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Ep 75 - Epic Expo 2019

Special When Lit·podcast_episode·2h 8m·analyzed·Oct 23, 2019
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.029

TL;DR

Post-Expo 2019 recap featuring industry interviews and community highlights from St. Charles.

Summary

Ken Cromwell and Steve Beattie discuss their experience at Pinball Expo 2019 in St. Charles, Illinois, covering the pre-expo tailgate streaming event, meet-and-greet experiences, and interviews with attendees including Brian Cosner (American Pinball correspondent), Justin Kalinowski (Castlevania homebrew builder), and Zach Minney (Flippin' Out Pinball distributor). The episode features anecdotes about industry figures, venue highlights, and community connections forged during the show.

Key Claims

  • Expo 2019 was Steve Beattie's favorite show so far, surpassing Texas Pinball Festival

    high confidence · Steve Beattie, direct statement about his preference for Expo 2019 experience

  • Eric Minier and Keith Johnson from Jersey Jack Pinball attended the Epic Expo tailgate

    high confidence · Ken Cromwell listing attendees at the pre-show tailgate event

  • Brian Cosner visited the American Pinball factory and saw a new unreleased game

    high confidence · Brian Cosner's phone interview describing factory visit with Dan from American Pinball

  • American Pinball was shipping games to Europe and Japan during the Expo timeframe

    high confidence · Brian Cosner observing special coin doors and wiring for international shipments at the factory

  • Justin Kalinowski's Castlevania homebrew took approximately two years to develop and was on his third playfield

    high confidence · Justin Kalinowski's direct statement during phone interview

  • Gary Stern was present at Spears bar during Expo and took a photo with Ken and Steve

    high confidence · Ken Cromwell's detailed account of the encounter at Spears restaurant

  • Flippin' Out Pinball achieved better sales and exposure at Chicago Pinball Expo than any other show in 2019

    high confidence · Zach Minney's statement about distributor performance at the show

  • Medieval Madness rerun was released/being promoted by Flippin' Out Pinball around Expo 2019

    high confidence · Zach Minney mentioning new Medieval Madness rerun release as major product at show

Notable Quotes

  • “This was our first Expo as owners of Flippin' Out Pinball last year... everything was good. Sorry, I'm a little winded. I just blew out my left testicle moving a multimorphic P3 into the flipping out van.”

    Zach Minney @ near end of episode — Humorous anecdote about equipment handling challenges for distributors at shows

  • “I would probably say I spent very little time actually playing pinball. I was just sitting there making connections and talking pinball all weekend.”

    Brian Cosner @ during phone interview — Reflects the community-building and networking focus of Expo for industry correspondents

  • “now take the fucking picture.”

    Gary Stern @ Thursday night at Spears — Notable interaction showing Gary Stern's casual, approachable personality during the social gathering

  • “I wanted to make sure I was ready with it before I showed it. I mean, it took me about two years to get that far. I was on my third play field.”

    Justin Kalinowski @ during phone interview — Demonstrates the significant time investment and iteration required for homebrew pinball development

Entities

Ken CromwellpersonSteve BeattiepersonBill WebbpersonZach MinneypersonBrian CosnerpersonJustin KalinowskipersonGary SternpersonEric MinierpersonKeith JohnsonpersonJason Fowler

Signals

  • ?

    event_signal: Pinball Expo 2019 in St. Charles, Illinois was a major success with strong attendance, networking, and industry presence from multiple manufacturers

    high · Multiple speakers praising the event quality, scope, and attendance; manufactures like Jersey Jack, Stern, American Pinball, and distributors present

  • ?

    content_signal: Special When Lit Podcast Episode 75 provides post-event coverage with interviews from industry figures and attendees; demonstrates podcast's role in community documentation

    high · Full episode dedicated to Expo recap with phone interviews of multiple attendees and industry figures

  • ?

    community_signal: Strong evidence of community bonding and interpersonal connection at Expo; online contacts meeting face-to-face for first time; industry figures accessible and approachable

    high · Brian Cosner's emphasis on meeting people for first time despite online presence; multiple attendees praising social connections made during event

  • ?

    machine_intel: Justin Kalinowski's Castlevania homebrew pinball machine debuted at Expo 2019 in homebrew section after ~2 years of development on third playfield

    high · Justin's interview describing 2-year development timeline, third playfield iteration, 8-bit NES theming, and planned future shows (TPF, Midwest Game Classic)

  • ?

    product_launch: Medieval Madness rerun was released/promoted by Flippin' Out Pinball around Expo 2019 timeframe, became major selling point at show

    high · Zach Minney mentioning Medieval Madness rerun as exciting new release that attracted customers at show

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.385

0:00
Coming at you out of St. Charles, Illinois, the special when lit pinball podcast starts now. Here it is, it's the Post Expo special when lit pinball podcast episode number 75. What's going on pinball land? I'm Ken Cromwell. With me today is Steve Beattie who went on a pinball adventure with us this past weekend. And Bill Webb is going to be calling in later remote.
0:32
But let's just get into it, man. Expo 2019. Thoughts? Where'd it go? Go, Steve, go! Thoughts? Oh, my gosh. Well, I had only been to last year's Expo, and TPF is my basis.
0:47
But, man, this was a great Expo. I mean, this was my favorite show so far. Even more so than TPF? I'd say yeah. What is it about Expo that gave you more of an enjoyable experience than Texas Pinball Festival? Because they're both great shows. They're both great shows. I had great times at TPF. I had great times at Expo. It's hard for me to compare the two because this is our hometown show, so it's easy for us to kind of get out there, party it up, come back versus flying, staying several days, and then worrying about traveling home. Yeah, that was nice, having the hour cruise. But, I mean, you know, just getting to know a lot more people really made it a big difference for me, you know. We had a good crew the whole weekend. Now, for those of you that don't know Steve Beattie, he streams with us on the Flippin' Out Pinball Network. Steve's been on the show. We've referred to him as Chicken Steve.
1:40
There's a chicken story to tell a little bit later on. But let's start off with Thursday night was the start of Expo. But just prior to that, we started with our Epic Expo tailgate stream, and you hosted that at your place. Now, your place, you've got this detached garage with 20 pinball machines. We invited a bunch of people in from the industry to kind of not play pinball on stream but to talk about pinball on stream. And that was super fun, man, because we had a huge turnout, and I can't even remember everybody that was there. I mean, we can start going down the list. I know. And my fear is that I'll forget somebody. Yeah. But I remember, obviously, you were there. Bill Webb had stopped in. Yep. I was able to swing out. Yeah. Scott Denise came in. We had Eric Minier and Keith Johnson from Jersey Jack Pinball that were both there. We had Todd Tuckey, Frank, and Tim and Tom, the twins. They were up there. We had, man, I mean, there was Fowler and Kanan. Jason Fowler and Matt Kanan from Slash State Pinball Podcast were up there. Chris Grosvenor. Chris Grosvenor was up there, the pin turn for Orbital Albert and Pinball Nerds podcast. Dwight Sullivan from Stern Pinball was there. We had, now Mark Silk is a professional voice actor, Mark Silk from the UK. Somebody that has helped the show tremendously over the course of the past year or so. And it was the first time that we met. He came in and he was doing expo. He came to the Epic Tailgate stream. That was awesome to see him. We had Brian Allen. Brian Allen, yeah. artist who is right now doing the alternate translates. He had done Monster Bash for last year's Texas Pinball Festival. This year he had his Attack from Mars remake. I think so, too. And there's rumors on the next one that I don't know that we can talk about. But that was pretty awesome.
person
Matt Kananperson
Dwight Sullivanperson
Mark Silkperson
Brian Allenperson
Danperson
Ed Owensperson
Scott Deniseperson
Nicole Minneyperson
Rob Burkeperson
Bridget Burkeperson
Oren Dayperson
Special When Lit Pinball Podcastorganization
Pinball Expo 2019event
Flippin' Out Pinballcompany
American Pinballcompany
  • ?

    business_signal: Flippin' Out Pinball achieved better sales and exposure at Chicago Pinball Expo 2019 than any other show in their ownership tenure

    high · Zach Minney's direct statement about sales-wise and exposure-wise outperforming other 2019 shows

  • ?

    manufacturing_signal: American Pinball was actively producing and shipping games to Europe and Japan during Expo 2019 timeframe; had multiple games on production line

    high · Brian Cosner's factory visit observation of games being built and special wiring/coin doors for international markets

  • ?

    leak_detection: American Pinball has an unreleased game in development; Brian Cosner was shown it at factory but cannot fully discuss due to confidentiality agreements

    medium · Brian Cosner stating 'I did get to see a new game from American Pinball' but declining to discuss details; noting American Pinball not ready to fully announce

  • ?

    industry_signal: Gary Stern (Stern Pinball leadership) was present and approachable at Expo social venues; engaged casually with community members

    high · Detailed anecdote from Ken Cromwell about Gary Stern interaction at Spears bar, including casual language and willingness to take photos

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Zach and Nicole Minney have taken ownership of Flippin' Out Pinball; first Expo as new owners in 2019

    high · Zach Minney stating 'This was our first Expo as owners of Flippin' Out Pinball last year. It was a previous owner.'

  • ?

    design_innovation: Castlevania homebrew features 8-bit NES-era theming with LCD graphics and period-accurate sound effects, demonstrating nostalgia-driven design approach

    high · Justin Kalinowski describing 8-bit NES days theming, LCD with 8-bit graphics, sound effects that replicate console experience

    • 3:25
    Anyways, who am I forgetting, man? I mean, there was a ton of people there. Cary Hardy was there, yeah. Dan American Pinball. Dan was awesome from American Pinball. We had our buddy Courtney out. Yeah, Courtney was there. It was just good times. Courtney was a top-tier Patreon, so he got invited to the VIB party, so that was good times. So anyways, a little bit of frustration happened because we were streaming this on Twitch, and for whatever reason, we couldn't get consistent audio and video to sync up. Some people were experiencing choppiness. Some people were experiencing things out of sync. Throughout the whole night, when we thought we had it fixed, we didn't, and it wasn't something that could be replicated with everybody that was watching, so it got a little bit confusing, but that was a crazy night. And that went to what, about 11, 30, 12 o'clock? Yeah, it was an earlier night. And that was prior to Expo, so that's Wednesday night. So we get home, we get up the next day, everybody's packed up. Now, you drove separately. That's right. I drove separately. You were bringing a machine up that you were selling. I was bringing a machine that was pre-sold, yep. Yep. And then I was just, I had packed the car because I had all the stuff that I was bringing up to Expo. You had a traveling bar in the back of your vehicle. I did. Which was extremely impressive. It was like, we need to hide this on the way in. This doesn't look good. Well, we loaded up that luggage carrier. You know, it's like the four-wheel thing where you can hang your clothes and put your luggage in. And most people have clothes and stuff hanging from these racks, and you just had stockpiles of liquor. Yeah, well, a lot of guys, you know, brought over bottles of nice liquor at the Epic Tailgate. Yeah. So I was like, well, we should bring this out, you know, let everybody enjoy it. So it was an adventure. It was a good time. So we get checked into the room. I was running an event where it was called Meet the Media. You heard me speak about it. We had the media guys come out, and everybody was on the same schedule. That went really, really well. I was really, really pleased. Yeah, man, good job on that. I want to thank everybody. Yeah, thanks. I want to thank everybody that took the time to participate in that.
    5:22
    I know it wasn't easy to kind of plan your schedules around, but everybody that contributed, it made a big difference. And Rob and Bridget Burke, they run Pinball Expo. Thank you so much for the recognition on that. And it was a really, really fun time. Now, some of these people I'd like to kind of draw into the podcast. So as you listen to this show, we're going to be calling people as they come to mind, and we're going to ask them what their favorite part about Expo was. So we're going to try to get five minutes or less from everybody that's there, and we'll get into that in a few minutes. I don't know. Who can we kick that off with for the first story of Expo? Now, on Thursday night we went to – was that the night we went to Spears? Spears is kind of a barring grill. Was that the night we went to Spears? Well, we went to Spears every night. And it's like a little bar and grill. It's inside the parking lot of the hotel. So it's a 45-second walk across, and you're just in there. So that was awesome. The first night that we ate dinner, who did we meet up there? I think were we with Rorden? Was Rorden there that night? And Guillame?
    6:23
    Yeah, Guillaume. I feel horrible. So he's our friend from France, and I should know how to pronounce his name. And that's horrible that I don't. Guillaume. We'll ask. We'll have to ask him. Yeah, he was there that night. I don't know if Rorden was at the table that night. Fahlgren was there. Hey, Fahlgren, our local guy. Buddy Ryan, local guy. Oh, yeah, our buddy Ryan was there. A bunch of people came in. So we're sitting down, and we happen to notice that behind us was Gary Stern, and he had a group of people that he was with. And then in came Zach and Nicole Menny, and they were going to kind of sit down and meet with us, but they were intercepted by Stern, And so they ended up sitting down and speaking with them for a long time. So Zach and Nicole, they walk in. They get intercepted. We're just kind of chilling out. And I'm wondering, I'm like, are they going to be leaving that table? Are they going to come by and see us? Anyways, we kind of just kept on going on. Now, you ordered something that I would never in my mind, in my life, imagine ordering and paying for. Seriously? Yeah. Do you want to explain what that is or what that was? I wasn't really hungry. You guys all ordered, like, burgers, big meals. I got some bone marrow. I got a bone marrow appetizer. That's horrible. And it came in the bones. The bones were like the oyster shells. Yeah, you get like, it was like three bones cut in half. Oh, my God. A lot of spice on them. What bone was that? Of like a cow, I hope? It's got to be like a cow femur. It's a big bone. And then they give you a fresh loaf of bread, which that bread was really good, by the way. The bread is to prevent you from throwing up. We needed that. I needed the bread that night. You needed the bread that night. Anyways, I'm watching Steve eat this, and somehow on the way out, right? Like, so we're leaving, and we're getting ready for that night's activities. And I don't know how it happened, but Gary Stern ends up taking a picture with us, and he's holding your, like, the empty bone carcass that used to hold the marrow. And he's holding it up, and I'm like, all right. And I'm holding my phone up to get a selfie. And I'm having a little bit of problems trying to get the phone, and Gary's smiling, and I'm just trying to make small talk so that I can stall him a little bit. And then at one point, he just laughed at something I said, and he goes, now take the fucking picture. I was like, all right, there we go, Gary. So that was all said and done. That was crazy. That was a fun night. I think that bone marrow broke the ice. I think that's why he came over. He's like, who ordered the bone marrow? The bone marrow? Yeah. He's like, you guys are freaks. Yeah. He likes that.
    8:43
    Now, with us, the whole expo was our special correspondent for American Pinball, Brian Cosner. Brian was, again, was awesome that whole time that was there. We had never met Brian. I had never met him. No. He submits these segments. We're friends online. And I don't know that I had even spoken to Brian on the phone. But I did, obviously, in person. What a super nice guy. In fact, let's see if we can get a hold of Brian right now.
    9:09
    Hello? Kaz. Hey there. Ken and Steve from Special Winley. What's up, man? How you doing? What are you watching, some TV? I hear some stuff going on in the background. No, I'm over here with my little girl, Dan. Oh, nice. You got a second? We're recording. We can call you later or we can let you go. No, I'm good. I'm good right now. So joining us live on the special Wendland Hotline, American Pinballs, special correspondent Brian Cosner. Cos, what's up, man? Hey, Ken and Bill. No, Bill's not here. It's Steve. Bill's not here. No, Bill. Oh, sorry about that. No, it's okay. Bill's going to join us a little bit later in the show. Edit, edit, edit. Yeah, edit, edit, edit. Hey, man. So first, we were just talking about what an awesome guy you are because we had not really ever met other than online and then you submitted these segments every single week. So we had a blast hanging out with you and I hope we didn't like freak you out at any point. I was hoping you might want to just give some insight on your experience at Expo over the next couple minutes because I think it's going to be fun for us to kind of go around the horns, so to speak, and have quick conversations with everybody that we spoke to and hung out with during Expo. And you were so instrumental because you were there as part of Special and we really, really appreciated that. Yeah, guys, thanks for having me there. I really appreciate it. I had a great time at Expo. Actually, I would probably say I spent very little time actually playing pinball. I was just sitting there making connections and talking pinball all weekend. It was great because you're such a happy, nice guy, man.
    10:42
    I listen to your segments, and they're good segments, but you seem very kind of like dialed down and very calculated on everything. But you come out like you're very type A and a little social butterfly, man. It was awesome. You like to have a fun time. It was great. Well, the favorite thing that I had from Mexico, my biggest takeaway, was just, you know, the fact of meeting everybody, kind of just, you know, shaking hands with people. You just, you know, you kind of talk to them online or talk to them on a stream, but you never see them face to face. So that was the biggest takeaway I had was just, you know, I enjoyed meeting everybody. That's awesome, man. Was there anything that you saw or anyone that you saw act a certain way at XO that might have taken you back a little bit, or was everything pretty much par for the course for you guys? It was pretty much exactly what I expected. A lot of guys like to have a few drinks, like to play pinball. Some guys, I guess, had a few too many drinks. Yeah. Did it seem like a little bit of some college dorm room craziness for a little bit there? Yeah, I think a lot of these guys like to get away from their wives or the ladies. They get away from the husbands or boyfriends or whatever, and they get out and about, out of their shell a little bit. Yeah, I was shocked that you were pouring that one shot directly into your eye for the maximum absorption. That was wild. I'm like, where did you learn that from? No, that was not me. That was not you. But now you went into American Pinball because, I mean, you're tight with those guys. You're the correspondent there. and you were able to see something that nobody's seen. Is there anything that you can talk about regarding that, or is that something that I should not have brought up? Should I be editing that out? Well, I tell you, doing the correspondent, making those connections, and you had asked me to help you cover American Pinball, which was great. Unfortunately, I didn't really have many connections there, so I've made some connections over the last few months. I talk to the guys sometimes. We exchanged e-mails or texts. I said sometimes I call them. And Dan up there at American Pinball had been really welcoming. He's like, yeah, man, just come on out to the factory. Come on up. Can you come this week? Dan is the new sales and marketing manager there, right? Yeah. I said, well, Dan, I live in Virginia. Can't really come up to Chicago right now. Right, right. Super nice guy, Dan. You know, spent some time over there, come up from an expo, and Dan said, hey, just come by the factory. So I went by one morning and met Dan. You know, it was just a normal morning for those guys. They had, you know, a lot of presence at expo. They had a lot of Oktoberfest and Houdini pins there. But went over to the factory for a few minutes, and Dan showed me around and talked to Joe Balser and Barry and Doble and a couple of the line workers, and they were there building pinball machines. Yeah, that's good. And I did get to see a new game from American Pinball. Now, that's kind of where I was going, but I didn't want to put you on the spot, and I didn't want to jeopardize your trust with anybody at American Pinball. So if that's not something that you should be speaking about, let me know. But if it's something that you're comfortable with, absolutely, let's air it.
    13:53
    Well, in the process of me being there, there were quite a few other people that came in to the factory as well. Even Todd Tuckey came in there for a little while. Right. Todd was everywhere. Well, I would say. Todd was everywhere. And the TNT twins. Yeah, Todd was everywhere. I think he left his cane almost everywhere he went. Did he? He had to come back and bring his cane back. Right. What's in the cane that he's leaving behind? I don't know. Right. But, no, Dan and the other team over there showed me a little bit of a new game that they had. And I don't think that American Pinball is ready to fully announce that yet. Okay. So I'm not really maybe authorized to say a whole lot about it. But I will say that it's definitely an interesting direction that they took, and it's not exactly what I thought they were going to do.
    14:40
    Yeah, and during Expo, because I think that we all got along really well with Dan. Like, Dan never mentioned any of this to me at all. Yeah. And I didn't want to, like, press the issue. So good for you for establishing the trust there. And it's hard to keep secrets, Brian, so be careful. Be careful. I'll have to call you later for this. You know, all the guys I talked to, oh, I forgot to mention Joe Shover, the programmer over there. Yeah, Joe. Yeah, I met up with him there at the show, too. And he wasn't at the factory.
    15:11
    He was just at the show. But like I said, I mentioned, you know, going over to the factory, seeing some games on the line, seeing some games that already get shipped out. They had a lot of games going over to Europe, so they had to have some special coin doors on those and special wiring for, I think they're sending some to Japan and also some over to Europe. That's awesome, man. But all in all, you had a good time. You would do it again. Are we going to crash TPF? Because that's the next major show, and that's in March. That's the next major show I can attend. If you're going, man, I'll go. All right. I know. Steve Beattie's out. He's going to be on vacation in Vietnam, right? I'm done going messed up. He's going to Vietnam with his wife. Thailand. I'm sorry. Why don't I think Vietnam? Yeah, Texas pinball festival with you guys or go to Thailand with your wife. Which one should you pick? I think whichever one you planned first is probably what you have to do. I know Bill's 50-50. I'm 50-50, but, I mean, if you're in, that makes me more 60-40. though, I would not mind conquering a little Texas Pinball Festival with our boy Kyle. I'd 100% be in if I was a boy. Well, with any luck, maybe you'll get divorced to get out of that vacation. You'd go right in. I'm kidding. Let's have some more people going. It's all good. Yeah, it'll be fun. But hey, man, I wanted to tell you again, so happy that we got a chance to hang out. And it wasn't just for a couple hours. It was the whole weekend. Super nice guy. I feel like I got to know you a lot better, and I can't wait to spend a little bit more time with you. And I hope it's at TPF. I hope we're rocking that show out because it was, again, rekindle the moment from Pinball Expo Man. Thank you so much, guys. Yeah, guys. Look, I really appreciated it. Thank you so much for kind of letting me just tag along. I know it's kind of hard if you're just kind of, you know, I didn't really know anybody else really there. You know, like I said, you know them online, but, you know, I just never met anybody. A lot of people knew you, Kaz, which was pretty cool, I thought.
    17:05
    There's a few guys I've met there that I've met before. I've got a guy that's kind of local to me who plays tournaments. Also, I met Oren Day, former Sega programmer. He actually lives about an hour or so away from me, which I didn't even know how close he was to. Pretty cool, man. Yeah, I played Elvira with him during the party on that Saturday night that was going until like 4 a.m. Oh, did you make it until 4 a.m.? No, I think I checked out of there, gosh, maybe 1 or 2 o'clock. Oh, so you went to the Jurassic Beats party that was in the Marco booth or in the Marco room that took place. What was that from? Like, I think it was 11 to 6 a.m. Oh, gosh. It lasted all night, I think. Yeah. Was that fun?
    17:53
    All right. Say no more there, Kyle. No, it was really interesting. I said, I'm not really a drinker. I think if you're drinking, having fun, you would have had a great time. It looked like it was a lot of fun. Him and Beattie were crazy, but.
    18:07
    No, it makes sense. It makes sense. Probably a little inebriation could help the Jurassic Beaks party. I think a lot of people went hard that last night, too. Yeah, it looked like a lot of fun. I stayed for a little while, and I think the party kept on going all night. So I kind of had to head back to Virginia the next day, so I kind of had to get to bed and get some sleep. Long drive. Yeah, believe me, man. I hear you. But anyways, you rocked it out, dude, and I really appreciate it. And let's talk. Let's start planning, because if we're going to get this TPF going, And we should probably start talking about that sooner than later, man. Sounds good. I will say, though, that there was one game I really enjoyed the show, besides kind of getting hands-on Elvira, is our buddy Justin had his Castlevania, his custom homebrew. I really enjoyed that. He has a really nice game. Interesting segue, because Justin did bring his Castlevania game to the homebrew section. And you know what? Why don't we do this? Let's let Brian leave, and let's give Justin a quick call, because that got some accolades at the show. Speaking of the devil, look who's calling in right now.
    19:10
    Hey, you're live on Special One Lit. Is this Justin? This is Justin. What's up, man? How are you, Justin? Kalinowski, the man, the myth, the legend behind Castlevania Pinball Machine that rocked the homebrew section this year. We were just talking with Brian Cosner, our Special One Lit correspondent, and he felt very humbled and lucky to have met you because he enjoyed your Castlevania pin. and we played it, we enjoyed it, and I want to welcome you to the show, man. Thanks for calling in.
    19:40
    Yeah, thanks for having me. Guess what shirt I'm wearing. Guess what shirt you're wearing? Castlevania?
    19:47
    No. Bustle and Lit Pinball Podcast shirt. Hey, that's awesome, man. I appreciate it. It's a nice shirt. Do us a quick favor. We're only going to keep you for a few minutes because everyone's busy and there's a little bit of an expo fatigue hangover. but I mean so tell us real quick what you do at pinball life and then tell us what gave you the motivation to make your own homebrew pin that became known as Castlevania and was revealed over this past few days well um my job at pinball life is I'm a buyer I buy all the parts at pinball life pretty much and uh I deal with the vendors and other suppliers and stuff and I get all in the door and keep it organized. I do a little odds and ends throughout the place. As far as Castlevania, a long time ago, Scott's like, hey, you should make a homebrew. Now, Scott Denise, he had done a homebrew. Yeah, you had watched this whole thing with Total Nuclear Annihilation for the years that went on. Blow up. Right? I mean, because you and Scott are like best buds. I mean, I don't think there's any secret there. Right?
    20:55
    No secret, no. Right. So you see your buddy do this? We went to high school together. Yeah. But, I mean, I know you guys are close. And it's just interesting for me to see Scott do Total Nuclear Annihilation, which gained popularity in the homebrew section of shows. And now Justin, with his homebrew, and that's you, obviously, Castlevania debuted in its first show. I mean, so it debuted at the Pinball Life Open House, right? That is correct, yeah. Now, were you nervous a little bit? I mean, what are you thinking? because I would imagine that you've seen this for a long time and you're not sure what people are going to expect or what people are going to walk away feeling-wise regarding your pinball machine. Yeah, I mean, I guess a little bit. You know, I made sure I was ready with it before I showed it. I mean, it took me about two years to get that far. I was on my third play field. I want to make sure it was in good working order before I showed it. So I felt pretty confident that my game was executed well as far as people liking it. So I just, you know, threw it out there and hoped for the best. Now, and you didn't really have like a thread going where there were constant updates on what your progress was. Was this kind of just like a surprise in the box type of thing, like people that came out of left field? yeah I mean uh I didn't want to be like someone that just you know puts it out there like you can't work on a swimwear and never finished it kind of thing you know yeah right I wanted to make sure I was ready to go you know in case you know let's say I got uh you know I didn't think I was gonna finish or something and maybe you know that guy you know like oh what's going on with that uh what's going on with that project you're getting everybody mad before it's getting everybody all upset before you're even finished. It's like, come on, man. Where's the homebrew you're doing on your own?
    22:47
    Exactly. The theme I picked, I knew it was a popular theme, and I thought it would be really good. I wanted people to have this expectation, and then it's kind of crash and burn by not finishing or something. Well, in Castlevania, the theme is kind of, it's based off of the 8-bit Nintendo Entertainment System days, right?
    23:08
    Yeah, my version is, yeah. And that's the version I grew up with. Me too, man. That's why I chose that. I think you nailed that theme, though, man. I think a lot of guys in pinball are our age, and we can relate to that. Like you said, you grew up playing it. We grew up playing it. I grew up playing it. For sure. It was a cool choice. I had not played Castlevania, the video game, from NES for a long time. But when I started flipping, it's nice because the LCD has the 8-bit graphics on there. But, yeah, the thing that really got me, too, I mean, it's shot incredibly, but just the sound effects brought you right back to when you popped that game into the console for the first time. Yeah, nice job on those. Nicely done, Justin. That's good times. Thank you. So when are we going to see it next, and what are the plans for that? Do you want this to go to production at some point? I mean, is this something that you'd like to see out to the masses? Is this just kind of like a passion project? What are your plans moving forward?
    24:01
    I'm sure anyone that makes a homebrew hopes it gets made to the masses. is. I would say 9.10 probably would want that, but I don't have any takers at the moment, but my next show, I don't know if I'll make Texas with it, but at the very least Midwest Game Classic.
    24:20
    I know there's like back-to-back weekends between the two shows. That makes it kind of tough. Yeah, right.
    24:28
    Let me ask you this. How can people get a hold of you, or where can they get more information about the pin? What's the best way to see the progress and where this game's going to be at any given time. Well, I did start that thread on Tinside.
    24:40
    It's a horrible night to have a curse. Castlevania, homebrew. That's where I'll post updates. I'm thinking I might just start showing the progress. I did take photos along the way just so people see my process of making my game. There you go. Nice. So they can see how that came about. Well, good times, man. I mean, we wish you the best of luck with a pin. We had a great time. It was funny because when we were shooting it, our first couple of balls, we were feeling pretty good. And then we got a couple of house balls, and then we hated it.
    25:10
    But just like any other pinball machine. But then we figured out how to get the multi-ball going and whatnot. And it's an awesome pinball machine. So wish you the best of luck. And, I mean, we're local. So if there's anything we can ever do, if you want to jump back on and give us any more updates about the pinball machine, happy to do that for you, brother. But nicely done. Nice showing at Chicagoland Pinball Expo. And I can't wait to see what happens. Well, thanks for having me on, guys. Good talking to you all. All right, man. Yeah, you too. Be good, Justin. We'll talk to you later. Say hi to your wife for me. We'll do that. Bye, guys. Yeah, so Castlevania, if they haven't checked that out, it's in the homebrew section now. Ed Owens, he ran the homebrew section at Expo this year. We're going to talk to him in a little bit. I did want to try to see if we can reach in and try to get a hold of Zach Menny because that first night during the Gary Stern story, Zach was the one that was kind of camping out while you were eating the bone marrow. So let's see if we can give Zach a quick jingle here. Making me hungry.
    26:10
    Hello. Hey, what's going on, Zach? It's Ken and Steve. Zach Manning. Hey, how's it going, fellas? Good, man. I know I didn't catch you at a bad time. It's not like you're relocating out of your house or anything right now. No, absolutely not. Just sitting by the phone patiently awaiting you to call me. Looking at our pictures from Expo together. Yeah. Hanging the pictures from Expo. Yeah. Well, hey, man, I don't want to keep on the phone too long. We're just kind of making the rounds today. We're trying to get a hold of people that experience Expo as we did. And first I wanted to say how much fun we had hanging out like multiple nights. And I know you were busy as a distributor there at the show. How was Expo from a distributor standpoint? Yeah, this was our first Expo as owners of Flippin' Out Pinball last year. It was a previous owner. So a whole new different perspective for Nicole and I. But overall, it went really, really well. I think we did sales-wise and exposure-wise better at the Chicago Pinball Expo than any other show this year. Oh, good. I think that was really good. We met a lot of people. We met a lot of new customers with the new release of that Medieval Madness rerun. So that was super exciting as well.
    27:20
    So, yeah, everything was good. Sorry, I'm a little winded. I just blew out my left testicle moving a multimorphic P3 into the flipping out van. So you'll have to excuse me. I should. I know somebody that can get you an Escalera and probably take some of that off. Isn't that right?
    27:37
    Even with the Escalera, that thing is a monster. Oh, man. Well, let me ask you this, man. What about, I'm trying to get like a favorite story or a moment from everybody that had gone to Expo. Now, I listened to Twip podcast today. It sounds like your favorite. I already shared one, though. I feel like your favorite story was somebody that had an unfortunate experience in the restroom at Spears.
    28:01
    And you know what's so funny, man, is those guys told me what professional drinkers they were, and they were going to come take extra life to work and take everybody under the table, and then I just find the irony there.
    28:12
    And we'll talk about those guys in a little bit. Maybe we can try to get a hold of one of them to come on the show.
    28:17
    They're still recovering. I know, I know. Well, at least it's not in an ICU. They were not around on Saturday, needless to say. They were already back up in Wisconsin. No way. I give them credit. We're talking about Drew and Ian from Poor Man's Pinball Podcast. Those guys came out, they partied hard, and they went back to their natural habitat of a Milwaukee. Yeah, they hung out with us a while, and they were a blast. They were a lot of fun. At one point, Drew's shirt was off, and he threw it at my wife, and I was like, what is going on? At one point, we were playing Elvira, House of Horrors, and JJ from Game Exchange Colorado in his room. And those guys came in. Is that room 330? Yeah, 330.
    28:56
    And they both individually walked in, and they both kind of like went to kind of give me like a little friendly nudge, and they both lightly spilled their drinks on me from both sides. I was like, hey, I got a little bit. How did they politely spill their drinks? It wasn't like a complete dousing, but it was like a jingle where they just kind of got on both of my opposite arms. So good times. I was wearing long sleeves. I've got a favorite moment, Ken and Beattie. Oh, here we go. Now, this is Expo-ish related. It did happen prior to the start of Expo, if you will. But we were hanging out. Ken, you pulled the best stream of you and party at Steve Beattie's house. Oh, Beattie's house, yeah. At Studio B, flipping out Studio B. But there were so many people there. Yes. So many microphones, so many mixing boards, and so many friends. Nobody cared who was working for who or what. Nobody cared. Everybody was just hanging out. Everybody was having fun. But one of the most exciting parts of the whole show was me coming back, and I'm doing some video editing, and seeing just because I filmed that night, and just walking through and seeing the back of a head, and then that head turn around, it's Eric Menier. And all of a sudden, that head turn around, it's Keith Johnson. Oh, it's John Borg. Like, it's Brian Allen. It was like a who's who, and it was so much fun. But the number one moment was, and, Ken, you were, I kind of told you, sprung this on you at the last second, but I said, hey, you want to see somebody really uncomfortable? I pulled out the camera and started a Cribs episode. Yes, you did. So, see, BD, and BD's already a couple drinks in. And I said, BD, episode three, go. Literally out there talking with a group of people. Boom. All right, here we go. And Zach was serious to the heart attack. He's like, you ready to watch this go? You're like, Steve Beattie. And then you turn away. You're like, MTV Cribs, or Pinball Cribs, episode three, go. And then you're just like on the fly. You're like, all right, here we go. I guess we're doing it. Yeah, it was awesome, man. I gave him, he thought it was a joke, but I gave him the whole director's, like, the twirly fingers. Keep going, keep going. I'm like, really? We're doing it. Okay, fine, all right. And then I'm like, I'm on the spot. You know, I'm forgetting names in there. And he's like, keep going, Beattie. Come on, come on. Come on, keep going, man. All right, here we go. So is it possible? Will we see that air at some point? That was probably one of my favorite moments of the whole expo, just kicking it off in that epic way that I don't think you could have done any better. That was a party, man. That was the greatest party. Can I at least be setting that up again? No, thanks for hosting it. Thank you enough. What I thought was really cool, to your point, Zach, was that there was not any animosity. Nobody was on separate teams that night. Everybody came together and just had a party. and to see all those people in one space. At one point I saw Dwight Sullivan talking to Scott Dinesi, and I was like, oh, wow, I just want to take a picture of this. Yeah, it was cool, man. At one point we had Scott Dinesi and Eric Menier both on the mics, and they were both talking at the same time. And I was like, hey, do you guys mind, let me get a photo of this, because it like it That young blood That it It looks like a future star rookie card you know when you collect those baseball things Yeah those baseball cards It was good times man It like the old I cherish my Mike Piazza rookie gold signature Remember that? When you get the little signature, you get the gold one. I remember. That's where it's at. That is where it's at. That's where it's at. But I wanted to also say I had so much fun hanging out with Nicole Manny, who's Dak's wife and co-owner of Flippin' Off Pinball. She just really was so personable all weekend long. She was very hospitable to anybody that needed help. But more importantly, she was just fun to hang out with. I mean, every time we were together, there was never any awkward moments of silence with anybody. Everybody just rock and rolled all night, and everybody joked, and I was really appreciative of that. That's why I told her before the expo, usually she's very reserved and shy as a person, and I told her because she's the CEO of this company, I said, you know what? I'm going to ask you on expo, just put yourself out there. Don't worry about what people think. Put yourself out there. Try to take care of our customers and our friends, and just see what the community does. And boy, oh, boy, did they not return just a very, very welcoming carpet, if you will, into the pinball industry. So she's actually really hyped now. She was on a recent episode of TWiP with me. And so, yeah, reach out to Nicole at Flippin' Out as well. She's really in it, and hopefully it showed this last weekend. Anybody that's on the fence on a Jersey Jack Pinball Wizard of Oz Yellow Book Road Edition, go ahead and call Nicole. because she'll be able to close you if you're making that decision, right? No worries. You're hard closing, man. Yeah, good times, man. But listen, I know you're moving. Congratulations on closing on a couple houses the other day. Yes, man. Wish we were closer. We'd be helping you out. But you'll be in our thoughts as you're hustling, blowing out testicles. We're blowing testicles. Right. That's right. No worries, guys. In the next couple days, I'll probably travel right back up north to meet you guys and deliver you another brand-new machine and pick up some of the old. Hey, listen. Yeah. This is our first recording in Studio C tonight, and when you come out, let's stream out of Studio C. That's cool. Have another good night. It'll be fun. It's cool up here. Yeah, it's got a nice little vibe to it. I like the thought of that. Good times, man. Hey, you know you're my guy, brother, so thanks so much for coming on. Thanks for everything at Expo, and I look forward to seeing you here in the next week or so. Always, man. BD, I love you to death. Love you too, brother. Well, yeah, you know what? If they were giving a twippy for just a badass person who busts his ass and does everything professional, does all the production pieces wonderfully, you would have my first, second, and third vote. I thought you'd say I'd finish fourth. Just out of the running for recognition. No, I appreciate that a lot, man. I really do. That's very nice of you. Just a bit outside. Hey. All right, man. See you, Zach. So now Zach was a guy that at one point we're hanging out in our room at the Westin, and I believe it was Thursday night. And he goes, you know what, man? You want to go to a party? And it was late. It was like 1 o'clock or something like that. Well, I remember at some point we're back in the room, and he's like, Greg Bone's in the room, Chelsea Bone is in the room, and Chelsea is Greg's wife. Chelsea, we all know Greg is an awesome dude, right? Greg's awesome. And he married just an awesome freaking woman in Chelsea Bone. So nice. So fun. So nice. With the bucket of chicken. There we go. Now, Jeff Bone comes in. Now, if you remember, Jeff Bone is Greg Bone's brother. Jeff Bone, last year, they drove up from southern Indiana with a bucket of chicken that sat in the car for five hours and then was in the hotel room for a couple hours. And that's when Steve got a little bit of chicken man notoriety by eating some of the bucket of chicken. And we wondered if the salmonella that you had contracted later, if that was part of the bucket of chicken. No salmonella. There was enough. There was something that had happened. Well, enough alcohol killing the salmonella. That was good. But it was good times. Anyways, it's been a running joke for over a year. And then Jeff comes up with buckets of chicken again. And I thought it was so funny. Dude, he walked into Expo, and I saw the chicken, and I ran up and gave Jeff the biggest hug, man. There's awesome pics. Jeff, chicken! We'll upload a bunch of these pics of this episode from Expo, from our adventures. But, yeah, shout-out to Jeff. Shout-out to Chelsea. Shout-out to Greg Bone. I mean, the three of those, the three amigos, absolutely so fun to hang out with those guys. Yeah, they're blessed. We're all in the room. Zach's in there, and he's like, let's go to a party. No, let's go crash a party. Nicole's here. Let's go crash a party. And, you know, I'm still the kind of guy where I'm like, I don't want to just go into somebody's room at like 1.30 in the morning. I was the same. You're like, why don't you go scout it out and let us know if it's cool so we're not, you know, bringing basically a bunch of dudes. There was like eight dudes, and then you had, you know, Nicole and Chelsea. Zach's like, what do you mean if it's cool? He's like, we're all going to go up together. Let's just do it. I'm like, ah, man, I just feel a little awkward. He's like, well, we're going to go up to JJ's room from Game Exchange Colorado. He's a distributor. He's got pinball machines in the room. He's got, like, this presidential suite. Let's go do it. So I'm like, all right, no problem. So we're creeping through the hallways past midnight, you know, in the wee hours of the early morning or late night, however you look at it. We go down this long corridor. There's this last room on the left, room 330. And so we're all there. There's probably, like, 10 or 15 of us at this point. Yeah, exactly. 10 or 12. Yeah. Zach goes up to the door, and I'm expecting, like, a little knock. Yeah. I mean, he does this, like, flying kick. Team drop kick. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. I mean, it's like.
    37:24
    It was loud. People from the whole hallway had to. And I'm like, we're going to go. What are we doing? Going to Jail and Expo. Open the door. Anyways, we end up in this room. There's an Elvira House of Horrors pinball machine set up in there. There's an Attack from Mars remake, a Monster Bash remake. I think there was a Jurassic Park and a Deadpool also in this room. Yep, yep. All in this huge room, and we just started playing pinball. Now, I had never met JJ before. What a freaking nice guy that guy is. Seriously. A partier. It just takes these strangers, at least for us. He doesn't know us. And he's like, yeah, come on in. You guys have a good time. He had some of his friends there. I don't know if those guys were, like, security detail or if those guys were. I feel like they were. You know, they were shutting it down, and we come in, and we single-filed in. So it's just like, Zach, Nicole. Right. I was waiting for somebody to put up the velvet rope where I wasn't going to get in, and I just was going to wait outside for everybody to come out.
    38:21
    But it was fun. But those guys were super nice, too. They were like, yeah, come on in. What can I get you? What do you need? Do you guys need some drinks? Oh, wow. Okay. Super, super nice. So that was a really, really fun experience. And the next day, I pinged JJ, because we are friends on Facebook, and I said, hey, man, thanks for everything last night. I really appreciate it. I didn't have to do that, but, you know, good times. He's like, yeah, he's like, anytime, man. And I said, okay. And he's like, like, tonight. And I was like, uh-oh. And he's like, they went all weekend. They went all weekend. I saw JJ outside of his room maybe once because he was hosting in that room the whole time. Like, he was an animal. So, anyways, that was Thursday. Now, Friday. Friday comes along.
    39:02
    It's only Friday. Now, Friday. Now, we had, and I can't remember if it was Thursday night or if it was Friday night, But we had Ron Hallett, and he's from Slam Tilt Pinball Podcast. Ron had come in, and he was hanging out with us in our room. And I can't remember if it was Thursday night or Friday night. For some reason, I think it was Friday. I think it was Friday night. Yeah, because you were getting a little tired on Friday night. Well, and Friday night we had met Cassandra Peterson, who's Elvira. We've got a Friday night story. But let's go ahead. Let me go ahead. Let me get Ron on the phone here from Slam Tilt Pinball Podcast and see if he's got a favorite Expo story.
    39:39
    Hey, so joining us on the special and lit Pinball Podcast hotline, it's the man, the myth, the legend, Mr. Ron Hallett of Slam Seal Pinball Podcast. Now, Ron had been a great contributor of Meet the Media, and he was in our room and hanging out, I think, was it Saturday night, Ron, that we were all kind of just chilling out after dinner or whatnot? It's Friday night. That's right, it was Friday night. Welcome to the show, man. Thanks for coming on.
    40:05
    I didn't know it was a myth and a legend, but thanks. Hey. Thank you for the intro there. How's it going? All the man myths and legend come from beautiful upstate New York. Oh, yes, they do. Yes, they do. How was Expo for you, man? It was nice to finally meet you. I'd been listening to your podcast for a long time, and we had kind of conversed a little bit on Facebook. But to me, it was great, man. I had a good time. Did you like Expo? Did you have fun?
    40:31
    Yeah. It was one of the better Expos. I've been to every Expo since 2004, and this is definitely the most rooms they've ever had filled with games. 15 years of Expo. I would say by far. Yeah. No, it was pretty packed. Free play area, you had a couple vendor halls. Two free play areas, I believe, right? Wasn't it? Yeah, what did we have? We had the vendor room, the free play room, what I call the stern tournament room. Right. Then we had the second free play room or auction area. Yeah, and that had those weird imported Spanish titles that I'd never seen. Were they Spanish? Some of them were. Those were so cool. They were all over the place. The art was very interesting on those. It was. A little risque on a few of those. Let's just say that. I was going to say, I don't know that those art packages come out these days. No, no.
    41:25
    Just to give listeners an idea, One of the games had, like, I think it was three separate completely nude women riding dragons. Yeah, perfectly normal. Perfectly normal. I can totally see it. And another one had a completely nude woman staring at a wolfman guy who was, like, totally ripped with his junk, like, obscured. Yes, yes. With, like, a wolfman face. He looked like Algar if he, like, was on steroids.
    41:54
    These were games that you're not going to go out and see on location or anywhere anytime soon. But it was interesting that they all kind of had converged in this one section. And then you had the Marco room, which was like the Stern room, which was like – Yeah, Stern. Which was another – yeah, Stern Tournament Room. We talked about that. Any pinball machines that kind of caught your eye other than the craziness that we saw in that auction room?
    42:19
    I'd say – this is going to sound funny, but one of the ones that was way better than I thought it would be was I played a ton of the Star Wars Home Edition. Ah, Star Wars the Pin. Yeah, they had a role that was the Star Wars Premium Comic Book Art Edition and Star Wars Pro Comic Book Art Edition, and then they had the Star Wars Home Edition. I took to the rules pretty quickly, which I don't usually do.
    42:49
    It shot good, which surprised me, although I had heard that it shoots pretty good, but it does shoot very good. and I just had a fun time trying to assemble my Rebel crew and attack the Death Star. Yeah, you can get to that Death Star pretty quickly, but to your point, to assemble the crew and go at it like full bore, it takes a little more strategy involved. It's nice, too, because R2-D2 multiball is not terribly difficult to access. We have one here. We streamed it a little while ago. It's a solid game. It feels like a him-on-machine. It feels good, yeah. Right. It doesn't feel like you're playing a sizzle machine or anything that's dumbed down. Yeah, I'm actually surprised that you appreciated that, because I know with your pinball history and your expertise, I know you're big on string classics and other titles, but I'm surprised that the Star Wars Home Edition tickled your fancy, so to speak, Ron. I was surprised also. I will say it had some issues with the right flipper as the show went on. Okay. It was kind of sticking. And the lockout, it doesn't have like a standard lockdown bar. Yeah. It's like plastic or something, and I could actually kind of feel it separating as I was playing. So I don't know how long that would last in my house, although I do tend to hit the flipper buttons a little on the hard side. If the Star Wars topper ever comes out, you can add that, and I think you can upgrade the sound. I thought we would see the review of that. It's just not approved. That's true. It's been out for a little while. But, yeah, no, that's a fun game. Any crazy stories? Anything happen to you? Now, you went up there with, you brought your dad, right? You guys were both there at the show?
    44:31
    Yeah, my dad always comes with us. I tend to be the introvert, and he is the polar opposite. He will usually end up like, you know, he's hanging out with Steve Ritchie or he's hanging out with someone else. He was hanging out with, I think his name is Andrew, the new quality control person at Stern. Absolutely. Now, does your dad say, hey, my son Ron is, you know, co-host of Slam Phil Pinball Podcast. Does he throw your name around to get VIP access to these parties? I don't think so. I think his dad is the VIP access. He did bring Andrew over to the table while I was doing the media thing, and he said, you know, I was listening to one of your episodes when I was researching pinball, getting ready for my interview. That's awesome. Really? That's perfect. You got him the job. I told him, like, if I get a Deadpool, the play field's going to be good, right? Yeah. He gave me his card. No pressure. I'm off that. Got the card. Well, now you know who to call directly for your populated play fields in the event of a needed swap. So no big deal. Now, at one point, like you said, Friday night, we were all hanging out, and we were in our room, and we probably had eight or nine people there. But I got to finally, I got to hear Ron do, like, his Stewie impersonation, like, in person. and it's just as spot on as it is that you would listen to on the podcast. I wanted to tell you, Ron, like, sincerely, I had a really good time hanging out with you, man. And I know that, you know, we had never really had a chance to hang out, but I had a great time and I look forward at some point in another show because it was a really fun time. And I appreciate everything you did with your time with the, you know, the media thing. And it was good having you at Expo. I know you typically go, but I appreciated the time that we had just kind of hanging out. Well, and I appreciate all the things you did for the show. I mean, if the people that weren't there and didn't see, like, Ken, he made all these, like, these, like, thick banners for, like, each different show. And it's just, like, when it's over, it's like, here, it's all yours. No, that's nice of you to say, man. Yeah, that was insane. I felt good. Actually, I felt bad that I didn't have anything with me because we don't really have any merchandise that slams on, unfortunately. I should have at least had stickers. Well, don't you have, don't you guys have, you were talking about a shirt. that you guys had that might be printed for this. Yeah, there was a shirt that Mrs. Penn made for Bruce, my podcast mate, that has our faces on there as Beavis and Butthead. Yep. And it's awesome. But I think he's trying to get like the original. But she didn't really use the template. She did it. It's all handmade, like one-offs. Yeah, right. So he's going to have to work at getting that made. I know I said I'd never want a shirt with my face on it, but that I'll make an exception. That is the exception. Now, Dennis Treasel, on the other hand, will only go with the face palm silhouette. He will not allow the face on the t-shirt. That's a good one. Hey, are you going to TPF? Do you typically go?
    47:26
    Yes. I have the hotel reserved so far. I did not get in the tournament. It sold out, like, within ten minutes. But I did get at least one. I have one classic century. I did get that. So I'll get to play in classics once. however long that takes. I would have your dad call Ed Van Der Veen and let him throw around some VIP stats and get you in that tournament, Ron. Well, the funny thing is our cluster Vuck messenger thread we've been on since our last regular episode. Right. Ed's on it. We keep forgetting he's on there. It's like to make sure we don't say anything bad about Texas Pinball Festival. No bitching about Texas Pinball Festival. Not at all. Are you staying at the hotel in the convention center there? No, I didn't get in in the, like, 20, 30 minutes before it sold out, so I am in another hotel. It's the same one I was in last year. It's a little bit of a track, but. We were in a beautiful hotel, Indigo. It was awesome, man. It was a great place. It was, like, brand new. Everything was brand spanking new. So close, too. Except for the rolls they used for breakfast. They had a little bit of mold on it that freaked me out. But we just didn't eat breakfast there. Yeah, it wasn't good. But, hey, man. The cool thing about Expo, I'll say, is when you think of Texas as the show, which I still think it's the main pinball show. I agree. Right now it is. Yeah. Expo is doing its best. It's in that area that you kind of like as a person going to the show where you can see, you know, it's improving and they're getting more games in there, but it hasn't gotten way more crowded yet. Sure. You know what I mean? Yeah. If it gets to the point where it keeps getting better, then there'll be more and more people there, and then you'll have more and more trouble getting on games. But it's kind of in the happy zone right now as far as an attendee. Yeah, all those games are like – It seems to be pretty – it's tough to get on a lot of games there. I suppose like one, maybe two deep. Well, that was – and I'm glad you brought that up because TPF right now is the premier show, and I get it, but from a pinball playing experience, it was very difficult because you're right. I mean, you were 3, 4, 5. 3, 4, 5, yeah. And it's crazy because they had more machines to play a TDF than Expo. They had a lot of machines there. Whereas Expo, you're not necessarily walking up to a game that's sitting around. Like, you weren't going to walk up to an Elvira House of Horrors. But you weren't more than, like, one person deep to jump on a game. And I don't mind knowing that, hey, I have to wait two or three balls before I get on a game versus saying, you know, I might have to wait 20, 30 minutes. So it is what it is. And all that being said, like, I didn't play a whole lot of pinball. Did you get a chance? Did you play crawl at all? I did. I did play Crawl. What were your thoughts on Crawl?
    50:09
    Let's see. Well, there is – I wanted to make sure I filmed it because there's like one video of it on YouTube. Right. And it's like from a cell phone camera, and it's not very clear. And watching that, it kind of looked boring, I should say. Fair enough. Yeah. Well, then I played it, and I felt the same way. Did you get it to the under play field? Okay. Yes. The whole game seemed to be trying to get to the under play field to see the cool, like, magnifying glass effect. But you've got to stick your face right up there to see the whole thing. I kept losing the ball, like, on the right side. You can't even see where it drains, but it would drain. I know it looked great. They had a lot of tech issues with it. They had to keep fixing. They had a drop target stick. They had to fix. They had ball hang-ups. they had to fix.
    51:05
    When I went to play on Saturday, the left flipper was binding. But I think they kept it running the whole show, which seemed like that was a feat. It was a ball game. I know why they didn't make many of these. This thing was very complicated. There's a whole under play field. There's a whole second play field that's huge. It's like black hole, except the face is the other way. But, you know, it just makes it look small with a little magnifying glass. But, man, that thing looks like a mechanical nightmare to have to work on. Props to Troy for bringing that out. Yes. Troy Smith. I can't believe you brought that out there. Oh, yeah. Yeah, just kudos for bringing that out. And he just scored a King Kong, too. King Kong and Crawler. Yeah. Wow. What was excellent? I'm sorry. The sound was excellent on that. That's one thing I'll give it. I'll give it some kudos. Well, I've got one crazy question to ask you, Ron, and we'll let you go. And I appreciate that you took the time to come on the show. So assuming that value is not a factor, meaning you couldn't flip anything and rarity made no difference, if you could have Crawl or you could have Star Wars the Pin for one year of play, which one would you take?
    52:10
    For one year of play. One year of play. And then I sell it, right? Well, you never bought it, so it's just going to be taken away. And you can't show your friends. So literally you just have to play it in your master bedroom all by yourself. Okay, so I'm not selling it. Okay, so I literally can't make a profit. I would take Star Wars the 10th. Wow. You heard it here. 100%. Oh, yeah. That's awesome. I'm going to ask you one more question. What's the next Stern Classic we should all be looking for before the value goes up?
    52:37
    The rumor is supposedly the Led Zeppelin Quicksilver, but we'll see. We will see. Mm-hmm. All right, brother. Well, Ron, again, the pleasure was all ours. I look forward to hanging out again at TPF, and if there's anything that we could ever do for you, don't hesitate to ask. It was great hanging out, man. Yeah, Ron, great meeting you.
    52:56
    Great meeting you, too. Thank you. Hey, so nice of Ron to join the program. For those of you that don't listen to the Pinball Podcast, they upload episodes every few weeks or so. Go ahead and check them out. And our buddy Ron is our buddy Ron. So good times. Now, one person that I spent a lot of time with at Texas Pinball Festival, we did. Oh, yeah. Jason Fowler of the Slap State Pinball Podcast. and for whatever reason so jason came up with with matt canaan and they're they're guys that they stream with i did not really get a chance to hang out with jason at all and i and i'm trying to figure out how that even happened did you did you hang out with jason really jason yeah no when i mean we had the the meet the media table going he was yeah but daryl we know he was okay that's true so we were hanging out in our room for a while dude we hung out with jason a I don't remember Jason being in our room ever. Yeah, we – And I just don't remember that. Let's do this. I didn't see any Matt. I didn't see much of Matt. I saw Matt, but it was at, like, strange hours. At one point, like, somebody saw him at 2 in the morning, and he had just woke up. So, like, his circadian rhythm was off because he was having some fun. It was, like, 4 in the morning. And he was having some drinks.
    54:14
    I love that. I think you, Zach, and myself were outside, Chad. No, and that's what it's all about. That's what X was about, pinball and forgetting your problems, I suppose. Let's see if we can give Jason a quick call.
    54:30
    Are the people calling for an encore? Oh, shit. I accidentally called back. This is classic. I was trying to call Jason Fowler. This is why you don't drink in podcasts, man. I have no idea what that is. That little pinball subconscious there. You're dreaming about me, Timmy. It was a Freudian slip on my dial. I know it is, Zach. Oh, yeah, buddy. I'm trying to text.
    54:54
    Bill Webb's calling. I'm trying to call Fowler, and I'm dialing Zach. So you guys figure that out. I'm sorry about that, man. How's that testicle, buddy?
    55:04
    Oh, damn, well, I'm unloading her, so it's the right one now. But I'll talk to you guys probably in about 45 minutes. Yeah, right. 25. Be good. Talk to you later. Bye.
    55:19
    All right. You should keep that in. Oh, yeah. No, we'll keep it in. Hello? Jason. What's going on? What's up, man? Jason Fowler. I was just telling Steve that, like, we – Ladies and gentlemen, Jason Fowler from Slab Safe Fembo Podcast. I was telling Steve how we hung out a lot at TPF last year, and then this year at Expo, we were hanging out in the media area, but we did not spend a lot of time together at Expo, and I want to figure out what happened and what I did to make you upset. You know, I have no idea. I actually had someone else, a local guy here, that we were really excited about both going, and he said the same thing. He was like, I never saw you. I don't know how that's even possible. And I'm like, I didn't see him either. So I guess just with both of us being busy, I hate that part of it. But I distinctly remember from Texas, you were like, we had seen each other. Every corner we would go around, we saw each other. And I think after a while, one of us was grating on the other's nerves. I think it was more mine on yours. No, it wasn't at all. We hung out at TPF. This is the great expo recap as we talk about TPF. We hung out outside on your patio of your hotel like every single morning, afternoon, and evening. It was the place to congregate. The dog was pretty awesome. This year it felt like your porch or your patio on TPF was like the meet the media area because it was such a cool place where everybody at some point converged. Everyone was stopping by there. It was a porch. And it was a really fun time to just hang out over there. And I think, Jason, that's probably why that we didn't hang out as much because we had like different shifts. We were never on at the same time. That's true. And I tell you, it was like a moths to a flame for some reason. And everybody kept coming to that area, including people that like blew my mind. Yeah, industry, right? My favorite parts of Expo was I was sitting at the table with Ryan Kuyper and Dave Burnett because they were on at the same time I was, the guys from Wisconsin. And they were streaming Cyclops. And right in the middle of it, who else other than Roger Sharp, the designer of Cyclops, walks up, starts talking to us about the machine. actually more them than me but I just kind of like hung on it's like a fourth wheel but yeah we all got photos with him watched him talk about the rules watched him do really well in the game it was a really surreal moment that I'll never forget and it's full of moments like that all the you know you hear these guys and and they almost become like legendary in your mind and you don't realize they're people you know and you you show up and you actually put a face to the name. Sure. And it's, it's just, it's incredible. Well, it was great because yourself and Matt, you guys showed up on Wednesday night for the Epic Expo tailgate stream. And when you talk about, we were talking about this a little bit earlier with, with Zach, when you think about different companies and different employees, you don't always realize if they play nice together, but that one night that we were all together in Steve's garage and we were just hanging out, like there were no companies. There were no boundaries. Everybody got along. Not that it's rough going otherwise, but it was interesting to see the dynamic of so many different people. Us as podcasters and industry people, everybody's guards were down, and it was just very friendly. Doggies barking in the background. I'm sorry about that. No, you're good, man. It was great starting that night off with you guys, and it meant a lot to us that you guys came up from St. Louis early because you weren't planning on doing that. So thank you so much for coming up early and hitting that tailgate stream because you guys made it more fun than it would have been if you guys weren't there.
    59:06
    We were honored to be invited. BD knows how to throw a party like no one I know. Yes, he does. You're exactly right about everyone playing nice together. I think it's weird because there's this camaraderie among all of us enthusiasts in the hobby that it's odd, but it extends to everyone in the hobby, including employees of, you know, competitors otherwise. You know, it's great. I just absolutely love the hobby. And every time I go to stuff like this, it just firms it up. You know, it's funny because you hear about like the show fatigue or show hangover. And I heard you talking about on your podcast today, you get everything becomes so euphoric at these pinball shows and your adrenaline is rushing and your feelings are on this high level of sensitivity and you're taking it all in and then you're still mentally drained after you get home. Yeah, there's definitely like a crash after the high. I'm in the middle of that crash right now. Right. And it's going to take days and days and days. Now, with all honesty, a lot of that is three and a half hour nights sleep probably for two three consecutive nights but but again absolutely and i also heard you say it's not because of the pinball playing because ironically not a lot of pinball is being played at these shows for us like we're in we're just we're so happy to talk to so many different people that we don't normally get an opportunity to talk to right um absolutely i i think i played 20 games all weekend and i'm not complaining i actually that was my choice i could have played a lot more but you feel like every time you're playing, it's like, well, I'm missing an opportunity to be talking to, you know, either new friends, old friends, whatever. And I, I gladly trade that every time I can play pinball around here. I can wait for the next new release, but the opportunity to see you guys, for instance, on and be able to hang out, that's, that's the best part about Expo is the people there. That's what it's about. So let me ask you this, Jason, and we'll let you go in and thank you so much for now taking the time out on your evening to jump on the podcast. Was there a game that you played that you liked that could be new or old or existing?
    61:22
    And do you have any story, whether it be funny, sad, or non-eventful, that you might want to share on the podcast?
    61:32
    You know, this might not be the most popular one, but I'll give you one that I bet you nobody has said. If it's Star Wars, the pin. Already been said. Oops. All right. Well, we'll go in another direction then. That was actually, honest to God, what I was going to play. Are you serious? I was going to say it. Well, I enjoyed it more than I thought I would. And honestly, I played it with Mark. That's awesome. I know Mark loved it. Okay. Yeah. Mark was like, he was just rabid about trying to play that game. And when he finally saw it, he grabbed me and he's like, hey, let's play a game. And I did. And Mark beat me, actually. So, yeah, he actually took a photo in front of the score afterwards. He was proud of me. I think Mark has one on order. Mark's excited about it. All right, let me ask you this, Jason. Let's play a little trivia question. There was one other person that took part in Meet the Media that we had just spoken to, and this individual also said that his surprise pin of the show was Star Wars the pin for $500. No, I'm kidding. But can you guess who that individual was?
    62:45
    Let's see. I'll give you ten guesses. I think there were 12 media members. I'll give you three. It's somebody that's going to, like, appreciate games that aren't maybe mainstream. So I'm trying to think off the beaten path. Jason, one second. That's all you got. I'm going to go with Zach. No. No?
    63:06
    See, I thought he would do it just because he would be shilling something he was selling. I love you, Zach. I love you. Right. You got two more strikes before you're out here. And no foul takes. Two more.
    63:17
    Emoto? Nope. One more. I'm telling you, it's going to surprise you. It probably will. Ron from Slam Tilt. Wow.
    63:30
    Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. You get the $500. I got it. You get the 500 bits on your next stream, and the Chinese pounds are absolutely free. Hey, do me a favor. When you PayPal that, make it friends and family. I don't want to pay the percentage. I'm just going to do it with bits, and I'm going to be paying the percentage on that change right there. So I'm going to do a credit card and charge you the credit card fee. On that next lap-safe stream, that $500. The fact that you said it was, I would never guess it, that's what led me to Ron. Because I had Ron. That's too funny, though. Yeah, you wouldn't suspect that he would like something like that. I probably wouldn't have guessed him otherwise. I excited for Stern that there are people that have such a history and experience in pinball that find that pin to be something that isn just brushed aside that it actually has merit So that's cool. That's cool that you were digging it. Ron was digging it. We've streamed it here. We dug it. Mark Stilk, professional voice actor, he's digging it. He's getting one. This isn't the thing. All right. What about a story? You got anything that was funny, sad, uneventful, anything that you wanted to share in general? And we'll let you jump off here, the Special Inlet Pinball Podcast. Oh, my gosh. Every story I have, unfortunately, revolves around the four walls at Spears. It seems like every ten minutes I was over there. But, you know, the thing is the food was good. The drinks are always good. And everybody just kind of congregated over there, and it was great to be able to sit down with people. I mean, everybody. You name it, if they were at Expo, they were there at some point. I don't have a great story that's going to make everyone laugh, unfortunately. But just the whole event, the whole weekend. Did anybody spill a drink on you or throw up on you or anything like that? I did walk in right after the great projectile incident of Expo 2019. Projectile incident. As well, we've got experts. I think from what I understand, it involved urinals and nausea. And I was in right after that happened, thankfully. It happens. And that's – I love that story. I just think it's so awesome. Oh, my gosh. Yeah, that was one of the highlights, and that kind of tells you what kind of weekend it was. But, yeah, we drank too much, but we had a lot of fun. And I'm already signed up for next year in my mind, so as soon as that's available, I'll be there. And listen, this year it was a little tricky because Bill had the baby. but like we we were talking about trying to throw like something crazy from special one lit and uh we did the epic expo stream and steve says he's on board to do that again this year but we're gonna throw something at expo um which will be fun but when you said spears and and again i'll let you go jason you're right at any point you could walk in there it could be at at 11 in the morning it could be at 11 at night it could be at one in the morning you were gonna run into somebody that you knew there, it was like cheers of Expo. Like you were, everybody knew your name. Yeah, absolutely. Despite there not being a lot of choices, that was the reason why everybody was going there and the reason why you always knew someone would be there. I remember, I'm not somebody that goes to dinner or to drinks by myself, but there was a time when Matt was upstairs, quote, unquote, sleeping, and I decided that it would be a good opportunity to go down there, and I was by myself. and sure enough, within a minute of walking in, I spotted a ton of people and I was not there by myself. So I loved it. It was a great show. You guys did a great job pushing it and supporting it and doing these small events. BD is a rock star in my mind because of that entire party on Wednesday. I loved it. It was epic. It truly was epic. What was your favorite thing to order at Spears, Jason? You know, I had the smoked wings, not the fried ones. they had grilled smoked wings that might have been the best I've ever had. They were so good, and I'm trying to eat better, and it's hard to find wings that aren't fried. Did you get down on that 50-cent wings on Friday?
    67:30
    I thought that was like some day during the week, and I had missed it. I might have been under the influence, though, and just didn't understand the waitress. All right, man. Well, hey, thanks for everything, man. Thanks for coming out to Expo. Please give our regards to Matt. It was no way that I could conference both of you, but great that you guys made it out. I love hanging out with you guys, seriously. Yeah, same here, guys. Happy to do it. There's going to be something coming up prior to TPF, I'm assuming. So I look forward to seeing you and hanging out more. My biggest regret from Expo was that we didn't get a chance to connect more than I would have wished.
    68:05
    No problem. You know where I'm at. I'll always be here. We'll have plenty of opportunities to hang out. All right, brother. Most definitely. Jason, thanks again, man. I appreciate it. Thanks, Jason. Thanks, guys. Have a good night. You too, man. Yep. So Friday night was an eventful night for us because a couple different things had happened. Number one, I had a sit-down with Cassandra Peterson, who is the actor or actress who plays Elvira, which was an important moment for me, not because of an idolization I have for her physically, but because of the pinball machines that I played, like in that being Elvira, the Party Monsters, and Scarecrow, I grew up on Elvira but never really considered her as something that I would be interacting with within pinball. Anyways, long story short, it all came full circle because I'm such a big fan of the Elvira pins. I'm such a big fan of Greg Ferrer's. I'm such a big fan of Dennis Nordman. I'm such a big fan of this third title coming out, and I'll refrain from my thoughts on Elvira and the House of Horrors until Bill jumps on here shortly. But to be able to meet Cassandra Peterson was nice because I – before we did that, I want to give a shout-out to Dwight Sullivan and Corey Stoop of Stern Pinball. They threw something on Friday night at 7 o'clock, which was it was feud without the family. and the whole thing was it was a game show that was just like family feud frisbees 10 frisbees were tossed into the audience five of those frisbees were numbered and put you on one team and five of the other frisbees would put you on another team so you had two teams of five and you were playing family feud but it was it was gaming and and pin questions and it was it was super fun Now, it's the first time that I've gone to this. They've done this before. Yeah, he's done it a few times. And I didn't know what to expect. I wanted to be there because I wanted to be involved with my buddy and what he's doing.
    70:14
    It was one of the most fun things that I did at Expo. It was one of my highlights. Yeah. Probably my highlight. It was really, really good, and I hope they continue to do it. It was kind of a sticky situation because it was coinciding at Friday night at 7 o'clock with the stern reveal, like launch party of Elvira. Even so, there was plenty of people that had made the commitment to come in and do this feud without the family, so it wasn't a letdown there. But could you imagine the amount of people that would have been in there if it hadn't gone up against the launch party? So hopefully that oversight doesn't happen again because I think that people that, you know, chose to do one or the other would have missed out either way. Now, I chose to miss out on that launch party, and I didn't regret it at all. We had a lot of fun. It went for a couple hours, and Dwight and Corey, kudos. Class of hands.
    71:09
    Very, very nice. If they end up doing this at another show, please, let's promote that because it is very, very fun. Everybody in that room got some Stern swag. And not even just little things. I mean, they were giving away trans lights. Yeah. Zombie Yeti was in the room.
    71:28
    Oh, yeah. And it was huge. Tim Sexton had jumped in. I mean, everybody was representing. There was a lot. You were winning a trans light and getting it signed by the guys. Now, we were sitting in there, and it was myself, yourself, Crystal Gemnick.
    71:43
    Shout out to Crystal. I had never met Crystal before. And we're friends on Facebook, and I appreciated what she was doing at Logan Arcade. She was a tech there. She has since moved, and she's working with Marco. And our paths have never crossed. And I think one of my regrets with Crystal is that our paths had never crossed when she was local because she's so fun to hang out with. She's so genuine. She's so nice. She's so down to earth, and she likes to have fun. I mean, she totally fits in with everything that we like to do as pinball people. And if you've not met Crystal, I would recommend if you ever bump into her at a show or, you know, in the public, Introduce yourself to her. And just a really good time. She was super, super fun. But she was with us at the event with Dwight Sullivan. Jason and Matt from Slap Save were there. Chris Grosvenor, who is the – Chris the Pinter. Chris was there, yeah. For Orbital Alberts and Pinball Nerds Podcast. He was there. I'm trying to remember who else was there, and I'm going to feel bad if I miss somebody. I think St. Charles folks out there. St. Charles Pinball Crew. Yeah, because Joe had jumped in. Ryan, Joe. The two Joes. But anyways, long story short, it was fun because we're all sitting there and we're hanging out. And to your point, nobody left without some swag that night, whether it be a trans light or a teacher. Some people got double swag. Yeah, it was fun. It was fun. That was a great night. So we do that for a little bit. Now, when we exited that, I was happy that I had gone, but a part of me was like, man, I wish that I would have at least gotten in line and met Cassandra. Yeah. Now, this was like an hour, maybe a couple hours. Was it a couple hours? It had to be close to about, I don't know. So we're walking to Dwight's seminar, and there was already a line like around the block. Okay, now side story here. Now, this is kind of interesting. So when I knew that Cassandra was going to be coming to Expo.
    73:37
    Ken started working out. Yes, I started getting his game. Eating better. I lost seven pounds. I had spoken to Rob Burke and I'm like, because he had told me, listen, she's coming. I'm like, all right, that's great. I said, I'm a big fan of her being involved in pinball. Yeah. And I'm like, so what do I need to do to get her on the podcast? He's like, okay, so here's her agent and here's who you need to reach out to. And I reached out to her agent and we had a conversation. and I was insistent on asking her to come on our show to talk about pinball.
    74:15
    And because it was prior to Expo, it would have had to have been on the phone. It didn't work out. So the way that it was supposed to lay itself out was I was supposed to call her agent at Expo so that I could potentially, because nothing was agreed upon, get some time with her while she was at the show. The problem was this. I was having such a good time at the show and having drinks and everything like that. I didn't think it was professional of me to have a couple drinks, call to make an appointment, pull up my podcasting gear, and try to conduct a five-minute conversation regarding pinball with Cassandra Peterson. And so I just thought it better to take a pass on this and not do that. And I thought at that point, at least I'll put myself in a position where I can wait in line and introduce myself and get a selfie with her. Because, like, autographs are cool, right? Like, I understand the collectible nature of an autograph. Yeah, yeah, yeah. When it comes to pinball for me, and even with athletes, the autograph does not appeal to me as much as capturing the moment in time where you're meeting somebody that might not be a hero. It might not be somebody that you idolize, but it's somebody that is of interest of you, and you want to be able to refer back to a photograph and remember the moment instead of looking back down on a signature, which seems very impersonal to me, even if it's personalized to you. Which you could have gotten both, right? You could have gotten both. So, Mike, let me just go ahead, and the line was very small because it was a couple hours after she had started. It was perfect. She was still up there autographing, taking pictures. We walk in, and there's like 10 people in line versus 150 that there were earlier waiting in line for two hours. Right. So Ken basically strolls right up with our buddy Ryan. Yes. And he's up there having his picture taken with Cassandra. Well, so I go up to Cassandra. It's like five minutes. Right. It's five-minute wait time. I go up to Cassandra. I'm like, I'm going to have a conversation with her. Oh, you totally converse. Right. It's not like there's nobody behind me. Okay. Are we done yet? She's sipped that wine like three or four times. That was awesome. But I just told her. I said, listen, you know, I appreciate your work in pinball. And, you know, thanks for doing this not once or twice, but now for a third time. Third time. You know, I hope that this was something that was fulfilling for you. And maybe we see a fourth of it. Do I ever think that there will be a fourth of I Repent? Probably not. It's probably the end of the road. But, I mean, she was very, very nice. And, you know, she was smiling and engaging and conversing back and forth. And then I got my little selfie. and very good. It was very, very nice. It was just a nice experience. Now, little did I know that our buddy Wes Bentley, owner of Rebel Guitars, he's also... Shout out to Wes. Wes is awesome. We hung out with Wes quite a bit. It was awesome. Wes is such a super nice guy. And we're going to talk about Wes. We're going to talk about Mark Silk. We've got a lot of shout outs that we want to give at the end of this show. Most definitely. And it's impossible for us to remember everybody, but we're going to do our best. But anyhow, So later on, I'm feeling pretty good about myself. I'm like, you know what? I got a chance to sit down and talk. I wasn't recording anything for a podcast. It was very organic. It was very genuine. She was very nice. Send your picture to your buddy, Wes. She was very receptive. I sent the picture to everybody else. Wes had taken another picture from a side angle. Oh, that was Wes's actual. Okay. Right. Yeah. So we're hanging out in the hotel room later on that night, and I'm feeling pretty good about myself, as I said, with the Cassandra thing. Now, in the room that night, Jerry Thompson and his wife Jennifer. Oh, my gosh. Jerry Thompson, sound engineer at Stern Pinball, and his wife Jennifer, who is one of the most unbelievably fun and cool people that I ever had the pleasure of meeting at a pinball expo. I agree. This woman was just awesome. We met these guys. We're like, yeah, we like them. We've known Jerry for a while. It was the first time I got a chance to meet his wife, and he just recently got married in the last year or two. And, you know, you never know how a spouse is going to accept pinball friends. Because, obviously, it's part of Jerry's livelihood is doing the sound engineering for Stern Pinball. And you just don't know how it happened. But she killed it. Like, I wanted to hang out with Jerry's wife. She's just so fun. She's awesome. All the wives are awesome. If I could hang out with Jerry's wife, Jennifer, right, Jennifer Thompson, Nicole Menny, and Chelsea Bone, I could literally go on vacation with the three of them and just have a super fun time without any of my other buddies. But in any event, we're sitting in the room. We're all having a good time. And I get this text on my phone. And I'll upload this picture. And it's Wes. And he sent me the picture that he took from the side of myself and Cassandra. But he has this phone editing program that made it look like we got our glamour shot at prom. It was a prom shot. Oh, man. It was so funny, and I was laughing, and I was like, Wes, that's classic. But then he comes up with another one and another one, and they kept getting more and more pronounced. It was pretty unbelievable. So anyway, shout-out, Wes. That was really fun. Shout-out Cassandra Patterson. Shout-out Cassandra Peterson. It was awesome to get that opportunity to meet you, and good times there. For those of you that were wondering, where does Bill Webb play a role in all this? So Bill, he's at the Epic Tailgate stream. He popped in for an hour. Now, I remind you, Bill just had a baby, Bill and his wife, Billy the fifth. Four or five days previous? Yeah, I think it's a week. Yeah, so he stops in there, but he did get to Expo for like three hours or so. He did. And he was there. So what I'd like to do is I really don't know how his Expo experience went because he was in and out as quickly as he could.
    80:06
    But he wanted to make sure that he stopped and say hello to whoever he could. So, hey, who's calling in on the Special Elite Pinball Podcast hotline?
    80:18
    It's none other than Mr. Bill Webb. Bill, what's going on, man? Welcome to your show that you're not on. What's going on, buddy? How are you? We are living the pinball dream. You are living the pinball dream. But are you really living the pinball dream or are you living the baby nightmare? No, I'm kidding, man. I'm kidding. I am trying to live the pinball dream to escape the baby nightmares. That's exactly right, buddy. I'm so happy to have you call in, man, because we were saving the best for last, and we were kind of going through with myself and Steve Eady. We talked to a couple people that were in the media events and talking about their favorite parts of Expo, maybe machines that they had played that were, like, surprisingly to them. And Steve just walked back in. Steve, we got Bill on the line. Hey, Bill. What's going on, buddy? BD, what up, brother? Hey, boo! Hey. So a lot of people had asked about you throughout the show, and some people didn't realize that you actually not only were you at the Meet the Media event for a little bit at Expo, but you perused Expo for a couple hours, and you were at the tailgate stream. So how was Expo for you? We were at Expo last year. How was the show in your eyes?
    81:30
    Well, the show itself, it was much bigger. Um, dude, there were, there were more new faces. So that was cool. Um, you know, the hard part for me was, is I had very limited time to actually see all of the show. So I mean, I just did some quick walkthroughs. Um, you know, I went there for two hours on Thursday. Um, so my time was very limited. Um, it was nice to catch up with, uh, a lot of the people that we knew who's just short lived because I was on a tight timetable. and the same thing goes with Wednesday night for the Epic Tales stream that was a crazy night two hours each night that's a lot to squeeze in just to even say hello to everybody and see the show at Expo yeah that's right and you know what man honestly that was a pipe dream so I was glad I was able to make it out same here buddy definitely you know it was an interesting take because literally as soon as I would uh uh take over the you know eight uh we're doing the uh baby watching and shifts so I'll watch our son from like eight to one eight to two and my wife will do like two to six or two to seven and uh you know I'd be sitting there on the phone holding my baby holding the baby you know seeing everybody having fun at expo was like oh I know makes you just want to throw the baby on the ground and come I fell for you though, Bill. But you know what, man? Yeah. You were enjoying time home with baby Bill. It's all good, brother. I hope that that experience doesn't make you grow to resent your son. No. No, no, no, no, no. Because there's something about classic conditioning where it's like, no, I'm totally kidding. Well, you know, it takes a nice, dedicated husband and father to not want to take advantage of running out to expo when there's a new baby in the house. So good for you, man. Sure. Good for you. Yeah. And you know what? Honestly, there was enough pinball craziness here because I think it was you or Steve that pointed out that last year at expo, the Friday at expo, I had sold my demo man, which was tumultuous to try and get up the stairs after the... Well, let me set the tone because last year it was... Expo started on Thursday, and when it happened on Thursday, we went up there myself. and Steve and Bill.
    83:56
    American Pinball had revealed Oktoberfest during their seminar. So we were partying that night. We were partying starting at like 2 o'clock. Yes. In the afternoon. Right, right. So it was a long, long night. The next morning when we woke up, we had the Pinball Life party to go to, and we were feeling about as horrible as you could feel.
    84:21
    Just out of getting run over by a bus. But there was a chore that we had to get done, and that was getting a demo man, a wide body, out of your basement so that it could be sold at Expo.
    84:32
    Correct. Not what you want to do first thing after a night of craziness and commotions. But we did it. So how does that tie in this year, Bill, with that demo man last year that was sold and brought up out of your basement on a Thursday?
    84:44
    Well, literally, our good friend Steve had referred somebody that was looking for a demolition man to make sure I thought about selling mine. and he literally called me when we were on the way home from the hospital. He's like, yeah, I'm looking for a demo van. And I'm like, yeah, I got one. You know, we agreed upon a price. And he's like, cool, when can I come get it? And I'm like, well, literally, I am taking my newborn son home for the first time from the hospital right now. Right. So timing is not, you know. He's like, I'm in your driveway. I'm waiting.
    85:13
    I was waiting for that response. Exactly. Because he seemed pretty eager. So, and honestly, that worked out. He was pretty mellow when I explained the situation. So I said, you know, how about, you know, later in the week, meaning, you know, the week of Expo. And he was fine with it. And, you know, getting somebody to help move a pinball machine the week of Expo is, you know, the absolute worst time to ask somebody because everybody's busy moving their own stuff. Right. We had stuff going on for the stream and whatever. So, you know, the one day, I think it was Wednesday, I was like, all right, so I got to get this game up. And no one's around because I'm just home during the day and then at nighttime it's crazy with my daughter. So I literally broke the whole game down. And when I say broke the game down, I mean like took the head off, took the play field out, took the legs off, and brought the whole game out piece by piece Wednesday. Did you take all the incandescents out so it didn't weigh it down? Did you take the balls out? Yeah, the balls were out. But literally just trying to take the light bulbs out, man. Just a bit outside.
    86:17
    Yeah, it was just as light as it was ever going to be. So, you know, and then I'm like, okay, well, I still have to get this to the garage. So, you know, my infant son and my wife are sleeping in the family room, which is right next to the basement. So I'm like, okay, so I've got to be quiet as a church mouse carrying this thing out. And surprisingly enough, I stuck the whole game out to the garage without waking them. And my wife was like, what did you get this pinball machine in the garage? Because she knew I had to get it out at some point. And then ran into a couple of trials and tribulations, put it all back together. But, you know, it was fine. And the guy came literally on Friday and picked it up. So, you know, irony of a year later on Friday of the Expo, I saw another demo man. That's awesome, Bill. Hey, and by the way, that was John Corrales that came out and picked up your demo man. He's bought a few games for me. And shout out to him, man. He's opening an arcade in Madison that we're going to have to go check out. Oh, yeah, good. Okay. He's opening the Nerd Haven Arcade. So, you know, they're in the process of getting that open, and your devil man's going to be up there. My Indiana Jones, what I thought I'd never get rid of that, that's on its way. Wow. Shout out to him. Does he need a Star Wars pen? He's doing a lot of work. He might. He probably should get one. I'll talk to him. If Ron Hale's in town, he'll go there. John, listen to the show. Hey, John. Who's John? Yeah, John. John, that was funny because John heard my voice, and he's like, you sound kind of familiar, bud. Yeah.
    87:49
    I don't know why. Well, how about this? How about Expo, though, for you? Was there a game that you played that might have surprised you, and do you have any type of – I know you were there a very limited time. Do you have a story or anything that you wanted to share regarding Expo? I didn't really get a chance to play a whole lot of pinball. It was like TPF Part 2. Yeah, I think that's true for most of us. All right, how about this? Did you play Elvira House of Wars?
    88:12
    I did not. Okay. Did you get a chance to play Kral? I did not. I think Bill just ran through looking for play fields, looking for parts. You're right. He's scaling. And then he was at the table. He was hanging out, you know, at the special one-lit table. He was on the Meet the Media. Well, yeah, because honestly, you know, here, when we weren't at the table, I was talking with people, friends, and whatever.
    88:40
    And if it wasn't that, dude, yeah, I just, you know, ran through Expo. Yeah, I was looking for, you know, parts and stuff, too. But, you know, that was a little flip-picking this year. It was flip-picking. Just crowded with newer vendors and stuff like that. So that was good. And I will say this, man, I am jealous of the room that you guys got to go hang out in that hotel room. Yeah, JJ.
    89:04
    JJ, Game Exchange. JJ, yeah, from Game Exchange. Dude, I was on Facebook at like 2 o'clock in the morning, and I'm seeing pictures of you guys partying up, playing pinball in a hotel room. I'm like, what kind of crap is this? I'm like, come on.
    89:21
    Jamie, you're on this shift. I'm going to leave from my... Actually, Bill, you could have left at midnight, came out to Expo, and then got home at 6 and still had a pretty good time with us. There was not a night that we were in bed before 4.30. No. I mean, it was pretty brutal. Catching up on sleep. Sleep deprivation. But yeah, you were absolutely missed, man.
    89:43
    Very much so, buddy. But you know what? It's all for the better, man, because now you have an addition to the family. You've got another young pinballer in the family. And you know what? We're going to have an Elvira here soon to play. So that's why I was like, you know what, either I can play it here in an environment that is not ideal, or I can wait a week and we can play it in the comfort of your home. So that's why I was like, you know what, I don't need to play it right now as much as I wanted to. We are in Studio C tonight, Bill. How do we sound?
    90:12
    You guys sound good. I am actually in Studio BG. That would be Bill's garage. Okay. Oh! Yay! Hey, there you go. I'm like, BG. Somebody got CG here? BG? No, this is Studio C. Studio C is Cromwell. Studio B is Beattie. Studio A is like our original studio. Oh, Studio A was Beattie. Bill's got Studio B squared or double B, which will be Bill's basement for the streaming. Let's figure this out. Why don't we go ahead? Let's check in with our correspondents, and let's look into the pinball news. You ready?
    90:46
    Let's do it. Getting the news from around the industry in this week's Industry Buzz. Hello again from Dr John with this week's special and lit Spooky Pinball update. The big news out of Spooky was last Saturday's charity auction at the Pinball Life open house, where the number 550, or the last in the production run of Total Nuclear Annihilation, was auctioned, along with the number one of a thousand Monster Bash pinball remake from Chicago Gaming. Both these machines were auctioned off, with all proceeds going to the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, and amazingly, generosity was shown by the pinball community once again to raise $28,700 in total. The TNA went for $7,100, which was a special edition with tons of loaded features including lit side armour and custom plastics. The Monster Bash had the new just revealed Monster Bash topper some beautiful custom toys and this went for $16,500 I believe. Congratulations to the purchasers and thanks to everyone who contributed to the funds. Catch you next week. This is Ken Rudberg with your special in-lift Jersey Jack update. It's been a big week for Jersey Jack as Willy Wonka Collector's Edition has started shipping. The Collector's Edition is limited to 500 and includes candy red trim and armor, a mirrored back glass, sparkled highlights on the playfield, and a plaque signed by Pat Waller, the artist John Yausey, Jersey Jack, and the actress who played Charlie, Baruch Assault, and Mike TV. It also includes under-cabinet lighting that is interactive with the game. The Collector's Edition topper has also been revealed. It consists of an LED-lit flat plastic that has been a bit of a disappointment for some, as the original promo materials for the Collector's Edition included a 3D animated Wankatonian topper. The Collector's Edition also includes new call-outs by the actors who played Veruca Salt in the original movie. It may be a welcome change, as these call-outs replaced some of the wheezing Grandpa Joe call-outs that were previously featured, and as the internet knows, the less Grandpa Joe, the better. For Special Win Lit, this is Ken Rudberg. The Chicago Pinball Expo, Elvira in the house, Topper reveal for Black Knight, and code updates. Hey everyone, Craig here again, your Special Win Lit Stern News correspondent. Well, after weeks of anticipation, the 35th annual Chicago Pinball Expo finally arrived. The brainchild of Rob Burke and founded in 1985, the Chicago Pinball Expo happens to be the world's longest running event dedicated to pinball and one of the biggest pinball expos of the year. Stern was very much front and center to this event, and being that the expo was practically in Stern's backyard, they opened their doors and were offering fans tours of their factory. But the main event for Stern at the expo was, of course, the official launch of their newest title, Elvira's House of Horrors. Special guest Cassandra Peterson, who is, of course, Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, was also on hand to sign autographs and help officially launch the title and get the Stern party started. Also, after months of online rumors, Stern finally revealed their new Black Knight Sword of Rage topper for LE models at the Chicago Expo. The topper features an articulating knight's head with red LED eyes flanked by flashing LED dungeon gates and was proudly on display at the show. And despite tons of online speculation and rumor, no news of any new Stern titles were announced, so fans will have to wait a little while longer for any official title news tidbits from Stern. But knowing Stern, and with the run-up to Christmas looming, the wait shouldn't be long. Now in other news, if you happen to be the lucky owner of the new Jurassic Park or Elvira titles, dust off your Ethernet cables because there's a new code update available. Yes, Stern Pinball has posted Jurassic Park code V.91, as well as new Elvira code V.84 for the Pro, Premium, Limited Edition, and Signature Edition models. Both updates contain additional polish, game enhancements, and bug fixes, and are available through the Stern website. That's all for this week, guys. For Special Inlet, I'm Craig Bobby. Catch you on the flip side. Well, thank you, Dr. John, Ken, and Craig for knocking out a pretty outstanding little trip in the news. Bill, what do you got to say? So I think what's interesting is listening at the charity amounts that went for TNA number 550, the last game that went off the line at Pinball Life, and then Medieval Madness, L.E. number one, which was also auctioned off, Bill. yeah that was crazy the amounts that uh was pulled in on that medieval madness um i mean we've seen the game dude i think it looks gorgeous um i know i think i think there's somebody that uh on this podcast right now that might be on the list for one hey yo it's not it's not so who's left oh cb who you're on the list the uh what i thought was really nice too was that the company spooky pinball in chicago gaming company they didn't ask for the checks to be dispersed to themselves to pay for the cost of the game, and then they were going to donate any profit to charity Yeah I sorry The way that that worked was if you won that game you were writing the check directly to the charity So money didn go through the companies at all It was just a pure donation And what class acts from both of those companies? I'm very impressed with a machine's not cheap. No. And in the grand scheme of things, even at cost, you're looking at thousands and thousands of dollars. So kudos to Spooky and Chicago Gaming Company for really stepping up, raising money for juvenile diabetes, and the help for the search for a cure. I think that's awesome. Oh yeah, that's great stuff I mean, that was above and beyond Absolutely, then we've got the collector edition of Willy Wonka that was at Expo, did you get a chance to see that Bill or Steve, did you guys check it out? I saw pictures online Okay, yeah, so I mean I think it looks good man, honestly with the added call outs in that game dude, I'm curious to maybe jump on one The call outs, the sparkle on the candy? I'm curious to jump on a collector's edition Willy Wonka Have you been drinking while you're taking care of your baby at home?
    97:07
    Okay, so full disclosure, I'm actually on the hunt to try and find a standard edition. Well, standard in a collector is pretty different. I know that. The Willy Wonka train at the moment is what I was trying to find. The Wonka train is rolling hard, man. I thought Bill had some, he was doing some moonlighting on the side there, and he was, not that the collector edition isn't something that I would want to buy, but I do not have the means to do so. So when Bill said that he's thinking about that he's going to be all in on one, just shock and awe. No, no, no. I'm curious to play one. It is budgetary limitations put me out of that game. That's one game.
    97:46
    Go ahead, Bill. Yeah, dude. I wouldn't mind having one. That's one game I walked by at Expo multiple times, and I was not able to jump on it. Collector's Edition went on. It was like too deep.
    97:58
    Did you see the story? Too deep. It was too deep for me. The topper for Black Knight Sword of Rage, that topper looks pretty unbelievable, actually. Yeah, that was awesome. And I like Black Knight Sword of Rage. I wasn't really into Black Knight Sword of Rage when I first started playing it. I grew to appreciate the game. After just getting time on it and finding my shots, that topper is a must, I think, if you have the game. You've got to try to get a topper. Top, topper of Rage. Yeah, it was like the show of toppers this week. It was. Yeah. The Medieval Madness toppers. What about the fan toppers? Yeah, those 3D fan toppers look pretty impressive, actually. The propeller toppers that made it look holographic. Those are really cool. How much are those, do you remember? Oh, yeah. I think like $250 maybe. Ooh, a little bit too much. No, that's not bad for a topper, though, man. Yeah, but a topper's got to be something physical, not something spinning. $200, $225 for a wall version. So you can attach it to your wall behind your game, or you can do a stand. Well, that's not going to work. Because you're going to move your games, most likely. Are you?
    99:01
    That's like if I get a gold or a piano, I don't want to bracket my LCD to the wall. I want to just hang it around. That's true. They do look really cool. Actually, I have no idea. You can put whatever you want on them. Yeah, I mean, you can. Yeah, I think they look cool. I'm not sure that they would work in my situation because I have a lower ceiling, but definitely cool. You can get the floor one where it just projects right on the floor next to your game. Dude, they push air like a whirlwind. That would be pretty awesome. I have no idea. I do not know. Did you get a chance to see the Celtic by Haggis Pinball, Bill? I did. I did see that. I didn't get a chance to play it, but I did see it. What did you think of the game?
    99:38
    I think it's a good, noble effort. I didn't think it was as crazy as I thought it was going to be, you know, with ramps and shots and stuff. I mean, it looked interesting. So it was a single-level playfield design. It did have a small LCD in the playfield. had a colorful art package, had LED lights. Art was really nice, too. I think the amazing thing with that story is that the creator has not been in pinball for any longer than a year and a half or two years, and he's already got a machine that could go to manufacturing. And I think the price point on that game at around $5,000, I think, is what I heard it rumored, low fives or fives. I think it was $52,000 maybe. Opens up something. I mean, every chance that I thought that I would have to play it when I walked by, there were people on it. And it was through the whole show. So I had no chance to get on the game at all. So I do know that the artist was hanging out in the Meet the Media area at our table, and he was real nervous because he was like, yeah, man. He's like, I just did the artwork for this pin. I'm real nervous. Could you imagine? Yeah, do you remember him? He was pacing up and down, and he was like, what are people's thoughts? Yeah. I think the artwork looked good. I don't know if I'm a fan of the design. I really have to play it. And, you know, after like Cosmic Carnival and stuff like that with these newer companies, I get a little apprehensive when I see new stuff that's coming out the market from new companies. I'm not saying that they're a bad company or anything. I'm always apprehensive to see what actually happens. I think you can cheer on the new company, but you want to make sure that you're not shilling. And that's true. You want to cheer on a new release without shilling a new release. And I think that's important to do. I'd be a little hesitant to throw money at something. It's fun to be exciting. Yeah. Yeah, you know, I'm a little skeptical just because I want to see, you know, jury's out until we see what winds up happening, you know.
    101:30
    But, you know, as long as they're not taking pre-order dollars, whatever, you know. Steve, did you – I'm sure there's a market for that. Yeah. Did you play – oh, I know for a fact you played Elvira House of Horse. I did play Elvira, yes. So what are your thoughts? And, Bill, you said you didn't get a chance to jump on it, right? I did not. So what were your impressions of Avara House of Horrors? So I'm kind of on the same level as Bill where I want to play it in a home environment. I want to hear the call-outs. But the shots are great. I think the light show is awesome.
    102:05
    I think it has a lot of potential, man. I really want to get my hands on one and enjoy it, you know, play it more. And it's a little out of my price range to start with. Well, okay. But, you know, I'm going to go there with it. They've got premiums coming out. Sure, yeah. So, yeah, I definitely want more time on one. I probably have like six, seven, eight games on one. Yeah, I think I have about six or seven games. What do you think, Ken? I think that I'm nervous, but at the same time I'm not. And hear me out on this. I've anticipated this release for so long, and I knew that it was coming for like a couple years, right? because it wasn't literally announced. Announced two years ago. And I'm such a big fan, especially of Scared Stiff. And this follow-up, like when I originally saw the reveal pics, it didn't look like I expected it to look, which is okay. And it's not the art package or anything. It's just like the whole design of the machine just kind of looked – it wasn't what I was expecting. And then I watched about 20 minutes of the reveal stream at Stern. And I was like, okay, I'm still just not like – I'm wondering if I set my expectations too high. And it's not because it's a bad game, but because I just – I hyped it, overhyped it in my head a little bit too much. Now, the saving grace on this for me, because the machine doesn't look horrible, and I played it. It's a beautiful game. It's a fun shooter.
    103:34
    It just doesn't feel like it's an Elvira game to me right now. Now, that being said, you had no sound. You didn't hear any sound at the show. The lighting is unbelievable. I'm a huge Greg Ferris fan, so the artwork is great. The design is something that looks like it flows. I don't mind a fan layout. Again, I think I'm used to like it. I was expecting a busier-looking populated play field for a scared stiff game, and I think that's what's kind of holding me back from really fully appreciating it. Now, if you remember when Deadpool was revealed, I had real similar thoughts where I wasn't digging Deadpool at all, and I was like, man, this is kind of disappointing. Deadpool ended up being like a top ten pin for me. So that's not to say that Elvira will be a top ten pin, but just because my initial impressions aren't overwhelmingly positive from me wanting to buy the game standpoint doesn't mean that it's out. I think I need to just, to your point, Steve, get this game in home. I would imagine flipping out, we'll have one here that we'll start streaming. And that's where I really can start appreciating games. Black Knight Sword of Rage, didn't like it. We streamed it. If you're going to open a game up, too. I never really opened the game up. I didn't progress too far. You get some multiballs going. Yeah, once you get into that zone, that's when you really get to see the magic. A couple things that I don't like the floating faces that are on the LCD as much. I wish that that would be a little bit less, just for my personal taste. I didn't get a chance to really hear the call-outs or the music. and I think when I think about pinball machines again I always talk about the overall pinball experience versus me really breaking down a pin by art package and by design and by sound what is your feeling after playing that pin when you walk away after your final ball do you want to step back up and play that game and keep playing it and when you go to sleep that night and you wake up that next morning do you say man I want to get back on that pin like that's the pinball experience But I never get that from playing a pen to the shelf.
    105:41
    I never get that. I agree with Steve. I don't get that either, dude. I don't get that either. Well, there is one game that I got that feeling for. I think it was the same game that you had, and it was a Pat Waller game. Remember what game that was?
    105:56
    The Bonsai Run. Oh, you played some Bonsai Run. Yeah, I really, I mean, I had played it before. I'm on the hunt now. I think everybody's on the hunt after that show. But I walked away from Bonsai Run being like, I want to play a little more Bonsai Run. I thought it was pretty fun pinball.
    106:13
    And again, I don't think the game's bad. I'm not saying I'm not going to buy it. I just think that I need a lot more time on the end to really appreciate it in a different atmosphere. It is what it is. And we've gone through this enough where we've seen new games and we were extremely excited and played it and were kind of underwhelmed. And a show. Yeah. The ones where we come in kind of lukewarm maybe to the theme, and then we play it and we're like, wow, it's a great game. You know what? Remember, Bill, was it two years ago at Expo when Dialed In was revealed? Like I jumped up there and I played a game of it, and I walked away, and I was like, oh, my gosh. Like I'm a big Pat Lawler fan. I don't get this game at all. Like it's horrible. I didn't want to think about Dialed In at all, and then I ended up getting a Dialed In LE down the road, and it's one of the best shooting pins. Yeah, right. So, I mean, I think the track record for me, and I realize this, is that there's not really a game that is most likely going to overwhelm me with positivity at first most of the time. And that's okay because you need to kind of – it's like meeting somebody for the first time. The first impression doesn't necessarily mean that that's how your relationship is going to end up being between the two of you. So, same thing with Pinball Machine. So, I'm optimistic. I'm just not floored with it as is and that's par for the course for me as it seems over the last several years You got anything else for Expo or anything else that you wanted to discuss? because what I think we should probably consider doing here this is a pretty long episode especially on the Pinball Podcast but it's fun, I think it's warranted it's Pinball Expo, we talked to a lot of people tonight and there's still a group of people that I wanted to give some personal shout outs to I know that you do as well Steve and probably a lot of these same people are on our lists Bill, if you have anybody that you wanted to actually throw a shout out to and I'm catching you off guard because you don't have anything necessarily prepared it was a pleasure to meet up with Zach, Greg Jason Matt, Mark Silk at the tailgate stream Todd Tuckey and Tim and his brother and the amount of people that you ran into at Expo, it was just nice to reconnect with those people, even though it was a limited amount of time. So that was a great time. That was a great time, Bill. Dude, glad you could make it out at least, you know, just to come out for a little bit because I know things are, you know, things are hectic. All right, Bill, I'm glad you're able to jump on here.
    108:50
    Real quick, let's try to go through as best as we can and maybe a little side note on those that were there. For the Meet the Media event, I wanted to say thank you so much to Ed Owens, who really killed it with not only the homebrew section, but coming in and doing Meet the Media. T&T Amusements, great. Zach and Greg from Straight Down the Middle, unbelievable. Jason Fowler and Matt Kanin, unreal. Ron Hallett from Slam Silt Pinball Podcast. Jeff Patterson from This Week in Pinball, unreal. Amoto and Jeff, thank you so much, Jeff Teolis, for doing what you could there for Pinball Expo. I know it was busy times. You guys had some things going on that were a little bit crazy. I totally get that. Ryan Kuyper and Dave Brennan, thank you so much for coming in and representing some pinball streaming there at Pinball Expo. And it was exciting. I tried to give Dave a call tonight to talk about Roger Sharp coming in and playing the Cyclops, and that didn't work out. So maybe we'll get Dave and Ryan on the show at some point and talk about that because those guys were great. I also wanted to go ahead and talk about just individuals that were at that show that we talk to on a regular basis, but we don't get a chance to hang out with. Yeah. And we can go one by one here. And this is in no particular order, but like Mark Silk, it was so fun hanging out with Mark, a scholar and a gentleman.
    110:21
    Good dude. Yes. Very well said. Very good. Very good dude. And he can do a Casey Kasem impression like no other. I had him do the Casey Kasem for me, and it was pretty impressive.
    110:36
    And Mark does not shy away from doing impressions. I hope that we hear him involved in pinball at some point. I know he's got a busy schedule, but it would be fun to hear him do something as far as, you know, whether it be voiceover work or sound audio package. Rorden Osborne, always good to have everybody from Australia come in. Hung out with Rorden quite a bit this week. Yep. Always a good time.
    110:59
    Actually, I had Rorden out at my house Tuesday night before he came out for a little while. I didn't know that. Really?
    111:07
    Oh, yeah. What did you guys do? Played pinball, talked some smack. It was a good time. So Rorden comes out. Yeah. When someone travels 20-some hours on a plane, it doesn't matter if you have a baby or not, dude. They're welcome in your home. That's cool, man. No, I couldn't agree with you more. Warden came out. He brought gifts for – he gave me an awesome gift, man. He knows that I'm a baseball guy.
    111:33
    He goes ahead and gets me an Australian baseball team jersey with my last name on the back and number. Oh, this thing's cool, man. It's so awesome. I definitely want to wear it on stream. I thought it was really, really cool. Yep. and he got some gifts for the kids and stuff like that. Like, he's incredible. So thank you, Worden. It was good times. Yeah. Yeah, he brought Madeline and Baby Dill and even the wife a gift. I was like, wow, dude, that's too kind. You flew all this way with this stuff, man. What a good dude. Another guy, we talked about him earlier, too, our buddy from Paris, France, Guillaume Faw. I'm going to go Guillaume. Guillaume? Guillaume Faw? What do you think? I don't know. Guillaume? I like Gil. I mean, that might be the easiest way. Gil's just cool. He was so nice. He sat down. I mean, we had dinner with him the first night. Yes, we did. But all show long, we saw him. Oh, yeah, he was cruising around. His beautiful wife. Yeah, very cool couple. It was nice to just kind of hang out with them. And, again, somebody that I had spoken to on Facebook over the time that we started the podcast. And just a super nice guy. I hope that him and his wife get a chance to get out to Texas Timbal Festival because I'd like to hang out a little bit more. should he have the time. Wes Bentley, we talked about him. Owner of Rebel Guitars.
    112:51
    But it's unbelievable just hanging out with that guy. Wes was awesome. Super down-to-earth guy. Yeah, we hung out with Wes a lot this week. And as he would say, it was a good hang. And if you're looking for a guitar, RebelGuitars.com. You want to see some sweet guitars? No, if you want some killer, killer axes, just check it out. If you want some ridiculous piece of functional wall art, seriously. I mean, if you don't appreciate playing guitar and the rarity and what goes into some of these custom guitars, I get it. But, I mean, it's beautiful. But you're going to play it. RebelsGuitar.com. Shout out to Chris Franchi, right? Yeah, Franchi. Oh, yeah, Chris. Our buddy Chris. And Presley, his daughter. I had an opportunity to sit down and have some food with him. And then being able to see him at the show. Chris just did a podcast today with Kaneda and they did a little thing about why he is parting ways with Stern so that was an interesting one always good to hear from Chris another shout out, Crystal Gemnick, what a class act she was so fun to hang out with it was great again, another person that I had spoken to online I listened to her podcast and I knew her as far as her involvement with Logan Arcade and her transition to Marco. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Never had a chance to hang out with her. It was really fun hanging out with Crystal. Nikki DiLorenzo, she came in and she was doing the Meet the Media booth with Steve Bowden. Steve, thank you so much for doing Meet the Media.
    114:19
    Yeah, Steve's a good dude. Yeah, he is such a good dude. It was a good time. He did it with Fun With Bonus. Listen, this is the thing with Steve. Competitive pinball player, Fun With Bonus, and he is currently working with Deep Root. It was all over. There was no deep discussion because legitimately you want to just hang out with the guy and the personality. And so Nikki DiLorenzo, she kind of went in and did the Meet the Media thing. And I think they recorded some live podcast stuff there at the media. Nikki was super, super nice. Again, somebody I'm friends with on Facebook. Didn't get a chance to ever get to know personally. Got to know her, and I can't wait to see her again, hopefully at the next show. Ian and Drew from Poor Man's Pinball Podcast. Those guys walked in in the free play area when we were sitting there. We were playing Bonze Run. Yeah, yeah. Right, right. And I listened to the podcast. It was like the show prior to Expo. And when I saw Ian come in, I gave him a big hug. I'm like, what's up, man? So it was good to see those guys. Same thing with Drew. And again, Poor Man's Pinball Podcast, Ian and Drew. Also wanted to say, Johan London. Now, this is our buddy from Sweden. He had come in, and he's like, what's up? Where did you get that pinball beer? Because I was holding the Two Brothers Pinball Pail. Right, right. I'm like, I'll get you some. So at the end of the show, I gave him a six-pack. It was fun hanging out with him. And I wish we could have shared some more beers, but he was all up and all over the place.
    115:41
    Neil McRae, again, from overseas. You hear about Neil. You see Neil talking. I got a chance to meet him in the lobby. We shook hands and exchanged some words. It was pretty awesome. Very good guy. Chris from Cointaker. Never met Chris before.
    115:58
    Super nice guy. He actually gave us some swag giveaway on our podcast. So I appreciate that. Again, one of the heavy hitters in the distro market. And they've been around for a long, long, long, long time. Debra Tallman. Now, Debra was doing some stuff with the tournament, which was right next to where we were at. Real nice conversation. A couple of nice conversations. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And she had introduced me to one of her friends. And super nice people. So, Debra, nice to meet you. I hope that we get a chance to hang out again down the road here at a future show. Julie Dorser. Now, Julie, she had the Wonder Woman re-theme that was in Ed Owens. I did see that. Right, that was in Ed's homebrew section. Yep. It looked really cool because it was like time period correct. It looked like it was something that was going to be made. And I got a chance to meet her. I gave her a big hug. Super nice person. So thank you so much for not only coming to Expo, for just being nice. Good times. Chris Grosvenor, we talked about Chris the Pinturn. Always good to hear from Chris, as it looks like we might have just lost Bill Webb. We'll get him back. Yeah, Chris is, at all these shows, not really sure what he's doing, but I'm sure that he's having fun. He's having fun. We hung out with Chris a lot. For Pinball Nerds Podcast. Very, very good guy.
    117:16
    Craig Young. Craig Young came through a couple times, and we had some conversations, gave Craig a big hug. Craig's a pretty tall guy, taller than I would have expected, but always good hearing from Craig. Who do you got on your list? Dude, you covered it. Did I cover it all? Everybody and then some. Oh, Zombie Eddie. Zombie Eddie was here, yeah. I'll tell you why.
    117:39
    The thing with Zombie Eddie is this. One, he's a super nice guy. Two, he's only as serious as his last sentence, but his last sentence was not that serious. So I can never tell how serious he is. But at one point, I think he hinted at maybe getting back into a pinball podcast, and I think he might have offered to come on our show. But you don't really know. Because of the running jokes coming out of Zombie Eddie, I'm not sure if I was nicely insulted or not, but Jeremy Packard, if you are considering coming on, we'd love to have you on Special Win Lit. I love your work. And last but not least, now listen, I'm certain that we're forgetting people that are not only memorable, but like totally obvious isn't that crazy? I mean the amount of people we met and talked about tonight and we're probably still missing a couple. I would say we're missing a dozen at least and not people that we just shook hands with and I'm just talking about people that I had running interaction with throughout the weekend and they made the show meeting these guys and interacting made the show for us I'm taking selfies with everybody that I could. Tiki Pinball. Oh, Tiki Pinball. Yeah. That's freaking awesome, man. He's like, you know what? He looks just like how Tiki Pinball would look for me. Right out of Hawaii. Yes. Tiki Pinball, what a freaking nice guy. Jobber was there. Christopher, not Jobber. Christopher was there. He brought a pin to the free play area. I don't want to forget him. He was coming back and forth. This is why I'm afraid to even name names. I know. I'm going to accidentally forget somebody and it's just going to be horrible. And it's going to be somebody that's so obvious that I should have done that. I'm going to say last but not least, Rob and Kim Lerman from Lerman's.com. And obviously, they sponsor our Join It or Save It segment. But beyond that, they're personal friends. And to be able to go to these shows and see them together and being able to hang out, my biggest regret is that they're always vendors. They're always vending, yeah. So they really don't have a lot of free time because when they're out of their vendor hall 11 o'clock. They're most likely not wanting to go out until 4.30 in the morning. They've got to be in the vendor hall. At some point, we have to get out their way on the East Coast, Pennsylvania area or New Jersey area.
    120:03
    They're not vending and then we just need to take them out for a night. They need to show us the sites on where we should play some pinball because that would be real fun. Rob and Kim, you're our guy and girl and we appreciate the fact that not just what you're doing for the podcast, but what you guys do for pinball. You guys are awesome. Keep it up, guys. I think we lost Bill Webb at some point. He just texted me, and he said that he had a cruise because his son is crying. His son's crying. His son is crying. Hey, also, hang on. Shout out to Brad Hunter. Oh, my gosh. How can I forget Brad from Lit Frames? We're going to be missing people. This is what I'm saying. Brad, another super nice guy. Local guy. Super nice guy. Personal friend of ours. Lit Frames. He was killing it. Those are awesome. Brad had some exclusivity there because he was selling the Chris Franchi Beetlejuice Translite, and he was selling the Chris Franchi Superman, the movie, like Superman 78 Translite, and the lit frames. If you have not checked out lit frames, just go check it out. It's a very slim profile front-loading frame that allows you to swap translights on the fly with full LED diffused panel with RGB capabilities. it's pretty impressive and you can check that out at liftframes.com sorry if we're missing anybody else I know well and the thing is you go through and you meet a bunch of vendors and whether or not they listen to the podcast or not, I like meeting people and sometimes I prefer if somebody hasn't listened to the podcast that they don't feel obligated to have to be nice to me you know what I mean it's like if you don't want to hang out or you don't want to talk I totally get it, don't even worry You don't have to be PC. I've met so many cool people. Okay, so this game, Tiger, it's an old EM. Yeah. I think it was made from spare parts from Gatliub. They were across from JJP. And this guy, they're from the UK. Right. And they just told me this whole story about this game. Yeah. And I don't know. I don't know their names, but I want to say thank you. Yeah. Cool. You guys spent a lot of time describing your game. And I was bringing people over. I was like, you guys got to check this game out. This is awesome. Yep. It's just little things like that.
    122:12
    I can't remember everybody's names. It's memorable. It's like a last name tag on you. I want to thank the guys that showed up from our St. Charles Pinball crew. Chris Polizzi came up first. It was awesome to see him. Joe Chico, great to see him. Joe Fercasto, great to see him. We have Tom Norrist. Tom Norrist? Tom was in and out of the media area and in and out of tournament play. Tom was around. I love hanging out with Tom. And Matt and Ryan. I mean, you guys showing up, like, it was just fun to see our St. Charles collective out in. Courtney was there for a little bit. He was there. Yeah. Party. Yeah. And he was there for a couple hours, I think on Friday, maybe. It was funny because court. So this is this is how crazy Courtney is. Right. Crazy in a good way, because, I mean, one, he's a friend, but two, he's such a supporter of everything that we've been doing. And like a part of me is like, I almost feel like Courtney, stop supporting us. Just just don't don't worry about it. But, like, it's not a conflict of interest for the friendship. It's just like. I love Courtney. No, he's such a good dude. He was at the party, and he was like, oh, I don't want to be on camera here. I'm going to go hang out over here. I'm like, dude, no, let's go out. Let's go out. Because he's just a humble guy, man. I mean, he's our friend before anything else. But at one point, I remember we were streaming, and Courtney was in the room. And on stream, like, we had gotten some bits on the Flippin' Out channel. And it was literally, it was Courtney doing the bits. It's from like eight feet away from me. I love it. I'm reading it. Hey, there he is. Hey, Courtney, you're our guy, man. Yeah. So, again, we're going to be forgetting people. Thank you to the pitball manufacturers for what you guys do, for showing up. Thank you, Rob and Bridget Burke, for throwing it. And team, because I know it's a team of people that do all this. Thank you to the vendors. Yeah, the vendors, huge. Anybody that brought games in to free play. Anybody that brought Falgren, who brought a couple games in there. Yeah, Falgren had a couple games. Anybody that brought games into that free play area. Anybody that competed in a tournament. Anybody that just wandered in and didn't realize what was going on. Nick Parks. Nick Parks had a good. Thank you. Nick Parks. It was good seeing Nick. I know Nick fairly well. So it was good to see. He brought a bunch of games from pinball companies. So, man, I'm going to get podcast fatigue after this one. I don't even know. And it's not screaming like I said, especially when I listen to my podcast. No, no, no. It is what it is. So it has to get beady. At this point, it's 8.30 in the p.m. here on Tuesday Central Time. I'm going to do my best to get this show edited up and maybe get it uploaded tomorrow, which will be Wednesday. But at the very least, it will be up Thursday. And I thought it was fun to kind of check in. We had some Internet difficulties here. I've got MetroNet that is in our area, and they are digging up, so I'm losing Internet signal. So two people I wanted to reach out to that I wasn't able to do, and that was Ed Owens. Again, he ran the homebrew section, and he did Meet the Media for Pinball Mayhem. And Dave Brennan, who brought Cyclops and Robot and streams with Brian Kuyper, TerrorGraphic7 on Twitch. Beautiful games. So we'll get these guys on a future show so they get a little more exclusive time. I tried reaching out to you guys, but our Google Voice was down because our Internet was down. So now we're just kind of recording locally. And we lost Bill, so I'm assuming when we had him on the Internet, it actually lost him too. But he's like, hey, I've got to go anyways. So anyways, anything else in wrapping up this episode of Special Elite number 75 from Studio C? You got anything else, back channel, that you wanted to? No back channels. I mean, I'm still loving this podcast. See, Didi, thank you, man, as I reach across the table to shake your hand. Thank you, sir. You were badass this whole weekend. Like I said, this is my third show, and this is my favorite show. So, yeah. You know, I'm still riding that high.
    125:58
    I haven't crashed yet. I'm really bummed I'm going to miss TPF. But, you know, I'll see you guys all at Expo next year. Well, you know what? I'm sure they have Facebook at some point in Taiwan, so you can kind of jingle in. Maybe we'll FaceTime you. Thailand. Oh, or Taiwan. Scott from Penn Stadium. How could I forget Scott from Penn Stadium? Did we say it?
    126:19
    I think so. Oh, my gosh. Yeah, no, Scott was at the party. I know, but I'm just saying somebody that's so blatantly obvious, like Kerry Hardy and Scott, they come in. Kerry Hardy kicked ass helping Scott, too. Kerry Hardy is, yeah, a man of many facets. A man of many facets. Yes, I like Kerry. Good times. And listen, for those of you that couldn't make it to Expo this year, I would strongly encourage you to consider putting it in your schedule next year. And if you're offering any type of pinball content that is being consumed by the pinball public, I'd encourage you to consider doing the Meet the Media event, which I hope that will be repeated next year. We have some decent feedback on that, and there's some changes that we're going to be making. But there will be the Epic Expo tailgate stream, but there might be the Epic Expo special when it's at Expo next year. We're going to start planning for it next year. By the way, if you can't get out to Expo, go support your local show. I mean, their show is all over the country. Couldn't read more, right? All over the world do that. Yep. I know the Louisville show is coming up here in a couple weeks. If you're in that area, go ahead and do it. But there's so many great shows. I would say you're not further away from two or three weeks from another significant show that's happening throughout the United States and globally. So, you know, sit back and see where they're coming and plan for it. Because whether you make it a day or like we did, we make a whole weekend of it. It's always fun. It's always fulfilling. You're supporting pinball and you're getting it fixed. For Speed Beating, I am Ken Cromwell. Thanks for listening to the Special Inlet Pinball Podcast. Thanks for everything you do for pinball. And don't forget to take some time out of your day to play some pinball. So long, everybody. Thanks, guys. See you next time.
    128:04
    We'll talk to you later. Say hi to your wife for me. Hi, guys. All right, bye. That almost sounds like a dirty joke. Say hi to your wife and my kids.