism program that helps give kids with autism one-on-one learning so they can learn the basics like social skills, ABA therapy, positive reinforcement, stuff like that. Well, back to me, 18 months ago, not 18 months ago, I apologize. Yeah, actually, it has been 18 months ago. Holy crap. My son was diagnosed with autism. or we were told that he had autistic traits and that we should start having him tested. Well, a year down the road, after doing all the testing that was required of us, they had determined that he had autism and we didn't know where to start because it's one of those words that you hear often, but if you never had to deal with it, sometimes it's kind of confusing of what it is. You kind of maybe label someone as something that you don't fully understand and then you just kind of put it in a box and put it off to the side. well my son we didn't know where to start and this new startup program learning solutions had started here in utah and they said let's start bringing him here within two months he was non-verbal he couldn't he wasn't communicating at all even sign language or or moving his hands or anything like that we went to he's actually saying words now he's helping he's learning to keep his emotions under control. If you don't know this, usually autistic people, especially the males, have a hard time of keeping emotionally in check when they're young because they have a hard time transitioning from fun things or to whatever it may be. And so it's given him the developmental skills that have been amazing. It's just been life-changing. It's only been a couple months. So I wanted to give back to this organization because I figured the pinball community is amazing. It kind of ties back to Special One Lit because they did their 24-hour stream, Got talking with Ken Cromwell at TPF. He said, go for it. He said, whatever you need to do, I will help you. So it's been fantastic. Amanda came in. She has given me quite a different perspective because she has dealt with charity stuff as well. And it has really helped me on the money side of things. And so I know that we're only a couple months into this and we're doing the official reveal now, but I am so appreciative of this community for TPN, for people like Amanda Hamilton, and for my co-host Scott Larson. George Fisher has been amazing. Zach Menny. All these people that have just come together. We have like 20 plus people involved directly with this between companies and whatnot have all just been fantastic. None of them have hesitated. They've all stepped up and said, what can we do to help? And I just appreciate it. And I'm so excited to finally share this with everyone in the community because I want you to come join us. I know it's five months away. You don't have the excuse of, well, it's too expensive to go because you can still book a hotel, you can still get your airplane, and come join us. Yeah, and also we reached out to Michael Bernard who did the Rush art, and he did an excellent logo for us and, again, donated that. So it's been really nice, and I love that what we're doing is this is one of the easiest things for us to do emotionally because we don't take any of the money. The money is coming in and we are giving it right to the organization. And so this is the best part about it is that anytime all these charity things, sometimes it can get a little muddy, but okay, so who's actually getting the money? I love that Josh came to me and said, yeah, I'd like to raise the money for this people and this is all we're doing. and I'm really excited about it because I know this hits a local organization that really needs the help I just thrilled that we were able to get in on this and help out as well I love charity work I a very altruistic person I want to help and I love kids And I am in a fortunate position where I have not had to find these resources for myself. But just because I don't need them doesn't mean I can't help support them. And obviously, we love you guys. You guys are friends. when Josh when you brought this up to the TPN and it was being discussed like we were on board we were gung-ho and we were vying for who got to help so George Fisher from Don't Panic Flip he is offering up his time and his equipment and whatever resources he has available for the stream itself for those of you who have not checked out his stream I am going to shamelessly plug it his His production quality is phenomenal. He is very good at this. He's fun. He's energetic. And he just brings so much to the table on that aspect.
    19:43
    I mean, everybody loves you guys. So when we started reaching out to individuals, you had already reached out to some. I reached out to some. And immediately, as soon as I said, hey, it's Josh from Loser Kid, everybody was like, yes, what can we do? Now, I will say you plugged a couple of people. I also got confirmation today that part of the swag is going to be donated by Flippin' Out, including the Creasel shirt with the little creasel on it that will be autographed by Dennis himself.
    20:17
    So I got confirmation from that. Today, we are working on more donations, auction items, more guests. It's going to be a blast. You guys, this is going to be so, so awesome. And I mean, I don't think it can be overstated enough. 100% of all monies raised goes back to this. It's nothing is coming to anybody else except for learning solutions to help out with other children. Yeah. And I actually invited a representative from learning solutions. They're going to be coming up to Chicago with us so that you can hand the money directly to them. I'm the kind of person that doesn't like to deal with the government if I don't have to. So like the less the less my hands touch money, the better, because then it just goes directly to them. And then if someone comes around, say, hey, you go talk to them. I didn't. You know, I just set it up. They took care of it. This is actually super easy, too, because so for the other thing I do, the the Guatemala trip, we actually had a fundraiser on Saturday and it was a charity golf tournament. And there were so many logistics about all of that going on, which was, you know, my wife's an accountant, so it was great for her to be involved. And there's a lot of challenges when you're doing fundraising and making sure that the accounting is transparent, making sure the money is going where it's supposed to and making sure that everyone is getting the things correctly. um i was again i'm ecstatic that this is about as as transparent as it possibly can be in that every every dime that goes in goes to them yes so we're i i'm i'm really excited i was actually i didn't know if i was going to make expo uh but when josh brought this up i was like yeah no i'm definitely there i'm there for you i'm there for your family and this is a charity that absolutely it means a lot to Josh and therefore it means a lot to me. I appreciate that very much. There's one other person we didn't mention that has actually been helping a lot to Tommy McNichols of Jedi McMuffin. It was funny. Cause like once we asked him to come on board, he was already spouting out like design layouts for the, for the stream and how we're going to do auctions and stuff like that. So Tommy's really been a help too.
    22:31
    And I'm excited. I'm, I can't wait to do this. Like I've been really nervous about it because like you don't know what you do until you get in the pool, right? Like you don't know exactly how it's all going to go. But once we flip on the lights and get going, I think all the nerves will go away. But until then, and if you do want to help out, you're more than welcome to reach out to us at loserkatepinballpodcasts at gmail.com. We are looking for people to help or to be interviewed, whatnot. There are some pretty awesome names of people that want to be interviewed, but I have sworn to secrecy before revealing them because I want – because October is so far away, they want to make sure that they can make it to Expo because they're not from Chicago. We'll put it that way. Did you get Robert Mueller to come on? Oh, you knew? We got him out of jail just to come out for this. Way to ruin the surprise, Scott. You're the worst. This is why I dropped Josh's name instead of yours when I was asking for people to donate stuff. Absolutely. Josh is actually a nicer guy than I am. Okay, Josh, I do want to talk about this, though. People, when you started putting out the puzzle pieces, so why puzzle pieces? What is that significant for autism? Tell me about that. That's what's funny is people took this as a literal puzzle, and the official logo symbol of autism is a puzzle piece. Four put together with the four different colors. If you notice, our logos are on top of them. It's truly about the puzzle pieces and the colors. It's all the autism spectrum together. And so it's funny because we've had a lot of people that have just been so focused on like, this puzzle makes no sense because it's not bringing in a bigger image. It's just a puzzle. No, it's because it's for autism. Look at the logo for autism. It makes a lot more sense. Yes. And then, of course, there were the conspiracies that TPN was going to finally absorb the Loser Kids into their empire of greatness.
    24:34
    Hey, you guys got Reby Hardy? You don't need me. Trust me on that. We have so much amazing talent. I love that group. And I'm just so glad that there can be the collaboration that there is between. And it's not just us. There are other large groups of content creators that are also assisting in this and providing information and just resources that we may not have had available or thought of. Pinball is a very small community and we band together. And the pinball companies are actually stepping up for this, too, which is it's great to say that, hey, you know, this this is exactly a way of giving back to the community. and what better way than a pinball company to be involved. So I'm really grateful for all the people at the companies that have stepped up too. What's made me chuckle too is like, when I first approached Learning Solutions about this, I was like, I want to do this for you guys. And at first they were hesitant because it's like, no one ever says they want to give us money. It's always, can you give us money? And I'm like, no, I want to be the other way around. I want to help you guys out. You've helped me. You're doing life changing things for my family. that I can I feel like I could never pay back like giving someone a life outside of like making their potential so much more because they're giving them the skills for the life that they need it's like invaluable it's priceless and so I'm like let me do this for you and it's funny because like I brought up pinball and all the stuff he's like yeah sure well it was funny because like we get like two three weeks into like I'm asking people and everyone's on board and I'm telling them all everything that's going on and uh Keith Meeks who is one of the owners of Learning Solutions is like, oh, I didn't realize there was such a community to this. He's like, I thought pinball was just something you guys collected from the 50s and the 60s, a ding, ding, flip, flip.
    26:25
    And he's like, it's just astounded them, the support that they've seen so far. And I'm excited to see how much more support we can get for them because we haven't even done the event yet and they're floored at what we've done for them so far. Okay. So I want people to put this on their calendar, what day is it, Josh? It's October 20th, so that's the Thursday of Expo. They always have the fly-in Wednesday and have a hot dog, and then Thursday is kind of like we're starting to ramp up, but it doesn't really open until 5. Well, we will be part of the vendor hall, and we will be going at 10 o'clock. As soon as they open the doors, 10 o'clock to 10 o'clock, we will be doing it the whole time until the security walks over and turns off the power button. Yes, and that's 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. Central Time. Correct. On the 20th. I stay up overnight for my job. I'm not going to stay up overnight for pinball.
    27:21
    This is why we don't like you. I know. It's true. I'm just a grumpy old man. It's okay. We'll forgive you this time. Thank you. Some of the stuff will only be available at Expo, so you'll need to be there if you want specific items. Some of it we have got agreement that they're going to ship out, so don't feel like you're missing out. if you're like Joel Ingerberth and he's like, well, I planned a vacation because it's my anniversary. Apparently my wife's cooler than the pinball. So, you know. We tried to solicit him to ditch his wife for this, but he kind of likes his wife. Something about remaining married, I think, is the reason behind that. I think so, too. He thought about that for a nanosecond before he said no. He's still feeling pretty bad about it, I think. I think they will be watching it on their honeymoon, Or their whatever, their anniversary. Their anniversary trip. Yeah. Probably. I know we initially were not planning on going to Expo.
    28:20
    I work for a major health care system in my area, and I work in the information services department, which means that I go in and test all of the equipment, make sure the computers are functional in all of our hospitals. We're opening a brand new hospital in October. so i unfortunately am gonna have to call in sick if that pto is not approved because i have something pretty awesome that i need to be doing on october 20th um i want to be there the cough track that you can say you know well i mean you're a doctor just write me a note that's true i yeah i absolutely will write you a note like she was playing pinball please excuse amanda from work she needed to do something important. She has pinball anitis and cannot come into work today. It's very contagious. She has pinitis. That sounds like it might itch.
    29:11
    Some of these comments, we've got to go through these really quick. You're bringing out a range of pinball podcast branded jigsaws. Yes.
    29:20
    Calling it, this is Chris Chandler, partners for the JJP launch. Sorry, Chris. That was a good one. Hey, we could consider it, but yeah. I guess it could still happen.
    29:33
    Collaborating with Bon Jovi for a new Mom Rock pin. Yeah. That would have been so cool. Okay. Bon Jovi is not just Mom Rock. Bon Jovi rocks, okay? One of them just put profit.
    29:47
    No, not like prophetic profit, like money profit. Oh, okay. I was like, religious? Yes, we're going to be the new prophets of pinball. Pinball profit. Oh, boy. That would be a great band name, Prophets of Pinball. So write that one down. Yeah, call the Aquabats.
    30:08
    Scott's relaunching Deep Root. Absolutely. He's got the hat on right now. I do have the hat. The hat that Amanda gave me, but she has been trying to steal it back ever since she gave me the hat. Well, I didn't know that all that power was going to go to your head. Now you just think that everything is easy. well what's funny too is like podcasting is easy i heard that oh yeah so the puzzle pieces started rolling out and what's funny because like drew from poor man's put their logo in one of the pieces and then i was like why not have them because the idea is we're gonna i don't want everyone to sacrifice just a full 12 hours to be on stream so we're going to kind of go through different hosts of different podcasts they're going to interview different people so that way you can still come to the expo enjoy your time do a little slice for autism and then go about the rest of your day and so i called up drew and i was like drew this is what we're doing and he's like if i'm there i'm on board he's like you pencil me in he's like i know it's five months away but let's let's see what we can do so it's funny because like drew just simply doing the puzzle piece of poor man's in there gave me an idea of like well i'll call him then so i i hope that Drew wears his shirt that says Tim Lee sucks at pinball.
    31:23
    Well, Tim Lee is going to be there wearing his Drew sucks at pinball shirt too. So I say we put them on a couch together and see how this plays out or get them like some of those giant inflatable boxing gloves, and we can turn this into a charity boxing match for autism. And I'm pretty sure Glenn has one that says I'm better than y'all.
    31:40
    Probably. It's on the bottom of his skateboard. Yes. so definitely if you can make it we would love to have you guys anybody who's interested definitely we'll get more information out but I'm really excited that we are doing this and I'm excited for everybody who has really rallied behind Josh and something that's near and dear to his heart and I don't know of anybody who doesn't like Josh I'm sure there is some person out there but I haven't met him yet so there's a couple I thought you took care of them already yeah he had them he had them silenced exactly right put them in facebook jail for the rest of their lives nice now this is this is going to be awesome um just i i'm so giddy knowing who we have commitments of showing up if they are going to be able to make it to expo and again I mean, nobody is guaranteeing anything anymore because of it. Yeah. And, you know, and now apparently like monkey pox. Yes. That was not on my bingo card. I'm so mad. But, you know, it's the people that have verbally committed this far out already. Just it gives me goosebumps thinking how much fun this is going to be. And you guys get to do like a live stream with your third co-host. yeah absolutely that's going to be fun thank you guys again for letting us borrow him for an episode he was a good time we let him out every once in a while custody battle gets a little ugly if you don't it does poor Keith it's going to be so awesome and I mean some of the items that have been committed for this these are literally one of a kind items that you're never going to see anywhere else unless somebody hacks it on eBay. There's going to be some really cool stuff. There's going to be some stuff that is not super expensive that you can purchase at the table we are working on.
    33:47
    So that we don't want people to feel like if they bid on it, they have to be able to afford only LEs. This is something we want to raise money for in as many ways as possible. We want people to have something to show for the fact that they did this um besides just pictures of the groups and it's it's just going to be so awesome i'm so excited i'm ready for october me too actually my wife is coming with me which is a big development so i'm pretty excited about that as well yes that is going to be so awesome so she's like a trip to chicago i guess if you're going to twist my arm. Yeah, it's October. Who doesn't want to go to Chicago in October? Exactly. I guess that pretty much wraps it up. You'll be hearing more from us. We're going to be pushing this pretty hard for the next couple months. Do come join us. We'll be happy to hang out with you and chit-chat and we'll have plenty of swag, it sounds like, too. We're working on that. And I'll even let people beat me at pinball if they want to come and donate. Yes. Well, speaking of Scott's attempts to buy pinball companies like Deep Root, I saw that you are posting stuff on their website now to bring back Deep Root from the dead. Okay, it has to be a joke, right? There's no chance this is legit. Well, considering Nap Arcade had posted that the crossword puzzle said pinball is easy in it. Right. It also said fire and brimstone. I looked at that earlier. It looked like a Zodiac killer thing.
    35:26
    It looked like a ransom note. So is Deep Root coming back? Or do you think they at least try to profit off of the... How many prototypes were there? What did they say, like three, four? Even if they finish the code on those... It's certainly rare. Okay, there would be a level of collectability because those old Magic Girls from Zidware are out there somewhere. Well, and there's those guys over in Europe that have finished the code for Magic Girl, too, to get them playing. Yeah, they'd actually have to change the layout, but sure.
    35:58
    But the, yeah, and so, like, hey, trust me, there are tons of people who are willing to buy this kind of stuff, but, man, I just cannot see it ever really doing anything. So you're not cashing in the 401k and buying out their company, huh? No I would buy a real company not a fake company Well, honestly, you don't have to cash out you wouldn't have to cash out your 401k for I mean, it was like pennies on the dollar wasn't it? Yeah, it's okay, no, I'm good It would just go to filthy lucre So you have no faith in this, Scott? No, I have zero faith No, absolutely do you think anybody in pinball would really want to when they were trying to sell them they barely had over 100 people who wanted to buy Raza and most of them were just like committed to dealers who were planning on reselling them so there's zero desire to resurrect this thing they had some hope when Jesus was there but when he disappeared oh Jesus where did Jesus go did anybody find that out I think Blueberry Johnson said that he went back to Robert Mueller's personal collection. He said that was a personal item. Oh, you mean the Jesus painting? The Jesus picture. Oh, yeah, the picture. Yeah, geez. Somebody needed to take the backing off of that and look for all the offshore account numbers. That all I saying Exactly Yeah exactly So Jesus was hiding it in the tomb sadly a yeah Knowing Mueller though that painting is that is a standard painting you can find in any Latter Saints church Yeah. Like building. I'm half wonder if he just stole it off the wall from church. He probably just took it after he stole the people's money from church. Yeah. This would be great in my office. Yeah. Next to the casting couch. Exactly. Jeez. God is watching over you. Yeah. When you got a second and third wife. So, yeah. So I'm saying it's it's a weird story. But, yeah, I again, move on. Move on. There's nothing more to see here, kids. It's like Austin Powers when that lady won't die. Yeah. Why won't you die? I just said it's like it's like this bad 80s like action film thing where the very end, the Terminator shows up again. Oh, I know we hit you with a nuclear bomb, but you're still alive. So at least he gave you the thumbs up as he was going down the law, the molten metal. Yeah.
    38:30
    Well, he even said he would be back. I mean, come on, you had morning. I'll be back. Yeah. Oh boy. But we haven't heard much from Mueller. So it kind of shocked us when he, when we did hear deep root was kind of coming back. So, yeah, I, yeah, Robert, I, well, I think, I think Robert right now is probably being told by his actual lawyer to shut up. Yeah. Oh my goodness. All right, let's move on to some... I'm excited for this. I don't know if you guys have been watching Facebook or whatnot. Are you reading into the Pokemon thing at all? You know, Gary Stern raising his hands up with a Pikachu and a Mew.
    39:06
    I know I'm going way too nerdy for you guys. Is this too much? Is this like... If they don't have a Charizard wizard mode, it doesn't need to be made. Exactly. I have no idea what you guys are talking about. I want to see Jigglypuff bouncing around during a multiball, too. I've never played Pokemon. That's fine. You only need to play the first one. Honestly, the first 151 of them are the most iconic. Okay.
    39:31
    Isn't it like Japanese dogfighting? Isn't that basically Pokemon? No. Not really, no. Don't you have some magical creature that you play cards and they fight each other? How amazing would that be if they got Ryan Reynolds to narrate the whole thing as Pikachu? Okay, yeah. Actually, I thought the movie was funny that way. And then every time you have a ball that gets locked, it goes into the Pokeball. Yes. Oh my goodness. This game literally writes itself. It does. And it does help that there was a Pokemon pinball game made at one point too. So, come on.
    40:09
    Where's our game at? I need this. You need a Pokemon. If Pokemon Go can make $5 billion in four years, I think that this can have a chance. I mean, seriously, come on now. Wasn't that people running around geocaching Pokemon, basically? They still are. Oh, they are? There was a big event this weekend. If you were in Chicago, I think that's where it was. I don't know. Did they have enough pretend Pokemons for everybody to catch? They're not pretend.
    40:42
    They're reeling your phone. Dang it. It's like Bitcoin. Pokemon's the new Bitcoin. It's like Raza, you know? Just because you don't have one doesn't mean it doesn't exist. That is true. But unlike Raza, you can actually take a picture of your Pokemon in the real world, and then it's like you're there with them. So, yeah.
    41:04
    But no, seriously, this is the number one grossing franchise of all time, $92 billion as of 2019. I think it's a safe bet. I could be wrong. maybe it's because it's hard when it's an eastern theme because i think when we think of western themes are just on max slam dunks right like even these these cult titles that people throw out like uh uh evil dead or big trouble little china i don't know what some of these other cult ones goonies 16 candles you know i'm saying like those don't hold a candle huh to to pokemon and how much money they've made so i bet you could at least make i don't know 500 of these with no problem i think the cool thing about the pokemon idea too though is scott you might be a little too old to remember pokemon cards yeah back in the day because like i was on the cusp of being a little too old for it but they had like magic the gathering cards but these are different yeah I wasn't smart enough.
    42:11
    Even though I'm an engineer, also, there's a level of complex nerdity that I could never understand. I just wasn't smart enough for that. Fun fact really quick before we transition back to Amanda. Wizards of the Coast that make Magic the Gathering cards actually did the first run of Pokemon cards. Oh, there you go.
    42:33
    Nice. Anyway, back to you. But no, I was going to say, you know, it's I think Pokemon has a really good chance of doing well, even more than 500 units, because our generation and I'm looking at Josh more than Scott. We had these growing up. We watched the shows growing up. And now our kids are in it again, like my daughter's eight and she has probably probably three or four hundred Pokemon cards. Like, I don't even I didn't even realize there were that many Pokemon now. my baby brother who's three years younger than me so I'm not telling you guys how old I am but just know that he's old enough to rent a car and then some he still has his Pokemon cards from when he was a kid and there's just this cult following people want these cards people watch the shows, they're doing the Pokemon Go it's bringing families together, it's getting people outside it'd be a great game and you're catching things in Pokeballs yes well you you would have to do the original 150 the first generation you would you would you couldn't do there is over 913 pokemon with a new game coming out with more pokemon being put into the thing there's no way you could include all 900 of them and no one's gonna know what the there there's a literal trash can with eyes and a mouth or a trash bag oscar the grouch no it's just a Pokemon is literally a trash bag with like, like trash flowing out of it for its arms and legs. So they've gotten desperate. Yeah. Well, and there's an ice cream cone too, with eyes and a face. So you see what I'm saying? Like the original iconic, we're kind of getting to a point of like, I don't think these are Pokemon anymore. I think you're grasping at straws.
    44:17
    They've genetically modified all of the critters known to man. We are now using inanimate objects. That's a chandelier. That is not my good sir. That is a Pokemon. Oh, okay.
    44:28
    Well, now they're just using whatever they're finding the Pokemon on on Pokemon Go. And they're like, oh, well, there's one over there on that water fountain. Well, now it's a Pokemon. Yeah. No, please stop. Do you really love Lamp? Are you just looking around the room and saying that you love Lamp? Exactly. I have a water bottle here for good. Oh, boy.
    44:51
    It'll get silly. All right. I don't know how we're going to transition from that to this, but we're going to anyway. Did you know John Norris is looking for work? He just recently posted. I saw that.
    45:04
    So, okay. So what do you think about that? Like, tell me some John Norris games. Have you seen this, Amanda? Have you seen the layout and everything? I have not. I have been MIA because of work. So when you sent notes and I saw that, I actually meant to look it up and it kind of shocked me a little bit. but okay. Hey, I just sent it over and, and Scott and I will talk about first and then you can kind of get a sneak peek. I think it's hard in this day and age to do a street level game. I'm just going to put that out there. Uh, it's TNA is the exception to the rule. Well, TNA and TNA and Beatles are probably out, outliers, but they're kind of a niche retro feel game. And TNA is, is really all about Scott Denise's soundtrack. Yeah, it's a fun game. It's a party game, but it really is about the soundtrack that draws you in. And the Beatles, that's a re-theme. And so they were able to modify it. And yes, even the Beatles is all about that street-level nostalgia. Do we really think there's much appetite for a street-level game? I don't. I don't. Because it costs roughly the same as a standard game. and i agree with you tna the soundtrack to a point because like play that game with the sound on and then play with it off it's weird it's we did that at expo because someone had the sound off to a tna and i don't know why but we're playing this and it's like this is this is weird it just doesn't feel right it's not as fun like this the the sound immersion is so intrinsic to that game so the other the other appeal of tna is is also like the stealing of the locks and uh there's kind of a brutality to that game that you can find in older games but it's like made specifically to uh to compete with other people for dollars or whatever so i think that's the appeal of tna i could be wrong i was gonna say i think part of the appeal with tna too is it's a game where you don't have to know the rules very much you prime the reactor you make the reactor critical you blow the reactor up. Literally, I just explained the rules to TNA too. Now go do it nine times. Yeah. You know, so it's got that unattainability, but Scott did such a good job. That's one of my favorite games. I love street level games. I'm going to put that out there. I love it, but would you buy that or a, you know, for $6,500, $7,000, would you buy that or a Stern Pro Godzilla?
    47:40
    Well, I mean, I don't need a Stern Pro Godzilla because I have an LE sitting in there. Ouch. Wow. Yeah. I mean, I have a TNA. Yeah. You know, let me just throw this one down there. No, but I mean, I have TNA. It's one of my favorite games. I would love a Beatles.
    47:54
    I do like that kind of single street level layout. I think it's kind of fun. It's challenging. It's different. It's neat what they can do with ramps. It's neat what they can do with bash toys and, you know, subways and whatnot. But the fact that you can put that much of a game in one one-dimensional area. Yeah. I think that's kind of neat to do it on the plane. Now, looking at this, do I think it would work? No, because it's a terrible layout that has way too much crap going on it.
    48:20
    Wow. Shots fired. Okay. Yeah. I don't think it's a terrible design. The problem is street level is hard at our day and age because we do expect ramps. We do expect the pizzazz and the rule set and whatnot. I think if you can do a street level game at a really competitive price, like a super competitive price it might have appeal but looking at this design i've kind of stared at it off and on again through the day it's not bad like i think it could be really fun but like i said i think the problem is is we've progressed to the point of can street level games that are brand new out of the box really compete with everything else that's out on the market.
    49:06
    Even for a startup company. Look at Pinball Mafia. They made the team Pinball that made Mafia. There we go.
    49:17
    Did they even sell 100? Did they even sell 20? I think they sold 10. I don't know if there's much competition or there's much demand for it. Like I said, with Beatles, it was Beatles. They didn't even sell the 1966. I think they finally did what four years later yeah it it was a slow burn absolutely so i well it shocked us when kim kamikawa came on our show and he's like were there still some available and and even people on the pinball community was like wait what i yeah i i bought one when when that came out i was like you know i really want one and so okay so when i'm looking at this game yes it feels very much like a 1977 era game like it's it's on that early solid state em transition it's it could be it's it's really hard because when you're looking at the layout you don't really know how it will play but i'm just wondering i think it would fit well in that era but i just don't know if it could commercially can compete when when you could buy a genie for two thousand dollars I find it interesting that a lot of the shots don't actually come back at the flippers. Everything has been actually shifted, so it shoots out to the edge of the pinball, like the outlanes. It's not outlanes because there's lots of capture. Okay, but that's kind of how those games were, though. You really had to nudge them to get it. You didn't really have much safe returns. You always had that risk of it going to the outlane. Yeah, but if I want that, I'm going to buy a board game, you know? But if you're looking at this, they're almost all safe returns, except for the far... Even the far left orbit comes and it goes by that power skip, and it aims towards... There's spots that catch it and kind of bring it back to your flippers. You see what I'm saying?
    51:07
    Now, this isn't John Norris' first game. So I actually had to look up John Norris because I wasn't as familiar with his work. However, I'm just going down the ones that I certainly have heard of. Bad Girls, Lights, Camera, Action, Cactus Jack, Surf and Safari, Super Mario Bros. Street Fighter 2, Gladiators. Arguably, those are all some of the best Gottlieb games made of the later era. Rescue 911, Freddy, Nightmare on Elm Street, Shack Attack, Big Hurt. Okay, you need to stop now. Well, no, and I don't want to be a downer here, but I would say that none of these are really... They're not grand slams. They're not great. They're not amazing games. And so I think it would be different if you had someone who had more success with selling games to be able to say, hey, I'm going to try this thing out that people should take a shot on. But all of those games, I mean, we've all played them. But I don't know of any of those that say, wow, I really want to have this in my home.
    52:22
    And so that's where I feel it's risky to take a risk for any pinball company out there to try to manufacture this. So I don't think it's going to happen. do you think that we've become overly spoiled in the past three or four years with just there's been a lot of games that have come out and there have been a lot of them that are very good yeah they're fun shooters they have great layouts there's toys there's gimmicks there's mechs there's sounds and lights and all of the you know we're just so involved in these games now I wonder if TNA would have sold all of its units if it came out today versus when Scott released it or Spooky released it after Scott designed it. Right. We're spoiled now. I think it still would have, but Tour de France is not going to have that same sort of auditory immersion that TNA had. Right. It could. this is just a design and he suggested what the theme should be what could you sure what could what theme could you possibly put like what music could you possibly put with this layout to say it's real relevant oh bon jovi but french yeah okay unless they get daft punk which are french to actually come back into a Champs-Élysées, the Tour de France soundtrack, then maybe. I don't see why not putting Daft Punk to this. I think a good music-based pin, and this claims it's very fast playing, I think you do some good techno music with fast playing. I don't know. I think you're good to go. Okay, but the Tour de France, okay, I'm just going off the theme. The whole reason why the Tour de France was a big thing in addition to Lance Armstrong, but it was a – you would put it on TV and you would see these amazing helicopter flybys all over France. I mean it felt like a travel video. You were just seeing all these breathtaking landscapes from France, but I don't know how that translates to this. Yeah, that's true. I don't know. Like I said, it's just the theme that he slapped on it. He claims there should be 19 modes in it. I think if a startup company bought this and rethemed it to something that's more contemporary, maybe it has a fighting chance. I just don't know. Maybe it's Deep Roots' comeback game. Maybe. Absolutely. So if you're looking for someone to hire, if you want to design, it's got low bomb. That's what it says. He's looking for a job, looking for something. So that would be something. So that low bomb thing gets me, though. Is it low bomb as in truly a low bomb, or is it going to be low bomb as in this is going to cost you what a Stern Pro costs three years ago? Right. Define low build of materials. Absolutely. Low bomb street level play field. It's very specific. I don't know. I wish him all the success in the world. This is not something that I'm interested in. I don't know. Josh, you interested? Amanda? you interested uh probably not no yeah like i said it's so hard to compete with what's out there right now i you know we always talk about pinball transitioned like in the late 70s or the 80s when it went solid state and then you transition again from the dmd from the late 80s to the early 90s and then you've got you know the newer stuff when stern happened in the 2000s i really feel like we've hit a transition and the rest of the industry is trying to catch up at this point I think for how much you can buy a street game for doesn compare to buying a new out You know what I'm saying? You can still get Stars. You can still get Meteor for under $2,000, depending if you have it shipped and whatnot. And if you want a new street-level, you can buy Beatles. Yeah. Or TNA, because Spooky's always threatened to remake those. But they're floating around, too. It's not super hard to get a hands on a TNA. You'd be surprised. When we got ours, we struggled to find one. We really did. Yep. I want to talk about definitely one more thing. Haggis, I'm excited for them. They've shipped a couple games now. Fathom's showing up. I know I've got plenty of friends that have gotten their Celts. They are loving them. I'm actually kind of jealous because our friend Stephen Strom, who lives down in Vegas now, got his Celts, and that thing looks super sweet. I want to go crash his house.
    57:12
    Steve may not let me in, but Doreen will. Yeah, exactly. I know there's some hesitation out there. People are kind of getting a little concerned about Haggis putting out product. I don't see a problem.
    57:25
    And comparing them to other startup companies, Deep Root never made a machine. So it's hard to compare when... Deep Root wasn't a real company. Okay. So let's just throw Deep Root out. the other companies that are actual real companies made an honest attempt. Yes. And with Haggis, they made kelts. And yes, this was a, a first, it was an excellent first run thing. And then they have the, uh, the fathom remake. I'm super excited to play the fathom remake. I want to put my hands on one. It looks great. Yeah. And, and fingers crossed if everything works out, hopefully we'll see them at expo. because I know we'll be there. Yes. Yeah. I mean, Damien's got an enthusiasm for this and I get, I get like he was very, very transparent at the beginning. How many times a week can you really come back on and say, hey, we're still facing the same problems everyone else is. People are still having a rough time getting cars. Like I talked to a guy two weeks ago that went to go get a truck and like, well, we don't have the chip to do like the adaptive cruise control. And he's like, I don't care. I just want my car. Well, we don't have this chip to do this. And he's like, I don't care. I just want my car. and so it it's not just pinball that's being affected we're still seeing this this problem of people not getting their product i mean that's part of why stern pushed back their cornerstone is it's just they've got parts in-house that they can finish these products and any well you're not going to ship something out that says hey we have 98 of your car we don't have the steering wheel but everything else is fine so just throw a vice grip on it's fine It'll be fine. Yeah, it's fine. It's fine. Because that went so well with Magic Girl.
    59:06
    Again, not real company. Not real company. But I guess if you compare it to Andrew Highway with Highway Pinball, Big Lebowski. It was a real company, but that was inept. Yeah, Big Lebowski, again, real company, but they were inept. So I don't see any of that with Haggis. It seems that they're going through a typical, standard, difficult time getting things out the door. But from what it seems like, then they really are making an attempt to make good on all their promises. Yeah, and they haven't failed. In my opinion, they haven't failed yet because they're still playing product out. Right. Exactly. And they actually have a legitimate, viable, improvable reason why they haven't had games ship out at the rate they would. And it's something that is affecting Stern, Jersey Jacks, Spooky. So, I mean, it's not like they're saying, oh, well, we were going to put it up, but the dog ate the cord. We got to reweave the power cord, and then we'll get it out. These are legit issues. Like, everybody's facing them right now. Well, and honestly, let's talk about this just for a split second. How many of the companies out there have actually produced a game during COVID time? So March 2020 to now, we got American that did Hot Wheels.
    60:22
    I mean, obviously, Stern. Stern put out a bunch. Stern is in their own category they really are how much are they backlogged right now I mean I've heard estimates upwards of 20,000 games which wouldn't surprise me really I don't know how true those are but that's huge JJP did Guns N' Roses was that before or after COVID that was in December of 19 that that came out was it not I mean American did do Legends of Valhalla but that's also another like that was already kind of pre-made like I don't know how much you attribute to that you had Halloween and Ultraman come out yeah so Spooky did their thing but even Spooky said they saw the writing on the wall and was already ordering parts for Halloween and Ultraman well in advance before they even started making them because they knew they were going to run into issues yeah and then I mean you have Multimorphic that had some games come out but But they're so dependent on all of those electronics, even more so than some of the other manufacturers. They did have a warehouse on them. We have a multimorphic P3 system that's on order that we ordered at Expo last year. We don't have it yet because they're facing the same issues that everybody else is.
    61:43
    So I have a hard time looking at Haggis and saying, well, they're not delivering on what they said they do when all the other companies are kind of having a hard time delivering as well. But they are delivering product. Yes. And that's the thing to remember. They are delivering product. I'm seeing some of the stuff that goes around and I just, I don't fully understand it. I don't know. Like was it Dennis and Zach that talked about toxic positivity on a pinball show like a few months back? And I'm like, I get like being too positive. That is a bad thing as well. But I, I'm being realistic. It's not a bad thing either. Like, yeah, taking the good with the bad. So I don't listen to their negative crap. so I know golly I listen to it on two times speed and so Dennis sounds like a chipmunk I'm surprised that's not in your contract like you're allowed to be with us but you have to listen to the pinball show they pipe it through my google play speakers um every night at very loud volumes I and if I fall asleep before the show's over somehow they fixed my lights to where they start blinking on and off I am literally one episode away from developing epilepsy see yep that's part of the indoctrination it is it is it's the tpn cult so so to wrap it up no toxic positivity or negativity we're all realistic here we're all good we don't get our own opinion we're in the media gosh dang it you're 100 middle of the road all the time okay i will say though I am positive that I got an awesome or at least I ordered an awesome Godzilla logo sign for a mod. The Tokyo Neon mod. The Tokyo Neon mod. And this thing looks crazy. Did you get this too Amanda?
    63:32
    My husband is getting one for Father's Day. Nice. And it may be Father's Day of next year depending on how long it takes. Right. Yeah. I was like well there's lots of options there. Could be for the next 10 years. That's fine. Happy anniversary, babe. We've been married 15. You get it for 20. It's funny because I was looking at this and I'm like, I don't want to spend money on this. And then it's funny because he's like, we're going to only do 250. I'm like, well, now that you've put a cap on it. Okay, well, okay, I'll do it. With how fast they were selling out, I was like, well, I better get in on this. Holy crap. It's funny that I went from like, I'm not spending money on this to like, oh, crap, I better not miss the boat on this. The FOMO is real. well my goodness yeah okay so i'm actually looking at the list and it says let's see 18 left before the run is capped and then there's 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 and there's loser kid right there yeah put me on the list at nine and it's like okay everybody above is in 10 spots left and then i'm the next one on there but it was funny because we were in a chat with triple drain joel and travis and tom i'm like no they're like are you gonna get this like no i just i can't justify it and then the next thing i know yeah and even tom said yeah i i'm getting it actually i i think i sent it to you guys because steve govea sent it to me he's like hey check this out i'm like that is pretty awesome and within and thank you steve because within like 30 seconds of you sending it to me I was on the list. Well, and he also said that he's going to try to start working on the signs in the back as well. The ones that tell you like bridges lit and start battle and stuff like that. So I'm like, well, if you're going to make it all matching, I better match you. Yeah. I better make it all matchy. So just think ladies and gentlemen, for the price of a mod, you can donate to learning solutions and make a difference in a child's life.
    65:26
    Hey, I'll, I'll be doing both. Okay. I'll be doing both. All right. Last topic. and then we're going to wrap this up.
    65:36
    Gomez came out and said he's doing... Oh, sorry. He did not say he was doing James Bond. I apologize. He said he's doing Steve Ritchie's design, which they scrapped Steve Ritchie's design, and he's doing it from the ground up. The rumor is... This is the rumor, people. I need quotes around rumor. You thieving, hungry people for rumors. Is that it's Bond?
    65:59
    Yes, no? Does that sound good to anyone? I know David Dennis is like, yes, give me Gomez, give me Bond. He's frothing at the mouth about this. I know. He sold a game like last year to get on the list. Okay. I'll be the first to say James Bond is one of those themes that can be problematic. Yeah. And I would say that I even said the same thing about Elvira when Elvira came out and I thought, ah, this is your, you are selling sex appeal in modern era. So is that, is that okay?
    66:37
    James Bond, there are certainly eras in James Bond, right? So the classic one is Sean Connery. And then you have the Roger Moore days. And then you have the two Timothy Dalton days and you have the Pierce Brosnan days. Pierce Brosnan. Yeah. yeah but those are so bad i see where awesome powers came from oh they made no i it's in actually golden i was okay but um and but then you basically jane uh jason bourne films came out and all of the daniel craig ones are basically jason bourne films but that was daniel craig was how james bond was in the books okay so i haven't read the books and so but the only way that they could possibly go with this theme is they could either go with the daniel craig version which is the current one that just wrapped up or you can go with the sean connery one i think that most people would prefer the classic sean connery one but with that you have some some very dated stereotypes, cultural stereotypes that are in there that would be challenging to implement because it is very much the male fantasy from the 1960s. And I think it would be challenging to be able to implement that with like threading that needle of walking that line of what's nostalgic versus what is inappropriate. I can kind of agree with that I think the safest bet just go with Daniel Craig and then you go to Jason Bourne well and from a female perspective on this if you do the Sean Connery version you are going from a stereotyped politically incorrect sex appeal murderer to the Daniel Craig version which is almost borderline sociopathic provocateur sex appeal murderer so which poison do you want and this is coming from somebody who loves James Bond I don't want to see it on a pinball game though but I mean I love Gomez games so at that point in time just have Keith bring Archer back look at what Keith did with Godzilla honestly those movies are what 75% dialogue and story and 25% fighting and that game is seriously all Godzilla fighting Okay, but yeah, Godzilla is the definition of a CD-list title that was elevated to A-list status by the designer. But my point being is you don't have to incorporate some of those stereotypes and stuff like that. You could still focus on the gadgets and the coolness and the gunfights. Which would be a lot more like Mandalorian, right, where you're building your armor, you're visiting Q and you have the watch. Yeah, you could definitely do it. The theme itself is not something I'm interested in, but I am interested to see what George Gomez is going to do with it. Yeah. And then the other question is, if you base it off of the Daniel Craig Bond, who is going to be M? Is it going to be Ralph Fiennes or is it going to be Dame Judi Dench? Ooh.
    70:02
    I'd have to go with Judi Dench on that one. I would love oh that would be a great could you imagine her telling you is that what you call pinball yes and do better bond yes but having Judy Dench do that yeah oh yeah no she'd be great and she she's one of that talk about stage presence she is one that could stare you down quickly yes time will tell it sounds like we are all in on an Elliot sounds like No, no, I would. I still wouldn't own it. And the other thing, too, is Daniel Craig has swore off ever playing James Bond again.
    70:40
    So he was salty in the last five years after the last one. Yeah. Well, I wasn't going to give away any spoilers. And he did. If you haven't seen the movie by now, he died. Yeah. But there was. Guess what? Darth Vader is Luke's father. Oh, did you know that winter already came and then it springs? Oh, my gosh. yeah wow yeah and the hobbits made it back to the shire just in case anybody missed that part yeah yeah but no it'll be interesting so it sounds like we have to see it first which this is a i i'm really interested to see it um i love what george gomez does because he has amazing yeah like deadpool is so much fun and and he did a great job with beetles too I know that there is, again, it's a different game, and I like it because it is different than the other ones.
    71:41
    But, yeah, it's certainly – I love what George does. Well, in the words of TPN correspondent Craig Bobby, we're just going to have to wait and see. Yeah. Well, if you want to go on the Pinball Profile tour – oh, wait. That's not our show. But if you do want to do that, go to Pinball Profile's Facebook page. go join teal us at a tournament and and tell him the loser kids told you to go and then he will harass you for it so uh amanda tell us more about your show before i say something more stupid stuff i don't know if i can top that right there um no come check us out we're on the pinball network free play pinball podcast you can reach out to us we have a baseball face oh my face page a baseball page. Apparently. Yes. No, we have a Facebook page, free play pinball podcast. We would love for you to join our shenanigans or you can email us at free play pinball podcast at gmail.com and check out some of the other awesome content creators on the pinball network, streamers, podcasters, whatever you're into. We can do it as long as it involves pinball. You want it. They got it. That should be your slogan. No joke. World domination. Yes. If you want to get ahold of us, We are Loser Kid Pinball Podcast. We are at gmail.com. If you type that in, Loser Kid Pinball Podcast at gmail.com. You can get us an email if you'd like to. People are still asking about the hats. We're still working on them. Sorry. We are affected by COVID as well, apparently. I did not know this was a thing, but I have learned in the last couple of months that, yes, it is hard to get a hold of hats for some odd reason. Besides that, if you want to get a hold of us on the socials, there is Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Twitch, all at Loser Kid Pinball. but I do appreciate like I said Amanda thank you so much for coming on you don't know how much I appreciate you and your husband and for all the help that you all the calls that you we went on and you helped me work through some of the stuff already for flipping the script I'm excited I can't wait for these shenanigans to ensue at Expo I am just an honor it's an honor to be a part of it you know you guys are great friends and anything we can do to help out. So I'm stoked. I cannot wait until we get to hang out again in October to do something like this. It's going to be so cool.
    74:01
    And then Scott? Oh yeah. No, I'm sorry. I was... He's asleep. I was looking at the thread and I was trying to find the follow-up that said the back signs were getting made too, but yeah.
    74:15
    I'm looking forward to hanging out at Pinball Expo and we'll see everybody soon. Why would you not want to miss this tangential chaos with us? Yeah. This is like a bottle of vodka with a stick pulled off. We're just going in frantic energy with no sense of direction. It's fine. We'll figure it out. I guess we'll see you in two weeks. See ya. Bye.
    74:49
    We'll cut that part out.