the pinball network is online launching triple drain pinball podcast all right tom you are looking great man you are looking good in those those are uh those are pin shades yeah they are pin shades yes oh you've never looked cooler All right. You ready? You ready? You ready for this? Yes. Perfect. All right, Travis, you ready? Oh, he's great for the audio listeners. He's he's lifting up his drink. I'm taking that as a yes. Yes, I'm ready. Sorry, Joel. Please, Lord, let this button work. Joel and Travis got my tongue involved And we call ourselves Triple Drain Triple Drain We're Triple Triple Drain It worked Joel you did fantastic This week I just want to put this out here And Tom you know what I'm talking about here A lot of people email us And they're just like Joel is obviously the weakest link to your trio yeah and we always try to defend him and sometimes he's shit like last episode where it's very hard to do it but you know what you came through with flying colors this week you're doing great the first two minutes are fantastic yeah right now this podcast yeah we try uh you know with the three of us we're clearly trying to get uh you know we're it's like an average demographic between the three of us is what we're shooting for we're trying to represent all of pinball so you know you guys are like professional and talented and have, you know, actual pinball skills. And I, I'm not. So I, I, you know, we average out and boom that, that way we can just, we can reach the masses. Is that the, is that the goal? Like we're trying to get partner on the TPN network. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. We're, well, we, we're going to talk, we can talk more about that, but yes, Tom is actually, uh, with his channel, Fox cities is, is actually working very hard to get partnered, uh, on Twitch. So we're, we're going to talk more about that at the end with plugs but yeah help a brother out uh just definitely watch tom streams when he's streaming and i think we're close man i think we're close you flexing is that like right like right now if you're listening to this go to twitch right now and follow Fox Cities Pinball yes like right now while you're still listening to us of course yeah and don't click off our youtube video either this episode no yeah no tom graph what i what i think is funny is um i stream weekly uh with flipping out uh tom you stream at least once a week with fox cities um neither of us are partnered in twitch but yet somehow travis is actually partnered on twitch from a past life from a past when you're back in call of duty days and not streaming actually yeah a lot of it's funny i've gotten questions about that in the past when people see me on the uh the pinball streams and they see the check mark yeah and i'm like yeah it's not from pinball yeah in a former life i was a call of duty streamer yeah neil neil and i were talking about that recently and he's like no travis was a big deal i'm like but i'm a big deal and he's like no no travis had like 500 viewers all the time yeah it was it was wild michael it was wild yeah i used to rub shoulders with like tend to tat man and all that at the twitch cons and and now i do this now i'm with a lot more famous people like joel you know i know right yeah geez yeah you um uh were you sponsored by you know mountain dew and uh sweatpants i don't know i mean you and all your bros i don't i mean yeah yeah yeah it well it was it was like eight years ago i think now at this point eight or nine years ago i remember there was actually a sunglass company that sponsored like gamers no it wasn't pin shades it's called like gunner optics or something like that but they went through to everybody and then there was g fuel that was oh yeah yeah and i i remember ray kind of dipped into that world also but yeah so g fuel was a big deal and then um there was like a certain type of controller to like a scuff controller that was another thing too so yeah it was a lot of fun i just yeah played call of duty sat on my butt talked to people there's always the guy playing against you that killed himself with the grenade well here's the funny part tom i was actually i was very mediocre at the game it wasn't because i was just like great it was just because i could not shut up while i played and i just talked to the chat all the time what's that it's because you're in a hot tub yes while i i was the one i was the genesis of the hot tub meta yeah no i would love to uh i i do have any of your videos any i don't never mind you probably don't want the listeners but i would be curious yeah yeah there actually is so i used to have a youtube channel that had a couple thousand subscribers at the time and yeah i had tons of youtube videos out but they're not around anymore that i know of but i might be able to find one there was actually one that ended up getting like 30 or 40,000 views. And it was simply because my, uh, my son Carter at the time, he was like maybe four years old. And I made the mistake of going ahead and letting him get on the stream while I went downstairs to go get something real quick, just to like, hang out and have fun. And he's playing against bots. And every single time he got killed, he would just sit there and he would just go, Oh shit. Like he would just, he would just do that. And that happened for like 30 seconds before I rushed back up to stop him. So, yeah, that video went like mini viral. So, yeah, that's his claim. Well, if you find that, let us know. We'll post it on our Facebook page. Okay, we'll do. Anyways, yes, people come here for clearly the pinball talk. But, no, I just think – I do think that's funny. But between the three of us, the two of us that actually stream on a weekly basis, neither of us are partnered. And the one guy who doesn't stream anymore somehow is, which is comical. You get partners for life. That's just the way it is. Lucky you. It's tough, man. It's tough. It is a grind. There's no denying it. Tom can do it, though. We're going to push his ass over the hump. He'll get there. Well, yeah, we will definitely talk more about that towards the end. But really, the reason we decided to record, we're recording on a Monday night. This is like the first Monday that I think we've ever recorded together, which is really cool. But I know I have some work travel coming up over the next two weeks. They actually, both Travis and Tom, have some big events that they're traveling for that we're going to talk about. Um, but we decided to record because there was some pretty crazy news that was dropped yesterday. Um, and we're, we're going to talk about that. So, um, Joe Kamenkow, Joe Kamenkow, he is, I'm trying to think of the best way to describe him. Um, some, basically he has been involved, um, from a licensing side, um, with Stern for years now. Apparently he's good friends with Gary Stern and Joe Kaminkow, I think, is rather wealthy and has a lot of connections. And I know he was heavily involved in securing the license for Batman 66. He secured the license for Beatles. So a lot of these boutique games, Joe has been kind of the driving force to get the licensor to work with Stern. well um what he announced on his facebook was basically he said jersey jack pinball has the license for harry potter that's it like he's basically just a very bold statement and the reason that that's a that actually means something is because for years people have been talking about harry potter what if harry potter what if harry potter well Joe Kaminkow's been saying for years if anybody's gonna get that license it's gonna be me like he's been like almost boastfully saying that like i will get that if somebody's gonna get it it'll be me so everybody's reading into that well joe gets it that means stern's gonna make it this is i think it's kind of been a point of like contention of his like i will get that license and apparently the other i don't know rumors or side story there is jk rawlings the the author of harry potter for whatever reason has had it she's had it out against pinball like apparently she made a comment at some point in time in the past that she doesn't want there to be a harry potter pinball machine she doesn't like pinball i don't know if it's like that association had something to do with it like being in bars or something yeah so but she's kind of gone all over the place with her licensing of harry potter and changing the story and all that stuff so there was always that thing will there ever be a harry potter pinball machine there's always been a big question mark there because i don't know if jk Rowling says no, then no is no. The other side of that is Joe's been like taking it upon himself. If somebody is going to get it, it's going to be me. So for him, a respectful or a highly respected person within pinball, within licensing to come out on his Facebook and boldly state Jersey Jack has the license for Harry Potter. That was a big deal. That was a big deal. That post has since been removed but that post was screenshotted and it was put on like pinball enthusiast he was put on a few other things uh jason knapp with knapp arcade got a hold of that he's posted it on his it's created quite a discussion not only on facebook but also on pin side so and i know zach minnie with the pinball show just put out like a mini episode he mentioned a little bit of it and then the other bit is behind the patreon wall but he he went into the history of all that and some information there. So one comment, one Facebook comment has spurred all this. So Tom, what are your thoughts? What did you, what are your thoughts? What, what came to your head when you saw that? The first thing I thought was, man, I gotta go post this on Facebook. That was the first thing. The second thought was, um, I thought it was a really odd post like because because you know joe is uh kind of over on that stern brand first of all the picture was in a stern cabinet which correct kind of odd there was a there was a picture posted as well and it's very clear like jack danger has done this he's he's photoshopped a lot of dream themes over the years so i'm pretty confident this was photoshopped by him years ago and joe just happened to pull it but just just what joe said exactly is he said hey pinball fans here's the scoop jersey jack has secured the license for harry potter for pinball no waiting no speculation they locked it in that's the exact post that he posted with a picture of the harry potter machine but um go ahead sorry tom that's okay um you see you interrupted me anyway now uh i just i thought it was odd you know again going back you know his connections with stern and and saying jjp got the license to me it's like you're you're talking about a competitor getting a license that hasn't been announced so one that's odd two is it's like is this just you know somebody hacked his account you know and and put this in there it's possible um the other thing is it's like well was this a troll like maybe he's actually got the license and he's kind of fibbing about it and saying jjp has the license which again seems kind of undermining i don't know it's just it was really odd to me yeah an odd post yeah and to address the hacked account um he doubled down he there were a lot of people that actually posted or commented on that post and joe responded to those comments so there are people are like i'm pretty sure this is just a drunk angry dude who's mad he didn't get his way and then he like comments on it or people are like is this a hacked account? And he commented, Nope. Well, sure. If it's a hacked account, the hacker could say no, but like if you actually clicked on his account, like his wife was connected to it. So that means they would have to have a hacked her account as well. I mean, I don't know. I there's sure that could have been a thing, but he actually, he deleted the post, but yet he was responding to the screenshot of the post. It just seems odd, but Travis, I know you had an interesting take on it as well, but yeah, I mean, what, what was all swirling through your head? um well as somebody that works with a dealer that sells primarily stern products i when i saw that i was just like shit like instantly instantly because i mean here's the thing that is somebody that has a lot of credibility in the industry and the reason why i was just like oh crap this sucks is because what's going to happen is is there's going to be a lot of people that collect pinball machines that are going to read that, that are going to hear about that, that's going to spread around like wildfire because knuckleheads like us are going to talk about it. It's going to get out there on podcasts. It's going to be on forums. It's going to go everywhere. And legitimately, I've had no less than 25 plus messages just about this from different people. So everybody's heard about it, including people back in my old stomping grounds in Oklahoma. And the reality is what's going to happen. It's going to freeze up a lot of money in the industry. People that were considering buying a pin, they're going to be sidelined now because the fact is they if they see that there's potential to be a theme that is their absolute dream theme. And let's face facts. Harry Potter is like the number one in demand theme from everybody in the pinball industry that people want to see. And so if they realize that it's possible that this is coming out and this information is coming from a credible source and you're being told it's from Jersey Jack who commands the highest prices basically in the industry for what is it like a $15,000 for a CE and 12.5 for an LE I think is what it is. And so those are just baseline prices. But the Harry Potter, there's no telling how much that would be. So basically just overnight, a lot of money just froze up. I guarantee you, I know that we got several calls today alone asking about it and we don't even sell JJP products. So I don't know how it is for other dealers and what's going on. But yeah, when I saw that, I was just like, man, this is going to be a shit show. We need to buckle up because there's no telling how much money has instantly been sidelined from people that were considering buying a pen. I mean, we're just now getting Foo Fighter LEs out, right? And so we're kind of waiting for that second run to come. And that was a very much in-demand pen, but we have noticed that there's been a little of a trail off from people buying, which typically happens when you're entering the summer months. That's fully typical. But now that this type of information is out there, I don't know. I'm very fearful that there's a lot of money that's going to sit there idle that's just going to wait and see. And it's not like that this product is going to be coming out anytime soon. You know what I mean? That's what I was just thinking. It could be three, four or five years from now yeah we have no idea but the problem is it's not it's not so much that and i remember we were talking to somebody about this today they'll remain nameless but one of the things that they mentioned in the same chat that you guys were in is well you know people will probably forget this as soon as my thing goes out they'll instantly forget it like when the next l1 pin comes out right which yeah which is fine and all but we're still several months out from that So what's going to be the short-term ramifications on something like this? That's my concern. What's going to be the Q2 and Q3 ramifications on it? It's going to happen. It's just the way it is. And I won't blame people for not putting their money out there. I won't blame people for sitting on the sidelines to get information. But the reality is when people stop buying to wait for more information, that might be information that doesn't come. And those are cells that are lost that people aren't going to see until they choose to get off the sidelines and get back into the game and start buying new unboxed pens again. I mean, from a business perspective, it sucks. So, okay. So there's a ton of different ways we can go with this. So first off, Joe Kamikow, why? The question is, first off, why did he feel the need to share this information? Ego. Ego. I'll just say it. I think it's ego. I mean, I don't know the guy, but if I look at that. Because he knew the information? Yeah. I mean, why else would you share that? There's no other reason because it doesn't hurt JJP. But the thing is, it hurts Stern, doesn't it? Don't you think it hurts? So if Stern's always been, if Gary Stern is one of his best friends and he's always done work for Stern, why now would he post something that actually hurts Stern? Does he not care anymore because Gary's out? Is he upset about the direction of the company? Or does he not care? Is his ego bigger than his love of Stern? I don't understand. Yeah, it hurts. Here's the funny part. So I got an answer for that, and then I'll turn it over to Mr. Tom Graff. So I've heard two different versions of this, right? So this means that people are seeing this from different angles, and people are taking what they want to extract out of this. Some of the first messages I got was, well, he's just really pissed off at Stern, isn't he? And then the other messages I've seen, well, he's doing this to sabotage JJP, sabotage their godfather. So it's like everybody has their own opinion of what's going on. The only opinion I can give is based off what I know in real time with what it's affecting with what I do on my day to day. But, yeah, I don't I mean, honestly, I don't see how this hurts J.J.P. at all. I feel like it it raises their profile. I feel like Godfather sells. We're going to be what they are from the beginning just because of their pricing model. They're always going to hit that peak early on and then it's going to just have a big time trail off. That's the way JJP games typically have gone the past few releases. So, you know, I don't know. It just makes me think that it gets them notice immediately. It raises their profile. I mean, Tom is agreeing with. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Tom. Yeah, it's so. OK, so you said it doesn't hurt JJP. I why would it? Well, OK, so why would it if people think that they have the top tier theme? Why would that hurt them? I just think it – I know as of right now, I know there are distributors out there. Like they made all the Guns N' Roses games. They made a ton of them. So there are new in-box Guns N' Roses sitting on the shelf. And we've gone down this road before where if a distributor has a game sitting on a shelf, he can't clearance it. He can't mark it down. There is a limit to how low it can go. So when the used market is below MSRP, it's really hard to move new in-box units. So there are GNRs sitting on the shelf. We know for a fact there's a lot of toy stories sitting on the shelf. Is that a JJP problem or a dealer problem? I see a – oh, well, okay. That's a – you know, sure. Some dealers should probably take a little responsibility for that. Because JJP is a B2B business. They're not – you know what I mean? They somewhat do B2C a little bit. So they sold out and they sold theirs. It's the district that's stuck with them. Right. So what like but that's why I don't think it hurts them at all. I'm just saying when I look at like when I look at Stern a lot, they have a lot of games in their catalog that are in demand that if if there's waiting lists, there are people waiting on them. They want them. If if somebody posts like, hey, I just got a few of these. They're gone. They never get put on a shelf. They got a lot of those games. Sure. They have a few that that probably sell way better than others. but I'm seeing if I look at JJP who's released a game, it was like every two years. And then now they're looking at every year. And then the biggest, the shortest turnaround has been between toy story and Godfather. You got all these distros that have GNR on the shelf. They got a bunch of toy story on the shelf. They're now getting Godfather LEs on the shelf. The CEs haven't even shipped yet. Apparently that keeps getting pushed back. And now all of a sudden you're, you're going to throw out another amazing theme. Like I don't, as a distributor, I'd almost be worried because I'd be like, well, what's it going to be? Is it going to be all the Harry Potters? Is it going to be Harry Potter one? Are you going to pick the last Harry Potter? Are you going to pick some random, you know, there's a new Harry Potter HBO max series coming out. Is this going to be based on that? You know, like, are we because the Harry Potter franchise is going to want to push their latest and greatest thing like Disney push the toy story for instead of the original toy story, did they get the license and it's going to be another eight years before they actually get around to building it? I don't know. I mean, there's a ton of questions, but I know there were people that were holding onto money, waiting for toy story, really waiting for toy story and held onto it for a long time. And then the moment it was announced, they were like toy store for it. Nevermind. And then they went to Stern and bought something. I mean, I, I mean, sure. Any game could be a dud. Any game could be a dud from any manufacturer, but I just, to me, I don't know. There's a, I, I, I, I could see how it could potentially help JJP. if there are people holding on money that's not going to go somewhere else. But there so much question here that people are going to get bored People are going to hold onto that money waiting for Harry Potter And then you going to say the next Owen game comes out and they going to be like, dang, that's really freaking good. I'm going to, I'm going to do that. So I see, I, I had not had the thought, the immediate thought you did, but you have it from a distributor standpoint of this frozen money. One announcement, two, three simple sentences on Facebook could immediately freeze. You know, I wonder how many distributors have people, immediately it did yeah no no doubt it did and this isn't to say like oh my god sky's falling like we're screwed for the next two years while everybody waits like no it's just right now as of today if say you you have saved up ten thousand dollars right and you're a casual you haven't collected like 10 to 15 you've maybe bought like two or three pins right you're thinking about buying something you're not quite sure how the industry works in terms of cadence of bringing out a new product or anything like that right to market you're not sure when this game will come out well all of a sudden you're going to wait most likely just to get more information i mean that's probably what's going to happen it's not to say that those buyers won't jump back in i'm just saying that there are ramifications to words when they come from credible sources like that that you know somebody that's been behind getting themes that are big time themes for stern so So, I mean, that's just the result of it, unfortunately. But, I mean, I don't think it's the end of the world. But, you know, let's face facts. It will freeze up money here and now. It doesn't mean it's like that forever. That's a serious question. Oh, let's do it, Tom. No joking around here, Tom. No, you better be serious, Tom. Which movie are they going to pick? That's what I, you know, well, here's the deal. If it's a J.J.P. game and Keith is coding it, He's known for just these incredibly deep and complex codes. He could probably fit seven movies worth of code in one game. But I hope – I think it makes sense. If they could do it, I would not put all movies in the same pen. If they could do it, I would split it up into a trilogy or something like that. More than one pen. Yeah, come out with a new pen for like one per year. Could you connect them and play against them? You can't turn on your second pin until you beat the first. You'd be like NBA pass break. No, I mean, sure, if they have a big license. I mean, well, that's another thing with the license. We don't know if it's movies. We don't know if they're getting movie assets. We don't know if it's going to be movie assets like in Pirates of the Caribbean where it's just no faces. We don't know if it's new art and going off to the books. We don't know, like I said, if it's the new HBO Max miniseries. we don't know if they're going to be pulling video game assets from the latest hogwarts game i it could i don't know i don't know any of that but i will say when i asked you know a few years ago i asked my wife i said if you could have any theme in pinball any pinball if i could buy a pinball turtles was my dream theme if i could buy a game strictly for you what theme would you want me to buy without hesitation harry potter so there were so many people that bought toy story because it's toy story tom bought rush because it was rush it could have been a one pop bumper bit game it's the only one yeah and he was the only person that bought it yeah but he would have i mean harry potter is an absolute dream theme for so many people and the price i mean if the the lowest the low inversion of jjp game is 12.5 you know when they got the when stirring up the license for beatles they said it was one of the most expensive license i think it was the most expensive pinball license they've ever paid for and it was reflected in the price the price of that game was a lot higher than the other games at the time i'm telling you right now i if unless jjp is just not planning on making money there's a good chance the price of that game is going to reflect the price of the license on theme alone they would sell out all their c's in like a second oh oh i bet i bet i bet distros already have ce pre-order lists like that's what's funny is reading these comments on Facebook. Yeah, people are like, I've been on a distributor's speculation list for six years for a Harry Potter high-end model. I mean, they may already be sold out, which is kind of crazy. I mean, a pen like that, it would command a high price. I don't see it being any lower than $18,500, and I could see it easily being $20,000 for a CE, and it would sell out, no doubt yeah it's just i mean the truth is as of right now it's a huge question mark but just trying to react to what we've seen posted there are some people that are happy they're like thank god jjp got this we know it'll be it'll be a beautiful game they'll go all out with art they're gonna have it'll be an amazing magical light show there'll be no hesitation with max like they will this will be an amazing world under glass and then you have other people and they're like no not jjp i don't want to deal like i don't like the rules i don't like like i wish stern would have had it and it's like so now all of a sudden you got these jjp versus stern fanboys um arguing who would have done a better job with the code which is similar to like when spooky and stern kind of had their little tiff on godzilla and kind of see how that turned out so i i don't know i don't it just it's crazy how like three sentences can just blow everything up. If you're a fan of pinball and you're a fan of just sitting back and just getting the popcorn out and just watching it all, I mean, the grand old time, you know, because it's it's fascinating to see how people react to just like we talked about one Facebook post and to see what the fallout would be of that. And it's going to be multifaceted. So, I mean, it's it is what it is at this point. And I do, I am happy though, at least that there's people talking about pinball and there's people on both sides that are like, I'm for JJP, I'm for Stern, you know? And then there's some of us that are like, oh yeah, we, we like it all. We, we try to buy the pinball we can or play as much pinball as we can, despite whoever's making it. And so, I mean, I think at the end of the day, everybody's going to be happy with, with the result. I mean, because what other choice do you have you know what i mean it's not like somebody's going to get a license and then you know give it up to somebody else i mean like if somebody else makes a harry potter pin it's not going to be for like another 20 plus years if that yeah so yeah i mean i think i think the truth is the i think the right answer is all of us should be rooting for jjp to make the best harry potter pin possible like there's no there's no reason to be upset about it i mean if that's true there's no reason to be upset about it like i wish this or that because none of that matters Unless this is all a farce and we've all been trolled. Maybe, but even if we have been, us complaining about X, Y, or Z isn't going to change it. If this is the truth, if this is the directory of how this is going to go, hey, it sounds like there's actually going to be a Harry Potter pinball machine. That sounds great. That's going to be great for pinball in general. That's going to bring new people into pinball for sure. and yeah let's all root behind jjp to make the best possible harry potter pin period so that we can all enjoy it in some manner um i do think an interesting question though for both you guys is there are three designers right now at jjp there's eric minier there's mark i forget i don't know his last name he did the metroid game do you know does it striden that sounds right yes he did the Metroid homebrew game. And then there's Steve Ritchie. So Eric obviously just came out with Godfather. Is there any chance that this is the next game coming out? I would be very surprised. I don't think so. The question, I mean, we don't know. This could be four years down the road. But what I'm going to ask you two is which of those three guys would you want? If you could pick the designer, the J.J.P. There's four people. There's three designers. That's why I was thinking. Out of those three. Four designers. Who's the fourth? Eric. Eric Minier, Mark, and Steve Ritchie. Oh, yeah, Pat Lawler. Pat Lawler. Damn it. He's retired. Pat's coming out of retirement, everybody. So I will say. Bring back Corky, please. Do you guys care? Do you guys have a preference on who you would prefer to design that game? I would prefer Eric just because of his experience. Okay. I mean, interesting, Tom. Yeah. I mean, Steve Ritchie's great and everything, but. Yeah, I'd prefer Eric to do it. OK, what about you, Travis? I would prefer Eric right now just because he's proven his designs under the JJP platform. Like, I don't know, like obviously Steve Ritchie designs. they've been hit or miss past few years but you know overall in his whole entire career it's a lot more hits than anything else i'm just curious how his the way that he likes designing games i'm curious how that will carry over with the jjp platform yeah so with that unknown variable it's like it's hard to say well i you know i want to see that but it's it could be themed too like if jjp had top gun i would say i want Steve Ritchie to do it sure yeah so you know if i'm basically just purely off theme and just thinking that way you know i'd like to see eric have a crack at it i agree i i would pick eric and it's nothing against mark i just haven't seen anything of mark like i've seen i've seen metroid i've seen metroid but it's just like i don't know about you but if i was if i was brand new a brand new designer to pinball and somebody says okay you get the biggest license and the highest demand license right now and all the pinball good luck on your first go piss in my leg is what I do. Yeah, I just that's the thing with Mark that I have. I would I have no idea. But if I'm between Steve and Eric, when I think what what's going to be best for Harry Potter, what's going to be best for pinball and bringing people in outside, I would assume amazing toys and Max is really what needs to be focused on here. And between the two, like that pinball magic between the two between Steve and Eric, Eric has proven that he creates some really unique, new, innovative toys and mechs and pinball. Once again, not discrediting Steve, but if Steve's the king of flow. Right, exactly. It's different styles. When I think of Steve Ritchie, I think of hard-hitting, fast-paced, right? Yeah. But when it comes to something like Harry Potter, I want to know the story. I want to feel like I'm immersed in that world. And if you're going to get immersed in a world, like a world, quote-unquote, under glass, it's not going to be something that's just completely flow based. You're going to have some stop and go. You're going to have a lot of mechs. You're going to have stuff like that. So that's, I don't know, to me, that's what I view the theme as, because otherwise we end up something that was like Toy Story to where it just felt kind of bare, even though there was a couple of cool things in it, but that was one of Toy Story shortcomings, according to a lot of people. And that's why the Godfather and in terms of its layout has been very well received because it's much different to where it tries to create a certain world under there. Sure. Yeah. And I, I read a very interesting post and this is once again, it's all speculation, but it's, um, somebody said, somebody said, um, apparently Steve Ritchie has been begging for Harry Potter pin for years and he was really pushing that and driving that with Stern. And he was really upset about Led Zeppelin and them pulling Max out of his game. And so he He was sick of being controlled by the bomb. So that's why he reached out to J.J.P. because clearly they put more in their games. And now is that a credible source? This is all speculation. But he's saying, but obviously, Jack must have promised him Harry Potter. And so this is Steve leaving. You know, this was probably the main reason why Steve left Stern is because J.J.P. I don't know. I mean, it's all speculation. Remember, everybody, what you just listened to was pure speculation. No post crediting Joel with the reason why Steve Ritchie pressed her. I could read the post. Yeah, I mean, hey, if it's on the internet, it's fact, right? It's a fact. But it's just – Joel said it. It's fact. I didn't – I mean, I don't know Steve Ritchie at all, but I have no idea if he's a huge Harry Potter fan. But obviously whoever does the game – Play better, Joel. Whoever does the game, you would want them to be a big Harry Potter fan. I just I agree with you. I think I absolutely think Eric has the ability to just knock it out of the park, to kill it just based on the types of games he's done and the way that he's he's designed games so far. But then again, hey, if how crazy would that be if Steve Ritchie's first game at JJP is actually Harry Potter, even though right now the rumor is it's Elton John, which is very different in the world. It's not to say that he couldn't do it. You know what I mean? Because he's he's been over there now for what, close to a year and a half. So obviously some yeast and bacon in the oven for a while. So who knows what he's going to come out with. I don't know. But Tom, you've had Godfather now for a little bit. I mean, what's your – you've had Godfather. You also had Pirates of the Caribbean at one point. And you had GNR. You had a GNR. Now that you've had all of Eric's games. You had Awanka too. But it's not an Eric game. Eric's games. He didn't have a Toy Story. Now that he's had all of them. Did you have it dialed in? I had a Wizard of Oz. I had a Dialed In. You want to name other games made by designers, not Eric? The only one I didn't have was Toy Story. He's had all three of Eric's games. So I don't know. I think that says a lot. I like Godfather. Okay. I really do. Both code and layout, all of it? Yeah. Yeah, the layout's really good. Have you gotten to the kill screen like Carl does? No. On the daily? I'm not Carl level. No? Not yet? Okay. Carl level where you break the game. So. I'm like, this damn game. And I throw it across the room. So, Tom, you are still playing within the confines that the coders planned for. That's what I'm hearing. Yes. Carl's like freaking Neo breaking out of the Matrix. Exactly. The world that the coders made. Yeah. There's Travis. There's me. And Joel's on the floor. hey i'm in that world i'm in the world i'm crawling on the floor but i'm there carl's like oh there's a limit nah let me let me find that he's literally doing math that's blowing up the code but ah freaking carl um real quick shout out to carl this is a side quest shout out to carl and pin quest man pin pin Slash pin Slash pin Slash god pin Slash over the weekend was incredible. I don't know. If anybody streams, you actually realize how hard it is from a technical standpoint to do everything that Carl did. Not only from a technical standpoint of getting a beautiful stream with all the audio, combined video, all that crap, but then to also organize the competition to keep the players... I mean, it was just... It was run so incredibly well. It was so incredibly entertaining. All different levels. I will say, watching the first round if anybody has if this is a big question mark for anybody pin Slash is a head-to-head tournament that carl runs every year virtually there were people globally there was a guy in hawaii competing against people here in america there was people over in europe playing i think there was blueberry johnson yep there was somebody comfy i think yeah yeah there was um there was somebody i think even australia all these people starting up their own streams he's pulling all together doing these head-to-head competitions it was incredible and um i will say during the first round i was thinking like i think i could i think i could have possibly won like maybe one of these rounds not the whole round but it's like i i think i could have competed a tiny bit were you drinking that night i'm just saying when the race is like beat geigen i'm like i can do that i know how to beat guy again i can do that oh you know i would need to be oh you could do the challenges okay that's what i'm saying you're not qualified to be in this i know but i'm saying if i would have gotten in i think i would i just i don't think i would have just got rolled like one of those guys at the sports bar that's watching the game on tv if that was me i would have totally just put me in on state i could have totally threw that 100 mile, bro. I'm just saying, first round, round one challenges or tier one challenges, I felt like, okay, that's something that I could play there. I know what you're saying here, Joel. You're talking about that you saw Hottie play and you were like, I could take him. Hey, that's not an oaf. No, it's Hottie. That's what you're saying right now. But shout out to Hottie. Are you hearing this, Hottie? He's calling you out. No, Hottie did admit he had the challenge, which was, what was it? It was two secret combos or something. I'm not sure. I didn't see the first round. One of the challenges was you had to find two secret combos and then do something. You had to just shoot the two secret combos? He admitted afterwards. He goes, I didn't know any of the secret combos. He was literally just flipping around the play field hoping to hit a combo. Oh, my God. Okay. We have to do this, Joel. Sure. You and Hottie, please. We got to make it happen. you guys have your own pin Slash you got to go behind you yes how do you got it we gotta give joel a shot right tom i agree i don't know why he's talking all this shit he's like i wasn't i think we should set him up with uh z mac yeah right i said round one round one round one round two is when all the people in the with the buy showed up and that's the grab neil i mean he's Neil killed it. Yeah. But those guys, all of a sudden, it was like, holy cow, these Escher. It's like, okay, these are a little more. This is something else. And then you get to the, like, once you got way further in the competition and they're doing tier four battles and it's just like, holy crap, these people are so freaking good. Like, they don't miss shots and they know exactly what they have to do and time it perfectly. It's just, it's a whole nother level. And that's no offense. They were top 24 qualifiers. No offense at all to numbers 24 to 10, but, geez, those top few people are on a whole other level. I mean, it is insane, their ability. So, yeah, that was a side question. Those boys are good. Yeah. And Stephanie. Stephanie was in it as well. Yeah, she did a great job. But I don't know. It was just what an incredible event to watch. Check out IU Pinball on Twitch. It's there. I guarantee he'll wrap that all up. It'll end up on YouTube. If you haven't seen Pin Slash, go watch it. It is truly an exciting way to watch pinball. So that was a side conversation. But, yeah, to wrap up Harry Potter, it's nothing but speculation right now, kind of. I'm saying the truth or what we think we know. I thought we were done with Harry Potter. Then I was like, we just circled right back to it. Well, it was a side – I'm just saying to wrap it up. It's what we think we know. This whiskey is really strong. I just lost like three minutes of time there. What we think we know is Jersey Jack has the license. When they'll use it, when it comes out, I don't know. What it means, who's doing it, none of us know any of that. All we think we know is that Jersey Jack has the license. So my takeaway is if that's true, that means there is a Harry Potter pinball machine on the horizon, which is exciting for everybody in pinball in general. and no reason to complain and get upset or frustrated that who I don't, none of that matters. We should all be rooting that they make the best possible game possible because that's what we all want. So any other final thoughts on that? Well said, Joel, that fence is awfully warm. I would love to like throw in a Harry Potter quote. I don't know. I don't know any of them. I like the, I like, I haven't read any of the books. I watched all the movies, but I am so far from a super fan. I got nothing. Yeah, I don't, I got nothing. I've watched them. I just, I don't know. It'll be a wand shooter handle. Yeah, they made a bunch of books out of the movies too, didn't they? That's the other – they made books. And then they made the movies. I'm just effing with you. Thanks for correcting me though. I appreciate it. I'm here to help you in life. Oh, wait. It's – Oh, God. That sounds – You're an effing beauty, Tom Graff. So I'm looking at the to-do list here. Oh, here we go. Real quick. Check this baby out. What is that? That is – Oh, shit. That is an official triple drain lunchbox. I've got a lot of finger prints in. Wow. I know. It's glossy. You actually had it made. This is one of the samples. This is one of the samples. It actually happened. It's a lunchbox. It's everything you'd think. There is no thermos. I will say, I'm very happy with how this came out. The print quality is good. It's not exceptional. It's good, but it's not exceptional. you're selling it well good job but what i will i'm just being honest as somebody in the printing industry because this is printed directly on the metal um so they laid on white this is garbage don't buy where else is it supposed to be printed if it's not printed on the metal well another way you could do it is print it on like a label and then put the label on on the thing no you don't do that that is a common thing sticker it would be a sticker but you can but you can have them laminated they can be like fully waterproof that is a very common thing that's crap so i'm kind of impressed that he like worked very hard and he knows everything about a lunchbox right you would be a great fallback career and how much time i spent researching freaking lunchboxes I pretty sure probably at least 30 hours Not 30 hours. No, no, no. At least. There's a whole different bunch of avenues I could have gone, and I was very close to pulling the trigger on actually getting a company that would make us 24, ship them all to me, all that stuff. But luckily I found a website. The website is Zazzle, and they do a bunch of one-off custom stuff. and so they had lunchboxes. So I had one made and I do like it. So what I did is I set up an official triple drain Zazzle store. We will share the link in the show notes and we'll post it on our Facebook page. But we have our lunchboxes. We also have the golf towels, the golf towels with the little clip. So for all you tournament players that actually think that's a good idea, you have a chance to buy one, clip it on your belt loop, clean off that pinball machine with the towel, not your T-shirt, and then turn around and flip off both Tom and Travis with your clean hands. It'll be awesome. I can't wait for your one. When you pull out your 9-iron and hit it three feet from the cup and you just wipe off your 9-iron with your triple drain towel. Can you just imagine Joel's wife, like, wondering where is he at? It's 2 a.m. He's not in bed. And then she goes and checks out. He's looking at porn. No, he's researching lunchboxes. She goes to his office and she's like, I'm going to look at his search history. It's like nothing but lunch boxes. Lunch boxes. Golf towels. Golf towels. We also have a small towel if you want to put that in your pocket instead. And then I did a – there's a triple drain bottle opener. So, yep, that's what I – that's how I've spent my time is finding odd merchandise that we could customize with our logo and the Hydra thing. Oh, my God. You're doing great, Joel. If you go to Zazzle.com and search Triple Drain, you'll find it. Otherwise, you'll find the link. Feel free to buy them. I don't know. And once again, if you get a lunchbox, bring it to Chicago. I love how professional Joel is through all this. Yeah. Get them signed. I'm excited about them. It's so dumb. No, I am happy that you're happy. I literally am. Look at that bag. I'm in tears right now with my camera off. I'm telling you right now, as of right now, there is a better chance that people will get the Triple Drain lunchbox before they get the GTF lunchbox. And that I just think is hilarious. So, but I will still be buying a GTF lunchbox whenever they're officially released. I will give you this, Joel. The lunchbox does look pretty dope. Those colors, they look really good. Thank you. It looks a lot better in your camera. You did a fine job, Joel. You did great. Those 2 a.m. sessions really paid off. Yeah, yeah. And another promise that I will make to anybody listening, if you go to Zazzle.com, you can get, there are so many products, like anything you can think of, There are so many products, including if somebody wants a custom pickleball racket, you can get it. What I'm saying is if somebody – I am getting a Triple Drain pickleball racket. If you want it, that is what I'm telling you. If anybody is watching, all you have to do is email me at tripledrain at dml.com with the link to the item you want, and I will customize it and add it to our store. Finally, something useful. I know. Exactly. Okay. Joel, you convinced me. There is something that's pretty cool there. What about the LED signs? There are. I've looked at them. I've looked. So we can actually have like the triple drain logo. You could have a triple drain LED sign. 150 bucks. But you could have one. Why aren't we selling those? I'm just, I've already wasted enough time to get the four items that are up there. But I'm telling you, if anybody, for whatever reason, is a big enough fan of this show that you want whatever it is, whatever it is that you see on Zazzle.com, email us at tripletrain at gmail.com. And I will, I will make it happen. We got socks. We got watches. Underwear. We got everything. We got curtains. Shower curtain. Like bibs. I mean, it's absurd what's on that website. So whatever. I'm all for it, but I'm proud of the lunchbox. And please, if anybody buys one, bring it to a show, and I would love to sign it just because I think that's hysterical that anybody would buy them. Whatever. So that's enough of my plug. But, yes, we'll share the link. Travis, are you going to get a lunchbox and bring it to Europe? he won't get it in time. It took like over a week. I could draw the logo on a lunchbox. One thing that Travis, I think will be getting in time for Europe. And this was actually Patreon. There was a Patreon question about this. They wanted us to, to, to talk about the difference between the comfy, the snuggie and the huggy. I don't know. I don't know. Comfy is what you want, but Travis found a new product, a new comfy. that is an American flag comfy that I hope he buys and takes to. This is a great transition. Where would you take that, Travis? Why would you buy an American flag comfy? Where would you take that and wear that? You would wear that. Because I'm going with Tom Graff to go play in the European Pinball Championships. The European Pinball Championships. It's a thing. Yeah. It's a thing. They got pinball in Europe. They have internet and everything over there. It's really cool. So is this something you just signed up for? or did you have to qualify for it? What's the big deal about the European pinball champions? Because you guys are not European. I mean, well, I mean, yeah. Well, I mean more Tom than me. I'm native American. I don't know. You know, it's, it's fine. We don't have to get into all that, but no. So it basically, you just, you sign up for it. But I think the way that they did it, because it's the week before IFBA, which is the world championships for, I think it's like the top 80 players in the world or something like that. But they had it to where they wanted the EPC event to be close to IFBA, so that way more of the top American players would play in that. So it would give everybody an opportunity to get to play against each other. And there's a lot of European players over there as well, obviously, since it's the European pinball championships. But no, I think it's, I don't know how many players are in this, Tom. Is it 250 something or is it 256? I think. Is that right? Yeah, it's somewhere around there. So the EPC is actually a bigger tournament than the world championship. In terms of size. Yeah. I mean, if you want to go off prestige just alone, it's like if was like the main thing, just because you have to be a certain rank that you have to achieve throughout a calendar year in order to qualify for it. But no, EPC is like the main pinball tournament over there for Europe. And the world championship, that is for last year then? Yeah, it was as of December 31st, yeah. Of 2022. Okay, got it. So you guys are going over there. Anything particular that we should know? Cool format, cool challenges. I mean, get me excited about this, the European Pinball Championship. So the format is... Travis is in group A1, Bank A. I'm literally the first, I'm the first player listed, Joel, which you know what that means. You're number one. Exactly. I'm the top ranked player in the whole thing. That's not true. No, it's not. I just happened to be the first one listed, but so it's basically heads up qualifying to where you have 16 people in each group. You'll play everybody once. And then the top four from your group will go on to finals. And I believe there's many groups. Are there Tom? I don't even know. A lot? A lot, yeah. One, two, three, four, five. Hopefully some more than 10. 256 divided by 16. Yeah, that's when Travis starts to struggle. Yeah, so 16, right? 16. Okay. Because there's 64 that go on to finals. And I think finals is a heads up also. So you're excited? Yeah. Yeah, it'll be cool. I mean, the way that they're doing it, they have different banks. So, like, my group is in the A bank. And, Tom, what bank do you guys have for yours? uh b i'm in the bank okay so i'm the only american in my group are you really yeah which group are you uh d2 i got vigo's the leader of our group i got it and then i guess uh jorgen schmorgen there i would uh shout out to jorgen schmorgen there is a here pierre or pure and a Lars Orskuff. Did I hear that Keith... I can't pronounce these words correctly. Did I hear that Keith Elwin was traveling? He was coming and participating in this European? He is, but he's not doing EPC. He's doing the World Championship, though? Yeah. Nice. But I'm assuming, is Ray Day going to be there and Escher and Zach McCarty, everybody? Some of the American players in EPC is, let's see, John DeZoppo, Brian O'Neill, Steven Bowden. You got Luke Nahorniak. De La Serta. Laser Los. Nice. Yep. You got Tim Sexton. You got Colin. You got Tom. You got Jason Zoller. Kerry Wing. Mm-hmm. Zach McCarthy. Is Monica going? No. I've got 10 days of Monica Freenas. Leave on America. El Rocco. You're in trouble. Leslie, shout out to her. I am in trouble. It happens. Yeah, Escher, Bill Mason. That's awesome. Andy Bagwell. Yeah, there's a lot of people. A lot of people. So it's really- Kaylee George. It's you and all your pinball friends. You're in praise. Yeah. Flying over and hanging out in Europe for 10 days. But the thing that some of us were talking about, too, that we were kind of not worried about, but we were just like, hopefully we don't end up in the same group because you're traveling halfway across the world just to play against each other all over again. So I was hoping to be able to play against more of the European players and people that I haven't got to meet yet. That's what I'm most excited about. What's his name? The machine? Yes, what's his name is there? No, I think it was number seven in Josh's new rankings. the guy that is saying, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yep. He's actually in Josh's group, I believe. So Josh is, yeah. Cause Josh was saying he's going to kick his ass. Yeah. Right. Right. Johannes. Cool. So are you going to like fan fan boy out and get pictures with him and stuff? Shake his hand, not wash it. He might charge you five bucks. That's exciting. That's cool. And I, I hope somebody's streaming it. Do we know who's streaming any of this? JDL. JDL. Perfect. Unfortunately, yeah. They're like the main European streamer. What's that? The time zones. So that'll be like early. It's only like eight hours ahead. So, you know, a little bit of time travel involved. Just a little bit. No big deal. All right. Well, that's cool. So EPC, so that's a big tournament. But then, so that's your warm-up, basically. And then following up with that, you guys have Worlds. So is this a... Kind of. Worlds, don't they alternate, right? Isn't it America and then Europe? They go back and forth, back and forth So Worlds last year was in Florida, right? Well, it's America, then international So it could be in Canada It could be like in Europe It could be in Australia But last year's Worlds was in Wasn't it in Florida? Florida Yeah Far away land known as Florida I don't remember particularly But was that Did that Were those good for you? I don't know Is Worlds like an intimidating thing? Is that, I mean, that's supposed to be the best of the best, right? Top 80 players in the world? This would be a Tom answer. This is going to be my first one, but Tom played in last year's. It's fucking hard. Especially when you don't play good. Yeah. Well, yeah. I feel like that kind of goes hand in hand. Well, you actually, here's the thing, Joe. You probably actually remember worlds from last year. You're just forgetting right now. That was the place where Elwynn and Escher played against each other. Oh, yeah. And there was the Dalton game at the end. And then you were pissed because wasn't their brand-new bar closed? It was like you were like, oh. It wasn't there. No, that's free play Florida. That's free play Florida. I'm mixing up my stuff. But I am happy that you are well aware of what I was upset about. The board decks, yeah. I appreciate that. The bar being closed. Awesome. Yeah, because freaking last call happened 50 minutes. before closing time. Who does that? A bar that's now out of business, right? Did it shut down? I hope so. Yeah, you get what you deserve. Last call, 15 minutes before closing time. Is Carl going? Is Carl going to be there at Worlds? No, unfortunately not. He signed up, but then he had to bail out. Carl! I know. That's good for everyone else. That's a better shot. I mean, he had just as legit a shot to win compared to anybody else. He plays excellent. What's the format of Worlds? Is it a mixture? I don't know. There was that whole Papa Ticket where you have to play one modern, one this, one that. What's the layout here? So the IFPA Worlds tournament, it's a match play, and you play groups of four each round, three games. And it's a classic, a mid-tier, and a modern game. Okay. And have they already released the list of the games? Yes. You can go to the IFPA website and you can see the list there. There's a lot of them. It's like 20 plus banks of three games each. Oh, wow. Okay. Is Foo Fighters there? I think so. It might be. Galactic Tank Force there? No. No. But there was, for other tournaments, there was a Godfather Pro listed. So I'm excited to see exactly what that is. so the weird part about europe is that they have i guess they have a lot of reskinned games as well so they're under different names and i'm still trying to figure that out like eight ball is a different name and it has a spinner at the candy cane it was something stellar and i was like oh is it like stellar wars and yeah it was something no it's not it was very confusing but we do we didn't go over this we do have our banks for uh epc because the way that they do that they give you a list of games that you will play that's in your group and they're different from everybody else because there's only like four groups that can play in the same bank so you already know like you already know exactly what you should focus on because you know so like epc i have royal rumble getaway um high speed 2 aerosmith avengers shadow attack from mars indie 500 rush and Last Action Hero. Like, literally the best bank in the entire tournament. You're good at a lot of those games. I know. If I F this up, it's totally on me. No excuses. No excuses. Yeah. And Tom has, what were you, Tom? I have Bank B, which is Lethal Weapon 3, World Cup Soccer 94, Munsters Pro, Godzilla Pro, Twilight Zone, Fishtails, Congo, Led Zeppelin, and Circus Voltaire. You're good at a lot of those games too. And there is a classic tournament with this as well. I was like, I don't mind that bank. Okay. Yeah, it's a good bank. Now, you might like this bank, Joel. They have Tommy, Terminator 2, Iron Man. Does that do anything for you? Jurassic Park Pro, NBA Fast Break. I like that. Dirty Harry. Dirty Harry. scared stiff no totan i mean and start wars bro start wars yeah i think they mean star wars but maybe it's a reskin just added a t in there why would i why would i like that bank you wouldn't that's like by far the worst yeah yeah there's a lot of other games there so you pour one out for bank d participants yeah bummer uh you did mention um rush there are people are getting the rush accessories there are people getting expression lighting kits oh yeah apparently uh apparently there is a thing before you plug in your expression lighting kit check the node board because apparently there was a bunch of a bunch of them sent out and the dip switches on the node board were wrong no people are yeah so people are just frying boards uh i don't know just not working it was causing problems i don't i hope it didn't fry anything but um i have a buddy of mine that got his and he put out a video and he shared that and apparently there's a whole post about it but just a double check i'm not trying to so you're saying that you're saying that same guy had a topper on his game he has his rush topper as well yeah so it's a dip switch that's on the node board yes shout out to uh balls of steel sterling has his already down in georgia um he uh yeah he said that was a thing where the he had somebody else that got one and it's like i don't know he he at it it's like one whatever dip switch one was wrong two was wrong and three and four right or something okay so psa check your dips with double double check it or at least ask your distributor like do you know but it's just i don't know if it fried anything but they somebody apparently installed them turn it on and a whole bunch of stuff didn't work and they come to find out the the dip switches on the node board included in his expression lighting kit was set wrong now i just hope that the instructions that they give for this are a little bit more clear than the led zeppelin expression lights that was a beast getting those on because you didn't realize that you were supposed to basically get the play field out either and they didn't really say that until you were like really deep into having wires everywhere okay now check out the play yeah yeah tim sexton actually made a video i think it's on stern's youtube page that showed installing it And they showed it with the play field out. I think they had encouraged you to take the play field out in the video. Yeah. Yeah. But so apparently expression lighting kits, there are some already out there. I don't know if you happen to be somebody on order. Hopefully you're getting those soon. And then rush toppers. There are people that already have gotten rush toppers. Unfortunately, Tom, you are not one of them. But I do know, at least in the little video that I saw, it looks really good. Those gears move a lot. and it's just a very animated topper. That'll be great for a podcast. And then I can just have it playing in the background. Yeah, that and your Led Zeppelin topper. How unique is the situation, though, that they are basically for now, or probably forever, but they're not producing any more Rush pins unless they just suddenly change their mind, and yet the main accessories that everybody has been waiting for are now coming out. and some people that were waiting for these accessories to come out before actually going out and buying a rush, they might be scrambling around trying to find one. Yeah. It's like, it's, it's interesting that those accessories come out like right at the same time that rushes new inbox are getting much more difficult to find. I would agree. Um, but I will say from my own selfish standpoint, I'm glad they're getting out because hopefully that's one less thing in the way between me and a Godzilla topper. So I'm, I am, I'm really, I don't know. I, I, I don't want to fall into that thing though, of like setting my expectations to be unrealistic. And then whatever the topper is, it's like, I don't know. I just, I hope it, it should be close fire. It's fine. Don't worry about it. What's going to come first, the Godzilla topper or the cactus Canyon SE for you? What do you think? I hope the topper I I'm trying to be realistic. Um, I'm, I have a Cactus Canyon SE plus on order. And I, I just assume those aren't going to be made until the LEs are done. And right now I think there's like 1250 LEs. And I think I'm seeing they're in like the mid sixes. So it's like, we're halfway, we're halfway done with, with. What about Pulp Fiction? Well, I, like I said, I hope apparently Pulp Fiction is supposed to start. What was it? They said Q3 and they're supposed to have two lines going, but either way, I'm just in my head. I'm thinking I'm probably not seeing an SE plus. until the end of the year at the earliest. That's my thought, which really sucks because I sold Deadpool and I'm like sitting on money and I don't like that. I would rather have a game. Buy some lunchboxes. They'll be fine. So what I'm going to do here real quick is shout out to all our Patreon supporters. Really appreciate you guys. I had posted earlier today that we were recording tonight and there were some people that commented on that. So a bunch of people had said Harry Potter. Let's talk about Harry Potter. and then somebody posted, yeah, cause he said, I want to hear your opinion on the online battle between the snuggie, comfy and huggy comfy all the way. I've don't own the other 1000%. Not even close. But William here said Harry Potter and matrix rumor matrix has been a rumor for a while, but it says it also seems that the Godfather C production tapes keep moving back now, late June or July. Any news on why? I don't know that. He said, I've also ordered with a deposit a GTF Signature Edition. Yeah, I know. I'm crazy. I hear those don't go online until June or July. Sorry, July or August, which seems to contradict their earlier statements, rumors, thoughts. Any idea why? I mean, obviously, Foo Fighters, LEs aren't fully out. Those seem to be pushed back. GTF is getting pushed back. Godfather CEs, that really surprises me that those haven't come out. I haven't heard any particular reasons why. Any thoughts on, I don't know. Man, you guys have anything? Manufacturing is hard. I mean, that's the bottom line. Making pit balls hard. Getting the materials in and getting it all together at the same time it a difficult process Sometimes it almost as if you trying to hit a moving target Yeah And you get everything in that you can you get it on the line and you get it out and you try to go to the next thing And that I mean that the big difference between Stern and everybody else that Stern has multiple products that they can fall back on and keep running, you know, different pens, different themes. Whereas these other companies, they may not have that ability. They might have one to two different themes tops at any given time so if they don't have the parts in nothing's coming off the line that's just what happens unfortunately well i mean that's just that's just my guess manufacturing is just hard with gtf being delayed what i will say is i'm i think it's a good thing i think the gtfs that have been out in the wild there have been issues that people have found um and so if that means hey let's let's pump the brakes for a second and address you know like those stand-ups in front of the tanks let's create a hardware fix for those you know maybe we can adjust code or figure out the ball lock was having issues so you know what at the end of the day i know dave fix had had preached the value of getting games on location and using them as a test run kind of situation sure all these games there's a bunch of games that have all sold but if they're using this as valuable data of hey we got a bunch of routed games a bunch of games that were on the show what do we need to tweak before we get the signature editions out there. I think that's probably a good thing. Godfather, though, I am surprised because there's a lot of distributors that have them in stock. They have LEs sitting on a shelf, and they haven't shipped the first CE yet. That surprises me. I would have thought that would have already happened by now. And then the LE, the Foo Fighter LEs, I don't have a good answer there. I mean, the fact that they transitioned from making LEs to immediately making some premiums and then coming back to LEs, all I can point to then is whatever game specific part is different. And at that time, all I can think of is expression lighting or, you know, the green powder coat. Did they run out of Invisiglass? I don't I mean, I don't know. It's but it's got to be something with that. Right. So I don't I don't I don't I don't have a big conspiracy. theory or anything behind that. We should check the forums and go off that. Yeah. Go off what they're saying. And then the last question from the one, the only Josh Roop, he said, I'd like to hear thoughts on the used market prices. I don't know. I think it's interesting. You had made a comment earlier, Travis, about that moving into summer, normally you start to see sales decline. There's a lot of used games on the market, and I think that is – a lot of that's because there was a whole bunch of new games announced at the beginning of the year, so a bunch of people are trying to make room for that. But are we going to see prices start to dip down from – I mean, everything went nuts with COVID, but are we ever going to be at a point where things start to come back down? Supply and demand. I will say, for my own selfish reasons, I've really thought about buying a Monster Bash. I've really thought about buying a Monster Bash. And to see – I understand CGC games are unique. but like an SE, an SE was originally like $7,800. Well, that 8,000-ish dollar game, COVID hits, boom. Now it's a $10,000 game. So these games, there's a bunch of them out there that are somewhere in the 10-5 range. But I'm saying like, hey, can we bring that back down? Can we bring that back down a little bit? But I know demand-wise, they're not making any more of them, or maybe if they are, it's going to be years. So I don't know, is that realistic to think that games might, you know, over the next few months come down. I have no financial forecasting. Yeah, it's hard to tell. I think that you would most likely see games that were made in the 90s and early 2000s kind of level off way before you would see games post-2010 level off. That's most likely what you'll see happen. And it just, you know, there's ebbs and flows to it. It definitely depends on all the new games that are coming out. It depends on time of year. Once you get around to quarter four, you might see prices like really fluctuate then because you might have some people trying to hold out and sell something higher. Then you might have people that are just simply trying to unload something quick. They could turn their money over and they're seeing an easy sell. So it just depends. Like I end up having to do that with Toy Story. I think I had it up for like ninety five hundred and it just sat for a week. Nobody even touched it. So as I lowered it down to I want to say it was like eighty six hundred or somewhere around there. Eighty seven hundred. I forget exactly, like literally that's where everybody, that was a sweet spot and everybody's like, okay, I want to go ahead and get it. And that was way less than what I paid for it because I paid over 12 for it. So, I mean, it just is what it is. It's sometimes you're going to take a wash on a pin and sometimes it's, you know, sometimes you're going to go up. But for me personally, the way that I like to approach pinball in my personal life is that I don't really worry about what's the resale value going to be. Like, I just worry about, do I want to play this pin now? Do I think I'm going to have fun with it? And do I think I'm going to get the value and the utility out of it that I want? And I think if you if people approach it like that without worrying too much, I think you'll have a lot more fun overall. But I do understand why some people are very, very aware of the cost and very aware of the price. And they want to not it's almost like a game for some people and a challenge to where they don't want to lose money necessarily. And they want to keep building up, which is understandable, too. But I think if you're in your position, Joel, because we were talking about this earlier, if you're just on that fence and going both ways and you're like, I'm not sure if I should get this because it might lose, I would encourage people just to make the assumption that you are going to lose money on your purchase. But go into it knowing that you're going to have fun. And if you decide that you want to sell or trade a game later on and you break even, fantastic. Yeah, that's probably a healthy way to approach it. But it is weird. It's weird having, I mean, maybe it brings us back to the initial conversation where you're like, okay, if I have this money that I'm saving for Harry Potter, do I just sit on it for the next few years? Or do I play with that money, play other games, knowing that none of these games are keepers and they're going, you know, as soon as Harry Potter's announced, I'm selling this so that I'll have my funds ready for Harry Potter's. I mean, that's where I'm at with Cactus Canyon. I'm in, but I know I got a long time before I get one. So sure, if somebody listening to this is anywhere near Indiana that's going to sell me a Monster Bash for somewhere in the $9,000 range, I'd probably take you up on it. But once you think about it, I mean, you got to kind of if you really want to get into the weeds about it, you want to think about, OK, if I have to travel somewhere, how much is that going to cost for gas? Am I going to buy food while I'm out? How much is coin drop? You know, I mean, those are all things to consider. Like, what's your time worth? Because it might take you 20 minutes. They go, you know, like we talked about this before, like there's a godfather that's about 25 minutes from where I live. But the coin drop is two dollars. Now, granted, considering how much that pin's actually worth, that's really not that much. But when I'm thinking, OK, I could drop $40 coin drop on it. But yeah, I'm going to have to take like an hour drive basically all the way around. It's like, you know, that's just kind of the way that I think of things also. So like what's my opportunity cost by having to travel, by having to do coin drop? And, you know, if you think about if you're going to play it 2,000 plus times. Yeah, yeah. I mean, that would have been over $1,000 in coin drop for you most likely. Yeah, I get it. I don't know. I say just get a pin, Joel. I know. Just get a pin. Like why do you need a monster bash though? You got three bangers right behind you. That's a good point. I can't just play those. That's a good point. Just be happy with your Bond 60, Joel. It is a pretty great game. And I will say TNA is back in the house, which I love. I love that that's back. And Foo Fighters has been just an absolute blast. I will say one of the issues I have right now, though, is I, and I meant to bring this up in that last episode. I took some of the money that I made selling Deadpool, and I did what I would consider a smart decision for my family. And I'm trying to share this as an encouraging thing because this was hard for me to do. I bought a golf cart. I bought a golf cart. And the reason I bring this up is I remember back to when Ken Cromwell was doing the slam tilt. No, it's I think it was whatever it was. His podcast. Special and lit. That's it. And he had said he sold one of his games so that he could finish. I think he bought a hot tub and like finish an area for his family. And he said, you know, it's really hard for me to give up something that I know I like for the better of my family or the betterment of my family. but this is, this was a smart decision for me and my family. And I remember when I heard that years ago, I felt bad for the guy. I was like, well, that sucks, but it's probably the right choice. And I will tell you, I sold Deadpool. I had this swat of cash. I told Nicole, my wife, I was going to buy another pin with it. Or I was thinking between this and this and this. And she goes, why? Or, or you could use that money and you could buy the family a golf cart. And I'm like, okay, it's probably like, and that's the thing. At the end of the day, I do think I made the right choice. Debbie Downer. I know. I do think I made the right choice. I will tell you, having a golf cart, it is a ton of fun. And my family is truly enjoying it. And seeing them enjoy it is really cool. So all I'm saying, and maybe this is like a support system, but I'm just telling you, for all the pinball owners out there, if you're in a position, you know, making a smart financial choice for your family does pay off. So I don't know. Travis is raising his hand. I have questions. You have questions. Okay. Obviously you drive a golf cart around But I'm curious What do you guys do with the golf cart? We have You just roll around in circles? Yeah We laugh the whole time No, we have a Kroger Which is a supermarket right next door We have two parks we can drive to A splash pad We have a McDonald's You drive the golf cart to the grocery store Yep Do you go through the drive-thru? I have gone through the drive-thru multiple times. You're that guy. They're like, here comes that guy again. It's so great. But I'm telling you, the neighborhood I'm in, and I'm not in a golf community. You need to get that lunchbox. Use that as a hood ornament. That'd be badass. I'm telling you, it's a whole town. That creepy pinball guy's back. The whole town next to us is like a golf cart. It's all the neighborhoods are connected in a way that you can all get to golf courses. um it's not like we're in a ritzy area it's just a thing that there's there are a lot of golf carts in our neighborhood and it just and i will say the Carl Weathers's really gotten a lot of poor neighborhoods all roll around in golf carts for sure there's there's a lot of um like there's a lot the Carl Weathers's been really nice so like to throw the kids there's we have seats in the back so the kids and my like the four of us just drive around the neighborhood you have a sound system we have a speaker in it yeah yeah do it we bought it used and we bought it of course from another brand new from a person here in the neighborhood so i literally walked over to their house and how did that go did he like did he like slap the side of it joel walks over flashing cash the guy's like sucker yeah i i drove over checked it all out talks to his neighbor hey you see i just sold a lemon to that big ogre over there with the big ogre wow maybe that's the one thing where it's like this thing falls apart i know where the dude lives he's not far yeah do you have like the fast and the furious type rims on it no everything it's a pretty standard golf cart it's red like this you don't have led lights on the bottom anything like that you'll appreciate no no i tell you i've had it like two weeks so damn you gotta trick this bad boy out i told my kids i have a three-year-old and a four and a half year old my daughter's four and a half and i had i was walking them over when i went to pick it up and i was like guys daddy bought a golf cart um they're like oh cool and because they've seen them driving around and i was like guess what color it is and they both guessed blue and i was like no it's it's it's red and they're like well can we get a blue one i was like no guys it's it's red so we get in the car we get in the golf cart and i'm driving it home and i was like all right guys so what we should give it a nickname what should we name it and my daughter goes blue star it's a red golf cart it's a red golf cart so uh we're just i don't i'm trying to remember she said she said blue star i thought she said blue spark but either way we i don't know we just gotta lean into it at this point but and no my daughter's not colorblind so um i'm surprised you just haven't put like the triple drain logo on there yet uh you know i'll check out zazzle and see if i can get a big You probably would get like a magnet decal on there. Slap that on the front of it. I don't know why I brought it up. I'm just saying I know this is a great hobby. This is a fun hobby, but I know it's an expensive hobby. And there's no shame in selling a pin to do something for the betterment of your family. And luckily, Tom and Travis both have families that like pinball and play their pinball machines. So buying a new pinball machine for them is actually a fun thing for their family. Unless you sell their favorite pinball machine and the twins haven't talked to you in two weeks. it's been horrible they're still well aware there's a big empty spot back there my daughter asked me literally just two days ago when it's coming back she just thinks it's somewhere else and it's coming back at some point I'll talk to her you know there's a Santa Claus oh my god yeah there's always there's always that It's okay. I'll find another pen to replace it with. I don't know what. I don't know why yet, but something's going to come along. I'm going to throw a pen. That's a kid-friendly theme for children? Heavy metal. Get her a Halloween. Yeah, that might work. I don't know. Well, I guess there's a Scooby-Doo. I mean, that's kid-friendly-ish, right? Yeah, that'll last. Oh, I mean. I mean, I don't know of a kid-friendly game that would stay in your collection that, I don't know. For all the reasons you sold Toy Story, you're going to run into the same thing with a lot of the other kid-friendly games. Yeah, I mean, it happens. If you have several pins in your collection, what I tend to do, I bounce back and forth from everything. So when I got done with TPF, I didn't even touch my Godzilla until maybe last week. And so I barely even played it. and I was just playing Stranger Things the entire time. So now recently I've been playing Godzilla and then switching over to Rush since I finally got that fixed. I've just been bouncing back and forth between those two. And then I started playing our Stern Pirates again after not playing it for over a year because my kids started talking a lot of trash, and I had to put him in his place. So there you go. All right. Well, well done, Travis. That's all I have. I know we wanted to squeeze an episode here because we thought it was important news, And then we knew we were going to be kind of radio silent for probably the next two weeks. But we'll probably have a lot to talk about in the next episode. So, yeah, we should probably plug it up. Well, we have a big thing to plug that we said we were going to wait until the end of the episode. Which is Tom. Tom. Fox Cities Pinball, everyone. For those of you that don't know, for you to become a Twitch partner, there are three requirements you have to have. And they deal with the number of days you stream. Hot tubs. Yep. And hot tubs. sex appeal no uh the number of days you stream the number of average viewers you have and then the number of what is it um hours it's days days average viewers yeah you need 12 days 25 hours 75 viewers average yeah so the problem is um tom crushes it when he kill when he streams his tournaments he gets i mean he kills it there um the challenge is when he does solo streams it's just it's hard within pinball to keep 75 average viewers um it's just it's a challenge to do so what i would say is if you see tom in Fox Cities Pinball streaming do yourself a favor watch it um and even if you can't watch right there just pull up the browser and let her fly go eat a sandwich so tom do you know when you're um because you've been streaming a lot you've technically hit the metrics but you have to stream a few more times before you can apply again so do you know when you're um when you're streaming in yeah so i have a lot of stuff planned this week which you know depending on when the podcast gets released we're recording this monday hopefully tomorrow or wednesday so tomorrow night i'm doing pin skins which is an objective uh uh it's a pin golf tournament based on objectives nice it's just four of us us it's eric thorn neil uh matt mccarty and myself nice so we're gonna take each other's money and uh we're we're each putting five bucks per hole you know i know big spenders right but uh you know just uh it adds up it does yeah it does and neil neil needs to go to college so but uh and then on friday we're doing we i've been doing flipping fridays for about a month and uh at district 82 and uh and so so i'll be streaming that and that that is gonna have a lot of people because the next day i'm streaming the uh ladies flip wisconsin and there's over I think there's like 55, 60 ladies signed up for it. So big, big tournaments, two tournaments, all pretty much all day long, Saturday at 9 a.m. And then I'm going to Lumberjack Johnny's on Sunday and I'm streaming their knockout tournament. Nice. A lot of tournaments. Yeah. So Tom's putting in work. but yeah definitely if you can support them and the perks with being partnered deal with some of your upload bit rate you also they the stream quality stream qualities everything yeah so yeah i implore people if you're listening this or watching this like help tom out as much as possible because he i know he won't brag on himself but he works his ass off completely i've seen it behind the scenes i've seen in person i've seen at his house i've seen him set up It's amazing the things he does. And this right here, it would help out tournament pinball incredibly if we could have another partnered streamer that streams tournament pinball. Because obviously Carl reached that, and he's able to cover that. And so having more coverage for this, it just expands the game of pinball even more. It expands the hobby even more. So it's so damn important that we push this. And I actually told Dave Ovechevsky, who's one of our Patreon supporters, that I said to him, if I reach partner, he wants to do a Bond 60th heads up. And he has one and I have one. Yeah, that could be really cool. I would show up for that. That would be fun. That would be really cool. So I said, if that happens, I will drag my game to Lumberjack Johnny's and we will stream it. That's awesome. Yeah. And the truth is Tom has met the credentials before. He's applied before. And really what it comes down to is they want to see consistency. They want to see consistency. And they slam the door right in your face. The Twitch overlord. That's why we're making a push here. We're making a push. Yeah, like definitely it works if you get on the stream and you just keep a browser up all weekend. Like just do it for one weekend. Support as much as you can. There's a lot of people in pinball that work their asses off, and something like this would definitely help out tremendously. Pinball in general, it'd help out Tom, and he deserves it. He's earned it. He's worked his ass off for it. So I would really like to see the community turn out and help get us past the finish line on this bad boy. yeah for sure uh anything else you want to plug tom no that's good enough cool travis plug away man yeah you need to go watch Fox Cities Pinball on twitch and that's all i got just be sure and be there telling you do it you'll be happy and yeah other than that joel all you uh i want to plug Fox Cities Pinball um on twitch definitely uh definitely a good time there. Um, and then I stream every Wednesday night on the flipping out channel on YouTube. I'm not streaming this week or next week because I'm traveling for business. But, um, yeah, two weeks ago, my brother and I streamed, uh, Foo Fighters and Ray Day was on with us. And it was a, it was a blast having him explain, explain the rules even more and being able to, uh, to ask him questions in real time. And he explained a bunch of the little things that I, I, I hadn't caught on my own. So, uh, that video is online. You can go to the flipping out channel and click on the live tab and you'll see that with that video um which was a ton of fun um but yeah check that out check out our merch on silver ball swag check out the new stuff on zazzle we'll post that z-a-z-z-l-e we'll post the link to that and then um patreon thank you for all the patreon supporters we really really appreciate you guys and the um support you've been giving us but that's that's it that's all i got um like always tom you've got the last words i love you all