What can I say except you're welcome for the tides, the sun, the sky. Hey, it's okay, it's okay, you're welcome. I'm just an ordinary daily guy. I said, I said, I said, I said, I said, I said, I said, I said. All right, everybody, welcome to the Saturday Morning Spectacular. How's everybody doing? It is Saturday morning. We're going to go around the horn. We're going to do what we do. We're going to talk about all things pinball. I might even share some thoughts on all these pinball media and their response to the Stern Media Tour. I don't know about you guys, but ask yourselves, like, are you not sick of hearing, like, people went over there and didn't really see anything new? I mean, I keep reading all these stories and I'm like, all right, like, Stern bought you some drinks, but what else did we gain in terms of knowledge about this operation? I just want someone to tell me, why does a pinball topper cost $2,000? That's the only question I have for George Gomez. What's up, Chad? How's everybody doing? I want to give a big shout out to the 714 club members that have retained their Canada Club memberships. It is the first of the month. We're going to go around the horn. We're going to talk about everything happening in the pinball world today. How does it sound? Does the mic sound good? Now, look, you guys are not getting the great audio if you're watching on Facebook right now. But if you're a Canada Club member, you're going to get this show sometime today or tomorrow. And I'm going to upload this and you're going to be able to hear all of my thoughts in podcast format. And they say that $5 a month doesn't get you anything anymore. It gets you the world's favorite pinball podcast. everybody can we give a huge canadians welcome to carrie hardy who is the latest member of the canada club can we give a huge shout out to jason over at the pinball party who is another new member of the canada club and i want to also tell you guys that i threw some support their way this week, I signed up for Kerry Hardy's Patreon and I signed up for Jason's Patreon. So guys, thank you guys for what I believe is still, you know, you guys got some work to do. There's a little bit of Win Schilling going on. I told Kerry Hardy he needs to burn that haggis hat. We need to do a haggis hat burning moment. And I also, you know, I told Jason, you know, I love what his response was to the Stern Media Tour, you know, there's still a bunch of, you know, Win Schilling of distros and certain manufacturers that goes on. But for the most part, I respect the fact that when I hear from both of those gentlemen, I'm going to talk about this a little bit on this episode or this spectacular. I still feel like when I hear from them, they are honest with us, right? Like what they say to us is how they honestly feel about a game, about a topic, about a media tour. And that's where I'm at. I'm going to talk a little bit about this in a few minutes, but I want to talk about how we need to get back to content creation where the content creators aren't becoming fake shills. And I'll talk about what I mean about that. But let's go around the horn first because, you know, we don't want to just talk about content creators. It's always boring when we talk about ourselves. We're going to talk about what's going on in pinball. Let's start with American pinball. So Naps Arcade broke the story about American pinball possibly becoming a publicly traded company on the Indian Stock Exchange. And to file for a public offering, you have to be transparent about your revenue. What are the assets in your organization? And one of the AIMTRON public offering sort of line items is this little failed pinball operation run by David Fix that you know as American Pinball. And the numbers are atrocious. And the numbers are atrocious the moment this company launched Galactic Tank Force. And the numbers are even worse with a game called Berrio's Barbecue Challenge. OK, so what this data is showing us is what you and I already know, that American pinball is a joke. And they've been a joke now since this leadership team has been in place. And David Fix and Steven Bowden and Ryan McQuaid could not steer a hungry, overweight child towards a piece of cake. That is how inept and inadequate they are to run a pinball company. Let me say that again. Steven Bowden, Ryan McQuaid, and David Fix could not steer an overweight child towards a piece of cake. They don't know what the pinball buying community wants. They don't do any market research. They don't give us themes that anybody wants. They have made games for themselves. They bailed Dennis Nordman out on his dream barn build galactic tank force game that was the worst idea ever. I remember being at TPF when Dennis Nordman did a panel discussion about how he's been dreaming up this tank cabinet idea for like a decade or two. And he showed all these pictures of like these humongous tank cabinets. I mean, the tank treads were a good like six to eight inches wide on his initial concept. And as I was watching it, I kept thinking to myself, oh my God, this guy got these suckers to build his idea and not only did they build it they made it much worse but it was hard to make it much worse because it already was one of the worst ideas in the history of pinball it is absolute stupid to make a game that looks like a tank when the backbox is folded it down. That is the dumbest thing you could ever ideate around. And the even dumber part is that when they saw this stupid idea, they went ahead with company resources and made it. And they made it. They actually made the damn thing. It was like a Jurassic Park moment. You know, they didn't stop to think if they should, they just made it. It's like you SOBs actually did it. And the game has been a colossal failure. And that game, ironically, has tanked this entire company. So good job, David Fix, on building something that absolutely destroyed your company. And then from there, they went and made the dumbest game you could ever follow up Tank Force with. And that's with Barry O's Barbecue Challenge, this homage to Barry Osler. And the irony in that game is that barely, barely, barely didn't even design the game. It was like designed by four different designers. And then you look at the game and Kaneda could have designed it blindfolded. There's nothing in the game that's interesting. And so they absolutely have no clue what people want. And you know who I blame? You know who I blame? Mukesh. Mukesh has no idea what he's doing. he's not a pinhead. He's not a pinball fanatic. And you've got to remember this, people. American pinball's failure is the long end tale of karma. And the bad karma and the reason why this company has failed is because all of this company was created around John Papadiuk Jr. People forget that J-Pop is the origin story of American pinball. Amtron was making the boards for John's Zidware Games. You know, there's a lot of rookie podcasters out there that have only been around for a year, and they have no idea about any of this. And when they cheerlead these companies, they have no idea how stupid it is to cheerlead stuff until you learn your history. Here's a history lesson from Kaneda. J-Pop was using Ametron boards. They were out a lot of money because John Papadiuk couldn't get his product to market. And so what did they decide to do? People forget this. They brought in J-Pop into the Ametron facility and they reinvested $350,000 to build 22 broken Magic Girl games. All right, they had no idea what they were doing. They could not walk down an aisle of J-pop tinkering inside those boxes and realize that they had no idea what he was doing. He had no idea how to make a working game. There was no code for the game. There was nothing. And they actually put those games in boxes and mailed them to customers with a letter that said the following. We have built these games to John Papadiuk and Zidware's specifications. You know what that aka meant? You know what the real meaning was that in? We just sent you a broken, crappy product, but it's not our fault. He made it that way, not us. And we just contract manufactured a damn thing. That's the beginning of American pinball. and I'm going to go down a road here. I'm going to pick apart another person. So you've got John Papadu, a complete moron. Everything he's done is lit money on fire. Okay, then you've got Mukesh who has no idea, you know, how to pinpoint good leadership in pinball. And from the very beginning, it was like his son or cousin running the company and they didn't know what they were doing. And then they had this guy like Scott Goldstein. People forget this. Scott Goldstein was like the marketing guy. They fired his ass. Then they fired John Papadiuk. Then they brought in Joe Balcer to sort of like fix John Papadiuk's Houdini. And Balser didn't even create a Whitewood. I mean, do people remember this? Balser did not even create a Whitewood. He basically built Houdini by eyeballing it. And when the game came out, it showed. The game played like crap. The shots were so tight. He clearly didn't take enough time to dial in the game. And then they idiotically shelved all of the artwork from the Houdini art package that Matt Andrews made that was gorgeous. And then they made this ugly art package. You know why? Because Josh Kugler, the coder, gosh, Kugler, who's only at that time, Kugler's only, you know, input into pinball was his own family pinball machine. He didn't like the Houdini artwork. and him and Balser, with no artistic eye whatsoever, shelved one of the most beautiful art packages ever in the history of pinball. They shelved it and made this ugly, dark steampunk Houdini game, and the rest is history. It didn't sell that well. And then they make Oktoberfest, which arguably, when you look at Oktoberfest, it is one of the most packed modern pinball machines we've had in the last 10 years. And the reason why they made Oktoberfest is because that was Joe Balcer's selection to make. And if you know Joe Balcer's backstory, I don't know if I'd be making a game that celebrates drinking. I'll stop at that. But, you know, don't even want to go down that road because you're not allowed to bring up these things. OK, so he makes that game arguably a much better game than Houdini. And then what do they do? They hire the worst art package in the history of pinball in the Oktoberfest like art package. It looks like somebody vomited over the damn play field. And it just was ugly. You know, I mean, they could have salvaged that game if they at least made it look awesome, but it didn't. And then after that, what did they do next? They did Hot Wheels, right? Okay. So then they're like, all right, Joel Balser, they stripped everything out of Hot Wheels. Okay. They stripped everything out of Hot Wheels. No, it's not a low blow, John. It's not a low blow. If you want to, if you want to, I just want, you know, like, I'm not going to go down this road, John, but if you want to do what some of these people have done and then we're not allowed to bring it up like multiple times, you know, it's putting people and their families in jeopardy. I'm sorry. You don't get you don't get immunity from bringing that stuff up, brother. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Absolutely not. OK, absolutely not. But we're not even going to go down that road. We're already past that. You then make Hot Wheels. You make Hot Wheels and it's like Hot Wheels and it's like you remove all the jumps, all the ramps, all the stuff from the game. You remove all that from the game and you make this barren game that you want to be successful on location. It doesn't sell well because you removed all the stuff that's Hot Wheels. Then you go and you make Legends of Valhalla and then it's Tank Force then it's Burials and that's it. It's like you could just zoom out and stare at these pinball companies' portfolios. And American Pinball has probably one of the worst portfolios over the last nine years. And after nine years of making games, I don't know why. I don't know why it's been such a miss. Why? Why has it been such a miss? They had all the opportunities in the world to do market research, to bring a game to market that people would want. They seemingly did none of it. And so here we are today, a company with very little value, very little customers. And, you know, now Steven Bowden. Right. OK, Steven Bowden, like this guy keeps jumping from company to company. I don't know if they're just paying him with like bunk beds and ham sandwiches, but like what value? I mean, he was over at Deep Root for years and people forget this. Again, we're all allowed to forget this. people forget that Steven Bowden got up there as a Deep Root team member and took the microphone, did a media tour with Jeff Teolis and everybody. I mean, again, are we just supposed to bury all this? Did a media tour in which he was promoting Deep Root pinball to get people to put deposits on Raza. And he got up there and remember his phrase, just wait, just wait. You haven't seen anything yet. And he got up on stage in front of everybody and they insulted Stern Pinball. They bragged about how they were going to make more games than any pinball company in the history of pinball. And Steven Bowden was never held accountable for any of that. He never apologized once for his role in aiding and abetting a criminal. Now, I threw a drink in Tim Sexton's face. I apologize. That's a jackass move. If I could go back in time, I wouldn't have done it. And I've apologized multiple times for that. When I make a mistake, I will apologize to you. I mean, that's it. Like if I was aiding and abetting a company that ripped off old women, old ladies, these are grandmas. Robert Mueller stole the life savings of people. OK, he stole the life savings of people and then created deep root around that stolen money. And every day Steven Bowden walked into that company, Jon Norris, Barry O, you know, Dennis Nordman for a little bit, you know, wasn't J-pop over there, J-pop, like he went into that company every day and didn't see any manufacturing, saw a stupid pin pod and saw all this dumb innovation, like a lockdown bar screen. and he convinced people to go in on the company and never once apologized. And now he's at American Pinball. And Ryan McQuaid, you know what I heard? I heard from someone who used to work at American Pinball. You wanna hear truth on this episode or should we just all turn this off? And I hear there's a new podcast maybe coming out that's gonna spread pinball happiness. You know, I could just end this whole thing right now and we could go join Colin and the new Pinball Happiness crew and circle jerk this industry in a way that just forgives all of this behavior and just allows these people to rip people off, never have any accountability, and just do what they do best. Champion everything, Pinball, even when they're championing people who are frauds and criminals and all this stuff, right? Or I could tell you what really went on. I can tell you what really went on. Okay, so now you got Ryan McQuaid over there. You want to know what an American pinball engineer who left the company said? He's like, nothing's going on over there every day. Ryan McQuaid goes into work and he spends most of the day playing video games. Well, it's not surprising he's a video game guy. But where is his game? I heard Cuphead. I don't know. I don't think they're going to make it. I heard that it's not that great or they don't have the money for the parts. I've heard a lot of rumors. I don't know anything for sure. I haven't seen it. but it doesn't look good. It doesn't look good for American pinball. And again, I'm just going to say this right now and correct me if I'm wrong, people. Correct me if I'm wrong. If American pinball went away tomorrow, would any of you care with what's going on in pinball right now? If American pinball went away tomorrow, how many of you, raise of hands, would actually miss them. Are you going to miss Galactic Tank Force, Barry O's, Oktoberfest? You wouldn't even feel it. You would miss me more if I went away tomorrow. I mean, there would be more. This is hard for me to say this. There would be more tears shed in the pinball community if Kaneda retired versus American pinball going out of business. I have more followers than they can sell of a single title. And that's sad for them. Believe me, if I was making a pinball company, if I was David Fix, if I was in charge of Mukesh's money, I would be selling more games than people subscribing to Kaneda's pinball podcast. And I say that self-deprecatingly. You should, if you're a pinball manufacturer and you can't sell more games than Kaneda has Patreon subscribers, you have no business making pinball. machines. That should be a motto in the pinball world. It should be on the wall of every single pinball company. That is your first benchmark of success. Will this game sell more units than subscribers to Canada's Pinball Podcast? You know what game will not sell more units than subscribers? There's John Wick Ellie. All right. John Wick Ellie will not sell more than 714 Ellie's. They will never sell that many. All right. So that is the first topic of today, which is American coming in hot. Canada's coming in hot. I'm reading your commentary, guys. Thank you for hanging out here. I just don't think anyone's going to miss them. I think David Fix and Ryan McQuaid and Steven Bowden, every time I see them go live, I get this sense of delusional smugness on their faces. And when David Fix did that, like, I don't know, like a live a few weeks ago, he was like, we're in it for the long haul. And there was like Vishal, I think that was his name, you know, standing there next to them. And you just get the sense it's like Mukesh has got a lot of money. He doesn't know what he's doing. He's got bad leadership and they've had enough leadership decisions where at this point in the company's history, after nine years, we should be celebrating American pinball, not chastising them. And they did it to themselves. They did it to themselves. I mean, it's just that simple. OK, so Canada coming in hot. Eighty five, eighty six people get to hear it. Fifteen hundred people get to hear it later on. All right what do I want to talk about next I kind of just want to do this show the way I want to do it and I hope you guys are on board for it because you know I feeling feisty I close on my house on Monday I'm super excited. The family's doing great. The reason I'm sleeping on a pull-out couch is simply this. We've got baby Cassian in this second apartment. We've got a pull-out couch in the other apartment. So I sleep in that apartment with Killian. and Brenda does the night shifts in this apartment with Cassian. And it's been like that for a few weeks. So I'm a little bit irritable. Yeah, it's going to end though in just a week. We move on June 13th and we close on June 3rd. So super excited. A lot of great stuff going on in my world and in my household. So I'm very thankful. I'm very thankful for each and every one of you and your support. and I just think it's great. I think it's great what we've built here because this is the next topic I want to talk about, and then I will talk about Stern, what's going on at JJP. But I want to talk... You know what? I'm going to wait. I'm going to wait. We get a little bit more people here in 15 minutes. What I want to talk about in 15 minutes, I want to talk about an ask I have to all pinball content creators. And it's a very simple ask. It's something that I hope everyone can just put into practice. And I think if everybody does, I think we'll just get much better pinball content moving forward. And it's not negative. It's just asking everybody to do one simple thing. And that's it. Okay. Before we get there, let's talk about this media tour. Raise of hands. Am I the only one who's just, I'm just over the story. I'm glad they did it. I'm glad people went to go see Stern Pinball. I don't have a problem with it. you know me I wasn't expecting an invite so I'm not upset I didn't get invited you can listen to all my shows I've never once complained about not being invited I didn't do like a crazy rant show like Albert and then take it down I'm fine with it I don't want to be invited to those things because accepting those things is a conflict of interest for me I always want to remain objective and I don't want to hold back how I feel because someone gave me pizza and beer. To me, the power to be free and to speak freely is much more valuable to getting free pizza and beer and a prom bus to an arcade. Like I don't need that. I can go to Logan's Arcade. I can go there on my own. I can go to Jack Bar. I can spend my own money on food and drink. But look, here's my thing about this media tour and I've seen more coverage come from it. I just don't really see anything interesting as a result of it. All I'm reading when I read the stories is how people personally felt about the experience, which is great. Like, you know, you bring in Jason Knapp loved it. Colin, he loved it. You know, we got Ian over at Nudge Magazine loved it. There was more content. Everyone who went had a great time. And, of course, like you'd be a moron. And I mean, as you be you, you shouldn't be in this hobby if you didn't get excited about the world's number one pinball company giving you an all expense paid trip to come walk through their factory and give you unprecedented access to not only their facility, but their executives and their company. I mean, yeah, if they invited me, I would want to go, but I still wouldn't go. Not on not on that kind of trip. I would accept an invite from Gomez or Seth Davis or Zach Sharp, but it would only have to be me. And the reason why is I would want to get in a room with those gentlemen and I would really want to have a true heart to heart discussion about everything. You know, everything. I don't want to go there with a group of people because I don't think it would be appropriate for me to have the kind of conversation I want to have with them. And it's not negative, but I just don't think it would be productive on on both fronts for me to visit that place in a group setting. I also think being the world's favorite and number one pinball podcaster for seven years in a row. Let's face it, people, I would have taken that trippy easily. I think it's funny to me that after seven years and, you know, building enough of an audience that has enough of an influence that does impact their business. they've absolutely done nothing to build a bridge with me. Nothing. And that's fine. It's fine. Again, I don't have harsh feelings about it. I've bought Stern machines. I've owned Stern machines. I love some Stern machines. I don't necessarily agree with their business decisions of late. And that is the reason why I think going over there was so strategically timed, because I think it's quite obvious that they're in a slump, that John Wick is a terrible selling game. And I don't care if like one outlier distributor wants to convince you otherwise. And that's not even, that's not even Zach doing that. You know, I see some, I see some of these distros, man. And they're like, game selling great. Just don't lie to us. I mean, it's not selling great. I just would love to go over there and have a more adult, mature conversation with Stern. Because I have some strong opinions and I know they do too. and I think it would be a really great conversation and I think it would be completely off the record and that's the kind of meeting I want to have with Stern Pinball and I'm just going to say this and I don't mean to say this in a bragging way but I think I've earned the right and so have they I think we both parties have earned the right to have more of a one-on-one meeting I do I just think that's the way I would want to interact with them I don't want to I don't want to you know it's just not me it's not my brand It's not my style to take your beer and your pizza and just be smiling like a like a little, you know, like like a I don't know, like a cheerleader in front of your John Wick. And we all saw that content. And I get I get it. Like some people are really excited. But I also think that, you know, this media tour was a very thinly veiled attempt to get John Wick sales going. you know Don bought a John Wick LE right Don over at Don's Pinball Podcast he bought a John Wick LE and I'm not surprised I mean he's bought a lot of games recently and he seems to buy a lot now he's also sponsored by Mad Pinball which is a distributor so I highly doubt that Don is paying $13,000 for it but he bought one right and that's part of what you don't hear him really talking about it very much which is I don't And usually he's much more like enthusiastic about his purchases. He just lost three to four thousand dollars on that game if he paid full price. And I think that's what is just the the reality with this game. To me, it doesn't even matter. I mean, I hate to say this, but it doesn't even matter how the game plays. It doesn't matter what the code is. none of it matters to me because you're going to end up with a $3,000 to $4,000 loss. So I don't care how shiny the trans light is. I don't care what the mirrored back glass stained glass window looks like. I don't care that you put blind Elon Musk on the right side of the cabinet. I don't care about Seth Davis's signature. the reality is if you buy a John Wick LE, you are losing $3,000 to $4,000 by the end of the year. And when Stern builds all 1,000 of these games, they're going to be piling up in that warehouse in Chicago that has thousands of unsold Stern LE games. I don't know if they're all LE games, but thousands of unsold new in box games. And so to me, that's the end of the conversation. Why would you? Because it's real simple, people. If we turn off common sense and just become shill cheerleaders for the industry as if we are investors in Stern Pinball, why would anybody with common sense buy a John Wick LE for $13,000 when they know, looking at James Bond, looking at Foo Fighters and looking at Venom, when they know that every single Stern LE that does not have tremendous demand is going to lose you $3,000 to $4,000 within six months. So why would anybody buy it? So if Don wants to lose $3,000 to $4,000 more power to him, if you ordered one and you want to lose $3,000 to $4,000 more power to you, but for $60 a year, you could join Canada's Pinball Podcast and I will break you of your FOMO. I will break you of needing that game and I will encourage you to wait six months and by the time six months is up, you will be able, if you want to, to buy a John Wick LE when it's fully coded for $9,000 probably. And why wouldn't you just do that? That just seems like the common sense move. And you know who doesn't want you to approach pinball that way? Stern Pinball doesn't. Jersey Jack doesn't. Dealers and distributors don't. But why would anybody who makes pinball content be on the side of the manufacturer? Why would anybody who makes pinball content, unless they themselves are distributors or dealers, why would anybody who makes content be advocating for the profitability or the ability to earn more profit unless they had some reason why? Okay, so John Wickley is just going to be a forgotten game. It's a tree falling in the forest. And that leads us to what's next from Stern. So clearly Stern seems to be in some sort of panic. And the media tour was the first move. The next move is going to be, I think, getting this anniversary edition of Metallica out in July, because remember, it's June already. So we are going to get in maybe four weeks, maybe six weeks, another Stern machine. I mean, talk about the nail in the coffin for John Wick. And this is what's going to create John Wick price dump so much faster than the end of the year is once they move on to Metallica, the demand for John Wick is going to evaporate. It's already dead, but it's going to be less than zero when Metallica anniversary edition comes out in July. But all of this is indicative of a larger thing happening in our hobby. And I think people forget this. Everybody, I want to just say this. I think there's this delusion that Stern Pinball can't fail. They're just going to be around forever because they're number one. I just want to name a few companies that failed at the height of their pinball operations. These are major companies. You might know some of them. One of them was called Sega. Another was called Capcom. Another was called Bally Williams. All right. Another was called Gottlieb. All right. So when you say and remember, when all those companies failed, Stern Pinball was making some of the worst pinball machines in the world. And because all the quality companies just like went out of business or decided to stop making games, the brand that basically was making the worst survived. Now, Now, look, that being said, Stern has made some phenomenal games. I mean, some phenomenal games over the years. And they have a phenomenal portfolio. They have the best portfolio in the history of pinball. Their portfolio is better than Valley Williams. They've knocked it out of the park way more times than they've whiffed. But they screwed themselves. Seth Davis and the modern pricing has destroyed Stern Pinball in my honest opinion. They've absolutely destroyed and killed their own golden goose. This entire hobby is driven by FOMO. It is. It's driven by FOMO. You need to, when you release a game, you need to create that like one week sales window where like a few thousand people are gonna wanna get through the door, get their order in, and you need to secure that money. You know why? Because in that first week is when Stern sells all of their allocations to all of their dealers and distros, and they have hundreds of dealers, right? And so if each one's gonna get five or 10 or 20 or 30 LEs, they don't care about you and me. they want to sell through those to distros and dealers. But they got greedy and they overpriced everything. And unless you're a millionaire and you can afford to lose $3,000 to $4,000 on L.E.s, because people, trust me when I say this, if you have FOMO around a premium, I think you need to go to the doctor. So if you let go of your L.E. FOMO, which I think is stupid now, I think buying L.E.s is dumb, LEs are losing the most amount of money out of everything. So if buying an LE is dumb, then why would anyone chase anything new in box that's less than a premium, right? Or a premium or pro. Why? They are going to make premiums forever. And if you buy one brand new, you're basically going to have to wait for the code to be done. And by the time the code is complete, you can easily save yourself $1,000 or $1,500. bucks. And again, just comes down to common sense. And look, it wasn't like this. It was never like this before. This is what pinball was like before. And again, for some of the newbie content creators, sit down and take notes because you weren't around when this was what made all of us fall in love with the hobby. What was around before was a different model. Every LE sold out on day one, every single one, right? And there was 500. So there was always more demand than supply. And so the people that were in this hobby the longest have the relationships with the dealers in the distros and they were able to get one. Right. And that was that was the way it should be. Right. I've been in this. I've been scratching your back. I've been buying games from you. You're going to hook me up by putting me on your L.E. list. And even if I don't want that L.E., I know that if I get it and I buy every L.E., it's never going to lose value. And if I want to move it on. Yeah, I could scalp it. And guess who paid the scalping prices? It was never us. It was never the core community. It was never the diehard fans. You know who paid the scalping prices? Guys like Don. Newbies. It was newbies who came in who had no idea the game even existed. Not really, Don. To be fair, it was more like people who didn't even know this hobby existed, right? When I flipped Batman LE and I flipped Ghostbusters LE for like $2,000 each, you know who bought these games? people that had never bought a game before. And they didn't care. They discovered it well after the core community got their hands on the LE. And that's how it always should be. And now what Stern has done is they've increased the supply so much and the price so much that now it's not enticing to anybody. It's not enticing to the core community because you've made so many, nothing is rare, nothing is special, and nothing holds value. and it's not enticing to the casual newbie who just discovers it because people are struggling in the real world to pay mortgages and for food and for gas. Like it's just, they're not waking up and being like, oh honey, even though we're struggling, I'm gonna go buy a $13,000 pinball LE. It's just not gonna happen. Yeah, when they were 7,500, sure. But people can't afford to do that consistently now and definitely not three times a year. And so they've kind of ruined it all. They've ruined it all. And like, I've been watching this for 10 years and I don't like how far they took it. And then even as the market softens up and even as people are telling Stern and Jersey Jack and Barrels of Fun and Spooky, I mean, guys, nobody, there's only been one game that is ostensibly sold out in 2024. There's two games basically, but one was from a year prior. The only two games that really sold out were Pulp Fiction LE and Jaws LE. Everything else. Everything else. Right? Everything else, they've supplied more of them than there is demand. That's not good. That's not good. That's a problem. That's a problem. The only way out now for all of these companies is they need to release bangers that are going to create more demand. And that's why I love covering this hobby because the pressure is on. And Stern Pinball is going to feel more pressure than anybody. They are because this remake of Metallica, you know, it's going to be met with enthusiasm and resistance. They are going to have to. This is a tightrope walk for them because they've got five to six thousand Metallica owners out there in the world who are going to have feelings about this. Some of them might embrace it and not care. Some of them might feel like Stern is burning them. Some of them, you know, are going to maybe trade up for the new game. But it's not really, I think, the right way to go if you're Stern. If you're a pinball company and you want to make three brand new games a year, that's enough. That's enough. You can't do that and then vault all these older games and torpedo the value of your old buyers. You know, they're burning the candle at both ends. And why am I seemingly the only person who sees this? I just don't get it. Does nobody else see this? Does Seth Davis know something I don't about business? Because it sure seems like Stern Pinball is burning the candle at both ends. And I think the response has been clear. Like, it's not making people happy. Look, Metallica, I'm excited to see it. I think, for me, the main thing I'm curious about is what's the art package. Because Dirty Donnie and Stern are no longer together. I don't even think Dirty Donnie and Metallica are together. And I know Zombietti has done Metallica artwork. So I'm curious to see what this game ends up looking like. Going to be very, very interesting. It's going to be an interesting July. I think June is going to be kind of boring. I think June is boring because I don't think anything is going to happen in June I don't think Multimorphic is going to get Princess Bride out in June I don't think anyone cares about Haggis I know they sent Kelly Daniel a fully populated playfield that's cool it doesn't change my mind that Haggis I still think is done I don't think there's any new money coming to bail Damien out I heard something this week that Damien is looking for an investor so he can move the whole operation to America, that he's realized it's too expensive to do this in Australia. Maybe you should have thought of that before you set up shop there, but his family's there. I don't think he's going to find that investor. I think Haggis Pinball is done. I think there's no demand. And I think he's evaporated any trust between the community and him. And again, he has nobody to blame but himself. He's the one who built that company on the promise of transparency. and he didn't deliver on that. And that on him It you know I could say all the unkind things I want but if I was running my company and I promised you I would be transparent and give you weekly updates and let you in on the journey and I took your money and then I absolutely went radio silent for months I don think I would deserve your respect I don't think I would deserve you to be a repeat customer. And I think I think people deserve refunds right now. and the reason why I think people deserve refunds right now is I think they were lied to. I think everyone who gave money on Centaur was lied to. They gave that money on the promise that Fathoms would be done by the end of the year. They gave that money on the promise that production for Centaur would be in January. So thank you for the stars, Mark. So when you lie to people like that and you mislead them, I don't know why you're not accountable. I don't know why. I, you know, like I, the refunds, Zach promised the refunds at the company went out of business. The company's not out of business. So I'm not putting pressure. I think it's Damien who should give the refunds. I think Damien should refund the money to Zach. I, I, that I've said this and I'll say it again. I'm not mad at, at anything over at flipping out. I think, um, I think Damien is the issue. Damien, if you have people sent our money and you haven't done anything with it, give it back because I'm a little worried that that money is clearly going to be used now for restructuring costs and for finishing the Fathom builds. And then where does the money come from for Centaurs if you've spent that deposit money elsewhere? We've seen this many times before. It's nothing new. I also think there is definitely blame to go around to the buyers of Centaur. If you bought a centaur and you sent in money, it is sort of the equivalent of going on a date with Puff Daddy now. If you go on a date with Puff Daddy now and he abuses you, you got to take some blame because now we know, right? We know he's an animal, right? and I really do think the same thing of, you know, in a lot of ways, like Haggis showed us their true colors all throughout the Fathom journey. So if you, I mean, people paid in full for Centaur. They gave the dude $17,500 and I think those people knew better or should have known better. So yeah, you know, look, to me, Haggis and American Pinball, if we snapped our fingers and they went away tomorrow, nobody misses them if jersey jack went away tomorrow if stern went away tomorrow if cgc went away tomorrow if spooky went away tomorrow i think they'd be severely missed i think i think they would always either be demand to bring them back i don't think the same you know i don't know like multi-morphic they're not they're not in that like oh we gotta do whatever we can to keep them around nope you gotta earn that right you gotta earn the right to be in demand and to be missed and to be forgotten. And, you know, any company that can't sell more games than Canada can sell subscriptions is in big trouble. And I say, again, I say that in a self-deprecating way. I have more subscribers than some of these companies can sell games. And that's embarrassing for them, not embarrassing for me. Okay. Spooky Luke. Yeah, I agree. I would be sad too, brother. You know, like I want to talk about Spooky for a little bit because Spooky really hasn't made much airtime on my Saturday morning spectaculars in a long time. And I think the reason why I don't talk about Spooky very much is it's just sort of all going pretty well. It's kind of just business as usual. They are making games consistently. And I think they have a lot more happy customers than unhappy customers. I don't like either theme and I'm just going to be candid. Both themes are not for me and I'm not excited about either theme, but I'm excited that some people are excited and I look and I know they're coming out with themes that are going to be much more exciting for me. And so Spooky Luke and Bug and team over there, I want to just raise my cup of water, but whatever. Consider this, maybe this, just imagine this being champagne. and I want to say congratulations to a company that gets the least amount of airtime on Kaneda because they don't mess stuff up. That's it. Like when you're not getting talked about on Kaneda's Saturday morning, you're doing something right. That should be the other motto on a company wall. If we can't sell more games, then Kaneda has subscribers, we suck. And any week that Kaneda doesn't mention us is a good week. We're doing stuff right. Okay, we're doing stuff right. I also know that, and I can tell this just because Hilton has been just like verbally masturbating how excited he is about the themes to come, which is exciting. I do know that Spooky Pinball, what they have coming is probably gonna catapult them into another level. And I think they know what they have. And I think they are so excited to get to it. And I love that. I mean, every game should be a better version of what you've done before. And I don't think we can say that about Stern. I mean, John Wick is not a better version than what Stern did before. I am so tired of hearing about the John Wick assets. I don't want like 45 minutes of video clips. I want an amazing game. And it's just that simple. All right. So what else is going on in the world of pinball? So let me let me just address real quick. And then I just want to move on because, you know, like in the spirit of camaraderie in the world of pinball content creation in a world in which I think there's divided camps. And I think here's the ask I have from all pinball content creators. And it's just a very simple ask. All I ask when you make pinball content is that you be real, right? You be real. And what I mean by being real, I don't mean you have to love everything or hate everything or have polarizing opinions just to get an audience. What I mean by being real is I just hope that moving forward, pinball content creators can tell us when the mic is on, when the camera is rolling, how they really feel about a game, about maybe a person or maybe an art package or a code. or instead of telling everybody privately how you really feel about a game or walking around a show. Let me give you an example. A guy walks around a show, tells everybody how he really feels about Venom, right? Doesn't like it. He's got a premium. He doesn't think the game is great. You know, to people over beers, you get how they really feel. And then when they do their show and the camera's on and they're recording, they glow about the game and they praise it and they say nothing but positive things because to them, being fake to the audience allows them access to these manufacturers. And, you know, when I think about why would anybody do that? Like, why would you if you just don't like a movie or you didn't enjoy a meal it's okay to say hey like and in a constructive way hey like here's why i don't like venom or here's you know here are the things i would have done differently you don't have to be a jerk about it like kaneda but i've just noticed lately a lot of that where like you're gonna say privately how you feel and then you know and then When you get on the public airwaves, you gush about everything. The other thing that's happened to me recently, and it's just unfortunate, is basically I've established a lot of friendships in pinball. And I've made some great friends, and I consider some of you to be some of my best friends. And I've loved that about this hobby. I think this hobby brings people together on a level, on a level. that is amazing because ultimately the games are not worth the money but the friendships are priceless and once you realize that you know you realize that all right i've already paid my ticket because that's how i think about this hobby the moment you sort of either own a few games or go to tournaments and shows or join a league night or go to your local operator the moment you invest a certain amount of time in pinball it's like your hand's been stamped and you can come and go as you please within the community. And you can converse with people on a daily basis in an educated and articulate way about the hobby and why you love it and all this stuff. And that's where it's fun. And when people are huddled together and they're real, you know, and I see it all the time. I see it at shows. I see it at the bar. I see it on my Canada chat on Patreon. I see it on Pinside. I see it on Facebook. when you really get together and you don't hold back, it's so much more to me. It's so much more real. It's more engaging. It's more authentic. And again, like I've built some great friendships now recently, recently, you know, one of my best friends, Jenga's was mad at me because I said that I found Carrie Hardy's video to be funny. Right. When this whole gun gate. And I want to just say this. When you make content, you have to, you have to, when you make content, you have to have some thick skin. And, you know, if you want to put up stuff like Carrie wants to wave a gun around, right, Carrie? I saw that. Or use, like, quotes about Hitler and all that. Like, you got to have thick skin because people are going to react, right? And as a content creator, you're going to make people react. And so when you do that and you put up content, the other thing that's going to happen is people are going to punch back. Like, they're going to make fun of you. Like they're going to they're going to use what you do. I mean, nobody gets made fun of or insulted more than me. And when that happens, you got to have thick enough skin to just take it right to just take it. You can punch back. You could ignore it. You can do whatever. But unfortunately, one of my best friends in pinball, you know, decided to not only stop talking to me, not only that. Right. He said, I'm never going to share anything with you again. personal and okay fine because i said carrie's video was funny um but then went on a tour to celebrate all the people he knows hate me right right next next podcast next video don t-shirt then zach's t which is cool like it's everyone's prerogative to do that but you know unfortunately when you do that and you say we're friends and then you go on a you know a tour and and and hang out with everybody that despises me. In my Italian culture, there is a value of loyalty, right? And having some loyalty to friends. And I do mean this. And this is what's always hard in pinball, especially in the content space, especially everywhere, is sometimes I think people don't understand the value of loyalty. And what that means is, and I'm going to explain another great example is I got my best friend in pinball is Derek, right? Derek Stutzman. He's my best friend in pinball, arguably maybe my best friend in the world. We talk almost every day and I value his friendship more than any game. And his daily connection to me has helped me through so many hard times. And I'm super happy to see he's just moved to California. he got out of pinball right now um and you know who he bought all his games from zach many zach many my best friend well not all of his games but he's bought from zach before and never once never once through all of our friendship did i ever ask derrick not to buy from zach even if zach and i have had issues i've never once asked that of him now you know it might be different if derrick every time i saw him he's wearing flipping out t-shirts and and and you know and just doing, you know, three minute ads for flipping out every time, you know, he does. He did some content. But here's here's the thing. And I want to I want to explain why, you know, this latest thing has got me a little bit. You know, just just want to talk about it candidly. So so if you're going to do that, then I don't want you around anymore. I don't want you around anymore because it's fake and I don't want to be fake with anybody. And I don't want to be friends with someone who tells me they're not going to be real with me, that they're not going to tell me anything personal, then just go away. And so you're not going to be singing Jenga's hanging out here anymore. You know, and I'm just over it. I'm over the thin skin nature of some people. I'm over how they take their ball and they go home. And I'm just over all of it. Like, if you want to be friends with me and if I've upset you, then then be a man and pick up the phone and talk to somebody. But no, it's like the tails are between the legs. Then it's celebrating all of my competition. And I don't roll like that. I don't roll like that. And I also don't get down on my knees for anybody, for anybody. And I'm the best friend you can have. And if you have my friendship, Hector, I'm looking at you. Bill Brandis, I'm looking at you. Derek, I'm looking at you. Joe Abadi. And for most of you out there, trust me, we're friends. I would do anything for my followers, for my fans, for my listeners. But what I won't do is sell out. OK, I won't. OK, Bill, you're not on my Patreon. I won't do that. All right. And I'm here to tell you right now that if I ever upset you or you've got an issue with Kaneda, just hit me up. But what I won't do is I won't let, you know, I won't let women into the boys room. I mean, that's the best metaphor I can give you. Either you're going to like grow up a little bit and have a real conversation about it, but I'm not chasing people down no more. And I know this and I mean this when I say this. The amount of content that drafts off of this content is kind of funny to me. Right. It's just funny to me. And like and I know that nobody can do this. I know that nobody without any notes, without any, you know, show topics, without any connections to manufacturers on a consistent basis can make content this entertaining or engaging or concise or relevant in pinball. And I know I should probably be doing this in another category, but I love it so much. And here's the thing, too. The ridiculous positioning of stuff is like we're we are pinball. We're going to talk about pinball happiness. And whenever you see that, whenever you see people sell like positioning their content as positivity, who else did that? Colin, right? Colin did that. We're going to celebrate pinball the positive way. We're going to create a podcast that's about why you pinball happiness. Whenever you see people promote something like that, my only advice to you is run in the other direction because that's not interesting, that's not engaging, and that's not being real. Because the only reason why we love pinball, other than the games and the people, is we love the conversation. And we love the fact that pinball triggers a response from us, both good and bad, positive and negative right without those two forces we you don't have anything it's not interesting and and and that's why you know i'm committed to each and every one of you to never sell out to never say this is the place for pinball positivity you know and and that's why i kind of am an island in in all of this i am and like and albert like you know and jason and carry and and you know there's people out there you could see you know who they are they're they're kind of like misfits we're all kind of like misfits like we don't fit into a group like we just don't like we we don't work in media tours with a group of people we're we're just kind of like we would rather sail solo and and and that's fine as i've always said like you know some people play singles tennis some people play doubles some people like big groups some people like flying solo. I just like being able to wake up, share how I feel about pinball, and that's it. And that's it, right? So that's my take on all that is I think everybody should listen to who they want to listen to. I think everybody should just tell us how you really feel about these things and these games. And I mean this when I say this. I'm not going to talk about this. I'm not tuning in to any new positivity pinball podcast. I am just ignoring it. You will never hear me talk about it ever again. I give you my word right now, whatever this new happiness pinball entity is, you will never hear me talk about it again and I'm not listening to a single episode, okay? Because I know that the origins of this stuff is fake and I don't need to hang out with a bunch of fake shills because we got Bill Brandis here. We got Ed Ed Robertson. We got Jack Danger in the Canada Club. And come on, you don't think Stern Pinball listens to Canada's Club? Come on, hanging over that media tour like a dark cloud, like a dark cloud. Like everyone knows where the energy's at. Everyone knows where the party's at. Ian, brother. So Ian at Nudge Magazine, guys. Love the guy. And you know what, Ian? I think maybe it's like an East Coast thing. Is it an East Coast thing? You know, I just think like in the East Coast, you know, who's like a cool dude? And I mean this when I say it is Vic, you know, over, you know, Vic, Vic's a guy that like he hacked up his godfather topper. We've been we've been jabbing each other. The Italian dude from Long Island. I called the guy up and we just we had such a good conversation. And he's just a cool dude. You know, you can't make if some of these if some of these other cheerleaders, if you make fun of them the way I made fun of Vic, they would they would go crazy. They would go crazy. OK, so look, it's going to be a very interesting June into July. I think June is going to be a dead month. In fact, I might take a week or two off in June. And I'm not sure yet. When I do the move, we move into the new house June 13th. It's going to be a little tricky. So I might ask each and every one of you that's a club member, maybe can you please give Kaneda a week off, a week off just to get everything together and not have this break in the day. And I'm trying to do these shows to be more like an hour. So I don't know. I don't think I'm going to do the full 90 minutes. And so I just want to say to everybody out there, look, look, you know, I've been doing this for 10 years. These companies, I think, to say something positive, Elton John is the game of the year. It is the game of the year. It is the greatest, most overpriced game of all time. I love that. I love the dichotomy of saying that. Is Jersey Jack created the world's greatest, the greatest pinball machine that is also the most overpriced pinball machine at the same time, right? At the same time. It's like the most beautiful wife who will make you go bankrupt. Is it worth it? And look, hey, the pinball sex might be good enough that buying an Elton John might be worth it. And I love the Elton John owner's club because it's nothing but good stuff. The John Wick owner club looks like it rival rivaling I can say that word Rivaling Rivaling the Thunderbirds owner club. I mean, you could literally put the Thunderbirds owner club next to the John Wick owner club, and you'd be confused which one you're in. Is this, hey guys, is this it? Are we in the right place? Yeah, I think so. There's only like four pages. Like, okay, yeah, we're in the right place. Yeah, nobody cares. Nobody cares. Carrie Hardy is a new club member as of today. I joined Kerry Hardy's Patreon. You know, like I've made fun of Kerry Hardy more than anybody. I mean, I called Kerry Hardy the biggest haggish shill ever. I did a whole podcast just lambasting the dude when he unboxed Centaur. And I talked to Kerry Hardy today for an hour. Grown man, picked up the phone, had a conversation. Didn't, you know, he didn't run away. He didn't put on my enemy's t-shirts and cry like a B-I-T-C-H. He's a man. So thank you, Carrie, for being a man. It's a lost concept these days, you know? No, no. You know, in all the context of what I'm going through too, it's funny to me. You know, new baby, sleep deprived, one of the greatest moments of my life. And if you were my real friend, you wouldn't ignore me and abandon me when I need my friends the most. You know, I think one of the reasons why you guys love this podcast and just this show is we start to talk about more life things and and other other things that are more important. And that's the great part. And I think, you know, there's going to be times where we talk smack about each other. There's going to be times where we jab each other. I mean, I'm an identical twin. My twin brother makes fun of me more than you could ever imagine. Whatever you think you could do to insult me pales in comparison to the daily, and I mean this, the daily barrage I get from my twin brother. I just bought a new house that cost, I paid 50% more than my bro did for his house, but he bought at the right time. His swimming pool is the size of my backyard. Now you don't think I know that when I closed on this house. I said it to brenda I mean, I mean i'm never gonna hear the end of it. My brother's swimming pool Is bigger than my backyard and every day He sends text messages reminding me of that And I could do two things I could be upset or I could just laugh at it because he's not wrong He's not wrong. And you know, the reason why it doesn't bother me is because I'm so happy with the woman I married. I'm so happy with my pinball podcast. I'm so happy with my pinball friends. I'm happy with my job. I get to do what I love every day. I get 12 weeks paternity leave. I get paid handsomely to play in the sandbox. Would I like to make what Bill Brandis makes a day? Absolutely. Do I know how to make what Bill Brandis makes every day? No. And that's why I don't. And I'm not begrudging of anybody who makes a lot of money. I want rich friends more than poor friends. I got to be honest. And I want my children to row their own boats. I will help them the way my father helped me a leg up on their living when they get out of college and an education. And other than that, you're on your own. That's how it is. That's how it should be. the only time I've had to ask my father for help was with this house. And I'll explain it real quick because I don't know if you guys know this, but when you close on a house on a Friday, on a Friday, we sent in an offer and we needed 10% of the value of the home Monday at noon, liquid cash. Okay, so I got like, you know, I've got my pin money set aside, but not that much. And so I called my financial advisor and she said, hey, look, Chris, we've got the money. That's not the problem is we have to sell some shares in your portfolio. And that will take three days for the money to clear. And we need the money Monday at noon. And so this 47-year-old pinball podcaster, executive creative director of the world's second, maybe third largest now, communications agency, called up his father and said, Hey, dad, do you have this much money in cash and could you loan it to us and I will pay you back on Wednesday? And he said, yes. And then I said, how much more do you got? You know, I was like, just thankful. And Brenda and I have been in this place lately as we sort of welcome in this new baby. the level of thankfulness that we felt from not just our family, but from the pinball family, from all of you out there who sent in gifts. Hector, your gift, Bill Brandis, your gift. We got barrels of fun sent Cassie in a swaddle with his name on it. The amount of love and thankfulness we have is, and trust me when I say this, I will always reciprocate that love. Now, if you're barrels of fun, I'm not going to say I like Labyrinth as a theme, but I will always reciprocate the love you give in different ways. But I won't show your games. I mean, you know, I'm saying I will always be respectful to David David Van Es and and Robert Blakeman and the team over there. But you can't buy my you can't buy my positive reviews with a swaddle. But you can earn my respect as a man. and that is how I've felt over the last few weeks and look, we're all going to go through tough times and hardship and we do need each other. We do need each other and that's why it's so disappointing for me to have to sort of excommunicate dudes like Jang is from this community but I don't need people like that here. I don't need people like that that are going to just abandon and run away and not just that, run away to people that hate you and then all of a sudden be in love with them, right? I mean, guys like Ian, you know, Ian, Ian's looking for work right now and Ian, you know, you're very talented and you're an amazing photographer. You know, if you ask me, a guy like Ian is creating better pinball content and the photography than anything going out by Stern or Jersey Jack. And I think, you know, spooky pinball, some of these pinball companies should really be thinking about hiring someone like an Ian or employing them even on the side as like a side gig to create content for them. Because at the end of the day, it's like too many of us are giving so many hours away to these companies for free. And then the moment you try to monetize anything, look how they came at me. I mean, do you guys remember how the entire pinball content space came at me when I turned on Patreon and turned off giving away my life for free? They insulted me. They abused me. They dragged my name through the mud. They called me every name in the book, a narcissistic, sociopathic nightmare, a toxic human being. I was called a cancer. I was called a terrorist. Just think about this for a minute. I was called a terrorist by Scott and Josh. Those two over at Loser Kid Pinball Podcast. They called me a terrorist. Okay. Just think about that for a minute. They called me the same name as a group that flies airplanes into buildings and kills civilians, the same name as Hamas that will sneak across the border at five in the morning and put babies in microwaves. They associated me with that kind of group of people. And what did I do? What did I do? Did I go on and attack of them? No, I don't even I didn't even do anything to them. And they successfully destroyed the pinball award show. And they successfully took away what I believe was the highlight of Texas Pinball Festival. And now they they replaced it with nothing. And that's what woke culture is. It's easily offended people who want to destroy the things that make people happy and they want to control what you get to engage with. They want to control the narrative. They want to remove the things that they don't believe in, and they want to use hyperbolic language that overly dramatizes the issue. It's like, you know, woke guys like that are at the helm at Disney. It's why Disney's failing, because for 50 years, nobody was offended by Lady and the Tramp. But then all of a sudden you put up disclaimers that this movie is insensitive to certain ethnicities. And now now I'm seeing the negativity. You've made it negative. It was never it was never it was never negative before. And and that's what they've done. because you know what? Those guys don't listen to my podcast. They don't listen to a single one. They don't follow me here. They don't do anything, you know, other than, you know, promote in their way the companies and the manufacturers. And again, it's fine. It's fine. But when you call me a terrorist and you call me a cancer, you know, my aunt died of cancer. My two aunts died of cancer. And if you've ever lost anybody to cancer, let me tell you something. You guys want to talk about like real drama? And again, this is really off the cuff. If you've ever been in a hospice of someone who dies of cancer, that is the worst way to go imaginable. So when you say that Canada is the worst thing imaginable in pinball content and for the pinball hobby, you really should be ashamed of yourselves. And did any of those loser kid guys ever apologize to me for calling me a terrorist or a cancer? No. And I wanted to say this. If any of these men believe in God or Jesus or are religious, they're all hypocrites and they're all fakes because forgiveness and turning the other cheek and trying to make a positive outcome, you know, is really the way to go. And I'll tell you this right now. I'm going to forgive Cengiz for doing what he did, but only if he asked me for forgiveness, because I think that's how it needs to work in life. And the moment Cengiz asked for forgiveness and says, hey, you know, maybe I overreacted and then he's welcome back here any day. But until that day, he's not because I'm tired of always being the one who has to like bow down to other people. All right. So everybody look, I know this went a little bit off on a tangent, and I think that's one of the reasons why hopefully you enjoy this. We talk about pinball. We talk about life. We talk about the interpersonal relationships that happen in this hobby. And that's interesting to me because all of us spend more time than we should in this hobby. and I want to get to know each and every one of you a little bit deeper than just the fact that you're not buying John Wick or that Stern Pinball is a ripoff or that Elton John's the greatest game you'll never buy because of the price. There's more to us. And if we don't get to that, we don't get to much. And for all the fake content creators out there, just keep it real, guys. We know you don't like a game. It's fine. You don't have to buy everything to earn our attention. You don't have to cheerlead everything a manufacturer does. You're not shareholders in these companies. You should be serving your community and your fans. And it does your community a disservice if all you're going to do is hype these companies because you get kickbacks or you're sponsored by a distro or your brother is an operator and that's how you make money. That's fine, but I can't take what you say seriously. everybody have a great saturday this has been a very candid episode of canada's saturday morning spectacular to my subscribers guys thank you you're going to get all of this in audio form in great quality over the next day or two and i can't wait to close on my house i'm very blessed to have each and every one of you uh along on this ride with me i mean that and albert welcome back to the party. I really do mean that. I wish no ill will on anybody or anyone. I think life is too short. I think we're all going to die before we want to. And if there's one thing that keeps me up at night, it's that I'm going to die well before I get to see enough of my little boy's life. And that, I mean, don't make me cry now. I mean, I'm glad I have sunglasses on now because that's the thing. Like if you ever want to see Kaneda cry, have me do the math of how old I'll how old I'll be to see my sons be my age. And it breaks me down every time. Real life, guys, real life. So be good. Take care of yourselves. I just got back from the gym. You don't even want to see. I don't even want to show you Canada's dad bod because I'm getting Bruce Lee ripped. I'm trying to be as ripped as Bill Brandis. And I'll get there, Billy. I'll get there. I'm going to get there, brother, one day. Everybody, love you. Be good. this was a great show John Ehrlich my love to the family over there at Jack Bar you know at the end let me end this show by saying this John was there when I threw a drink in Tim Sexton's face I think I elbowed John as they I was wearing a Cobra Kai t-shirt which I think added to my toxic masculine moment and there I was you know fresh vodka soda the whole thing in Tim Sexton's face because I had just ordered it. And all of a sudden, like, you know, and like, I mean, I know I could probably hold my own with some of these dudes solo, but there was like eight dudes on me. And I just threw back my arms. And I think I hit John. And I was like wrestled into the elevator. Like it was like Cobra Kai. It was like Ralph Macchio in the shower at Karate Kid, right? And the whole thing was handled poorly by everybody, but mostly by me, right? I was drunk. I mean, don't get me wrong. The reason I was drunk, and it's no excuse for this behavior, is I was at dinner with Lyman Sheets and Lyman can drink. So we got wasted. And then I rolled in there rooting for Lyman's girlfriend, Penny. And that's what sparked the whole thing is that the woman that Penny was playing against was complaining that I was cheering too loud for Lyman's girlfriend. You want to know this is how this all went down. And I didn't realize that there was a blue piece of tape on the ground that meant you couldn't cross the line. And there's Kaneda wasted. And Tim Sexton, instead of like calming the situation down, he gets up on a chair and screams Kaneda is being kicked out of this tournament. security escort him from the building. And then crazy Levy and I are like, I'm like, really, Levy? Come on, man. Like, this is ridiculous. I'm just here to cheer on Penny. I didn't realize there's rules about cheering in pinball. And I just see this like Tim Sexton, like with this smug look on his face. And there I am, toxically drunk, masculine Kaneda wearing a Cobra Kai T-shirt, which takes your toxic, masculine, a-hole personality through the roof. And I'm staring at this like $15 drink I just bought. And on the wall, on the walk, boom, that was it. Boom. Like, you know, it was wrong and it was assault on every level and I shouldn't have done it. And then I got wrestled into the damn elevator. Yeah, there was some footage. And like, that was it. Like and then John wrote this scathing, a hard like it was like a hard knocks, heartfelt message to Kaneda on Pinside of what an absolute a-hole you are for your behavior at the show. And John Ehrlich was 100 percent right. 100 percent right. and the same John Ehrlich, after we went through that and he saw the worst of me, because this is the thing he saw the worst of me. He saw the worst behavior imaginable. And instead of canceling me and saying, that's all he ever is, that's all you ever will be. That's what loser kid would do to me. That's what Don's pinball podcast would do to me. that's what jengis would do to me they will take one moment and they will simply live in it forever they're stuck in that moment of who i am and instead of doing that john ehrlich who saw me at the worst you know what he did he got to know me he got to see that there was more than just that and he forgave me and we became really good friends and he used my podcast to propose to his wife. And you talk about two ends of the spectrum of what the journey of life could become if you actually forgive people and try to see all of them. And I mean that. And for everyone who hates me, the reason why they hate me is they don't want to see any of the good. They don't want to see any of the good. They don't listen to the show. They don't hang out here. All they want to see is what they want to see. And if that's what they want to see, you best damn believe it. I'll give it to you. If you want to see a narcissist, you want to see a sociopath, you want to see a self-absorbed materialistic loser, I'll give you that. But for those of you who want to see more, I'll give you that. And as I've always said, everybody, every terrible thing they say about me, but so much more. And so everybody have a great Saturday. This was one of the greatest Saturday morning spectacular as I've ever done. And if you feel that way, kick some stars so I can give 40% of them to Apple. You know, Jason Apple's like, dude, you got to do this on a laptop. If you do it on a laptop, you don't have to pay Apple all that money. I gave you a 90 minute show, hitting hard in the right ways. And gang, this is the best. This is where everybody should be. And for the 1500 people or 1800 people, almost 2000 people are going to watch this at some point this week. If you're not a member of the Canada Club, what are you doing? All right. You need to be like Steve Ballmer. I've got four words for you. I love this podcast. All right. That's it. I love this podcast. It is the best pinball podcast. It's not even kicking. We have 714 subscribers. It's more than every other pinball podcast combined. It doesn't matter if you like me or hate me. Like just, just the curious newbie would be like, ah, yeah, maybe I should try it for five bucks. Right? I mean, Bill Brandis spends more money on uni in a day than a lifetime of my podcast would cost them. Everybody love you. Life is crazy. We're all broken. We're all broken, but you know who's not going to fix us david fix later that was good right later canada's is