All get around, he's on the rebound, hear the sound of our buddy, oh lordy, it's Orby, pinball now to rejoice, he's tugging pinball, craft beer and coffee, miffed with syrup and honey, hopes to laugh with his family in a random tangent, stories of his boys, he's on the poor man's pod network, We're going to get more listeners for the Pinball Nerds Podcast. Coming to you from beautiful River Hibbert, Nova Scotia. Welcome back, Pinball Nerds, to episode 624 of your fifth favorite pinball podcast. My name's Orbital Albert, and on today's episode, we're going to be talking about, first and foremost, did Stern manage to scoop Jersey Jack's masterpiece Harry Potter on the same week Harry Potter was released did Stern say sorry JJP here hold my beer maybe a little perhaps we're going to get into it we're going to be talking about a video from Linus Tech Tips on his second channel that's currently sitting at 270,000, really close to 270,000 views before I hit the record button. And this video came from what I understand was an appearance, it seems to be, if you look at the background, like on Jimmy Fallon. Now, I went and watched Linus Tech Tips. I had already seen, the funny part is I already follow Linus, so I had already seen when he was on Jimmy Fallon, or was it Jimmy Kimmel? No, I think it was Jimmy Fallon. Bad Bunny was on with him. And he shows this really cool laptop that the laptop extends lengthwise to make the screen much, much, much bigger. And it looks really cool. It's like a new product that he just saw at CES. Of course, pinball related. Now, my guess is either there's some extended version or something else he said at some other point that got clipped, maybe from his own social media or something and was sent to Stern because how he starts his video is by saying, wow, ask for it and you shall receive, right? Like he's saying like on a talk show, if you even just mention the word pinball, Stern pinball will send you a free pin. I don't think it's quite that easy. Who knows behind the scenes? He is a very smart YouTuber who likes to, you know, help create suspense. I won't say drama. Oh, by the way, I am now feeling drama free. You all know, well most of you that have managed like Franchi to endure 600 episodes of my blog. I've been drama free since episode 493 until episode 620.5. And just this morning, it hit a new milestone for the number of people who listened to it. So obviously more than enough people had listened to it. If they wanted to listen to it, they could listen to it. But I turned it off. I deleted it. Um, whether or not the two other podcasters that did the hit piece on me decide to, um, delete theirs is completely up to them because I think it is very fitting. And actually, uh, I actually think it makes them look more bad or shows their true colors, I suppose, as opposed to really saying anything about me we didn't already know. Of course, to be fair, I didn't take a Hippocratic oath to make sure that I try to protect physical and mental health and then do a hit piece on mental health. But, you know, that's neither here nor there. So I want to just, we've put it to bed. I want to move forward. I want to go back to just being a positive Pete, okay? I don't want to be a negative Nancy. I don't want to be a Debbie Downer. And I definitely don't want to be a Debbie Drama, okay? And you really, really don't want to be Debbie Does Dallas. So those are like the three Debbies that I'm not into. Even those little Debbie cakes or those little Debbie cookies, they're like super mid. They're priced like the same as like a really good chocolate chip cookie, but they just taste like, I don't know, artificial softness, I don't know what. They're not good. Little Debbie's bad. Debbie does, Dallas is, well, was bad 30 years ago the last time I saw it. Probably still is. And, you know, also Debbie Downers are bad. So speaking of Debbie Downers, recently, even though I would say in the last couple months, you know, you could argue that there's a couple of candidates in Bimbo Podcasting who could carry that torch. And I'm one of them sometimes. I definitely am. Not recently. My last five or six episodes have been, well, at least four episodes have been a beacon of shining freaking light. But Kaneda recently went on, you know, he went and played it. And I am telling you, I will bet $100 on it. Kaneda, take my bet. You're always betting everybody else. Take my bet. I bet $100 Kaneda buys Harry Potter. Maybe not in the next month. Maybe not the next six months. But within the next year, I bet you that this man will buy a Harry Potter. Okay? So, I don't know if Kaneda will take the bet. I'm considering messaging him personally on it. But, you know, I've thrown it out here. I don't think he listens anymore. He listened up to it about a year ago where I would still get notes or comments if he didn't like something. I think for the better part, I haven't been listening to his shows for about the last month. I think my subscription expired on the 15th of last month. I do listen to the first five minutes, though. I do like that you get the first five minutes free. Usually in the first five minutes, you kind of get a vibe of the direction he's going. But I watch Kaneda, and again, I want to say we're friendly. I'm not going to say we're friends. I do have his cell phone number. I don't text him because, unfortunately, I don't have a cell phone plan right now. I got rid of my cell phone plan on Christmas Eve of last year. I'm trying to make it six months. I have nine days, no, ten days left, guys. I've been looking at phones. I've been figuring out what plan I want to get. I have a 7 or 8 year well I guess it wouldn't be 7 years old it was probably made 7 years ago but I have an A20 which is like the lowest entry level Samsung from like 2020 so it's getting on to be a 6 or 7 year old phone and I'm finally going to treat myself and get like $150 on locked Samsung from 4 or 5 years ago probably get like, I'm not going to be able to afford an S model for God's sake but one or two models up, better camera and most importantly for you nerds a better microphone, hopefully has some wind resistance, so I can do better live streams, so I can do better tours. And thank you again to the person who gave me all that money towards the microphone. That money is about a quarter of the money that I need from what my boy, Glenn the Skateboarder, has told me what I'm going to need to make this successfully happen. So I'm still working on it, and that is the main reason why I did ask if anyone wanted to donate when I had that rough week last week. I got zero donations from that, ironically, which was so funny because I got multiple donations a week before that. But this is the way it is. I remember the one year I was going to Ribfest and I invited a whole bunch of people to my birthday party at Ribfest in London, Ontario. And the one joke, oh, Kaneda is now live. Wow. We could tune in right now. Live. The one joke that I made was if anyone wanted to, please don't bring me a present, but if you want to buy me a beer for my birthday, you could. Let's listen to Kaneda right now. Oh no, my microphone's not turned on. Here we are. It's not about being a negative Nancy. He can hear me. Okay, sorry, Kaneda. I've got to mute you, buddy. I've got to mute you. I don't know. I'm the only dude saying this stuff. You're not the only dude saying this stuff, Kaneda. You're maybe the only one saying it that way. Anyways, we only tuned in for about 15 seconds there, and he said, you've got to grow up. You've got to get more mature. He can't stand the topper. I am willing to agree neither of those toppers are super rad. But you know what Drop Target Danielle, one of the most positive pollies that I've ever met, said to me the minute I showed her that topper and said I'm not really digging the topper? You know what she said to me? she said, Albert, all you do is you sell that topper or put it somewhere else or whatever, and you buy a Lego Hogwarts for like 140 bucks. You build it yourself. It looks twice as cool. It's definitely on par. And then you can fill the whole thing with your favorite Hogwarts, like little mini figs, right? Lego mini figs. How has there never been a Lego pinball machine? It's wild. Okay. Going back to Kaneda, which he just popped in my stream. I didn't mean to go to him. But the thing that he said is that like, I could see his face light up and I could see him smiling. He looked like a kid. Go over to Kaneda's Pinball Podcast. You don't have to like. You don't have to subscribe, but watch just the first few minutes. Now, to the person that was videotaping, dear Lord, stop staring at Kaneda. It felt like he was in love with this guy or something, or he's just like his best buddy, but he wasn't showing the pinball machine. Sure, we don't mind seeing Kaneda's reaction, but I would much have preferred to be watching the play field. Come on. So anyways, but one thing I noticed is I've never seen him be this happy. I believe he live streamed the first time he played GNR at Automated, I believe, and I don't remember seeing him that happy, but no other pin, I've seen him do live streams at Jack Bar, his house, everywhere else, like, I've seen him do lives, I've never seen his face, his smile, his eyes were telling, this man was like, this, I mean, you couldn't be more excited if you gave this guy a Gucci spending spree, okay, like, he honestly was super stoked, and I could tell how much he loved the pin, and now I could see the ball rolling, but what can I complain about now? If I'm known for being the person who's always super critical on pinball machines, what is it I'm going to complain about? Well, he already admitted, even though his first impressions were completely wrong when he said it wasn't rad, he already admitted that the CE artwork is absolutely gorgeous. He's attempting to say now that because it doesn't have a glossy cab that he doesn't love it, but it's not supposed to have a glossy cab. You know why? Because it's embossed, which means that it raises up and it has this special look and texture and feel. And the texture and feel that's raised up is why it looks cool when you're moving and seeing it from different angles, right? And we've seen that already on the videos. In real life, it's probably even more beautiful. But again, don't listen to Kaneda. Don't listen to me. Play before you pay. This is the way. And when you're playing it, use your good old eyeballs, your spectacles, okay? Don't want to make a spectacle of myself. But I'm telling you, I think this thing is prettier in real life. than it is on the cab, because that's what we're hearing from everybody else, but one particular negative Nancy in the pinball. Chris, if you don't want to be called a negative Nancy, you cannot berate and belittle and make fun of the machine that he's already admitted has the most mechs since was, the machine that he's already admitted shoots like a dream. That's the first thing he said when he finished. Wow, that shoots beautifully. So it's a machine that has the most flow of any Jersey Jack ever, other than maybe Elton John, but certainly the most of any of Eric Meunier's. And then over and above that, it has really good stop and go to build the story and to let the code come through and for you to hear and see the unmuted clips that come through at those moments. And then on top of that, they actually have a lower end version. If you didn't read the books and you only love the movies and you don't understand why there's a phoenix rising up, if you don't understand all the artwork on the books and it's not for you and you want something that looks much more like a movie poster. Although Retro Ralph just yesterday, to follow up his incredible featurette, he put up some more B-roll, I would call it B-roll, but it was beautiful B-roll, it should have been A-roll maybe, of the Wizard Edition, and it too was gorgeous. And I may have been too quick to judge the artwork, because when they showed the hand drawing of Snape, like how good it looked, and many of the other characters, once you're seeing it up close like that, not far away in a video, once you're seeing go watch retro yeah retro ralph thank you thank you thank you i'm so glad he came to pinball i've been his biggest fan since day one except for he recently did something i'm not happy about i'm going to talk about in a second but let's just put a bow on the canada thing he was saying that the code is what let him down the code isn't fun well first of all code can be fixed shots can't be artwork can't really be without paying extra for a third party so if we already know the shots are incredible of course the code's a bit early every great pinball machine someone said the code's too early think about it Deadpool code was too early Ghostbusters code was too early right uh X-Men code is too early but still is too early but they're getting to it and I believe they will and I really think there's a zero percent chance with how passionate Eric Meunier is about this code that they're going to leave you hanging I don't even think there's anything wrong with the code as it is obviously I don't necessarily think the coding is done as well as the top coders on planet earth which are mostly all over there at stern let's be honest but I think that Joe Katzen team did a very good job and I'm extremely confident that Eric Meunier would have been part of that process so even if the code is let's let's just argue let's be devil's advocate Canada's advocate here for a sec let's just say that the code is the worst part about the game, which it very might well be. It can be fixed. It can be worked on. It can get better. I already think the code is like a B or a B plus. Could they get it to an A minus? Maybe. Could they ever get it to an A plus plus? Is it ever going to have like as good of code say as Jurassic Park or Godzilla? Probably not. Probably not. But look at Kong. Kong's not there and they're still working on the Kong code, right? So I think it can get there. But let's go back to Jeremy, Jeremy, Jamie Burchill, that son of a gun, I'm going to talk about this more at the end, but he mentioned me, now I was originally, originally, I was so happy, and I don't want to call anymore, you know, I've been drama free since episode 493, except till 620.5, but that's deleted, so I don't want to pull out the drama here, but I love Jamie, he interviewed me on the wormhole, you know, I'm totally down with Retro Ralph, I'm so glad to see him in Pinball, I'm sure that Zach many with flipping out and straight down the middle is so freaking busy he can't be running around doing every featurette plus being one of the largest distros out there right so I'm assuming because Retro Ralph already has a partnership with flipping out pinball that probably most likely everything there was okay and their buds and I'm sure Zach just didn't have enough time and he also knew Retro Ralph comes from a long history of doing this and so I think everything there was Copacetic But the third person on you know of course Triple drain is obviously my favorite three member pinball podcast but they so rarely record nowadays tom is so busy with Fox Cities Pinball travis murray is really busy with the pinball company and joel he's hella busy doing the wednesday nights which i watched last night which was incredible and we will talk about that in a second but on the show right at the end you might have missed it that the tribal round table I believe it's over on the JBS YouTube channel, okay? Make sure you follow their social medias. You'll see exactly where it is. I mean, if you're here listening to this, you're such a pinball nerd that you probably already have them on every other possible platform. But I love you, Jamie. But he called me out, like, by name. And he said something. And it's really irritating. And I don't want to get angry. I don't want to be like Jamie, hashtag dead to me. And I don't think I have to. But I don't want to, so I've got to give Jamie a little warning. Now, also got to throw into the mix here, Retro Ralph and one of my favorite pinball podcasters, probably to come out of the last two or three years, if not my favorite, Kale Hernandez from The Electric Bat. One half of The Electric Bat. So I was going to make a joke there about the good half or the bad half or something, but I decided against it. That's the new Orbi. I follow the Josh Mudd prescription of 1% better per day, and I could be 1% better than yesterday. so when I talk about this highly contentious issue with Jamie Birchall and I have to call him out at the end of the show and I damn well will you better be willing and you better be ready to understand I'm going to use soft hands here I'm going to try not to swear I know that I have some younger listeners okay but man I'm fired up but I will talk about that later I'll talk about that later so this week we were talking about Linus tip tip Linus tech tips maybe you could say that five times fast Linus Tech Tips Linus Tech Tips I don't know but Linus did it he did what none of us in the pinball community can do lay out a video get a quarter million views in a couple days nobody else in the pinball space I love you Jack Danger slow mo guys slow mo guys did it but they're not from pinball and so we need more of that we need more of and I shouted this out during Slow Mo Guys, I think I did a whole podcast where it was like top five pinfluencers or top five YouTube people that are kind of into pinball that you should try to get this into their hands. I would suggest that getting Linus, this D&D machine, seeing him unwrap it, now watching him and his buddy play it, they're absolute amateurs and that's okay. That's actually better for other people to watch. They were playing, their average ball times were like 26 seconds. Okay? And just wait until they play Harry Potter. Oh, my God. Jared, I felt so bad for Jared last night in the Flip It Out stream. His first two or three games were done faster than I drink a craft beer on a hot afternoon. Okay? They were gone, like, done like dinner, done like games done quick. Okay? They were busy as a beaver. And so the starkly odd part is Joel was having, like, the best games of his life. Like, Joel played, like, a 30-minute game or something or a 20-minute game. and then I felt so bad for Jerry. Anyways, assume that Harry Potter is going to be one of the more difficult games, which is good because the biggest criticism of JJP from a lot of tournament players is the fact that it's a long-planned game. And this exact criticism, I understand most people don't want me talking about tournaments, so close your ears, fast forward a minute if you're one of these people, but it is relevant to this conversation. We talked about it a little bit yesterday with the game changer feature, but if tons of pinball arcades that do also have tournaments don't want to get a JJP because of the long playing times. Like a short game on GNR is like 45 minutes for even a mid player at best. Maybe 35 minutes if they move the post. Okay. So if all these arcades don't want Jersey Jacks for the three reasons, A, the starting cost is more, B, the games play too freaking long, and C, they haven't been typically as reliable. because of all those reasons, they take longer to pay off. Now you've got Harry Potter, which is by far the best license we've ever seen in pinball in a very long time. So they've got that going for them. Then they brought it down to under $10,000. It's so important. And then above that, now if you're in arcade, you want this Jersey Jack because that's going to bring in new players. And that's something people forget. A lot of people keep saying in pinball, and I have to totally disagree with them, no one's going to buy a $10,000 pinball machine. Look at me. I was flat freaking broke. I think the same week I started playing pinball, I had to take like half of my records and sell them to get gas money to make sure I could pay for my car insurance. Like literally the same week that I got into pinball. And from there, I've gone out and spent probably 50K on buying 15 machines over however long. Maybe not quite that much, 40K, whatever. But so just like how I slowly got into it and as I slowly had a little bit extra money and finances were a little bit more stable and I wasn't maxed out on all my credit cards. And as I got older, and I'm not very mature for a 45-year-old or soon to be 45-year-old, but for like a 20-year-old, I'm pretty mature. You know what I'm saying? Maybe not. Not in comparison to my 20-year-old because he's like super mature. But that's just me humble bragging. Let's get back to where we were coming from here originally. I don't necessarily think that Stern did this on purpose. at the exact same time that Jersey Jack's Harry Potter was going to be released, but if they did do it the exact same week, that's genius. That's like not just hold my beer. That's like hold my two-four, brah. That's like a real, real, real thing, okay? So could I tell you either way if they purposely did this? No, but if they did do it on purpose to make sure it got there the same week as Harry Potter, genius. Maybe they talked with him about it. even if they didn't talk with him about it, it's still an extremely smart, and I'm the first person to say hashtag marketing fail. When a company flubs as bad as Predator with A, thinking they can put out Predator without Arnold, that's the first delusion. It's completely unreasonable for you to think that you can sell Predator, like not even American pinball would think they could sell Predator without Arnold. Really, I'm serious. Galactic Tank Force has a better chance of being a cool theme with definitely, we know, way better art. Anyone who doesn't think Galactic Tank Force doesn't have way better art than Predator is, you know, put down the brownies and stop listening to Insane Clown Posse. That's what I'm saying. Gosh darn it. You know what? I believe that is probably my wife because it's 1109 and I should have told her I was recording and hopefully she doesn't dox me on the answering machine. I love you, honey. I'm in love with you. I will call you back soon. Actually, I didn't know this pod would quite go this long either. So maybe I'm just going to sum up this thing by saying, are you listening? This is to Jersey Jack. This is to Spooky. Oh, that's my wife. Okay, this is to Jersey Jack. This is to Spooky. Stern, you're already doing it, but keep it up. Don't stop now. This is to all the other pinball companies out there. For the value of lending someone, I don't think they just gave Linus that $10,000 pin. maybe they did, maybe they didn't, but for the value of lending a pinball machine to a large creator, like you should be, if I was hired by Jersey Jack Marketing Department, or I was hired by Stern, my only job, my only job would be to reach out and contact through Twitter, through Instagram, through X, through Facebook, through YouTube, through Twitch, through any measure possible, through emails, obviously going through managers works well. My only job would be to contact really big personalities in the industry. Maybe not Jeffree Star, because there's been some issues there, but like, you know, that was helpful for a while. But reach out to some really big people and every single, you know, let's even say one in 10,000 of those people, they're not going to go out and just buy a D&D. So that's not 25 people, but that is first of all I think within a month it'll get to half a milli maybe even three quarters of a million and over time hopefully a million okay but let's just say it stops at 300,000 that means 30 people out there one in 10,000 people watching that will seek out pinball they will go to pinball map they will go to ifba and find a tournament they will just they'll they'll they'll remember oh yeah last time I was at Chuck E Cheese do they still have those I hope they do it's like my favorite spot. But next time you're at a family entertainment center of any type, Dave and Buster's, whatever, and they see a pinball machine, after watching that video with Linus Tech Tips, they're going to go, oh snap, I got to go try that. And if even half those people become hardcore pinball nerds, they will eventually start buying pinball machines. It doesn't matter if their first pinball machine is an entry-level pinball machine, like a $200 or $300 EM. It doesn't matter if it's a $1,500 to $2,000, even maybe $5,000 solid state if it's a popular one, and it doesn't matter if it's a $5,000 Costco pin. But every single person listening to this podcast right now got influenced to get into pinball somewhere, sometime, somehow, and you probably don't even remember when. You probably don't remember the first time you walked by a pinball machine. You probably don't remember the first game you played or where. Maybe you do. but what you will remember is how important it is to your life how much you love if you're like me I like talking about pinball this is fun this is fine this is great this is it gets a load off my chest okay but actually playing pinball that's like next level to me for some people next level for them is fixing pinball other people next level for them is buying and flipping it other people next level for them is just talking about the marketing and the advertising 100% of their shows other people next level for them is just being part of the community and listening to all the pinball podcasts uh for glenn the skateboarder a big part of the the community for him is making music and just reaching out and talking to all the pinball podcasters being part of the community and speaking of i should bring up glenn's i should have grabbed a drink here i'm so silly it's a hot day here oh and by the way thank you to all the pinball podcasters including Josh and Scott, who put out content yesterday. Well, I was cutting the lawn. That made it much, much, much easier. And I haven't got the opportunity. I know Gonzo and Enzo. Are they the same? No, they're slightly different. There's a whole bunch of people that have interviewed Eric Meunier, and I have not. I have been busy enough. I have not listened to all of them. But I believe I'm 95 or almost all the way done. Shout out to Josh and Scott from Loser Kid. Go listen to that one. That one is, I mean, I don't want to say it's my favorite, but, you know, I listened to it and they did a great job. So shout out to them. And I will go listen to the other ones. It will get there. But I find Josh and Scott always have good sound volume, unlike my show. Probably better than a $50 mic, I would assume, over there. And more importantly, they really do ask very good questions, including the hard questions. Now, they asked a couple of the hard questions to Eric, like, how long will the window be open? But Eric did a very good job avoiding the question, not answering it. Now, I did like Eric's answer. It is the smart answer. It is the correct answer to say from a company standpoint. He said, I want everyone who wants this to be able to buy it at 15 grand. I don't want anyone to have to pay a penny more. Where Eric is, where, and I believe Eric knows this. He's just kind of selling this point to us. I don't think he's even being disingenuous. As a salesperson, you always talk about the good parts of your thing and the bad. If I was trying to sell you coffee, I'd say, oh, it's organic. Oh, it's, you know, you're helping a small family company. It's roasted in Nova Scotia. We have rad artwork. I would say it's free trade. Oh my God, screw you pop-ups. I would say it's organic. But what I wouldn't tell you is, oh, it's so cheap per cup because it's not. And what I wouldn't tell you is it's kind of expensive because all things organic are more expensive. All things made by a small family company are more expensive than Folgers or one of the big companies, right? They just are. So, I won't say it was disingenuous. I love Eric, and I like being on the good side of JJP for the most part. I've already told you I think the Hot Rails are a bit too bright, even though when Kaneda was playing it, he said they weren't too bright, and they seemed to be fine. I mean, they seemed to light up the whole room, but he was in a black room. When some other people are watching... See, there you go, Freudian slip. When some other people are watching it, the bright lights really wash out everything else. In real life, they may or may not look like that. But put it this way, instead of hearing blinded by Dwight, people are going to start hearing like blinded by Potter. Wait, Dwight? Let's see. Blinded by Dobby. There you go. That's better. Frickin' Dobby. Everyone loves him until he makes you blind. Now, I asked in my bathtub episode, going back a few episodes, I asked a specific question. And that specific question was, what is the perfect number of JJP pins you'd like to see sold and made for Harry Potter? And Glenn wrote me a very funny email, so thank you for Glenn for doing that. But he says, dearest Naked Albert, I think JJP will make... How do you know I was naked? I may or may not have been wearing my brand new swimming trunks. You don't know for sure. I like to keep people guessing. I think JJP will make this many of each Harry Potter machine shooting from the hip here. So play over under with my numbers. All right. So 1,500 arcade models, 3,000 wizard editions, and 4,000 collector editions. Now get out of the tub, you wrinkled prune. Glenn, thank you so much for that. have they stated how many of each they're going to do? I don't know if they have. I don't think they have. I think we'd like to know. But if they've stated 1,500 and 3,000, 1,500 I think is going to be really, really, really low. If that's the arcade version, that's the $9,900 one. To the best of my knowledge, I would guess that number needs to be closer to 4,000. The Wizard editions, I would assume that's going to be closer to 1,500. the CEs I would have to guess because they 15k and because they said they going to be ultra rare they wouldn be past 1 or 2 Now Glenn has 4 here Now unless I way off base 4 to me doesn seem ultra rare but Glenn hasn't said it's ultra rare. He's just saying he thinks that's how many they'll sell. I would have to guess you're going to switch all of these, basically. So bump up 1,500 to the amount of what I think CEs will be made, and I think if they do even one over 1,500 or 2,000, there's no way they can call it ultra rare. then I think they'll do about 1500 Wizard editions and I hope to god they do 4, 5, 6, 8 10,000 if you're an arcade owner you need Harry Potter again unless you're at like an LGBTQ place that's going to offend most of your clients or something I totally get it but I'm saying everybody else if you're if you wouldn't be offended by playing a Harry Potter movie at your establishment or interviewing anyone other than JK Rowling because remember thousands and thousands of people have worked on these movies not even hundreds thousands we're doing a discredit to them just because she came out with a view that most people don't like which I personally don't agree with either and I don't agree with everything else she's doing however I think if you look at any great movie any great band any great and any anyone who's done anything incredible there's someone on their team who's not awesome there just is And she's extra not awesome. I get that. And I'm not saying what she's doing is right. I don't commend it. I'm not going to start doing it myself. I'll tell you that. But at the same time, I do have friends and family members who are, I would say, the correct term is skittish or like, you know, unfortunately uneducated about trans and trans people. Do you think I'm going to disavow them? Do you think, I don't want to out my dad, but do you think I'm going to call my dad or my stepdad and be like, hey, I know you were raised in a Christian household and this is still a bit weird and new to you. and I know it kind of makes you like, it's different for you. Am I going to be like, oh, I'm not going to call you this weekend and say happy Father's Day because I don't agree with your view. No. I still love my dad. I still love my stepdad. I disagree especially with my stepdad on even a larger range of issues. And then with my regular dad because he considers himself a preacher. He gets up behind the pulpit at the Salvation Army Church when the minister's not there. He's not a minister. He's very clear to say he's a preacher. Some people call him a pastor. but he volunteers for the Salvation Army Church. He also does their lawn, which he gets paid for. That's not a volunteer thing. He also is their custodian. He washes their floors. My dad, the most godly man in London, Ontario, his son is an atheist slash devil worshiper. No, I'm just kidding. I don't worship anyone other than my wife. Come on. Maybe my kids once in a while, and myself. Myself, after I lose another 30 or 40 pounds, I get browned up and chiseled. I cut back on my cheeseburgers and my craft beer, hopefully by the end of the summer and by the way I want to make a big announcement I am coming back halfway through the summer for my birthday I'm coming back between July 23rd and my birthday July 30th or even the 31st or 37th there is no 32nd but August 1st so if you live in around London Toronto Kitchener Waterloo you want to try to hang out I'd like to try to make it to Maple for one pinball tournament on a Friday or a Saturday. Don't know if that will happen. I'd like to try to make it actually on the same Friday. The Barenaked Ladies, I believe, are playing in Mississauga. I'd love to go to that. It's Ben. Sorry, I had to cough first before I did that. Just in case Ed's listening, I don't want him to think like, no, I can do better, Ed. I can do better. Hold on. It's Ben. No, that wasn't good. That isn't good. Where's Ryan Say? I need Ryan say back in my life. Wait, he is back with the final round. All right. So Glenn, thank you so much for writing me. So far, no one else has emailed me or written me, but I think that we can all agree we'd like to know how long they're going to be. Eric, if you even said, hey, if by the end of the year we're not getting many orders, we'll close it up and we'll tell you guys the numbers. As long as you're going to tell us the numbers at some point, and I just think it's, They don't know at this point if the collector's edition... I mean, if what Glenn is saying is even close to true, 1,500 arcade, 3,000 wizard, and 4,000 collector's editions, how could you say that the collector's edition, which always a collector's edition of anything, will always be the rarest edition of it, especially if you're calling it ultra rare, how could they even call that the collector's edition? You know, I think that the short-sightedness of what Eric was saying, it is good on one side that no one has to overpay. But if you leave the banks open for too long and instead of, if Glenn's right and they make $4,000, then the future market of these machines will be forever low. If you, who have been holding diamond hands at JJP for the last decade, want to keep your prices high and want to keep future prices high and you want to sell more of your back catalog, then give people the confidence, the consumer confidence, that your pinball machine is going to hold its value in the future. And the way that you do that is by specifically closing it down when there's still some people. Like the best way to do it is when you still think there's 10 to 15% of CE sales to come in. That's when you close the floodgates. That's when you say, that's it, we're not selling any more of these. That instant FOMO of everybody who couldn't get a pin will cause the secondary market to go ablaze for a few months. And then it will even out, like it'll be above 15. You want them to sell for above 15 for a month or two. Because that helps your back catalog of pinball machines that we know you're sitting on a lot of these CEs. You could really help these sell. If you keep it open forever until you get to 2,000, 3,000, 4,000 CEs, for the next 10 or 15 years, people will say, Hey, if Harry Potter, the coolest pinball machine to ever come out from Jersey Jack, can't hold its value, then no future title will. So it's a tightrope walk. the company needs to turn down 10% of sales now to increase back catalog sales and increase consumer confidence even with Stern you can say well some Stern titles hold their value you know the Metallica black and white one and there's the Godzilla LEs and there's certain titles so there's still an idea there that if you're really good at picking out a good theme with a good designer with a good coding team it might hold its value right? So that would be my constructive criticism to Eric Menger and team. All right. Now, I've got to talk about the two upcoming. I usually don't have podcasts with this much full. But I want to thank my same insider who was correct about getting the moving mech inside the pinball machine that had, you know, told me about that. That same, I don't want to give them away. But they came to me with some new information, and they saw this on a very not watched Reddit post, okay, from I believe just Reddit pinball or whatever. I don't do a whole lot of Reddit, but thank you to my insider, okay. I don't do a lot of rumors, but I got to give you this rumor. I think you'll be grateful for it, okay. That's right, the Grateful Dead, if you hadn't guessed it, the world's best jam band. Now, as I mentioned, Franchi calls me a hippie all the time. I'm not really that much of a hippie because I freaking love money. I love capitalism. I'm a small-c conservative. I think, yes, in the United States, that would still put me slightly left of center. I'm not really sure. Probably depends where I am. In California, they'd probably call me a dirty Republican. In New York City, they'd probably tell me to get the hell out of there. But if I went to, like, Texas and stuff, they'd be like, oh, you're a libtard. We hate you. So I don't know. You know, I'm just hated by everybody, and that's fine. That's the way it is sort of in life. You make yourself a target. You put yourself out there. Oh, and speaking of last night, who is this Chris Warren or something like that? I don't know who this person is. Dude, if you listen to my show and you're totally just kidding and I took it like I didn't understand where you were coming from, maybe throw up like a funny remark first or write me first so I know who you are. But if you're just being an arsehole, then you suck and you're not cool. So anyways, this dude Chris, I'm chatting last night on the Flip N Out Pinball stream with Joel, and all he wrote is he tagged my name. it's highlighted for everyone to see and wrote Nova Scotia sucks LOL so I thought about it for a little bit and I was like I was going to say well who are you or what are you or why do you hate me or who touched you there and what did I do to you now I probably offended him because I've said lots of offensive things, mind you it's on a podcast if he was on a podcast and he said you know Orby said this offensive thing I would never get offended of course depending on how you say it, you start calling me mental health names bring my kids into it, probably going to get staunchly over the top upset about it but as long as you're doing it you know somewhat kind I can you know but just saying where you're from sucks that's just like if I took time and energy to go in Canada's chat on Saturday and say New York City sucks or Connecticut or wherever whatever burb he lives in now you know or if I went into the flipping out chat last night and I was just like yeah Zach many and wherever he lives sucks like it just doesn't it's it's not funny it's not interesting. It's not poignant. It doesn't make sense. And the dude never wrote again in chat the whole rest of the night. It's like, did you really just track me down in the chat just to tell me that you hate where I live sucks? It's like, first of all, I'm born and raised in Ontario. Give me a break. Like I don't live there anymore, but that's where I was born and raised. So anyways, let's get off this. Haters going to hate and I'm going to love because my, I'm so full of love. Summer's about to start. Okay. In nine days from now, school's out for summer. That's right. And that means that I kind of, my job gets a little harder because I do way more coffee and tea sales. I will be at the market this Saturday if you want to come visit, but it gets way, way, way easier because I have help with Draco and Franchi, my beautiful Draco, Draco, Franchi and Luna, Tuna, Elowen, Agar. I have help with both of the dogs all day. I have helped with the chickens. I can go out and cut down more trees. I can go plant more plants. I can de-weed the garden. I can go do stuff. I'm not tethered to two dogs running around making me trip and fall, especially with all the ticks. I can't let them just go on their own. Luna, who's been on her own for five years, has a tick on her head right now, which I just took off. I'm going to throw it in this cup here. Wow. Okay, it can get out of this cup. I'll probably have to turn this cup upside down into this thing. Okay. Anyways, we'll just keep an eye on this. It'll probably be fine. It'll most likely be okay. You never know. But Nova Scotia has a lot of ticks. So if you said the ticks in Nova Scotia suck, fine. Even if you said the Pinball Nerds podcast sucks, I mean, it's not very nice to say. You should say like you go off topic too much or something. Speaking of, I'm going to put a bow on the Glenn the Skateboarder thing. Glenn, thank you for writing in. No matter what, no matter how many times I've asked for help or anything else, Glenn has always been there for me. So you're my dude. I owe you another gift package. I sent you a really cool gift package with a whole bunch of maple syrup. It was a 40-ouncer of Crown Royale maple syrup. And I've sent you a lot of other cool stuff, but I've got to send you another care package. Thank you, thank you, thank you for all that you do, Glenn. I really appreciate it. Now, going back to the rumor, would I like to see Grateful Dead? Yes and no. Do I want to see it be a main Jersey Jack or even a cornerstone for Stern? Probably not. I do think there's a lot of men who buy pinball machines that are between like 45 and 65 that love the Grateful Dead. They certainly are one of the best jam bands of all time. Jerry Garcia is a freaking legend. I mean, they have the best Ben and Jerry's ice cream, let's just be honest. No, I'm just kidding. I haven't tried much Ben & Jerry's, but I think I did try theirs, and it was pretty decent. But I don't know if I want to see that as a main... Anyways, I'm just here to tell you, sometimes there's smoke, there's fire, and sometimes there isn't. I'm not going to give you a Canadian meter of 95% sure. I would say 30% or 40% chance maybe this is real. I don't think it's the next JJP. I don't think that's the next Stern. I don't think it's the next AP. Could Spooky be doing Grateful Dead? Maybe. that's kind of up their alley. It's very bright. It's not really very murdery. But I guess Looney Tunes wasn't either. I could see them doing it. I think actually Grateful Dead would be the right size for Spooky. And lots of other small to medium-sized companies would probably do very well with something that size. But let's go on to my next rumor. The next rumor. I'm kind of conflating this a little bit. But I did just see that Nick Wenzel the gentleman who did the homebrew okay the gentleman who did the homebrew excuse me for Tony Hawk someone wrote wouldn't this be really cool if this came out at the same time as Tony Hawk it might have been Joe Chervino but he's still hashtag dead to me I'm just kidding everybody who knows knows I wasn't being serious with that if you're listening from somewhere in Europe and English isn't your first language I love Joe Chervino I don't want him to be dead it was totally a joke and to all the people whether you live in Canada, the United States, Australia if you don't have a really good grasp on the English language I'm going to go ahead and recommend you never listen to the Final Round Bimbo podcast because at the end of almost every show for years him and Marty killed someone off and they didn't even jokingly say hashtag you're dead to me they said no, you're in a cliff and you can only grab one guy and the other guy is going to die so if you live somewhere in Sweden, Norway, Denmark Holland, Germany, France, Ireland, Lithuania, or Yugoslavia, Timbuktu, anywhere over there where maybe just English isn't your first language, never listen to the Final Round Pinball Podcast, which is no longer on TPN. Should they come over here to the Pinball Network? Surprisingly, no one has to come to the Pinball Network. And I don't know what Drew and Ian's thoughts would be on it. Probably more so Drew, I think, deals with that. But I thought if one of those big shows from the Pinball Network came over here, since we've lost Tribe Multiball and so on and such forth. If we got one of those shows from the Pinball Network, if they wanted to join our feed, that would be awesome. And then I went, oh, wait, I am on our feed. No one's going to want to join it. They want to join because of Craft Beer Sally. They want to join because of Foghorn Leghorn. They want to join because of Tribe Multiball. But my show's a little too contentious, a little too hot, a little too wild. Huge. I've got huge enemies out there. But I honestly think that if one of those things thought it would be beneficial one of those podcasts wanted to join us I would certainly be okay with it Gosh damn it it probably my wife calling back and I still talking I talked way too long The other one that I told you about is of course Tony Hawk. And when Nick Wenzel says he's working on it and he's trying to get that to happen, I not only believe him, but I get excited about it. Because it seems like Nick is the type of guy that whatever he puts his mind to, he gets done. He strikes me like a Jack Danger-esque type guy, like a dirty pool-esque type guy. Okay, these are the type of people that if they want to have something done, they seemingly get it done. Well, my mom, who's also my best friend, she often said, where there's a will, there's a way. And no matter what I said to her, she said, but where there's a will, there's a way. And I really think that if anyone, because like, wow, you wouldn't be able to license Rancid and NoFX and The Offspring and Green Day, but maybe you could get four or five of them because there's been like 50 bands that have been on there surely if you wrote many of them and said hey we're making this rad pinball machine Tony Hawk himself is involved Tony Hawk has a skateball in his office Tony Hawk oh by the way Jack Danger also posted this more smoke more remember I talked about more smoke more fire so not only was Nick Wenzel saying this publicly that he's working on it on getting a team up with because three and four just came out remastered. Well, in the Tony Hawk 3 and Tony Hawk 4 remastered video, there actually was a video of Bam Margera and all the skateboarders skateboarding around on giant pinball machines. So where there's smoke, there's fire. I think we're going to see... Tony Hawk, I would give a 60 to 70% chance of coming. I wouldn't even be shocked if it was like, maybe not the next stern, but like two, three Sterns down the road. Why I want Stern to be working on it is because I've always thought that Keith Elwin, and I've been saying this for about seven years now on my show, maybe eight. Keith Elwin, if they were ever going to do a Tony Hawk or any type of X Games or any type of skateboarding or Bam Margera or, you know, anyone. If they were going to do any type of skateboarding pinball machine, it needs to be done by Keith Elwin. All of his ramps, especially like look at AIQ, you know, they look like skateboarding ramps. They feel like skateboarding ramps. They kind of work like skateboarding ramps often. Jack Danger as well, also big skateboarder. So either Jack or Elwin would be the best people to get Tony Hawk. And I'm excited to see which one actually gets Tony Hawk. Because I think it's coming. And oh my God, talk about wet dream things. It's like, come on, you're going to cream your jeans. like Harry Potter, then Pokemon, then Tony Hawk, I better get all these renovations done on my farm because when I go to sell the farm, I've already told my wife, we're getting a one level, maybe back split, but probably just a one level ranch when we move out of here, when we sell the farm, so to speak, and as early as 2027, probably closer to 2030. When we sell off our homestead, I'm getting a pinball arcade with between three to five pinball machines up to seven, depending on the space. And I'm telling you right now, Harry Potter will be one of them. If I can afford the CE, since I think it's the most beautiful pinball machine I've ever seen, especially if they continue to work on the code and make the code better, which is arguably the one part that's not great besides the topper, which everyone knows I don't care about toppers. Okay. But if they make that code better and I'm able to actually buy Harry Potter and put it in my arcade, you better damn well believe I'm getting Pokemon and I'm getting Tony Hawk because those are like probably like skateboarding, X Games. I've watched every X Games up till maybe about six or seven years ago. I still watch the highlights from them, okay? But up until six or seven years ago, I skateboarded almost daily. In fact, the reason I started this pinball podcast was I broke my arm into like six spots or seven spots. And the doctor turned to me, very intelligent, very beautiful woman, still remembered to this day. And she said, Albert, do you make a living or even a side hustle from skateboarding? And I said, no. And she said, then it's time to give it up. You made it to almost 40 years old. You've broken every bone in your body. You've had 15 concussions. I can see the breaks in your other bones. I can see the metal in your face. Like you've broke too many bones. You've hurt yourself too many times. You're a very frail dude. And as you get older, guess what? You get more and more frail and bones break easier. So since then, I've only been into a skateboard park a handful of times and I'm very cautious and careful. And I put on my wife's roller derby gear when I go, but wow, skateboarding has been a big part of my life since I was 15 or 16 years old. And in case you're wondering, what did I do as a, how did I get into content creation? I was a videographer for skateboarding. There was two or three groups of guys who would go skateboarding in and around my hometown of Shedden, Ontario. Shout out to the Rhubarb Fest coming up in June, probably, probably soon, either this, this weekend or next weekend. Shout out to my rosy rhubarbers. You know who you are. Rosy rhubarbers. That's so funny. We just picked all of our rhubarb here on the homestead, but I'm not going to talk about the homestead right now. I would love to see Tony Hawk happen. I would love to see the Grateful Dead happen. I don't know if either are going to happen, but there you go. Maybe they happen. Maybe they don't. We won't know. Now, I know what you've all been waiting for. Orby, come on. You just called out some other pinball podcasters and now you're going to call out Jamie and Kale like hasn't Kale had a rough enough year getting called out by Jack Winarian at the last launch of Avatar like come on don't do that and what about Retro Ralph Retro Ralph has been such a blessing to the pinball industry his awesome you know his I really think that he's able to have a critical take and and be open and honest with something he doesn't love without being mean or rude about it which is something I've wanted to see from one of our top pinball podcasters, communicators, you know, content creators. Oh, speaking of content creators, I was just talking about skateboarding, so let me finish that. There was two or three groups who would call me, and I wasn't that great at skateboarding, like I could land a kickflip or 180 pop shove it, but I wasn't that great at skateboarding, but I was really good at riding a skateboard while looking down at my Sony Handycam, while having the Handycam way down by the skateboard, and I was good at going really fast in getting in front of the skateboarders. I was good at crossing a road and being able to ollie up a curb while going in and out of traffic. Well, yes, grabbing onto the backs of cars and riding around. That wasn't just Back to the Future. I did that all the time as well, especially in my trailer park. In fact, people would actually think it was funny usually because they typically knew me. But maybe don't do that downtown. Maybe don't do that as a 45-year-old. But I want Tony Hawk to come out. I want the Grateful Dead to come out. Don't know if either of them are going to come out. I'd say there's probably a little bit more chance that Tony Hawk comes out. And I do think that would be, I do think most people who are into Tony Hawk, even if you weren't a big skateboarder, you probably play it on, you probably, there's like 15 Tony Hawks. You probably play it on PlayStation 1, 2, 3, 4, whatever, right? Even 5 now, they're coming out with the remastered 3 and 4. My son Owen, by the way, destroys me on Tony Hawk 1 and 2. It's so bad I don't even like to play with him anymore because I'll get like a sick score of like 300k and he'll go get like 1.5 milli and I'm talking on like with no cheats on or anything on Tony Hawk one do you know how hard it is to get a million on Tony Hawk one or maybe maybe two at the warehouse okay back here though to why why on earth did I have to call out Jamie well Jamie I love you but any of you are listening to the round table would have heard at the end he said oh and orbital Albert on his last show he did it from the bath and then Kale said he did it from the bath now Kale tsk tsk come on you got to listen to my shows within three to five days a lot of times I erase them or delete them I do that for multiple reasons I like to leave up the episodes that I want to be remembered as that are positive and and the ones that I think are actually good content I don't go over uh top of too often like my five rad and one bad from Harry Potter I think that's probably my best episode this year If you haven't listened to it yet, go listen to it. And my bathtub one, I might delete, and that might go as a Patreon episode. It was okay. It was fine. It was funny. I just don't think like five years from now anyone will want to listen to it, so I'll probably just delete it. So go listen to my bath time episode. I believe it's 421 or 422. But go listen to that episode soon because she's going to be gone. And then it's probably 422, I think, or 421. I don't know. It's back there. Just start it. If you hear water in the background, that's a bath time episode. So Jamie said that about the bath time episode. And Cale went, really? He was in the bath? That's funny. And then immediately, now this joke had already been set up, Retro Ralph, so I'm not going to blame it on you. But then Retro Ralph did this, I'm in a high voice, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah thing, right? And I don't think he was trying to change the topic. I think he had already had this ready for a joke. And they never went back. Jamie never went back and explained it. So that irritated me. And that was annoying. And I've never been annoyed with Jamie ever before in my life. now am I going to be like hashtag dead to me Jamie of course not this guy would have to do 10 times worse for me to like I mean other pinball content creators have done much much worse over the past few years and I still talk to them from time to time but uh what I will say is Jamie you actually I gotta thank you because you opened my eyes and whenever I start telling a story on my podcast and I don't finish it others are probably irritated like I was irritated nobody else listening would have been irritated they're like oh yeah Orby did a show in the bath like that was that was the point of what they were saying. But I was like, but get to it. And I actually asked Jamie, I said, I got, I'm so curious. Can you just tell me what you're about to say? And he did give me permission to say it on the pod. Okay. So he said, I was just going to give you a shout out for being a hundred percent authentic. So that is, that is just so cool. He says here, I was just going to give you it. Yeah. I couldn't read the bottom. He says, I was just going to give you a shout out for being 100% authentic. I love your pods, but Ralph distracted me with his high-pitched voice. All right, well, you know what? That's what I do these pods for. I understand it's more like a blog. I understand the sound quality's not incredible, you know, among other annoying things that I do from time to time. But I do this because I actually consider myself, not that I'm nearly as funny, rich, or awesome as this dude, but I consider myself the Larry David of Pinball Podcast. so as many of you know for years and years and years Larry David did stand up with Jerry everybody hated Larry David in fact Banya is kind of you know loosely created off him among other comedians they didn't want to mention so one of the worst comedians on there that nobody likes and nobody laughs for was Larry David but the people who liked Larry David's jokes because they were so much inside baseball and they were about other comedians in comedy Larry David much like me gets lost in his own thoughts, I believe has ADHD, and he's neurodivergent at the very least. Larry David was loved by the other comedians, but the general public was like, nah, that guy, I don't get his jokes, that's not cool. And I think, like, I don't know about 80%, but probably 50 to 60% of the people that listen to this are other, you know, other people in the pinball space. Because some of what I do is so nerdy and so in-depth talking about pinball, if you hadn't listened to my show like 20 or 30 times before and you didn't know what I was talking about when I was you know using a lot of pinballisms it would not be a that good of a show to listen to and I think that's why I don't keep a lot of newbies entertained and listening but just hold on if you just listen past the first five to ten episodes like many other tv shows you got to get through the first few episodes to kind of get it then you'll start to love it and I think those are my hardcore three to four hundred, maybe on the top end, five hundred people who listen to almost every show. And I hope you guys believe that today's show was better than maybe some of my negative or off-putting episodes I've had recently. I'm in a better mental place than I have been since last summer, probably in about a year and a half, maybe even since I was a teenager, who knows. Physically, I'm feeling good. I'm starting to see the LBs slowly come off. I'm not just eating McDonald's like last summer, okay? But financially, I'm in a very, very, very, very tight spot. And so because of that, I do have to concentrate on making sure I do as many collectible shows in the next few months before they end. Like by August, they're completely done until almost Christmas. I do have to do as many coffee shows as I can. And I do have to make as much money and get as many plants and seeds. I still have to plant my corn. Like who's this far behind on corn. I was supposed to plant corn June 1st. But I've got to get everything into the ground on time for me to have food for the end of the year. So I did want to let you guys know, don't worry, I'm not asking for money. I know if I ask for money, I won't get any anyways. But what I am going to do is I'm going to say, if anyone does transfer me any money over the next couple of weeks, it will 100% go towards my microphone. Glenn and I have looked at many options. I'm watching videos. I'm doing research. I'm probably more likely to spend $150 to $200 on a used decent one. Glenn is telling me I should be getting a $250 to $300 one. And I'm like, so, but where do I get that money? There's 0% chance when I'm in a zero buy year, plus even if I wasn't, I just don't have that kind of extra money. That's more than I've spent on, and this isn't a joke, clothing in the last year, including shoes. I bought a $46 pair of shoes last summer. I bought five or six t-shirts in the last year, two pairs of shorts, one pair of swimming trunks. I've not been buying a lot of stuff for myself. A, because I don't need it. I have tons of awesome clothing. And B, because my sons are at a very expensive point in their life. By the way, Hayden is moving out for the summer. Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah. Okay, it's always good. We're going to be empty nesters. Am I going to turn his room into a pinball room? No. probably going to be a day room slash guest bed slash time to get freaky no i'm just kidding but it's going to be like it's going to be like a guest bedroom slash my wife's workout room slash maybe our angra pack a business room because orby's getting back his arcade i've given my wife notice but within three days to five days after hayden moves out can we please have the arcade emptied a so i could maybe get a used pinball machine for cheap back in there soon or who knows maybe Jersey Jack Pinball or maybe even Stern will hook me up one. I don't know. You don't know. By the way, I was just kidding. Retro Ralph, it's okay that you interrupted on Jamie's show. Give me a break. I love your content. Kale, go listen to the bathtub one before it's gone and don't ever get that far behind me again, guy. And then shout out to Jamie Burchill. Love that dude. Go listen to the JBS show. Until next time, Pinball Nerds, remember to eat, sleep, and breathe. Harry Potter Pinball.