Journalist Tool

Kineticist

  • HDashboard
  • IItems
  • ↓Ingest
  • SSources
  • KBeats
  • BBriefs
  • RIntel
  • QSearch
  • NName Review
  • +Health

v0.1.0

← Back to items

It is what it is.

This Flippin' Podcast·podcast_episode·2h 7m·analyzed·Aug 5, 2020
View original
Export .md

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.031

TL;DR

Pandemic-delayed pinball podcast returns with heavy social commentary and brief game updates.

Summary

This Flippin' Podcast episode 101 returns after a three-month hiatus, with hosts Tommy Skinner and Taylor Reese discussing pandemic-related delays, racial justice issues in America, and recent pinball developments. The hosts express frustration over COVID-19 mishandling, systemic racism, and Confederate monuments, while briefly touching on pinball machine updates including Stranger Things code quality concerns and the release of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Key Claims

  • The United States is worse off with COVID-19 on August 3rd than it was on March 13th when schools closed

    medium confidence · Tommy Skinner, discussing pandemic trajectory; opinion-based assertion reflecting frustration rather than epidemiological fact

  • Only 50% of the United States was willing to lock down during the pandemic, according to Fauci

    medium confidence · Tommy Skinner paraphrasing a statement attributed to Dr. Fauci; specific sourcing not provided

  • Confederate monuments in Richmond were erected during Jim Crow specifically to intimidate African Americans

    medium confidence · Tommy Skinner discussing Richmond history; reflects historical interpretation but stated as fact

  • Stranger Things Premium code 'still sucks' after the latest update

    high confidence · Email received during recording with subject line 'Stranger Things Premium after all the new code still sucks'

  • Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles pinball machine has been shipped and released

    high confidence · Taylor Reese, direct statement about TMNT release status

  • Main Street Amusement has a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles machine installed

    high confidence · Taylor Reese confirming location has the game

  • A location at 'Bingo Beer' has a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles machine

    medium confidence · Taylor Reese states 'I think it's at Bingo Beer' — uncertain phrasing suggests unconfirmed

  • Taylor Reese sold his Stranger Things machine at the beginning of the pandemic and was happy about that

    high confidence · Taylor Reese direct personal statement

Notable Quotes

  • “We are living in a Twilight Zone episode. But it's not. I don't see an end in sight. half of us are living in a Twilight Zone episode where it's like, oh, the pandemic's not real.”

    Tommy Skinner @ ~15:20 — Captures the fragmentation and surreality of pandemic experience in America

  • “The message was don't use a mask because you can't get it. It's not airborne. But the reality was don't get it. Don't use masks because we need all the masks because we need them for the frontline workers.”

    Tommy Skinner @ ~31:45 — Reflects on federal COVID messaging inconsistencies and healthcare supply chain failures

  • “I was brought up as a racist. Like I had a conversation with her... as a 48 year old, you know, raising children? Like, what can I do being brought up as a racist to try to raise my children so that they're not brought up like a racist?”

    Tommy Skinner @ ~52:00 — Personal reflection on generational racism and parenting responsibility regarding systemic inequality

  • “It's the fact that they were basically, the message was, don't use a mask... that's when the information came out. And I've got to say, like, this is what pisses me off as well.”

    Tommy Skinner @ ~30:00 — Expresses frustration with federal pandemic communication strategy

  • “The pinball stuff is like, I don't know. It has certainly been less important over the last couple months. Yeah. But at the same time, it's been a really important distraction for mental health”

    Tommy Skinner @ ~57:30 — Contextualizes pinball hobby as coping mechanism during social crisis

  • “Stranger Things Premium after all the new code still sucks”

    Unknown (email subject) @ ~01:04:00 — Community feedback on Stern Stranger Things code quality post-update

  • “My grandfather was wiretapping Martin Luther King.”

    Tommy Skinner @ ~51:00 — Reveals personal family connection to FBI surveillance during Civil Rights era

Entities

Tommy SkinnerpersonTaylor ReesepersonThis Flippin' PodcastorganizationTeenage Mutant Ninja TurtlesgameStranger Things PremiumgameStern PinballcompanyMain Street AmusementvenueDeadfliporganizationTiki Tilt

Signals

  • ?

    code_update: Stranger Things Premium received new code update that community feedback indicates is ineffective or continues to be problematic

    high · Email received with subject 'Stranger Things Premium after all the new code still sucks exclamation mark' demonstrates ongoing code quality concerns post-update

  • ?

    product_launch: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles pinball machine has been unveiled, shipped, and released into the market

    high · Taylor Reese: 'Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was unveiled. Yep. Has been shipped, released. It's been streamed.'

  • ?

    venue_signal: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles pinball machines confirmed installed at multiple venues including Main Street Amusement and possibly Bingo Beer

    high · Taylor Reese confirms TMNT at Main Street Amusement and Center of the Universe; believes one at Bingo Beer but expresses uncertainty

  • ?

    operational_signal: Taylor Reese's location (bowling alley) reopened after pandemic closure with limited hours, no weekend music venue events, and cancelled pinball marathon tournament

    high · Taylor: 'My location down at the bowling alley has been opened back up for a month uh but with limited hours... we canceled our pinball marathon'

  • ?

    content_signal: Multiple pinball streamers (Deadflip, Tiki Tilt, and others) have streamed Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles gameplay for community consumption

    high · Taylor: 'I watched Deadflip. And then another friend of mine has started streaming. I think his thing is Tiki Tilt'

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.381

0:00
The episode you are about to hear contains explicit words. The opinions within are those of the hosts and in no way imply that anyone listening to this podcast agrees with anything we say. Please send complaints to theslippinpodcast at gmail.com.
0:25
I need the connoisseur. I need some attitude The doctors, I'm out of business What I need is mental fitness Yes, I know, now I know There ain't no time now Yes, I know, now I know I need some help A long term overhaul See the lies of my mistakes See the way I crawl, I crawl, I crawl, I crawl I'm stuck right now, so yes I know Now I know There is no Time there now Yes I know Now I know Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to episode 101 you thought we were dead you thought we were gone we weren't it's just a pandemic and uh we had some other shit going on this is tommy skinner with my friend and co-host and partner taylor reese we are this fucking podcast we missed everyone we're happy to be sitting here today uh august 3rd August 3rd. Recording with the sun out, and he's going to talk about some pinball and other shit like we always do. How's it going, man? Good. I am just wrapping up my, pulling some stuff together on my deck because we have a hurricane coming up the coast of the United States of America.
2:05
I, not sarcastically, have no fucking idea. I've been up here at the lake not watching anything for the last three days. It was supposed to go into Florida. Like, at one point it was going to go, like, undercut Florida and go into the Gulf.
2:22
But now it is – it didn't go into Florida. It's going into the Carolinas. And so, basically, you have – obviously, you have South Carolina, North Carolina, and then Virginia.
organization
Phil Bairdperson
George Floydperson
Breonna Taylorperson
Elijah McClainperson
John Lewisperson
Martin Luther King Jr.person
Herman Cainperson
Dr. Anthony Fauciperson
Center of the Universevenue
Bingo Beervenue
IFPAorganization
Backbox Pinball Podcastorganization
John Cawthonperson
  • ?

    community_signal: Pandemic and social crisis have significantly reduced pinball community engagement and tournament activity; hosts deprioritized pinball discussion due to mental health burden from broader social issues

    high · Tommy: 'The pinball stuff is like, I don't know. It has certainly been less important over the last couple months... it's been a really important distraction for mental health'

  • ?

    tournament_signal: Pinball marathon tournament originally scheduled for this weekend was cancelled; participants were refunded

    high · Taylor: 'we canceled our pinball marathon would have actually just taken place this weekend yeah and that was canceled and everyone was refunded a couple weeks ago'

  • ?

    competitive_signal: IFPA ICR (Insider Connected Ranking) challenges are active; community members engaging with this competitive format

    medium · Phil Baird from D.C. reached out to Taylor about IFPA ICR challenges; Taylor has not yet engaged due to work demands

  • $

    market_signal: Taylor Reese sold his Stranger Things pinball machine at beginning of pandemic and expressed satisfaction with the decision

    high · Taylor: 'I sold mine at the beginning of the pandemic. I was very happy about that.'

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Community sentiment regarding Stranger Things Premium code continues to be negative even after new update

    high · Email subject line indicates persistent code issues despite update: 'Stranger Things Premium after all the new code still sucks'

  • ?

    industry_signal: Major pinball podcast delayed 3 months due to pandemic stress, social unrest, and mental health burden on hosts

    high · Tommy: 'you thought we were dead you thought we were gone we weren't it's just a pandemic and uh we had some other shit going on'; last recording was May 1st

  • ?

    operational_signal: Pinball machine coin drop at Taylor's bowling alley location has remained 'pretty steady' despite limited operating hours and closure of venue events

    high · Taylor: 'it's been honestly pretty steady as far as coin drop goes but we're not really doing any like organized events'

    • 2:36
    Richmond is – Richmond is like central Virginia, but it's towards the coast. I kind of think we're probably like 100 miles inland from the coast, which sounds like a lot, but it's not. Maybe as a crow flies, maybe it's not as far. But, yeah, so that's rolling up. That's exciting. Usually we get, like, tornadoes, a lot of rain.
    3:03
    I don't know. We'll see. Like, we're kind of like where I live. We are on the western edge of the tropical storm warning. So when it comes in, it's going to come in as a tropical storm. So it will be mostly like a rain event, but there will be wind.
    3:18
    The weather has just been really dry here. This is really exciting. We're talking about the weather. But the weather has been really dry here. And so with all this rain coming, it's going to be interesting to see what happens. Because it can't all get set. I don't know. I don't know what's going to happen. I know that we have flash flood warnings.
    3:36
    So, yeah, so there's that. But other than that, yeah, I deflated my kid's pandemic pool. It's a crazy time, man.
    3:49
    It's been, like, I could not tell you. I know it's been a while since we recorded. May 1st. Oh, okay. That's the last time we talked. Three months. Last time we talked, like, on the phone or whatever. I've lost all track of time. That's nuts. I'm up at the lake it's like the last week before I go to school it's the first week this summer that I haven't worked at the restaurant I still work on the weekend but I just need some time off before I go back to school I went to a little diner this morning with my mask on and I'm up in Michigan and they've got everything like the restaurant's installed plexiglass between every table and booth at least at the two restaurants that I've seen in Michigan this week and anyway it's nice I felt safe and everything but I was just like sitting there quietly eating a nice little breakfast and I heard somebody say something like it's August 3rd already wow and I was like that can't even be right and I looked at my phone I was like oh my god it it is like holy cow yeah no but it just this last roughly four to five months uh has absolutely flown by uh faster than I can imagine it's it's I feel like I got a ton of things done and they're like, I did a ton of pinball related things, which has been great, which we'll talk about. But I did like a bunch of other stuff too and just like none of it makes sense. It's like some sort of weird time warp we've lived in.
    5:21
    Yeah, it's weird because it's – yeah, I don't know. The idea that time is relative has definitely made a lot of sense to me during the whole pandemic. Yeah, I mean, with kids, it's been – yeah, it's just tough because, I mean, we have definitely been – we've been very, like – they got out of school March 13th. And we talked about this on the last episode, but they got out of school March 13th. And we basically have, like – we've been pretty – I mean, we've been pretty good about it. like we allowed my oldest daughter to go and hang out with two of her friends one day, like a couple, you know, like a month ago. And you just locked her in a closet for a few weeks. Pretty much. And then we have my youngest daughter. She has like her best friend lives like three doors down from us. And we have let them have play dates. Not a ton. like like the same period my oldest daughter was having playdates we let my youngest also start having like playdates like she had done like some social distancing stuff with this friend like they would go bike riding and stuff like that um but not like playing like you know and we got these pool like we got a pool like a six foot by ten foot inflatable pool and we got it for my daughter because it's hot outside. We can't go to the pool. Our pools are closed.
    6:52
    And, you know, she gets in the pool, and she's like, Dad, come in the pool with me. I'm like, okay. So, you know, I'm six foot, and the water is about a foot deep, you know. So for you, that's like a – Yeah, that's a deep end. I got to be careful around that. Tommy sent me a picture of the lake he's at. It's actually smaller than this pool.
    7:22
    Hey, I ended up catching a fish later, by the way. I saw the picture. I hadn't even been to bed yet when I sent that to you. That's why if I sound sleepy, anyone who's listening to this actually, it's because I just took like an hour nap because I stayed up all night so I could fish at sunrise. I was wondering when you sent it like super early. I was like, what's he doing up? I messaged you at like 4 a.m. We were like, hey, we should record. Oh, I saw that. I was like 6 a.m. I was like on the pier fishing at that point. Yeah. But I went on a pinball adventure today as well. So, yeah, it all made sense.
    7:53
    So let's talk. Let's talk pandemic. Pandemic is raging. It's awful. It's freaking wear a mask. Don't be a dumb fuck. Sorry. But I mean, like I am I have to tell you, I am so pissed off at this point that we are still where we are. Like, we are so much worse off right now than we were when we – March 13th, my kids' school got out. They closed school.
    8:26
    And we are August 3rd, and we are worse off. Worse. Yeah. And it's like – and then it's crazy. It is – it fucking blows my mind. I am so frustrated. I am so pissed off that we are not like people are being so selfish that they will not like take care of their neighbors by wearing a mask, by being socially distant, by being responsible. Like the fact that it's been made into a political issue is infuriating. Like, oh, my God, like I am so pissed off. Yeah, I figured that's why we haven't recorded for a while because I was nervous that somehow you would have discovered a way to punch me through your computer screener.
    9:17
    I'm not going to punch you. Well, just not because you're mad at me, but just because I knew your rage levels would be so high. Oh, it's so high.
    9:26
    Yeah, it's... It's nuts. It is. We are living in a Twilight Zone episode. But it's not. I don't see an end in sight. half of us are living in a Twilight Zone episode. It's like half of us are living in a Twilight Zone episode where it's like, oh, the pandemic's not real. And then it's like, two weeks later, that person's dead. I mean, Herman Cain is dead.
    9:49
    We're like stuck here with him, so we're in the episode, man. That's true. It's like the Twilight Zone movie. Remember the one with the kid who was watching TV and the monster would come out?
    10:02
    Sorry, I forgot. I came out when TVs had color, so I haven't seen that. No, no, no. That was when I was born? No, this is the one that was done. No, this is after you were born, man. Steven Spielberg did the one with the helicopter where the kid died. That movie never got made because the people died. No, the Twilight Zone? Yeah. The Twilight Zone movie was made. Oh, it never got released, man. Tommy, I've seen it. Well, luckily to you, I'm seeing. You've seen clips from it because when those kids died, it got shut down. No, no, no, no, no. What am I thinking about then? Oh, hold on. You're thinking of Poltergeist. No, no, no, no, no. I'm going to Twilight Zone. Look at this. Twilight Zone the movie. Twilight Zone movie.
    10:46
    1983. I'm telling you, it didn't get released. Yes, it did. Damn, it did get released. Yeah, it wasn't good. Yeah, I thought it got shut down after that. I need you to edit all that out. I sound like a moron. I wouldn't want to do that publicly. I would look like... Not editing that out. You always have a smooth voice, so I've got to bring you down a couple of dots. I watched a whole documentary about it. I watched those people die. I can't believe they released that. Yeah, and I cannot remember that part. I can't remember that one. Maybe that one didn't make the movie, but there was a Twilight Zone movie. And one of the scenes involves television, whatever. tangent. But yeah, so the pandemic sucks, man.
    11:37
    We've already lost anybody who came back to listen that was like, hey, these guys are back. We should check it out one more time. They know us. I think at this point, this is episode 101, but we have together done well over 100 episodes. If you don't know what we're about at this point, I don't know what to do. Maybe I don't know what to say. I mean, I don't know what to say. I mean, we listen, you know, it's like, I don't know. Like we listen, you know, it's like I post punk rock music, like political music, like at the beginning of every episode or at the end, like we rage every once in a while on politics and stuff. I mean, people know what we're about. I mean, yeah, we're just two like dudes who have fair levels of intelligence and really like pinball. Yeah. It's driven by what's going on. Um, so yeah, pandemic sucks. My, um, yeah, it sucks, man. I hope everybody's safe. I know, like, I know pinball players who've been sick. Um, I don't know of any, I don't know of any pinball players who've died, but I do know people who have been sick. Um, you know, I know people, you know, who've had family members who've gotten really sick. My, my cousin or not my cousin my nephew's teacher died um like my my wife has had several co-workers who've gotten it like people in their family like and children like infants like under the age of five um so this shit is real and it's yeah it's real it's really real a discussion about it today and and if you guys remember back to like i think it was episode 99 where i wished half the world dead and then this all started happening, and we caught a little flack for that.
    13:22
    But anyway, my whole thing is, like, we just basically screwed up the PR for COVID-19 or the coronavirus, because, one, like, you name it, corona, like, we're Americans. By and large, we're not intelligent. Like, that's a beer. I'll be fine.
    13:40
    So you got that going. Secondly, you know, they call it the, or they, the president of the United States calls it the China flu, which is, you know, both, like, bigoted and just incorrect. But anyway, so you call it that. Anyway, we associate it with the flu. And realistically, like, I've had the flu. I'm betting you've had the flu. I've had the flu, yeah. We know that there's flu vaccines. We also know if you have the flu, you get sick for a few days, you survive for the most part. um, new recover, et cetera. Well, they know what the, you know what the flu is. Yes. But that's what we associated this with because of what they were calling it. Um, but this is like a, a virus. So another virus is herpes or HIV. Yeah. And those are things that probably don't kill you, but they're pretty easy to catch if you're not careful and you don't want them and you don't want them. And the thing that I think people are forgetting is like, yeah, statistically if you catch this right now you still have a really good chance of surviving yes you know yeah that's that's reality what we are just learning because um unfortunately in this world today we're like we really really like instant gratification um science takes time yeah and what we're starting to see now is these studies coming out saying like people who have survived this are having heart and kidney impact like inflammation and damage to these really vital organs yeah that could impact the rest of your life like the quality of your life as you age yeah and i don't think people are understanding that so i think if initially they had come out and been like hey this is this is like herpes like you catch this and it's with you for life and we don't know how how exactly it's going to impact your body people would have been more afraid of it but because we compared it to a flu um you know we just don't find that concept very dangerous but if we said this is airborne herpes this will be with you for a fucking life yeah and other people may not want to be around you because you may be a continuous spreader of this yeah we would have handled things differently i believe i think that if we i i think the problem i think the problem is that this is obviously a new virus. So like you're saying, like the information we have about it is fluid. I think one of the problems is that we have had a disinformation, continue to have disinformation coming from the federal response, lack of response or whatever that is just, it's so fucked up. I mean, it is really, it's really messed up. I mean, how, I mean, look at, so in Korea, Korea had their first case the same day that we had our first case, reported case. So it was in the United States prior to us having our first case, whatever. In Korea, like I have friends in Korea, and I talked to them, and they were just like, and this is early on, this is before schools got locked down. So this would have been early March, end of February. They were in quarantine immediately and they were all wearing masks immediately. And I don't remember if we talked about this or not, but I remember going in and this would have been the same time frame. So this was late April, early March. And I think that this is why I reached out to my friend. And I went to like Lowe's, Home Depot, trying to find masks for working in my shop. And I usually wear like a regular respirator. I use a respirator for like spraying lacquer, but I also have like another respirator I use for working in wood. And I like to have like a lighter respirator just in case I just need a lighter respirator because it's hot. And I couldn't find a mask anywhere. Nobody had dust masks. and then I went online and nobody had dust masks. And I was like, that's so weird. And that's when the information came out. And I've got to say, like, this is what pisses me off as well. It's like, and I'm not trying to be a conspiracy person, but I think that what we're finding out right now, like within the last two weeks, is that I felt like a conspiracist, but in reality I wasn't. It's the fact that they were basically, the message was, don't use a mask. The message was don't use a mask because you can't get it. It's not airborne. But the reality was don't get it. Don't use masks because we need all the masks because we need them for the frontline workers. And that's now what they're telling us. Like they're now going back and saying, yeah, like that message was kind of messed up. And I'm like, oh, guys, like, what are you doing? Because at that point, it's like if you if you don't have PPE for if you don't have enough PPE and you're like, people are going to spread this, then that's when they should have mandated a national lockdown, a hard lockdown for three weeks, put into protocol some way to get food or something and lock it down. I mean, it's a, it's, and nobody did it and we still haven't done it. We still haven't done shit on a federal level. We haven't done anything, nothing.
    19:10
    It's fucking insane. How are you doing, man? You want to talk about race in the United States? No. Oh, really? I don't. Man, okay. It's just, yeah, it's so bad. That shit's fucked up too, man. I mean, well, going back to, like, why we haven't recorded, like, frankly, like, as soon as, you know, when we went into lockdown, you know, it's like, oh, I'm at home. I have my pinball machines. Like I screamed like once with John Cawthon and I just wasn't in the mood. Like I'm just like I'm stressed out like my kid. You know, it's like trying to figure out what's going on with my kids education, trying to figure out what's going on with my wife's work. Like she's going like, you know, what's she going to do? She's going to work from home. Is she going to go in, you know, figuring all that stuff out. And then we have George Floyd gets killed. I mean, it wasn't just George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Elijah McClain. Like you had like and those I mean, Elijah McClain happened earlier. Like we found out about that. But you had like just, you know, I mean, the country exploded. And at that point, I was like, sure, shit, didn't want to talk about pinball. Like I didn't care about pinball. Like like there's such bigger issues. I listened to the Backbox Pinball podcast did an episode on diversity in pinball, which I thought was pretty good.
    20:38
    But, you know, that's it. I mean, I will say like straight up, like the race issue is like is a big deal for me. I live in Richmond, Virginia. Like I live I I live in I live right outside Richmond, Virginia. Monument Avenue is aligned with Confederate monuments. Right. So, like, I came here in 1990 to go to college, and we were all like – I was a punk rocker and stuff like that. And we were always like, yo, what the fuck's up with, like, Confederate statues? Like, why do we have Confederate statues?
    21:07
    Like, they lost. And, like, you have – I mean, I don't know what it's like in Indiana. I mean, because the, you know, rebel flags fly everywhere. But, like, here it's like – We're the south of the north. You're the south of the north. You're Indiana. The only thing that makes Indiana not in the south is the Mason-Dixon line. Okay. So you get that. But on I-95, which is like I-95, which runs north to south along the coast of the United States, it's the biggest highway here. It's like when you get onto I-95, right near where I live, there's giant rebel flags flying. I mean, it's crazy.
    21:47
    I've always hated those monuments. This notion of, oh, well, you can't tear down history. It's like, no, if you want to contextualize why those monuments are there, they were put up during Jim Crow to intimidate the African-Americans who lived in Richmond. That is why they are there. Like, that is the sole reason why they were put up when they were put up. Probably we didn't want a monument put up. I mean, these are these are these are Confederate soldiers. Like, what is that about? And like we've had people who stand on the side of the road. They call themselves flaggers. they stand on the side of the road with their rebel flags they protest like every weekend in front of the virginia museum of fine art and it's like what is going on like richmond is totally fucked up i mean it's you know deep-rooted racism deep-rooted racism um i mean i and i just think that's nationwide um oh it is oh yeah yeah it's everywhere one of the The best things I've read or seen is essentially in America and the South especially, but you'll see it everywhere. The Confederate flag is still flown with pride for a war that was lost, whereas in Germany a Nazi flag is literally illegal because they're ashamed of their past because they recognize what they did was wrong. But at the same time, white nationalism in Germany is crazy. Oh, yeah. Those people haven't gone, but they have punishments for people who publicly display those things. There are no monuments to Hitler. No. I mean, it's just a weird thing. And then that turned – so Black Lives Matter and Black Lives do matter. I mean, yeah, that's – why that's a political thing, whatever. But Black Lives Matter, and it's important that in the United States that we take steps to figuring it out because as a country, it doesn't make any sense for us to not want to support one another. And that's the thing that's so crazy about the pandemic. It's like, guys, just let's all do this for each other. You know, like we are not in this together. We are not. We are split 50-50. Like, Fauci came out and said, like, we only locked down 50% of the country. Only 50% of the country was willing to be locked down. Like, what is that? Like, so 50% of the people are just, like, refused?
    24:18
    It's just crazy to me. But, you know, now, you know, Black Lives Matter has just turned into the federal government and local police departments, like, just going out there and cracking heads. And it's crazy, man. Like, I have no idea. I don't know what's going on. We've lost control. It's totally fucking bonkers. It is, man. I can't disagree. but you know I you know it's and we'll we'll talk about but like it's been interesting because like you know with my kids like you know my daughter came downstairs and you know when she read about this you know what happened with Elijah McClain like she was like torn up by that and yeah that's how normal humans should respond to that situation it's that one heartbreaking yeah that one really uh hit me hard i'm like i mean they all all of it is fucked up yeah but like as i read what his last words were as he's crying out oh man i like really registered with me that that is a person who like is most likely somewhere on the spectrum yeah and people would consider that like they behave differently like they don't know how to respond you know like they don't like to make eye contact Things that a police officer may, like, feel is, oh, why is this person being aversive? They're trying to avoid me. What are the suspicious? When really it's like, oh, if we had spent money to train these people on how to identify people who are potentially on the spectrum and how their behavior is different from your typical person and how they would respond to something, like maybe that's something that could have been recognized and prevented. And I immediately, you know, had kids that I work with pop into my mind and how a police officer would handle them in a situation, regardless of race, you know, but race being obviously potentially a factor in that situation. I interpreted it as he was most likely a person on the spectrum from everything I read about the guy. Yeah. And that terrified me. It's terrifying. I mean, it's terrifying to think that how it escalates. Right. Because I do think, like, you're talking about, like, if you, like, go to grab, like, say an officer goes to grab his arm and he pulls away. And a lot of people would do that instinctively. Oh, absolutely. Like, why are you grabbing onto me? Like, as soon as you do that, like, that's a thing that I think has been interesting about the protests and the escalation by police. is that, I mean, certainly like the writing, like, you know,
    26:52
    I don't think the destruction of property and stuff like that, I don't necessarily think that that is helping any cause, but I'm also not going to sit here and like condemn. I don't know. That's a real tricky one because it's like, I think it's gotten to the point where it's like, if you're not doing something extreme, no one is paying attention because this has just happened over and over and over again. I mean, John Lewis just passed away, and it's like, what has changed since then? But I don't know. But it's tough because, I mean, like, I'm a white guy. I'm almost 50 years old, right? So, like, I'm explaining to my daughter, like, systemic racism and explaining to her, like, look, I was brought up as a racist.
    27:42
    Like, I had a conversation with her, and she, yeah, She came downstairs and I was playing pinball and she was like totally broken up about Elijah McClain. And we sat down and we had a great conversation. And we really like I mean, as as like a white guy, as a 48 year old white guy, like I, you know, I I'm aware of like I grew up in a very diverse.
    28:06
    Area, my mother was very my mother, I mean, you know, she was I guess she was liberal. She was open minded. but like my good friends growing up were generally not white you know like I had a great friend in high school who was Iranian you know I've had I mean my friends have always been a mix of people actually now that I'm an older I'm an older person I have less of a mix but I always grew up with a mix but I was brought up to be a racist because our history that we're taught I mean it's a racist history because it always starts with this notion of, you know, our history starts with the, you know, a European landing in America, right? Or a European landing on the East Coast. Like, that's the history of our, of America to us. And it goes deeper than that, right? It's like, I don't know. So it's, it's interesting. I mean, we've had to come to grips with stuff like that. Like, my grandfather was an FBI agent under Hoover in the 60s, you know, like. So he was out there catching all the communists. My grandfather was wiretapping Martin Luther King.
    29:17
    Nice. So, I mean, it's like growing up, like you look at your grandfather who is – like you look at him and you're like, oh, he worked for the FBI. It's so cool. And I have like the stuff that belonged to him. Like I have the stuff that belonged to him. And it's like but then you go back and you start thinking about like the context of what he was doing. And it's like, man, it's so screwed up. Like and then and then you start going, you know, you start like really reflecting on how you were brought up. The people that you grew up with.
    29:54
    I don't know. It's tough. But I think as a country. I think as a country that that's what we need. Like we need to have these conversations. Like because we're tough conversations because you don't want to sit there like I don't want to sit there and go, oh, like, yeah, my grandfather sucks because of what he was doing.
    30:15
    But I think it's important to be able to look at that and go, this is really what what he was doing. What we were doing as a country was was really fucked up. And that was my grandfather that was doing that. So now what can I do as a 48 year old, you know, raising children? Like, what can I do being brought up as a racist to try to raise my children so that they're not brought up like a racist? Does that make sense?
    30:41
    Yeah. Okay. I totally get it. But all this shit is weighing on you, right? Like, all this stuff. Like, you've got all this stuff happening, and it's like, oh, so, so heavy. It's so heavy. And it's like every day it's like heavy shit. But so it's the, yeah, so the pinball stuff is like, I don't know. It has certainly been less important over the last couple months. Yeah. But at the same time, it's been a really important distraction for mental health for, I'm sure, you and me. Absolutely. And plenty of people who would be listening to this. Absolutely.
    31:19
    I know our listener, hopefully, but good friend Phil Baird out in D.C. has hit me up, like, a couple times about doing the IFPA, whatever they are, ICR challenges or whatever. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And, like, I've felt bad. I've worked a ton. I been working at the bar like ungodly amounts of hours So I really that why a big part of the reason why I took this week off but like i literally haven even sat down and read how those things work and i just haven really had time to do anything with it um my location down at the bowling alley has been opened back up for a month uh but with limited hours they're only doing evenings and they're not doing any uh like they're a big you know music venue most weekends and they haven't been doing any of that so it's been it's still been honestly pretty steady as far as coin drop goes but we're not really doing any like organized events we canceled our pinball marathon would have actually just taken place this weekend yeah and that was canceled and everyone was refunded a couple weeks ago technically we could have still hosted it it wouldn't have violated any of the current standards for whatever phase we're in in indiana right now but i just really didn't feel comfortable being that that person to host something at this time yeah um so you know kind of skipped that i did laugh like literally just since we started talking i i checked our our email and i had an email titled stranger things premium and i was like oh i wonder what this is about uh and then i opened up and it says stranger things premium after all the new code still sucks oh no exclamation mark there you go there's our stranger things report yeah that's the update on Stranger Things. I haven't played one. I sold mine at the beginning of the pandemic. I was very happy about that. Last Stranger Things update. Since the last time we recorded, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was unveiled. Yep. Has been shipped, released. It's been streamed. Main Street Amusement's got one. I've gotten to play it. Have you gotten to play one? I have not played one, but my friend, Dan, who operates out of Center of the Universe has one. And we do have another one at I think it's at Bingo Beer, which is another location here. I've not played it. I did watch some of the stream. I know I watched Deadflip. And then another friend of mine has started streaming. I think his thing is Tiki Tilt.
    33:52
    I think that's it. Like Tiki underscore tilt. So they streamed some Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles the other day.
    34:01
    Streaming has massively increased since all this began. I was streaming at the start of this back before the bar opened again, and then I just started working all the time, and I had absolutely no desire or energy to stream. But that's been really great for those people providing that form of entertainment. I know I've had a couple friends who have messaged me about streams that they are watching that I had never heard of. And again, I give a lot of credit to Jack Danger and Buffalo Pinball for really being at the forefront of that streaming stuff and doing it so regularly and being so willing to help other people out there. get their stream rigs set up. And Carl D'Angelo as well provides a ton of stuff. There's Phil Grimaldi as well with their rigs and Chuck Wart. I know those are like some of the really heavy hitters in the streaming scene, but they always seem to have the time to help out those who are interested in it. You and I have streaming stuff and we do it, you know, every once in a great while. And it is fun. I do enjoy when I do it. It just hasn't been a real high priority for me right now. So I will say my early impressions of Ninja Turtles, having gotten to play it over at Dan's, I went with him to get it. We did pick it up at Stern. Stern was doing some super serious stuff as far as, like, who could come in the building and getting your temperature checked and what areas you could go and having to have a mask. So credit to them for, you know, pushing through this pandemic and instituting safety protocols to make sure that they're staying, in business while keeping their employees safe as well as their customers.
    35:36
    So I went and got to go do that with him. It shoots really, really nice. Borg, thumbs up, knocked it out of the park on the layout. The code, I'm still really iffy on.
    35:51
    I've probably played like 20 games on it at this point, so it's not a ton. But it seems to me like nothing scores very well. unless you are, like, stacking multiballs with modes and play field multipliers. It's a lower-scoring game, but, like, the scoring just doesn't make sense to me right now. Like, I've had some where I feel like I've had, like, a good, decent long ball, and I'd beat, like, a mode, and my score will be, like, 1 million, and then I'll have something where, like, I just start a quick multiball, and my score's, like, 6 million, and it just doesn't add up.
    36:23
    But, yeah, I think theme-wise, art package from Zombie Yeti just crushed it. It looks so good in person. Yeah.
    36:33
    I think it's going to earn really well if things ever, you know, go back to normal and open up fully. But that's my early impressions on it. It shoots really well. Code is questionable. Looks super pretty.
    36:45
    Where's code right now? Do you know what the number is? It's really far. It's like 1.1 or something like that. Like, yeah, it shipped at 1.02, 1.04.
    36:59
    and I know it's had like at least two updates since Dan got his, which is, which is great. Uh, you know, that Stern's got the code further along, but it also terrifies me because it doesn't leave as much room for, uh, improvement. Let's see. It's, it's game code 1.10 as of 721. Wow. So, I mean, that's, that's the thing, like with Stranger Things, everyone's like, Oh no, of the codes really early and it's going to change the game you'll see and i i didn't see i'm glad i didn't see with this one it's like oh the code is really far i hope you like it um which again i i can mend them shipping things that almost complete uh i think it's the better way to go um but then it is you know it's it's what you see is what you get so we'll see so i don't understand code right Because, like, for example, Elvira right now is at .98.
    38:03
    That came out last October. That came out last October, and it is pretty complete. It's Lyman Sheets. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, like you said, is 1.1. And it's Dwight. And then Jurassic Park, Stranger Things is still at 9.7.
    38:21
    Probably, yeah. And this is exciting stuff. Jurassic Park is at 1.02. But so when code hits one, right, the IP would be like the game would be a fully functioning game at one. Yeah. In my mind, one means you have a wizard mode in there. You have all features. Like all features are playable. And I can see that with the Lime and Sheets game because of the depth. And I'm sure that he has, like, the depth all worked out. And I know that, yeah, there's stuff in there. I played a good bit of Elvira. I think that's a super, super fun game. See, like Batman 66, I know that's another one that shipped really early, and I think it was getting code updates for like two and a half, three years. And that game's like amazing now. Yeah. Like I hated it when it came out, and now when I get one or like get to play one, I love it. So, you know, I trust the Lyman path. It's slow and it's winding, but, like, it leads to this amazing destination. Yeah. That's a good way to describe it.
    39:29
    I've had many time, much time to think and read things and come up with these elegant phrases that I'll forget throughout this episode, I'm sure. Yeah, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles looks good. I, yeah, it looks good. I will say this. That is, so growing up, my bedroom was Chicago Bulls wallpaper and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, like, toys, posters, blankets, bedsheets.
    39:57
    Those are the toys I remember my dad coming home to me with from his trips when he would go on business trips. Like, I loved that shit. When I was in high school, I gave it all to my little neighbor, Timmy, and I had, like, the New York City sewer, like, storage case. And I had, like, the van. like I have very fond memories of the Mutant Ninja Turtles like my mom taking me to see the first movie in theaters in Chicago I distinctly remember like that's one of my earliest memories of her taking me to that but because of my negative experience with Stranger Things I did not purchase this immediately like that's how rubbed raw I was by the whole Stranger Things experience because I still think this would earn really well.
    40:41
    But my location is largely, as it has always been, it's just a hobby for me. Like, I want things there that I want to play and enjoy regardless of how well they're earning. I mean, it's nice if they earn a little bit of money. Don't get me wrong. But, like, Stranger Things, I had there for, I think, less than six weeks because I just couldn't stand playing it.
    41:01
    Ninja Turtles was not that bad. But Stranger Things, it was your dislike of the game, which is why you sold it. Like, was it making you money? And it was not earning very well, which was weird compared to, like, talking to other operators. It's earned really well for them. Oh, okay. Interesting. So it was kind of interesting that it didn't do as well at my place. Yeah. But, I mean, it was literally being out-earned by Flintstones and Monopoly, like, regularly, like, every week except for the first week. Did you buy Stranger Things? You played it before buying, right? No, absolutely not. I got one of the very early ones out of that stuff as soon as it was announced. And that was the one where they basically had it ready to go, right? They were at locations. Yep. They had people who they announced it that day, and it was going to be on location that day. I didn't get it then. I got mine like two weeks later. What happened? Okay, so to backtrack a little bit, and it's been a long time, so I don't know. Everything is fuzzy. but teenage when tj teenage mutant ninja turtles which is a mouthful right it is tmnt tmnt when tmnt two dropped was that leaked what was the deal with that was it there's like some shit it leaked like a day early um and then stern was like take the pictures down from the internet because Oh, that's right. You need to get things off the internet once it's out there.
    42:32
    Did we get told to take a dump? I think we did. I can't remember. I honestly can't remember. Yeah. I know we did on Ghostbusters. Yeah. And, yeah. Yeah, I know, like, a lot of, apparently, like, a lot of people got hammered by Stern for that. Like, there was a person who posted on Pinside. Yeah, they were on Pinside. It's not like we went out actively seeking to find these secret pictures. But this person was – this person said that they had their personal – like they – I can't remember what the podcast is. But they do a podcast, and their podcast and their personal Facebook pages were blocked.
    43:14
    Like they couldn't get on them because they insinuated that Stern – and they insinuated – I have no proof. was that Stern had said that they had put copyrighted stuff on. Like, there was a lot of really weird shit that went down. Like, because – Yeah, I saw some people get basically very threatening messages. Yeah. The message – okay, I found it. It looks like we posted it on, I don't know, May 25th, 26th, it looks like. Did we get any messages? Yeah. Ours is worded pretty friendly, honestly. Hey, guys. It's Jared.
    43:55
    And what did he say? It's Jared, social media manager. I noticed some unreleased imagery of our next title has been shared on your page. I share in the excitement the leak is causing disruption with existing agreements and rollout plans. If you'd be so kind to please consider removing these images from your page until we officially release the game, which will be extremely soon. Thanks for your understanding. So we got a pretty nice message. Yeah. I'm not going to lie I completely fucking ignored it because when the Ghostbusters thing happened we did take down the images and then like nobody else did because it's the fucking internet and like once it's out you can't stop it but it wasn't even that it was like their distributors were taking it down like the people who oh yeah like people who are selling games were sharing the images like their partners with Stern like that's the thing like their partners Stern's partners in selling pinball machines, people who have agreements with Stern. Like, we don't have an agreement with Stern. People who have agreements with Stern were allowed to keep the images up.
    44:58
    Like, that doesn't make any sense. Any sense at all. Like I said, man, I appreciate that the message was nice. I, you know, I just didn't feel that. For once, some things on the Internet, you can't put it back, guys. That's how 2020 works. Um, so anyway, again, we didn't seek out messages. They weren't like, or images. They weren't sent to us. They were posted online to a website. We saw them and in our excitement, because literally every time a new game comes out, it feels like Christmas. Like I'm a little kid. I'm excited to see what it is. I can't wait to see the streams of it. I want to know who's involved. I want to start thinking about if I'm going to spend a large amount of money with this company. Um, and I shared my excitement through our social media with some pictures that were publicly already released so it was what it was i literally think they released their stuff the next day yeah it was like another thing i i assume you follow zombie eddie on social media um every time i hear that guy talk or post things like i just find him very entertaining and engaging and his whole thing was like yeah some people are crapping on my artwork from these like bootleg low quality images wait till you see the high definition stuff like and i'm sure part of him is frustrated over that because his work is getting critiqued when it's not uh the quality that we're seeing is not what's actually being produced um but at the same time i feel like it's kind of a light-hearted approach like yeah guys chill out like you're gonna see the better stuff and honestly from the images that were leaked everything was kind of washed out and not of high quality obviously and looking at the play field in person like he just he knocked out what the characters look like the colors are bright and vibrant which i think is a as a trademark of his his artwork packages his games stand out in a lineup, and this one does the same. It looks really, really great. I mean, it's a color palette. I mean, I think that that's – I mean, looking at it, I've got two Zombie Yeti games right in front of me, you know, Ghostbusters and Iron Maiden, and, yeah, it's like – Can I just tell you how unbelievable it is that you still have Ghostbusters? I feel like that game has been on the chopping block for four years. It's on the chopping block. If somebody wants to pandemic pick it up, then hit me up. I'll trade you for a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. You got to explain that a tailored pandemic pickup means you come in a biohazard suit, you're sprayed down with everything in the driveway where the game will be sitting. You need to bring your own generator to plug it in and test it. This is the way it works. So I have my roller games, right? So I got a new game during this madness.
    47:36
    But so roller games. Did I know that? Yeah. if I knew that. Yeah. Roller games left the lineup and I bought a Jurassic Park. Oh, yeah. I totally knew that. You knew that. Yeah.
    47:49
    So that's honestly the reason we mostly haven't recorded is because Taylor has just been playing Jurassic Park the whole time. I've been playing a lot of Jurassic Park. I know you have. Yeah. But I, so yeah, roller games left the lineup and I need to sell roller games. And so I was, you know, I was kind of hoping like we would kind of be on the backside of this mountain known as COVID infections, but we're not. Um, but so I was thinking about, I was like, well, okay, how would you do like a safe purchase? And like in my situation, I would, and I'd be interested to know what other people are doing. Cause I know people are selling games. Um, but yeah, I was thinking like you could have the game set up like, cause I have a deck off of my game room so I could have the game set up out there. Somebody could come up and they could test play it. If you want to take it, you can pack it up right there. You pack it up yourself and take it on its merry way. Like, there's no reason for me. Like, I don't even need to be there. Just, like, fly me some PayPal or put the cash, you know, or something. But I don't need – I don't know.
    48:53
    It freaks me out, man. I'm not going to lie. Like, I don't want to catch that shit. Like, I have been – my jobs in my life, I have been in industries that, like, destroy your body, like fuck up your lungs. I've seen your hands, man. I get it. Yeah. Like I'm not like, you know, I'm 48 and I've like not, I have not lived the healthiest life. I'm trying to turn that around. Yeah, you're making me feel bad with all your skinny ass pictures, bro. You did too. I'm like, I'm. Did you not get the memo that during the pandemic everyone was supposed to gain weight because we just ate at home and didn't do much else? Man. I nailed that part. So, you know, in January I did Whole30, which is like no sugars, no preservatives, no artificial foods, nothing.
    49:38
    And so I did that. I went into that. That was the entire month of January. So you do it for 30 days.
    49:44
    And I lost, like, I lost, like, maybe 20 pounds doing that. And then maybe not that much. Eh, maybe. I don't know. So I lost a lot of weight. And I wasn't huge, but I was like 190.
    50:01
    And then I figured out that, well, not only I lost weight, but I also lost like muscle, right? Because your body is like it starts to eat itself. Like you're not – You're starving yourself. No sugars, like no sugars, like no natural sugars. So I couldn't – I wasn't having honey.
    50:20
    You could eat fruit, but it was pretty limited because you don't want your body to like look for sugar as a fuel. and so I did that and 30 days lost a bunch of weight and then but I kind of depleted like some of my muscle and so I started working out and so like I have a personal trainer I work with like every two weeks and been doing that and then I started running I don't know why I did this so oh so I know what it was so I was doing these workouts with my trainer and I was getting winded because I was like, oh, because my cardio sucked. I mean, you're an athlete, right? So my cardio is – Loose term, but sure. Loose term. But you know. I mean, you're – Tommy is a liar. You're an athlete. So you're an athlete and you train athletes. So you know what I'm talking about. So my cardio was awful. And I always thought it was funny, like, to think about the people who, like, basically, like, you work out. Like, I always was pretty fit because I worked. Like, I, like, swung a hammer for 12 hours a day, right? Yeah, you did a job that was physically taxing. Yeah, I had a physically taxing job. So, like, I was always physical because of that, but I was never athletic. Like, my cardio was never great. And so I'm working out, but I always looked at, like, athletes or I looked at, like, gym rats where I'm like, oh, you go to the gym. So when you go to the gym, you can do better when you're at the gym. Like, I was like, that makes very little sense to me. But then I started working out, and I'm like, man, my cardio is horrible. Like, you know, I was doing like high intensity training stuff and I was like, I was just dying. And so I was like, oh, I should start. So my wife and I, we were walking every morning because it was just like, you know, in the spring, especially was really nice. And it was a good way to like get outside and talk about pandemic crap. And so we were walking and I was like one day I was like, I'm going to run up this hill. So I ran up the hill. So then I started running all the uphills and then I started running. And so in May I started running. I ran three times in May. In June I ran like five to six times, like 5K, so like three miles or whatever. And then July I ran like 86 miles. I ran 26 times. I ran 86 miles, and my longest run was like eight miles.
    52:37
    I'm very happy for you. I have no desire to do that anymore at all. I just – that's like my pandemic thing, man. That's like – Hey, like whatever's getting everyone through right now, stick with it, unless it's meth or heroin in which case back off. I'm doing that as well. Don't let that get you through the pandemic. I'm doing the meth. Yeah. Don't do those things. I maintain my weight loss not through my running but my meth use.
    53:02
    I've heard it does help with that, but I'm not that drastic yet. But I did buy a game. I bought a Jurassic Park. Which, let's be real with that. You've been on the fence about buying one since the day we saw it at Pinberg 2019.
    53:17
    And when you say on the fence, I've been like leaning over trying to buy one, like trying to talk yourself out of it too for some reason. I don't know, man. Like, I don't, well, one is just the money, right? It's like, it's the money and, yeah, I don't know. Yeah, they're not cheap toys. But we also had, like, we had one on location. So the Richmond Pinball Collective, which is back open, they're doing like limited COVID safe stuff, as safe as you can be for a pandemic in which you don't know really what the fuck is going on with it. Speaking of that, I want to just mention something real quick before I forget, because this was a conversation I had at like 4 a.m. right before I texted you last night. There's excellent news. um if you've unfortunately heard of many of these locations closing down across the country yeah over the last couple weeks that are our pinball havens for the local communities um one of the big ones that everyone uh most likely heard about was lions classic arcade out in colorado uh i have confirmation um that is being taken over by some some well-known hobbyists and will be reopening very, very soon. So Lions Classic Arcade is saved. Nice. So I don't want to release a whole lot more details on it because they're still figuring things out. But, like, it is staying alive. It is reopening. It's staying where it's at. That's good news for Lions. But back to Jurassic Park at the Richmond Pinball Collective. So, yeah, so they had one, and I would get my – I would associate my JP needs with that. There's a waterfall. I can hear your waterfall. Yeah, that's awesome. There's a waterfall. Yeah, it's a new feature. Well, actually, it's a recurring feature.
    55:00
    And then the pandemic – One of our segments. It's one of our segments, yeah. And then the pandemic hit, and I was actually going to buy the Jurassic Park that was at the collective.
    55:11
    So I talked to the person who owned it prior to the pandemic, and I think that he told me what he wanted for it, but he had one of the play fields that had issues.
    55:24
    And Stern had told him that they would – apparently, you know, Stern said that they would replace it. Pandemic hit, and I think he reached out and asked me about it, and I was like, well, did you ever hear from Stern about the play field? And he was like, no.
    55:42
    So I didn't hear from him. Or I think he said that he was going to reach back out to him. And then at some point, I wanted one. I was like, okay, I'm just going to get it.
    55:56
    I can't remember who I – hold on. I'll tell – who did I get it from? I got it from Zach Manny. Yes, potentially. His flipping out? No, which is pinball. so I got so um I got it from flipping out pinball and it was yeah I picked that up in it was delivered in June sometime in June and yeah it was weird because you know it lands like in the middle of everything going on um and so it was it was weird like it was you know it's It's like I didn't post a bunch of like super happy, like unboxing photos and stuff like that.
    56:44
    It was really weird, but I needed it. Like I've been playing a lot of pinball. It's like been a way for me to kind of, you know, get my head out of all the bad news. And there you go. I love it. I think it's a really interesting game. you know I think one of the things like as soon as I played it at Pinnberg I knew I wanted it I mean but a lot of it was just the cost of it right because they're expensive and you know I have I'm a stay at home dad and I have my rail business and so you know it's like putting money towards pinball machines is kind of tough so usually I'll squirrel away rail money over like maybe a year like I think I was probably saving up to get a game for it's probably a year um and then yeah so i love it i think it's amazing i think the layout is just it's so good um yeah the rules are great um yeah it's it's a it's a really solid game i just i can't stop playing it i actually set up my actually set up my streaming rig today because i was like getting ready i was setting up for the podcast and i was like oh i'll just I'll set up the streaming rig since I have my computer down in the game room, and I'll set it up for Jurassic Park. So I might stream some Jurassic Park later. I might watch because I'm up at the lake and I'm not doing much else right now. Right. Although I have to. I just checked my school email. I've apparently got to select my new insurance plan by Wednesday. So I best probably read that. Write for Will.
    58:25
    Dude. First of all, yeah, that's depressing. That's scary stuff. But, yeah, Jurassic Park, I mean, I'm going to say, like, I, you know, the layout, I think, is just, it's just, it's just got such good flow. I don't, the rules are really, I mean, the rules are deep.
    58:45
    Some of the stuff, like the combos, like, I'm still, I have played a lot of it already. And I'm still figuring stuff out. Like, I'm still trying to work through, like, combos and fossil collection. And there's just a lot there. Um, I've done like, I've gone to visitor center a couple of times. I've completed visitor center. I've got to museum mayhem. I've done the control room, secure control room numerous times. Um, so it's like, I feel like I'm getting, I feel like I'm playing long. Like my, my high school right now is like 1.7 billion or something. So I'm playing the game long enough to where I'm getting, I'm getting deep enough into the game to where I need to start actually like figuring out the nuance stuff. Right. because like there's a way to collect fossils that I don't really understand. Yeah, they're real similar to like the soul shards, like play modes really well.
    59:38
    Right, but the fossils, you actually have fossils where like you get fossil bonuses, like where you have multiple fossils from like the same dinosaur. Yeah, it's like the rows, if you can piece a whole row, yeah. And that's the stuff that I just don't, like that's stuff that I feel like I could be playing for, but I just don't even, it's not even in like in my rule book knowledge of this game. And I've done, yeah, like I started to play, I try to play it really efficiently. So it's like if you, like I try to spell chaos, like in the first ball, like get the first chaos going so that you can at least spell it the second time in your first or second ball so that you can qualify a secure room mode, like stuff like that. Like that's, I'm trying to approach it in such a way where it's like, hey, if I'm going to shoot this shot, like, is it actually, is it building, is there a way that I can shoot this shot in an order to where it's building multiple things?
    60:33
    So that's kind of where I'm at. But I did, I'm trying to think, like, I didn't really do any mods to it. I did, I put some art blades on the sides and I totally fucked those up, which sucked.
    60:46
    But that was because it was like 2 a.m. And I was like, oh, I'll put these on now. And then I just messed them up. But yeah. I've been wanting to learn about those late-night projects.
    60:58
    Yeah. But, I mean, that's basically what I've been doing. You know, I've been, as far as pinball goes, like, the rail business has been shut down because I can't get any material. It's too humid. I have, like, I have one order I have to finish for somebody, and it's, like, a special color. And, like, the humidity right now is, like, 80%, 90%. It's, like, I can't finish anything. so that's that's been I mean that was a bummer like that that like took a while for me to kind of recover from the fact that I couldn't just keep making rails and usually I take the summers off but I think I think without us going on vacation or anything it felt weird to not be working on those you know so it's like something that I'm used to like filling my time with that I enjoy doing, it's like I don't have that aspect of the pinball hobby either. So it's, I don't know, it's kind of tough. You know, it's, I don't know, it's taking my head out of the pinball game a little bit. Yeah, without me running a weekly league and monthly tournaments or any other events, I feel similar.
    62:07
    And I, like, typically when I would play pinball, it would be in the evenings. Like, I'd come home from school and play a couple games, you know, on days I wasn't working at the bar. but I was pretty much working seven days a week at the bar and when we had limited hours I was working roughly 10 a.m to anywhere from 10 a.m to 10 p.m or midnight some days um and then when we went back to like regular hours I switched the nights again but I was still doing anywhere between 4 and 5 p.m till 3 a.m so like my whole sleep schedule has just been absolutely insane for the last roughly three months now. But that seven weeks where we were shut down, man, I was doing all sorts of pinball things.
    62:50
    I know I shared a video to our Instagram. My buddy Michael, who saved my Zachariah Nautilus, performed similar miracles. the game wasn't dropped at least to the Zachariah Aerobatics that I did pick up early in the pandemic and that's now playing really well yeah it's really fun it's like an ass kicking EM but it is fun it got a spinner on the left hand side right it the left and right and it got a really cool rule set to how the spinners are used two saucers You got your outlane nudge savers whatever those are called little T rubbers in there
    63:42
    A bonus system that can get up to a million points in bonus. The worst solid state sounds in existence.
    63:51
    Anyway, that's been really fun, really enjoyable. I picked up a Torpedo Alley over a 4th of July weekend Oh nice Like literally just 20 minutes from the lake house Yeah So whenever we were up here Then I shot over there and picked that up And it turns out For any of you out there who have a Chevy Equinox That's you know let's say at least a 2018 and newer They have reduced the size of those The back area as I know I've mentioned before But so much so that a Data East game will not fit in even on its side. So please keep that in mind. It was about 100 degrees, and I had to be in this parking lot disconnecting every connector from the head so I could take the head completely off.
    64:37
    And I did play it. I played three games on it before I agreed to purchase it. It was working. And when I went to reconnect everything and set it all up in my garage, now I'm having a fuse blow and some stuff not working. I'm really frustrated. But I did get it all set up this week. I think since we last recorded, I went to Kentucky as well and bought a bunch of games.
    65:04
    That was another really fun adventure. That was the warehouse, right? That was the warehouse, yeah. I know I've briefly mentioned it before, but we got a call from the gentleman who owns that warehouse, and he had a deal in place, actually, before the pandemic to sell everything to a couple people in California. And when the pandemic hit, they backed out of the deal. So he called me, and I got in contact with a couple friends. And we went down there, and we spent a day going through. And really fun, again, American Pickers-like adventure, which is awesome. Oh, man, I'm up at the lake, and my dad has cable up here. That means I can watch American Pickers tonight. Today just got a little bit better. You know that stage, right? I'm aware. Do you know that, like, Twilight Zone is not real, and then now we live in it? So maybe it is real, Taylor. I don't know. But anyway, it was really sad to see, like, because we were last there a little over two years ago, and just nothing had changed. Like he said, literally the only people in the building since then were these people from California who came to look, and they didn't take anything, but they wanted to assess what was there and make an offer.
    66:12
    And just the state of things has just gotten worse. There was a split second there that I was kind of, like, excited about initially being like, yeah, I remember we saw it there. It's really packed in the back. I don't know what the condition's like. Like, it was the most deteriorated game I've ever seen still standing.
    66:30
    If you looked at the front of the cabinet and the right side, it legitimately looked like a bear had taken a paw and just swiped out an entire portion of the cabinet.
    66:45
    But what had happened was it just sat there, and it was right near a hole in the ceiling, and water had continuously dripped on it. The wood rotted, decayed, and collapsed to the floor. And so that whole front right corner is missing probably like at least a foot, maybe 18 inches back on the right side. And, like, the coin door had fallen to the floor. And it was only staying up because there were so many games packed in there, it had nowhere to fall. Like, it was just packed in there. So it was a very interesting experience.
    67:17
    Again, really glad we got to go. We rescued roughly 20 games out of the place. We rented a 26-foot truck this time because we knew what we were getting into at least. We were probably there 12 hours moving stuff just to be able to get to the things we wanted.
    67:34
    But so much of it we just realized was completely beyond repair, especially for the values that he still thinks these things are worth. There was a flash Gordon that literally the entire lower play field was filled with a mouse nest. which like that's a pretty big play field you know what i mean yeah um and my buddy was still offering like more than i would have but his whole idea was like well there's hard tops you know but i think he was offering like five or six hundred and the guy was still like no that's nine hundred dollars easy and he was like the mice nest like i don't know if they chewed the wires he's like oh mice don't do that and they don't he's like what about like all the pee and the poop he's like they don't pee where they make their beds their nests and it was like i don't think it was just like I would not touch that with a 10-foot pole. Yeah, and I wouldn't either. But his whole idea was like, I mean, it was genuinely like, we're trying to get these games out of here. Like, what could be saved? Because who knows if anyone else is going to get to go back in there. And it was two years between when he called us, or when we first met the guy and when he called us back to come in.
    68:35
    Now, how did you meet him again? It was through a really weird online ad for a specific game. and I it was just the way it was written it was an ad that I think a lot of people would ignore but my theory was like okay this is just an old person because it was it was basically here's the game here's what it's worth here's what I'm asking call between these hours if you don't call then I won't answer leave a message if you don't leave a message I won't call I know what I have you know that that sort of thing very short and to the point but like my whole theory was I think this He's just an older person who doesn't use the Internet a lot, and that's exactly what it was.
    69:17
    Like, really nice guy. He explained to us multiple times he got screwed over a couple times as a kid. Like, literally as a kid. Like, I think he had a silver dollar that was worth more money, and the lady at the store basically took advantage of him by taking that instead of his dollar bill. You know, that sort of thing. He's going to hold on to that rat's nest. He's remembered it his whole life. Like, he just doesn't want to get screwed on something. He sold a jukebox to a guy for like $500 that ended up being worth like $3,000, something like that. You know, he's got a few deals where people took advantage of him. And we showed him the games we had initially pulled out and how they were restored and how we still had them. And that's our intent, which I think helped us. But at the same time, you know, the way the pinball market is going, I thought it would have collapsed during all this, and it hasn't by any means. So, you know, maybe the dude's right, and maybe there are people out there who would pay that, but we're still looking at it from the vantage point of, like, I'm not just buying this game to pull it out of here and then flip it, non-working like it sits. It was, this is the game I want for my personal collection, and I want to restore it, or it's a game that I think deserves, like, to be saved, and somebody will want to save this. but there was like three got leave volcanoes um seven baby packs in variety of conditions um three jungle lords two mars god of war like you know just not very high dollar games to begin with yeah not really desirable games and then every almost every mpu is just destroyed because they've been sitting there since anywhere from the 80s up till i think he says last arcade closed in like 2008.
    71:02
    Wow. So at a minimum, they've been sitting there 12 years. Wow. It was interesting. Now, you've gotten parts from him before. Did you get any parts this time? No, there was no parts. This was all just full stuff. But did you get parts before? Not from this guy. Okay. Yeah. Somebody else. Yeah, you're thinking of someone else on that one. Because you had the envelopes. The envelopes. That was just a random. Yeah, I bought a couple of play fields that a guy had advertised online, and he gave me all this stuff. Oh, that's right. I think I have that envelope sitting in a drawer for you somewhere. That's okay. But, yeah, it was, again, a really fun experience. I got to go with some really good friends and spend a day going through a warehouse, hearing old stories of what arcades were like, you know, back through the 70s, 80s, and so on. Just a cool experience that I don't think that is going to be super commonplace for a lot of people. No. because those things are just dying off, like those places have been bought out or they've completely gone into ruin, which is where this one is headed.
    72:06
    But that was a fun day, man. And I pulled out a No Fear and a Johnny Mnemonic. I got the No Fear, you know, just cleaned up and everything repaired on it, and I sold that to a local guy. And then I just finished up the Johnny Mnemonic last week. Complete teardown, shop out, rebuild of everything. and it's on location right now.
    72:31
    I really like that game. I'm like beyond, I know we like always say, oh, I'm out of space, but like I'm so far out of space because I kind of was like stacking up extra games for the pinball marathon because there's always 20 games at the bar and we were going to make sure we had 25 there for the tournament. So I had like these extra games I was going to bring down there for that week or then kind of sell them afterwards, but then we didn't have that tournament and I've got games everywhere right now. How many games do you have right now? I think like 36. God damn, Tommy. Yeah. It's bad, man. Remember like – I was down to three at one point. You were down to three. What did you keep? I had Baywatch.
    73:14
    Creature. Probably did, yeah. Probably Creature, Baywatch, and James Bond. That sounds right. Yeah. It was – Man, it escalated. And I had so much time to work on things and do stuff. And now it becomes really hard because it's like I did the play field swap on Skateball.
    73:36
    Yeah. And then I did the hard top in the cabinet on Frontier. I like Frontier like ten times more than I like Skateball. But, like, they're both so nice now. And, like, I can't just go somewhere and play Skateball. Like, I can sell an Iron Maiden and I can drive to a bar nearby and play an Iron Maiden. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. but it's also a really great game like that's the problem with like not really separating my whole hobbyist side uh and my operator side because it's like oh man i really enjoy these things like so much like the aerobatics i was like ah you know the back glass is all broken on that one it's taped together but it doesn't actually look that bad the play field's really nice cabinets really nice and i was like oh maybe you know i've got enough ems i'll just sell this thing and then I set it up to make sure it was all working um after moving it from Michael's house uh because he did all the work on it and I play like a game on it and I'm like that was kind of fun and then I play like a couple more games and then like I know I played it for like three hours straight and I was like I can't sell this like where the hell else am I gonna play this literally at Pinberg like once a year that's crazy so I just don't know I think I'm gonna have to do like I know a lot of arcades and bars have been renting out games I just need to be like hey Hey, pal, how would you like to borrow a game indefinitely until I figure out what the hell I'm doing? So, I don't know, man. I've got too many games right now. You have 36 games. Well, yeah, but that includes, like, some of my projects, too. But they still take up space, so that's part of it.
    75:06
    Like, Stargazer that I've been working on, like, I'm so close to being done on that. I just literally have to, like, basically run the wire for the cabinet power. Yeah. Like, and I just haven't done it because I'm like, even if I finish it, where am I going to put this thing? Like, I don't want to leave it in the garage. Like, I've got the play field in the head inside the house because I don't want them out there in the heat and humidity. Yeah.
    75:29
    So, I'm like, if I finish this, I put it all together out here and it works. It's like, then I got to, like, tear it all apart down to move it somewhere. And I don't know where it's going yet. So, I've just been putting that one off.
    75:39
    Yeah, man. It's been, it's, that's my stress. What do I do with all these pinballs? I need to just tell the school, like, hey, I'm just setting up, like, a bunch of pinball machines in my classroom because, I mean, you don't care if I die. I might as well have fun while I'm here. Just tell them it's your coffin. Yeah. Stick me one of these when you're done.
    75:56
    Let's see. I rebuilt the flippers on Fishtails, Congo, Flash Gordon, Fathom. You rebuilt the flippers on Fathom already? um so i don't know if there was just a bad batch or what but both fathom and my flash gordon i have uh linear flipper bats in there and the little linkage part um it wasn't welded it was like crimped together and the crimps just broke on them so i had like flipper droop oh and there's nothing that drives me more insane than flipper droop i'm really particular about flippers like they are important they are they're very important yeah and like i recognize that most of my location players probably like wouldn't care a whole lot or notice at my place i'm not like real pinhead heavy very casual spot but it drives me insane like you've spoiled them well it drives yeah they don't even know this well but they are like flash gordon fathom specifically because i feel like a dead bounce is so important and yeah mine were like getting hit and the football would drop and the ball wouldn't really bounce over and that was just driving me insane so anyway yeah i went through and rebuilt all those what else did i do uh the johnny mnemonic that took me like a solid week to get through all that just waiting on the different parks to come in from different places um so i bought i bought an arcade that was yeah oh you bought an arcade game i bought a nintendo play choice 10 um i don't know if you've you probably remember those when they came out yeah uh yeah but basically it's a arcade two-player it's set up like a nes controller and it plays nes games but on an arcade um nintendo and you can have up to like 10 of them in there at once and when you would pay for like a quarter when this was in the mall or the bar back in the day it basically buys you five minutes and you could like try out games and determine what you wanted to buy for home or whatever um i really liked the idea it was local it was cheap it needed a little bit of work i tried to do that work i failed so i actually brought it up to a arcade repair guy i know up here near the lake house and he's got it right now i dropped it off to him last night we we masked up we socially distanced ourselves but he's taking a look at that he'll get that fixed up for me but uh it just kind of sounded like something cool and i had been working a ton so i had some extra money to blow i don't know now Where are you going to put that? Ideally, I would like to operate that. I think specifically because it has a light gun with it. So you can do duck hunt. Right, right, right. And it's got Tecmo Bowl on it. It's got the Mario Brothers games on it. Yeah. That could be really well. I can see people playing that quite a bit in the bar, actually. Yeah. That would be a Tecmo Bowl. Can you set the timer so how long people get? Five minutes is a long time. Yeah, yeah. I think typically they were set between three to five minutes, but there's a ton of dip switches adjusting the time.
    78:56
    But, yeah, I don't know. We'll see. I'm going to try it out there. Why not experiment with an arcade thing as well? It's like one of the cool – I thought that was a really cool arcade system just for what it was, and I never had a Nintendo as a kid. I remember my babysitter had a Nintendo, and I would play Duck Hunt with her, and I don't remember much else about it, but I remember enjoying Duck Hunt. So it's on there. That sounded cool to me, too. I played a lot of Nintendo. Yeah, see? That makes sense. I was Sega Genesis. That was my thing.
    79:26
    But, yeah, just doing some different things like that. I dove into some YouTube rabbit holes. Again, my sleep schedule has been so weird. So when I've had nights off, I still can't sleep, especially if it were so because I didn't work. So I'm not tired at all.
    79:41
    What rabbit hole are you going down YouTube? Or do I – I don't want to know. I went down, like, retro arcade stuff. Like things that I'm not usually into.
    79:52
    I tried to watch some more pinball things like Rick and Morty from Spooky Pinball. I mean, I mentioned to Joe Zankas a few times, like I forgot we both ordered those. I'm like way down on the list, but I've been able to play it at Main Street. I'm actually really enjoying it.
    80:10
    Yeah, like it's I think it's very fun. It's very hard, brutal, but like amazing theme integration, light show. the shots are all makeable but it's not easy so anyway I've been trying to find some streams of that and I've been like hearing all the streamers getting red flag for copyright stuff so different things like that but yeah just watching some gameplay footage of some pinball machines watched oh man last night or not last night last week I went to watch Friday the 13th I have mentioned I know several times my favorite horror series, I still think it would make an amazing pinball machine, but I went to watch them on the Shudder streaming service, which is like a horror movie, horror themed streaming service, and they were no longer on there, they've moved to Amazon Prime, which works out, but there was a documentary called like Crystal Lake Memories, and I was like, oh, what's this about, and it's like, oh, it's documentary explaining like interviewing cast members, and the making of all the Friday the 13th movies, and I didn't really like pay attention, other than like that brief description, and I was like, oh, I'll watch this. I like documentaries. I'm interested in hearing the history of this. It's literally an eight to eight and a half hour documentary, I think, or seven to eight hour documentary where they cover each film individually with different cast members from each film and their experience in making the movies and how they were getting made and why they kept making them because of how profitable they were and the time period. It was really interesting, but the next thing I knew, I literally binged it all in one night. I just went there from like 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. when I started it, and then it was like 6.30 a.m., and Alyssa was going to soccer practice, and I was like, all right, see you. I'm going to finish this last hour up and go to bed. Yeah.
    81:53
    And then I haven't been playing as much pinball all night because I didn't want to wake her up because her sleep schedule has been all messed up because of mine. So I've been trying to be nice and not play as much pinball in the house at night. There's a streamer channel called The Hurry Up Challenge. they stream as maybe HUP maybe it's a hurry up challenge on Twitch no the HUP challenge on Twitch and they just they did Rick and Morty oh nice yeah I watched oh man Fox Cities Pinball has been streaming it the last couple days okay I've been watching it yes Tom Is he playing on a location or does he have one? He got one. He just picked it up right around 4th of July.
    82:44
    Dan posted another code update, came out for that today. So, yeah, I see the Hup crew. Oh, they're a Pittsburgh-based group, I see. They're out of Pittsburgh. They played Frontier at Kickback Cafe five days ago. Look at that. Yeah, I still can't get over how much I like Frontier. That's just such a really, really enjoyed that one. I played that at replay and maybe somewhere else as well, and I really liked that game. Yeah, it's a winner. It's a keeper.
    83:16
    Oh, that was back to, like, jumping around. Out of the Kentucky warehouse, I was able to pull out a, like, complete beater Harlem Globetrotters, but that works out really well because, as you know, I already have a really nice Harlem Globetrotters. Yeah. But I just picked up today from Mr. Ron Kruseman my Geiger Space Rider play field with this insanely beautiful clear coat job on it. So I have another swap to do. Two people have now completed Space Rider builds. Yeah. That's really nice. Chuck Webster and Jim Martin. So there's one over on the East Coast and there's one out in Vegas. and I believe I ended up selling one to a person who's a member of the VFW Pinball Hall of Fame up here in Michigan with Clay Harrell, and they are supposed to be starting their build on theirs this week from what I've been told. Oh, nice. So it's been really cool to see this project that actually those got delivered a year ago today, I think. Wow, really? Yeah, I honestly think so. Like they came to you a year ago? Yeah. Okay. I think that was today. wow I'm trying to that was like two episodes ago for us yeah definitely record like every six months uh that's okay but yeah so it's cool to see that two of those have been uh put together and assembled within a year and like that was my whole intention of like getting those play fields out of where they were at and letting them see the light of day so that's really awesome now that I think about that I'm happy so you went up to Cruisman's yeah I spent about two hours around Cruisman today. Again, I cannot recommend enough. If you have a game that you know is a keeper for you, and you want it to be perfect to get your play field to that guy, every time I go there, he's got, you know, the compound, he calls it, it's his workshop. He's got a decent, like, not like a huge property or anything, but he's got like an outbuilding that is just literally dedicated to his play field restoration and clear coating business. And it's just, I love pinball play fields. I think we've mentioned this before. I think they're just the coolest artwork. I'd rather hang play fields in my house than paintings or posters if I could.
    85:32
    He had a new old stock Flight 2K play field there today, which was really cool to see. He was working on a new old stock Dolly Parton play field right when I got there. um he had currently had in the spray booth a big lebowski that he's doing for someone um he had a wow because mirko has run indiana jones he has like an entire indiana jones section i think there was like five mini play fields and five full play fields uh holy shit it's i mean he probably has just in his shop like in the process of being done like close to 40 to 50 play fields, I'd say. What's his humidity like there?
    86:17
    I mean, he's like, I mean, at this point, he's doing stuff where he can spray. I mean, he's built, like, a professional spray booth for the spraying aspect of it.
    86:26
    Yeah. And so I don't know the details to that, but. See, that's the thing with the rails. Like, the margin is just not there to do that kind of stuff. Like. Yeah. I mean, if I did something like that, I would never make the money back. and and realistically like you know i don't think uh ron's exactly swimming in cash he's very much an artist and a perfectionist yeah he sent me pictures before right around right before fourth of july of my space rider and uh i thought it looked amazing it was like great man i'm coming up for the fourth you know he you're not far away i can swing by and pick it up and that was like the rough plan and then you know we got to that weekend he's like tommy i'm sorry like i found a couple small imperfections and I just don't think the clear is quite built up enough for me like I'm not comfortable having you take this yet let me yeah let me keep it a little longer and yeah it keeps it another month and I pick it up and for me you know it looks it's amazing but like I would have I have been 100 satisfied how it probably was yeah like I don't think there are things that I would notice but they're things that really bother him and he makes sure like he's satisfied with he would want to put it in his machine before it goes to a customer.
    87:41
    It's really impressive to see. And, again, like with anything, you like to see people who are very good, whatever it is they do, do that stuff, and it works out well. But this thing just looks great. It's cool to see his process and how he's doing on all that stuff. So I enjoyed spending some time, and him and I had similar conversations to what you and I started with, discussing the world today and the pandemic and looking at cool artwork on play fields that he's got. So I'm trying to think what else he had in there that was really cool right now. I don't know. There's a few things in there, but just neat stuff. He's got some Rick and Morty play fields there that he's doing for Spooky's customers, like people who request to send it to him, and then he sends it back to Spooky to be assembled, some stuff like that. So he's very highly regarded for what he does, and he's just a fun guy to talk to. I was going to try and get an interview in, and the next thing you know we were just shooting the shit, and it wasn't all pinball related. Anyway, he's a good dude, good stuff. I'm really excited. I've got three of his play fields to somehow get installed over the next however long it takes.
    88:47
    That's awesome, man. Yeah, I've seen his work. I finally saw his work in person, and it was pretty impressive. Oh, yeah, did you see The Lady Death? Yeah. No, I have not seen that one in person. Oh. I did not see that one in person. But I've seen pictures of it because I made rails for that one. Yeah. No, I mean, it's like I think about the amount of work that guy's getting because I get a lot of orders for rails, and, you know, people will let me know, like, hey, Ron's got my play field, blah, blah, blah. And so I just think about the amount of time that goes into what he's doing. It's crazy with the amount of work he's getting. and he's got a good turnover from what I've heard. Like I haven't heard a lot of complaints about that. You know, if you go back to like – Yeah, it's not like doing it at home. It's not your automotive body shop. I mean, that's – when people ask, you know, what the difference is and like why his play fields don't dimple, he simply says it's because it's the time thing. He couldn't possibly do a mass production setup because he literally sprays clear coat and he lets it sit for two weeks before he does anything to it. Yeah. I mean, that's just, and he does that anywhere from eight to 12 coats. Like, it builds up. It's over time. You know, when you send something to him, it's going to be gone for months. But when it comes back to you, it's not going to be like the other things. I have, you know, I definitely haven't talked about this since we recorded. I bought a Voltan Cosmic Doom play field from CPR. Yeah. Because I love that artwork. And after I built Stargazer, mostly, of the way at least, in my mind, I was like, well, fuck, that wasn't as hard as I thought it'd be. I could do that again. And Bolton's one of those ones that just, it's pretty high value, but you just don't see it come up very often. They made like 200 of them, I think, something like that, 300 maybe. Yeah, 365 actually, something like that. Anyway. Tommy sent me pictures of his play field. It's sick. Oh, yeah. I did like an Instagram photo shoot for the play field when I got back to the lake. I just wanted to send that to you. It's like that one where it looks like it's all sky, that's literally just reflection. Yeah, that's nuts. It's insane how clear it is.
    90:58
    Boy, that's beautiful. Yeah, I know. Beautiful stuff. But what was it? Oh, so I've got Centaur and Lady Death that were done by Kuzman, and then I've got the CPR Voltron, which the artwork on it looks great, like the quality. It's the best-looking CPR I've gotten. It's also, like, the first CPR I've bought in, like, when it was made.
    91:19
    And now that it's been sitting there for about two months next to the other two, I can see how much the clear has shrank and, like, how the inserts are edging a little bit, and I can see some of the wood grain. and I look at the ones that I got from Cruiseman and the Lady Death is obviously an old ass German Clayfield but then the Centaur is a CPR and that he's recoded and like there's just no shrinkage of the clear coat like nothing has changed on those since I picked it up from them whereas I can see what's happening to the vault on one so I told Ron today I was like yeah you know next time I'm coming up or I have some room in my car when I come up I'll pack that up and bring it to you because if that is a game that I do build it's like I might as well spend the extra money on it and make sure it's one that's going to last forever. That's the whole point.
    92:03
    If you're looking to restore and flip games and make a business out of it, not worth it if you're doing it because you want – in my mind, it's really cool if I can build a game like that and just add one that exists to the registry of the games in the world. There are not a lot of people who are doing play fields. No, not at all. They quit. I know they were pretty highly regarded, and they did a little bit of a larger mass production thing there. Yeah. But I know they retired, I think, this year or last year.
    92:39
    Yeah, I thought it was last year. And then HEP doesn't really take on just play field work. No. Captain Neo. Captain Neo, yeah, he does good stuff. He's out of the Wisconsin area, Chicago area.
    92:51
    And he wasn't taking work for a while. Like, I think I saw recently that he started taking work. I mean, like, if you have a play field, and if you have a play field, even a reproduction, and you have the opportunity to get somebody to clear it, I just don't see how that doesn't add value. It's an investment in the future of that game. Because even if you don't install it, somebody else will. And the fact, like, we could get to the point where, I mean, picking up something like playfield restoration is not something most people do.
    93:33
    Now, I do know, I mean, there are some good people. There's a guy, Dr. No out of Canada, who does really nice work. but there's just not there's not a lot of people doing playfield restoration like on a professional level and so like yeah if you if you have if you have an in to like being able to get into somebody's queue just to get the work done it's pretty much worth it because i yeah i've seen a lot of i've seen a lot of playfields like reproduction playfields that had issues developing to clear. Yeah. My skateball's got pretty heavy wood draining in it. And that's not necessarily a big knock on people who are producing a play field because it does happen. It's part of the process. Yeah. And some can argue it's completely unnecessary to clear coat a play field. Exactly. I just think that if you're going to have a play field that might just be sitting for a long time Like just getting that clear, getting the clear read done while there are people who are doing it, it's worth looking into. I strongly agree. Definitely agree. So which product do you think you'll jump into first?
    94:51
    Honestly, with school going back next week, I think these things are all going to sit here until school's shut down again. In like five days. It could be very quick or it could be, you know, hopefully, ideally best case, somehow science is defied and people don't get sick and schools stay open and things are okay. That would be amazing I would love that If that happens then maybe I get to it next summer at your school so what are the guidelines for our listeners what are the guidelines for going back to school at your school I will it's it's changed um four times in the last two weeks I gotta open the newest one because I haven't even finished reading it yet uh it just came I think today.
    95:40
    So it may have changed. Yeah. So initially masks were not required except on the bus and during passing periods.
    95:52
    So not in the class. Not in the classroom. And then how many students do you have in your class? In my class, I'm very fortunate. I'm limited to 15 kids because it's the alternative school setting. Right. And the state as part of our grant that provides this program, requires that you only have that many kids in there. So I'm very fortunate when it comes to that.
    96:15
    But still, 15 kids in a classroom is not a lot of social distancing. It's not, but I'm also fortunate. My classroom is the old band room. So for me, I'm set up fairly well, minus the way the desks are sitting. The kids wouldn't be facing each other. They'd be side by side in their computer desk. So there's a little more space than like your average desks. So, okay, arrivals, schools, kids all have to enter through a specific door.
    96:43
    There's three doors. No, that's insane. Temperature check is bullshit anyway. Yes, we have like 900 kids, so there's no way. And we're a small school with 900 kids. Well, Indiana goes up to 6A, we're 3A. So we're like right in the middle. Now, is it your school? Is your school district starting or is this specifically your school starts? School district. Okay. Yeah. So you have larger schools. Indianapolis schools already went back this week and they've already had cases popping up. Social distancing is encouraged at all times.
    97:17
    Hey, guys. Desks should face forward and be spaced out three to six feet. Teachers will use face masks.
    97:25
    But students don't? In the classroom, masks are preferred to be used when in close proximity to students. Hand sanitizer in all classrooms. Students will not share materials. Required in the hallways, face masks and during the lunch line while getting food. We went from having three lunches, so it would be roughly 300 kids per lunch, to having four lunches. So you're down to like 230 kids per lunch, 225 kids per lunch.
    97:56
    Um, limit bathroom breaks. There you go. How does that work? I don't know. Just pee your pants? I guess.
    98:05
    Um. Does that make, that makes no sense. Now, so, you guys can. PE classes will only dress when necessary. Lockers will be used at the start of the school day, lunchtime, and at the end of the school day. Well, that's going to be interesting because kids aren't allowed to have backpacks because then they can hide a gun to shoot people. So, I don't know how kids are going to have their materials all day. um no visitors to the building masks uh yes so on the 27th our governor required masks for the state on the 28th or 29th he eliminated the criminal penalty for it and then on the 30th they basically were just back like masks are just recommended and that's when my school once again eliminated the masks i had an email three days before this one that says masks are required for everyone because of the governor's new order, and then we got rid of that again. So in your classroom, you could have kids three feet apart without masks on?
    99:06
    Yep. Okay, listen. That is going absolutely against everything that we know as of right now about COVID-19. And again, I'm fortunate. it like my room is pretty big and I have a smaller amount of kids but like a regular classroom in my building like no they're screwed but just think but think about this like say you have like okay say in your classroom you have two kids who have it who are asymptomatic and they're just in there and or their symptoms are slight enough that they're like because I think the thing that's going to be really tricky is that, okay, you're now going to have, okay, so now you have a bunch of people who have been quarantined for four or five months. So they're, they're immune. You assume they followed the quarantine. Well, right. But right. But like, but like your immune system has now like been weakened by the simple fact that you haven't been around people with germs. You've been watching, like you've removed all those things that give you an immunity to other things. I mean, think about like every time you go back to, so my kids always get sick after like Christmas, right? So all these kids, one, you're inside, but all these kids like go to their different separate ways for Christmas or Easter or Thanksgiving or Thanksgiving. And then they come back from winter break. And then you get a bunch of kids who get sick because they pick up whatever germs from their gross cousins and they bring them back to school where nobody has, you know, there's no community immunity like that's a problem that that's something like i have not seen that being addressed as like you have a community immunity right so like if you have a school you might have some outbreaks of like colds and stuff but generally speaking like the school will stay healthy as long as like you kind of like all stay together right her immunity um but so not we had schools in our in our region closed this past year before all this just from the regular flu. Oh, wow. Because they had over a third of the students out sick.
    101:22
    So, like, yeah. Oh, yeah, I did hear about that. And we already had sub shortages, where, like, in our building, we couldn't get subs, so, like, teachers had to cover other teachers' classrooms, and that was before we were required to quarantine for 72 hours if we had a fever. They should require a face mask for all kids going forward. I just got a survey uh emailed to us today since we've been recording i filled it out a staff reopening survey was emailed today what do you agree with the plan what should be different i said mass should be required at all times yeah we also got an email sorry i'm not checked my school email real regularly but this one came two days ago child care options for western employees before school after school and in the event of a long-term closing please be aware of what our options are It's like just an information sheet. So it's like they know it's coming. Oh, yeah. It's just insane. Now, yeah.
    102:23
    Oh, and this is a good one. So I teach, obviously, again, we've mentioned the alternative class. My kids are working on online classes, could be a variety of classes through a company, right? And that's what we've used for the five years I've been there. I just got emailed last week that we're switching to a new online school company and that I have to do training in it. And I said, okay, I'm working nights. Just let me know what day and I'll set alarms and I'll do the training. And then I got emailed back, the company doesn't feel comfortable providing in-person training. It'll have to be online. And then I got emailed back again a couple days after that that said, the company doesn't have anyone available to provide the training, but here's the link to their website with some tutorial videos. So I'm walking in with, like, just no idea what the software is that my kids are using this year, what classes are available, et cetera. So it's not safe enough for them to come and teach you the software to teach your kids, but it's safe enough for you to go back and teach your kids. Yep. That is crazy. That's a private company versus a public school. Yeah. It's crazy. Pretty interesting. So I've had some laughs over that over the last week. But fortunately, I'm a little bit of a – stress doesn't get to me as much, I guess. Like, I think this all sucks and it's, like, going to be a clusterfuck, but I'm like, whatever. Whereas, like, Alyssa's freaking out about going back to school because a lot of her job entails dealing with the mental health of students. Oh, man. And they're, like, super deprived of resources to begin with. Yeah. And she's just really concerned about how all of this is going to impact kids because as many people are probably aware, as you're sending your kid to the school now, and yes, schools are back open, but like I was just reading through my plan, they have to only use these two doors to come in the building. They can only go to their locker twice a day. Like they can't face each other in desks. Like it's going to be very different. Oh, it's going to be so – so I mean like you've gone out. way more than I have. I mean, you've gone on like cross country trips, but yeah. Like, so I will say like, I remember the first time I went to like get gas or something, like I was stressed out because I've just like, you're, you're just kind of like so hyper focused about not getting anything. Like, it's just like, where, where are people around me? Like, I don't know, maybe kids don't care. I mean, I think kids are, I mean, think about when you were a kid, dude, I was invincible. I don't know about you, but like nothing was ever going to harm me in any way. I do feel like, I do feel like kids understand more. I think that kids understand more than we're giving them credit for. I mean, I know that my kids are very aware of it are, um, yeah. I mean, neither of them felt comfortable with the idea of going back to school. Remember the whole conversation we started with where, like, half the country doesn't believe in this? Yes. I got bad news. That half of the country fucks and reproduces a lot more than the other half of the country. Wow. And then they tell their kids that same shit, and then they send them to school where I'm at. So at one point in these four revisions of the school plan, they had changed it so that teachers could require masks in their classrooms. Yeah, I remember you saying that. Yeah. And now that's gone. That's gone now. But they also, when they did put that in there, they didn't really, like, deal with that fact. It was a statement. But, like, when you make that statement now, and I put that rule in place for my classroom, what happens when Johnny shows up without a mask?
    106:06
    Well, I'm the only teacher who teaches what I teach, so that kid can't go to another teacher's room and do what he's supposed to do with me. Right.
    106:14
    You now send him to another teacher who, or, like, suddenly, you know, half the English department requires masks. Half of them don't. All these kids are trying to transfer into the teachers that don't require masks. So now that classroom is even more overcrowded with kids not wearing masks. Like what are they what are they telling you as far as like so if you have a kid in your class who has symptoms, not I mean, like not not test, but like say you have a kid at school who develops a fever right in the middle of your class. I need to go to the clinic. What do you do as a teacher and what does your class do? Students and employees should be excluded from school if they test positive for COVID-19 or exhibit one or more of the symptoms of COVID-19 based on the CDC guidance that is not otherwise explained. Attendance. No matter what learning option a student takes, they will need to be present for each day slash class session to be counted present. reverse city remote and virtual handbook which i still haven't even received um but so like if you have a kid so that's all i'm seeing that's but if you have a kid test positive or if you have a kid who has symptoms because so since the schools in indianapolis already opened and they've already had kids test positive yeah they are doing the contact tracing and the school will call you within 24 hours if your student spent 15 minutes or more within six feet of that student. If you don't get a call, your student did not spend six feet,
    107:51
    more than 15 minutes within six feet of that student. But what about, what about, so does that child have to test positive or does that child have to just be a presumptive positive? I don't have those details here. You know what I mean, though? Because, like, if it takes four days to get, if it takes four days for you to get a test back, then tracing is pointless. Yeah. I know in one of these plans that we've gotten through these different revisions, it said even if you have a fever, you can't come to school for 72 hours. Right. But then it didn't really address, like, okay, so I can't come to work. Do I have to use my sick days for that?
    108:35
    Right. It's not a sick day. It's not necessarily a sick day because, like – I mean, like, I feel good. Like, I'll come. Like, I don't know. So there's just a lot of really unanswered questions.
    108:49
    I'm just staying calm and taking it day by day, see what happens. In my classroom, I'm going to wear a mask at all times. Yeah. And I will be able to socially distance myself from my students pretty easily.
    109:03
    I got to learn how to use this new software. but previous software, they could send me messages from whatever lesson they were working on. And I'm assuming this company would have something similar built in. So ideally, like, I never have to have them talk to me at all just because of the risk. Like, I would love to be able to communicate safely with my students and build a bond and help them with whatever they need help with. But at this time, to me, it's like, stay at your desk, send me an email or send me a message through the software, and I will reply to you. So basically they're in a building, but they're doing virtual learning with you. With my program, yes. Now, as ironic as that sounds, it would be like, wow, it sure makes sense that you could do this online. When we switched to online, as the school shut down this past spring, you have to realize that I have the alternative kids that don't come from the greatest homes at times. Right. And over the last eight weeks of school, out of my 23 students, only six of them even logged in.
    110:04
    Yeah, I think so. Like when school got out for them, like they didn't even remotely try to do anything at home.
    110:11
    So that's that's the bad thing. Whereas like when I've been in the building with kids, I've had very positive results because I stay on their case until they do the work. But when all I can do is like tell you that I have a Zoom meeting set up for one hour in the morning. hope to see you there and send you nagging emails. It's really easy to ignore those if you just don't log into your school stuff, which is what my kids did. Yeah. I mean, my kids, I mean, our learning, like they went virtual and it was kind of like they came out, our county came out and basically said it's all going to be reviewed. Nothing's going to count. Your grades are going to reflect only the time you were in school. And so my kids were just like, well, why are we going to like just do a bunch of review? You know, it was like, this is boring. And then at some point they decided the same thing. Like it didn't count towards a grade. They told them that that didn't count towards a grade,
    111:10
    but they were started to like, then they started to send more work. And my kids were just like, they're sending so much work because it was just like, it just seemed like overloaded. I don't, I don't know. But they just, you know, they lost interest pretty quick. And I think that in speaking to their teachers and they're like in the gifted program and talking to their teachers or teachers like, yeah, it's just really difficult to connect with kids. You know, and then at the same time, it's like you have families who, you know, they're not necessarily, you know, they may not be going to work, but it doesn't necessarily mean that they're not like being emotionally or mentally affected by what's going on either. It's like it's really tough to sit down like in the middle of a pandemic and like focus on school when you're like, I don't know. Does this even matter? Does this matter? I don't know. I mean, I don't you know, the idea of like opening up schools to help the economy is like I don't I that I don't understand, like why nobody explains it to certain leaders that if we shut down successfully, then we can open schools. You know, the problem is we never shut down successfully. So now we are where we are. So now opening schools is a threat to teachers and other students. It's like, you know, if you really wanted to open schools, you should have like made that message clear early on. Like if we socially distance and we wear a mask, we will be able to go back to some level of normalcy, sooner than later. And that is what has happened in other countries.
    112:42
    So it's not like, oh, we don't know that that's what happened. That is what has happened in other countries.
    112:48
    Like, we did it wrong. We failed. We fucked up. Well, man, I'll tell you, like, Kristen and I, we talked about it. She asked me about it the other day when you were going back, And I told her, I was like, he's going back in a week. I don't think the students need to wear a mask. And she was just like, if Tommy wants to come and live with us in the basement, you're welcome to come and live with us in our basement. I was like, I don't think Tommy needs to come and live with us.
    113:17
    But, yeah, it's scary, man. It's scary. I hope you, yeah, I hope you guys are all safe. And Tommy is no longer there. I've lost Tommy.
    113:34
    I lost Tommy. Well, let me see if I can find Tommy. Oh, there's Tommy. Tommy's back, but I can see him. I can't hear him.
    114:02
    This is the classic call gets dropped. Tommy comes back. Tommy, see, Tommy can hear me, but I can't hear Tommy because Tommy did something with his computer.
    114:14
    Oh, no, there you are. I can hear you. All right. I didn't do anything. I did. Once you couldn't hear me, I unplugged my microphone and plugged it back in. Okay. Did you hear what I was saying about what my wife said about you coming to live with us? Yeah, I said I'm going to come. You get a knock at 3 a.m. on the door. It's just me. so don't worry about it. I'll bring a pinball machine or two. What do you want me to bring?
    114:35
    Bring, oh, man, you've got so many good games. I know. Bring Fathom. I figured. And, oh, man, I don't know. Bring Fathom and then is Centaur done? No. No, not even close. Shit, Fathom. I can bring that and we can work on it. It'll be a fun project. No, no, no. I don't want to be your buddy. I've got some sweet white Reese rails to install on that thing. Those are going to look slick, dude. I'm pretty excited about that.
    115:10
    Bring Fathom and bring Frontier. That's a good choice. That would be awesome. I respect that, yeah. Tommy will show up. Tommy will get in his car, and he will head this way. And knock on the door. Dude, like, not joking. So, like, I realize Pinnberg was scheduled earlier this year, but like this past weekend felt like it should have been pinberg to me that's what it's been the last like five years yeah always like my birthday weekend and what was my birthday my birthday was i turned 35 on thursday last week freaking baby dude i know i'm so young um but like legit the day before it was just like what do you want for your do for your birthday or whatever and i'm like i'm not big on birthdays but 35 feels like somewhat significant for some reason and like a global pandemic and surviving it and whatnot but i was like i honestly i just really want a steak sandwich from Pittsburgh. It's, like, so bad. And I had a trip that was canceled early in the pandemic due to the pandemic, and I had, like, some credit on an airline. And I, like, looked up what it would cost to fly to Pittsburgh so I could just get a sandwich and fly back. Oh, my gosh. And it was, like, it was, honestly, the cost was reasonable. Oh, sure. But the fact of, like, the travel time and the layovers, it was going to take me 12 hours of travel and not counting like the getting to the airport two hours early thing and i was like i can really drive there and back faster and i would save a lot of money and then i was like please don't drive to pittsburgh and get a steak sandwich right now i was like okay i won't but i really wanted a steak they are good they are really good i didn't get my good barbecue in texas i didn't get my steak sandwich there was no pinball at the zoo and I have to blot all of those things out and just move on with life right now and get ready to go back to work. What do you think will be the first big tournament or show post-pandemic? I know that the Texas Pinball Festival is scheduled to take place in March. Yeah, they just announced that. I mean, realistically, Expo is in two months in October. That's not going to happen. They haven't canceled yet, but that's not going to happen.
    117:21
    Pinball at the Zoo is supposed to be in October. Not going to happen. I don't see that happening. And then I usually do wrestling season, and I check out until spring with the Texas Pinball Festival. So, I mean, realistically, that could be it. As you know, the IFPA is erring on the side of caution. As the state representative, we have a group of the state reps, And last time I had checked, roughly only 11% supported reopening. And they said they're waiting until that gets much, much higher before the IFPA will actually sanction events again.
    118:00
    Some people are obviously frustrated and annoyed with that. Tennessee quickly, once things reopened there, started hosting some tournaments. And after like two weeks, they had people test positive. So, you know, that's not a good sign. And I think they shut things back down. hence another part of the reason I didn't want to host the pinball marathon even as a non-IFPA event and don't get me wrong like I had people coming to that thing from all over the country people that I only see at pinball events but like are people that I really like and really wanted to see and it just it's just not worth it right now guys like no play local wear masks wash your hands sanitize if you have stuff at home stay at home and play it you know do what you can uh but yeah I can't foresee anything happening this year at the way things have gone. I just can't see it happening.
    118:52
    I don't – no big shows. I mean, like, locally, like, if you have areas that are able to – you know, like, if you look at what's going on in, like, the northeastern United States where they're – you know, they've got areas where they're starting to reopen. well the problem is though the places that are hot spots or whatever that couldn't have events would then be disadvantaged so basically the IFPA is kind of taking the stance of nothing's going to be safe well it couldn't be an IFPA I mean it couldn't be an IFPA thing so one thing that I think is going to be interesting is when pinball is when you're able to go out and play pinball like I will be interested to see if the competitive side of pinball, because I felt like that was kind of a big driving force, if that kind of is not as big as it was and it becomes more of a like big social thing, right?
    119:52
    Like I love Pinberg, but I would really love to go to a big pinball. I would love to go to replay effects and just play pinball with my friends and not worry about competing on it, like grinding out for four days. That's what the Texas Pinball Festival is for. Yeah, but Texas is, but yeah, but Texas, yeah, maybe that's what it is. And I did like, maybe that is what it is. I think Texas, Texas seems more like a trade show in some aspects. I think just because of the way that it's chopped up. I mean, it's like, certainly like I hung out. I mean, like, I hung out. I had a great time at Texas. I mean, it was a total social thing for me. I just feel like the way that it's set up and stuff, it doesn't feel like you're just like, you know, I mean, think about like Pinberg. Like, as soon as the tournament is done for most people on Friday and people are just hanging out, right? Like, it all of a sudden becomes a party more so than anything else.
    120:56
    Yeah, I agree. I don't know. I think it'll just be interesting. I mean, I personally, like, I think about, like, I miss playing with my friends. I don't want to go do a tournament. Like, I want to just go and I just want to have people over. I want to have people over. I want to hang out and have a beer. Like, I don't, like, even, like, posted something on Instagram about, like, I can't wait to, like, play dollar games. And I'm like, I don't care about playing dollar games. I just want to play. Like, I just want to, like, sit back, hang out with my friends, play pinball, and that's pretty much it. Just have like a very like chill pinball session. No competing per se. Just like hanging out with people you like doing stuff you like, you know.
    121:42
    Yeah, I get that. I mean, I just a return to normalcy would be nice. A return to normalcy would be really nice. I would I would go for that. Yeah, I don't see it happening. So just brace yourself. All right, man. Well, look, it was good touching base with you. And we will let's touch base soon and have a really great relaxing time at the lake, man. I've got two more days up here to completely enjoy. And then when does school start?
    122:14
    I think kids is August 12th. Okay. You start this week, right? I have to turn in some stuff and do some training stuff by Thursday. Wow. That's what I'll be when we're done recording here tonight. I'm going to figure out what I'm doing for dinner and then be doing some online training, et cetera, whatnot stuff, figuring all that out. But, yeah, I have to be in Sunday next week for sure. All right, man. Well, look, Tommy, be safe, man. Everybody out there, be safe.
    122:46
    Yeah, and sorry for the lack of pinball, guys, but it's what life is right now. So we'll do more pinball when there's more pinball. Yeah. Oh, what rumors? Hopefully we see Guns N' Roses soon. Yeah? I'm curious. Yeah.
    122:59
    What's Stern's next title? I got a feeling we will see Black Panther by Keith Elwin with Zombie Eddie artwork this fall.
    123:15
    Really? Late fall. That's my guess. Awesome. I'm very intrigued. I hope I'm right. I hope you're right, too. Zero evidence or proof that I'm right. Okay. But I hope that's right. That would be awesome. Yeah. I would look forward to, you know, I've said it online, on the air here before, if Keith has a game coming out, I will most likely buy that. Oh, yeah. So there we go. I hope that's what it is. I like that movie a lot. I think that's a huge franchise. I think it would open and attract a new demographic that isn't seen enough in pinball to pinball and it would be a really cool thing to have come out in 2020 based on everything that's going on in our country right now. So I think that would be great. All right, man. Until next time. Later. Later, man. Bye.
    124:18
    Thank you. Rebel Girl, Rebel Girl, Rebel Girl, you are the queen of my soul.
    125:48
    Let's go, if she's a queen, I'm saying, yeah, girl, I got news for you. She is. Let's go. She's a queen. Come on, let's go. Yeah, my best friend, yeah. Let me go. Let me get you out of here. Let me go. I can't get on with you. You're on my mind. Thank you. Transcription by CastingWords