Hey, thanks for tuning in to the Loser Kid Pinball Podcast. We are on episode 29. With me, as always, my co-captain, Scott Larson. Hey, Scott, how have you been doing? You know, it's been pretty busy. We're trying to get everything set up to head off to TPF. We are doing the Deep Root preview show beforehand. So just coordinated. I just bought my plane tickets, and so I am all in. I also closed out, and at the very end on my app, it had a little logo that said, hey, do you want to upgrade to first class? Nice. So I'm trying to figure out if it's worth upgrading to first class. I believe it's $200 for the round trip, which actually is pretty good. see the funny part is is we have an airport here in dinosaur land but it's like a puddle hopper so my first class is seriously just either the front of the bus or the end at the back of the bus and there's like eight seats on the thing so yeah what it reminds me of it did you ever watch the hunt for red october when he's flying out on that helicopter out in the middle of the the north sea or the the atlantic and he's just sitting there getting rattled to death that's exactly what i imagine you flying out of dinosaur land you know what man it's it's fun it's almost like a roller coaster those planes are so small that there's a lot of ups you go up really quick and you drop really quick just because the the wind pushes you uh but i'll fly into denver and then denver directly into dallas and i've got a nice surprise waiting for me there my father lives in oklahoma he's gonna come down and pick me up and he's gonna come to the convention for a little while, I guess. Nice. I wasn't expecting that. It was very nice of him wanting to do that. Yeah, no, that's cool. What have you been up to in pinball and stuff in the last couple weeks? You know, I still am on the hunt for Jurassic Park LE. One of our listeners actually just sent me a link, or sent you a link and you forwarded it to me since you were the loser kid on Pinside. He said that there's a lead on a distributor. I don't want to give it away because I don't want someone else staking it from me. That they are taking back a Leon trade. And so I appreciate the word, Alan, and we will follow up tomorrow and see what we can do on that one. Heck yes. I hope you get it. It's a beautiful machine. It really is. Well, see, at this point, it's not an if I get it. It's a when I get it. And if it's not that one, it will be another one. So I don't feel like I missed out. This is more of a let's figure out when is the right time to bring it in. Oh, I know exactly how you feel. I'm also that creak of not if, but when. But my hands are tied during this whole process of building a house. Yeah, but you have something to look forward to. So, yeah, it's and there are everybody has those Grail games that they want to get a hold of. And we have said it before that if there's a game you want out there, just hang around because eventually it will become available. We've said it before. If you have a Grail pin out there, just watch for it because eventually someone's going to shake up their collection and you can find it. I will have to move on a few pins. I've said it before. I feel like I've finished Shrek at least as much as I want, so I will be moving that along. It's a great family-friendly theme, but so is Jurassic Park, and so I'll be able to move that one out, find a new home for that one. And it's a fun game. It's not super deep, but it certainly has a lot of fun call-outs, which most humor in pinball really hasn't been around for about 20 years. So it's one of the rare ones that has a lot of humor in it. Well, and speaking of grail pins, last week I got a message from Kelly that's in our group up here in Salt Lake. And he's like, dude, I know you've been watching for Lord of the Rings. One just popped up. He sent me over the information. I texted the dude. The message, the ad hadn't even been up like 30 minutes. And someone already put a deposit down on it. I was like, oh, well, good luck. I hope you sell it. Yeah. How much were they selling it for? $5,400. Okay. Been in his house for nine years, and nothing had been done to it. So it could be one of those ones you pop the hood, and there could be either a headache or it could be just pristine, and you'd be happy with it. Yeah. That was how my Spider-Man was. I should have bought I told you this story before right where it popped up on KSL which is basically our local version of Craigslist here and I noticed it and I sent it to a guy who was interested in Lord of the Rings and then I thought huh I should have bought that this was way back in the day when I only had one pin so he went and checked it out and yeah it was someone who was divorced and it was her ex-husband's pins and they hadn't been played forever. But the Spider-Man next to it was available, so I bought the Spider-Man, so that's been great. Nice. Well, good. But, yeah, it's interesting. When it's time to move on, it's time to move on, I guess. Well, and what softened the blow, too, is the only place that carries pinball machines within a 20-mile radius of me actually got Lord of the Rings in. And so I have been over there every other day, I don't know. I work a lot in that area so I stop for lunch and I play an hour's worth of Lord of the Rings which is like, what, two games? And so before I got this much time on it I love the theme, I love the game I'm having a little trouble with this one because the lock for the sword does not come up at all so you can't start two tower multiball because you can't lock any of the balls and there's no virtual lock for that machine. And other than that, the game's in really, really good condition. And so I've just come to learn that Lord of the Rings is a fun game, but it's a very wood chopping game. I haven't had this much time on it ever before. And I've realized you can spend 30 minutes on it and look at your score and it's like 20 million. And you're like, what have I been doing? well that's that's the challenge and that's the reason why we've talked and even keith brought it up last time the linear rule sets where um each each subsequent shot is worth the same amount so if you hit 20 shots and they're all worth a million you get 20 million well we all realize that it's exponentially harder to hit 20 shots and so what they've started doing is having these geometric or exponential growth on it. So you hit it once, it's one million. You hit it twice, well, maybe that's 1.5 million. And then you keep going up. And so eventually the shot's worth 20 million in one bang. And that's the way that you can actually get rewarded for consistently doing something that's challenging. But there's always that danger of having that easy shot where you're backhanding the loop. and so I feel for all of the designers and the rule set magicians out there who try to craft this rule set that actually works well for all audiences yeah and it's a wonderful game it really is I don't know if it's set to default standards or if it's set a little harder just because it seems like to complete a mode takes forever you don't have much time to do it and there's a ton of shots. Like, take Battle with the Ents, for example, because that's a great mode to start Return of the King multiball, because you're constantly shooting that tower on the left side. And I swear, it takes six or eight shots to finally complete that mode, and it's just, you've got 30 seconds to do it, and it feels like the timer never stops. It just, I don't know. It's a good game. It's a really good game. I'm enjoying it. And this is the other thing I love about Gomez games, and I don't know if anyone else does this, but it seems like with Gomez games, he sets up his rule sets that if you start a mode, it goes towards a mini-wizard mode. But if you complete that mode, it gives you a bonus, plus working towards a final wizard mode. Another example is Revenge from Mars. I loved Revenge from Mars. You had to do the nine modes, and you actually had to complete the nine modes to destroy Mars. same with Monster Bash you gotta get all the monsters but if you collect all their instruments then you get monsters of rock so I just that's what I love about Gomez rule sets it's just kind of that it rewards fun play and people just enjoying the game but it also rewards those that want to go to a deeper level of the game right and I would bet that was more of a Keith P. Johnson algorithm that he brought up but, um, you know, cause Keith is one who did both. Uh, I still don't understand how he did this, but he did both Lord of the Rings and Simpsons in the same year, which those are crazy deep rule sets. Well, and the other person was Lyman sheets on monster bastion. I can't remember if Lyman was on revenge, but there was a lot of people on revenge. Yeah. Well, yeah, that was a, that was a hodgepodge and it looks like Dwight helped out. Uh, according to IPBB, uh, Dwight helped out with some of the coding on Lord of the Rings 2. Oh, gotcha, gotcha. So wonderful games. So that's what I've been up to. Every time I go over to the bowling alley to play, I've got to take my pin shades because they've put it directly under that hospital lighting and I can't see. I just love these things. They're very lightweight. People have pointed some other stuff out to me that I hadn't noticed. Traditional glasses are usually heavier. These are lightweight. You don't feel like you're wearing them. They're not like sunglasses because sunglasses are tinted, really dark. They do have a little tint because they're polarized, but they're not dark by any means. I don't feel like I can't see the play field or anything. Just love them, recommend them. Well, it's great for location play. You do bring up another challenge with location play too, though, is that on routed games, if you have a game that you can put a dollar in and you can play for a half hour, that's a lot of wear and tear on the machine. So they try to tailor a location game so the ball times aren't really that long. So even the Buffalo pinball guys have mentioned, look, it's challenging to route a game because if you have a really good player who goes out there, they could be playing for an hour on a dollar. and so that's why they stopped they don't give replays they just give bonus points you can set on the settings just bonus points and it just doesn't make sense financially because of the wear and tear of the game well point in case too so my son went with me my nine year old and we walked in and he's been dying to play Lord of the Rings but the kiddie gambling games you have to walk past those as soon as you walk in and he was just enamored there's this one where it had like these really small scissors and they had prizes hanging on strings and you tried to time it and push the button so that the thing comes out and tries to snip the wire and um he's like that's what i want to play and it's a dollar a play right dollar just to attempt the snip and there's nothing great in the game it's all like beanies and and snow gloves i'm like did you have these at home but anywho i told him well i'll play Lord of the Rings, you can play these games, but you can't play many of them. Well, he just started pumping the quarters in and I'm watching the quarters diminish really, really quick. I told him, okay, here's the deal. I figured it was a great lesson moment. I said, yes, if you win something, you don't have to pay me back. But if you waste all these quarters and you don't get a single thing out of it, you owe me my money back. Because I figured maybe if he felt the sting of wasting his own money, maybe it would click. And so I kept track. While I'm playing Lord of the Rings, I dropped $2 in. And the reason I did that, because, you know, if you drop $2 in, you get a third dollar for free or whatever, which is always wonderful with pinball machines. You get five plays instead of four or whatever it is. and uh so i played and played and played and i just enjoyed the crap out of lord the rings for the 30 45 minutes on him on it and my son comes back he's like i'm out of quarters i'm like i counted like 12 bucks dude and the the 30 minutes i played the pinball machine made two bucks off of me three minutes he played he made 12 off of him so well that's uh that's a dave ramsey uh lesson What are you talking about? When the money's gone, it's gone. So, yeah, I try to teach that with my kids, too, when he goes and he wants to do the claw machine. I'll say, look, this is gambling and the design is to take your money. Here, here you go. Here's 50 cents. Go try. And after 30 seconds, the thing's over. It's like, see, you just gave it 50 cents. And so he's kind of started to understand that those really aren't the bang for the buck. I tried to say, look, if you want that, save your money and go buy that. Or, you know, if the goal of playing a video game is enjoyment. And so that's your payoff. But having these gambling type games, these basically kiddie gambling games, it's like, well, OK, you can try. but I don't think it's going to be what you want. Well, it's depressing too. It's like, I don't know if anyone out there has ever watched Mark Rober. Have you watched Mark Rober, Scott? Yeah. Yeah. He's great too. Well, okay. So, so trivia question, uh, uh, trivia tidbit. Um, Mark was in the mechanical engineering program at BYU the same time I was. Oh, okay. We didn't really overlap. I think he was like a year or two behind me, but anyway, that's my claim to fame is that But he – so that guy came through my same program. So when we were leaving the bowling alley and my son's upset because now he owes me $12 of his hard-earned money, I pulled up Mark Rober. If you haven't checked it out, I highly recommend it. Everyone, go watch it. It's Mark Rober, R-O-B-E-R. He does a video on amusement games. and there's this one that's a big table of lights. All it is is a light goes around in a big circle. I know you've all been in an arcade. You've seen this game. I think it's called Cyclone or Tornado or something like that. It goes in a circle, goes in a circle, and you push the button, and if you get the light to stop right on the light in front of you, you win the jackpot, right? And so Mark actually makes this bag. He makes a backpack that has a light sensor that senses the light and then hurries and pushes the button within like 0.1 millisecond. Yeah. So it should land right on that light. And it doesn stop does it It doesn It either is too soon or it too late And so he does a bunch of tests to prove that there was nothing wrong with his machine And then he goes and finds documentation stating you set up like one in every 30 plays actually wins the jackpot Yeah. Other than that, it never lands on the light. Yeah. It's basically the slot machines. That's exactly what it is. Yep. Yeah. He's actually, I'm sure everybody out there has seen his videos. He's the one who has done two videos on the porch pirates where he puts a glitter bomb out. And so they take it and they open it and glitter and fart spray go in their car. Yes. Wonderful. He's got a slew of them. There's one where he makes a snowball machine gun out of a snowblower or out of a leaf blower. And he thinks he's a ghostbuster. It's great. It's just world's largest squirt gun, world's largest nerf gun. Just go check him out. He's great. So, all right, let's move on to some of the news. We're kind of rambling. Yeah. Meanwhile, in other news, Spooky Pinball Podcast had their 10-year anniversary. Congratulations, guys. 10 years. That's insane. That is awesome. They talked – if you haven't checked out this episode, it's like two hours long. And they talked about how when they started, there were podcasts before them, but they kind of gave it up. And Spooky was the only one doing podcasts at that time. And so it's cool to see the progression of where they started with the podcast and their love of the hobby to where they are now. I think we all know where Spooky's end up. Cool congratulations from a lot of people. And then they got a fantastic interview from Doug with CGC. and I haven't I apologize I haven't listened to this whole interview but I did notice the pinball press on Facebook did post Spooky CGC and Ben Heck and it was talking about the two licenses that they acquired and it sounds like there might be a collaborative effort with CGC and Spooky to make a game because licenses have times on them and if they're just starting Rick and Morty now or let's say last month in 18 months, you start your next license, and that's another 18 months, that second license they have might time out. So it makes sense to team up with someone that has another manufacturer line. And I could be entirely wrong. Like I said, I haven't finished the interview, but at the beginning of the episode, they were talking a lot about, oh, we've got big news, but let's save it for the interview because it has to do with CGC. Yeah, it's amazing what Spooky has done because they've been around for so long. And we've seen it with even our podcasting friends. Eventually, people get burned out. And since this is a hobby for the vast majority of us, a lot of people come and go in different hobbies. And even podcasting can be a hobby for people. So eventually, people move on. And the tenacity that they've had to be able to transition their passion into a company is still just remarkable. Yes, they have a combination of working hard and a few lucky breaks that have allowed them to be a viable company, but certainly a big congratulations to Spooky and everything they've done. I'd love to check them out sometime if I'm ever up in Wisconsin visiting my sister. Well, if you can, go check out on Prime Video. Everyone has Amazon, right? Go check out on Prime Video. Buy their movie, Things That Go Bump in the Night. I found a better appreciation for who they are and what they do through this video. It's a wonderfully done documentary. Just go check it out. Spooky, Charlie, Bug, you guys are awesome. What you're doing is awesome. It's one of the few feel-good stories for manufacturing and podcasting. So I haven't met anybody. You may or may not love the product. It may not be for you. And again, that's okay. Not everything has to be for everybody. However, I don't know of anybody who's ever said a bad thing about Charlie and his passion and with what's going on. So again, it's one of the bright lights in our hobby. I agree. So let's move on. I didn't apply for Pemberg. Did you try to buy some tickets? You know, this summer is so bad for us. We're hiring a new group of employees, and so we're trying to incorporate them over the summertime. So since I'm the one who's in charge of the vacation schedule, I had to ration out times. And it would have been pretty hard sell for me to come to my family and say, I know we're not taking a family vacation, but I'm going to try to go to Pinburgh. Yeah. Yeah, that wouldn't go over well. So instead, I decided that this year's big conference would be Texas Pinball Festival. So I went all in on Texas. And I'm hoping next year to be able to break away for the weekend and go and do Pinberg. However, that's assuming that I can get a ticket within the – how long did it take, Josh? Two seconds. Sold out in two seconds. Okay. Now, we all know how this works. So what you do is you get onto there and you hit refresh, F5, right at the time. And then you put your tickets in the cart. And really, so if there's 1,000 spots, and let's just assume you can reserve. How many? Can you reserve up to eight tickets, up to five tickets? I thought it was five. Yeah, so five. So if there's 200 people, they all hop in, boom, they put five in the cart, it's gone. It makes sense, right? Now, we all know that if you wait around and you hit F5 at 12.15, a lot of those tickets weren't completed. And so there are tickets on the secondary market. But the good news is, as we talked to Keith last time, I don't know of any instance where a top-tier player or someone who really wants to get into Pinberg has not been able to. And so at least they're able to churn through that wait list and be able to get it done. However, that still is an amazing feat. and everybody at the Replay Foundation and being able to get that whole Pinberg thing set up, it's a monumental feat, and they do an amazing job. There's a reason why it's by far the highest-rated pinball tournament that everybody wants to go to. I agree. And I think they even raised the numbers, too. It's not like 1,000 people. It's like 1,200 they're doing this year or something like that. You know what? That's a good question. I don't know exactly the numbers this year. So, but sounds like if you wanted to get in, you're in. So awesome to you guys. Congratulations. I'm not going either, um, trying to attempt to build a house. That's a whole different story within itself. Um, but that should be in the heart of when I'm building the house and I just can't justify, Hey, I'm going to go jump on a plane to Chicago right during the month. I'm the contractor and everything. I've got my contractor's license. So I can't be like, Hey, everyone that's, that's depending on me, I'm going to take some days off so that way i guess i could but anyhow yeah it probably okay i i don't think you could come home to an empty house and an empty marriage if you did that yeah probably not yeah so that's pinberg neither one of us are going so we'll see you at tpf though okay however okay at the same time though um since i haven't been able to go to to uh pinberg i still log in and i really appreciate the commentary and I appreciate everything they were doing on that. I actually, so after we talked to Keith and I talked about him cradling that right flipper and then live catching and flipping again and keeping that ball cradle, I actually did. I had an hour at work and I was trying to find that exact clip. And so Jeff, if you're listening, I still will find that clip for you. But I know it was on Metallica and it wasn't on the second time they played it. I think it could have been earlier. So I'll find that clip for you. And it's a wonderful time to, you can improve some of your pinball skills by just watching that too. Like, oh, I just saw that. Let me see if I can attempt it on a pinball machine. I'm amazed by how well they can nudge without tilting, considering I know how tight those tilts are. I agree. I want to bring up one thing I did not bring up about earlier, about the last two weeks. And it also bleeds into my next story, too. We're going to mesh it all together. But I've learned that if you have pinball machines with shaker motors and you don't like to tighten up the leg nuts for the feet because I've got a really weird floor. Anyhow, I just don't like to tighten them up because I feel like it chips off that sweet, sweet coating that's on the legs. Anywho, those shaker motors will shorten the feet on your pinball machine. And if you're getting frustrated because you can't feel like you're hitting any shots and you're just draining constantly, check what your pitch is at. My pitch was like 7.5 to 8. I was getting really frustrated with Monster Bash and Attack from Mars. And then I realized, oh, I need to level these back out. I leveled them back out, and now I'm happy. So if you feel like your collection is just frustrating you, check to see if it's leveled. Well, so that's actually a question, though. Does it seem like in competition games, do they disable the shaker motors? I think it depends on the game and it depends on the tournament, people. Yeah. I'm just curious to see because I remember when we talked to Josh Sharpe and we were talking about getting a premium versus an LE. and he actually said he doesn't even use shaker motors. So I wonder if the commoners use the shaker motors, but the elite players don't. I think it depends on the game. My CGC games, I feel like it's integrated well, and it doesn't disrupt my play when I play it. Now, I had a Stern Star Trek, and I had a shaker motor on it, and the shaker motor didn't bother me until you got into multiball, and every time you make a shot on stern star trek the shaken motor shakes the cabinet and even the factory stern shaken motor really shakes it for you and so it seemed like i just was having a hard time hitting shots because i hit a shot hit a shot hit a shot and all of a sudden the motor would shake shake shake you know what i'm saying and so it was it was kind of chaotic and and when it's integrated well i think it's good but when it's messing with your gameplay it's not fun But my other point is too, so I know we've talked a lot about dimpling, especially since Stranger Things has come out and the ball deflects off of that Demi Gorgon and it hits the field and it dimples that play field really quick. but I decided you know we talk about these playfields and everything and upset their dimples and what not so I decided to go look at my World Cup soccer because I always feel like the World Cup soccer it was in an arcade so it got a little more roughed up than what a home play would and I looked at the play field and man I've never noticed it until I hit it right with the light but it's like an orange pill you know what I'm saying like the rough texture of an orange pill and so I've not been so hard on the dimpling now because of that because I realize like now that I've looked at that and I looked at my monster bash a little closer it does have dimples and I said a couple weeks ago that didn't I do apologize it does have dimples but so long as it's not creating damage like I'm not all for like clear coat chipping that would really frustrate me but I think I'm being a little more lenient between what you said what Steve Ritchie said and just kind of seeing my games that I really enjoy that I don't feel like the dimpling messes with the ball. I'm being a little more lenient on it. But I am excited, though, at the Haggis stuff. So I can't wait to get down to TPF. Damien's doing some great, wonderful stuff with the acrylic. And what I'm loving about this is the transparency. Did you watch this last video, Scott? No, I didn't. Another one other than the the sledgehammer video? Yes. There was another one because there were some concerns addressed about, you know, yelling of the acrylic. A ball doesn't really just roll back and forth across the play field. It kind of skids when you flip it. And so Damien addressed all that. And they took a normal piece of acrylic and their acrylic. And yeah, you saw on the normal piece that scuffed and whatnot, but on their, their proprietary stuff that they're using on a single scratch looked fantastic. and the other this is what i think is really cool so they got the play field right and then they have that acrylic on top but they've set it up so that way if you need to do a top down tear down you don't have to pull you don't have to flip up the hood so you can actually pull everything from the top off and get to wherever you need to on the acrylic instead of like every other game ever made like i used to have a simpsons that was in a arcade and you had to tear the whole thing apart you know flip it upside down pull the screws out pull the ramps off all that jazz this this is something like we've never seen before and i think it's a fantastic idea so yeah i i'm certainly interested too and and in uh um in fairness too i'm very interested in what deep root has to say too because we are going to be or at least i'm going to be down there for the reveal and uh they have talked multiple times even before haggis got on the scene about having a a process that would allow the the play field to be resistant to damage um do you remember hearing the uh the oh uh joe kamikau interview on the super awesome pinball show when they brought up pinball or pitting or whatever. Dimpling. Yeah, dimpling. He was, I don't want to say dismissive of it, but he just had a very pragmatic approach. He's like, look, there's been dimpling forever. It depends on the poplar wood. You have this steel ball that's flying up and smashing into this wood. Yes, it's going to do it. Is it going to eventually even out? Absolutely. And so he was – it seems that the people who are more interested in it are the people who are, I guess, not playing it as much. But I'm going to give – and even with Joe Kamikow, because since he's – this is a hobby for him. I mean, his main money is the slot machines. That's what he's making all his money in. And so this is just his side project. he doesn't really have a there's no motivation for him to hide something yeah and so the so for him just to say look this is this is just how it how it is and how it's always been and so i was less interest or i i was i guess i was less concerned about uh about playfields after hearing his interview so hey again if if deep root if haggis has a better way of doing it i hoping that the other people figure out how to adopt it or license it from and incorporate it And so yes this new technology keeps the machines going longer and longer I agree. Yeah, man, I can't wait. There's so many good games that I want to play at TPF. Like, I'm excited that I didn't sign up for a tournament down there because I just I'm going to go around to every single game that I've never seen in Utah and just play the crap out of it if I can. So, yeah. So if you see Josh and I walking around, we're going to be wearing the loser kid shirts. And and also our friend, our friend Brad with lit frames, we're trying to help him get some get some at least some publicity, too. so we'll be wearing his shirts at least one of the days. And, by the way, I do have his frame with the new Monster Bash trance light in it, and every time I turn it on, everyone looks over and says, hey, what is that? Because that looks really cool. It's amazing stuff. I need to get one. I've been hesitant because when you don't live in a house that's yours, you kind of minimize or minimize everything that you bring into the house because you don't want to move it out. You know what I'm saying? So, okay. But the one thing I do want, did you see what, uh, Dennis Creasel got in his, uh, pinball paradise, his arcade. Oh my goodness. Well, have you seen the background story to that sweet, sweet Creasel sign that they've made? Yeah. Well, okay. So, so there's that. There's also Ryan Claytor has that too. And I have looked at that a lot. And I, The funny thing is I showed it to my wife, and she was kidding, but she said, but our name's not Creasel. So, yeah. But I would love to get one of these neon signs in my basement. That would be so amazing to get into the arcade area. Dude, do it. I think it's way cool. Yeah, no, I actually did reach out to Dennis, and I talked a little bit back and forth. I still need to figure out a better way of organizing my pins downstairs, bears but eventually i will find a a place uh a home for uh i don't know i don't even know what i would name it i name it the larson arcade what i name i i don't know i kind of like uh the people have cool names for their man caves like level zero or you know welcome to the bear cave or kings of death i i don't know you should just get the conan the barbarian that the one that Dan made for you and just have that with you. Yeah, that would be great. So background, I hosted a tournament, and we have – so Dan photoshops everything, and so he actually had it, and I was Conan the Bulbarian. So it was pretty awesome. You could put, like, Larson's Lair or something. Exactly. And the good news is no Photoshop was needed because I looked basically like Arnold Schwarzenegger back in the day. You know it, man. You know it. I've got all my notes, too. I know I haven't I kind of talked to you about this But then we kind of got We had some technical difficulties Before the episode and We have a guest coming on he was supposed to be On tonight but it sounds like We're going to have him on either next week or the week After to talk about some TPF a little more In depth but Deep root you're going to deep root Yeah you're going to be on the party bus From San Antonio to To Dallas I also told Him we are a podcast if you didn't get that from the loser kid pinball podcast coming in through your email um and we they've offered to let us record while we're there and so uh i asked him well do we pick one person is there a list of people we just choose one and he said oh no we're gonna have a host of guests we'll do like a like a round robin or like a just like a round table discussion or we can even rotate through people. It's speed dating. So I'm like, this could be awesome. I don't know who's going to be allowed to talk. I don't know if John Papadiuk can talk on our podcast. I don't know if what's going to go on, but I'm excited for you, Scott. I'm excited. I'll be on this end here in Utah recording while you're pressing the flesh down there in San Antonio. I'm excited for you, man. Yeah, no, it'll be fun. And really, the best thing about Deep Root is that J-Pop, I think he has a chance of redemption. And this is really 100% through Robert's good graces, because J-Pop could have been basically left out to dry and been in forever purgatory, just outside of the pinball industry, because we all know he's not a great businessman, But he's a fun pinball designer, and Robert picked him up from the scrap heap and really paid off the debts and was able to make people whole or well above what anybody could consider would be reasonable. And so if there's at least one obvious feel-good story before we even go down there, it's that J-Pop has been able to reboot his life. This is J-Pop 2.0. I agree. And I am really interested in getting a hold of Raza with my hands because I've only seen the videos and the playthroughs. And so I want to feel it for myself because it looks fun and it looks funny. Yeah. Well, I'm just excited for you, man. There's going to be games down there you're going to play. It's not just Raza, which they've told us. They said they would love to give us more information, but they're keeping everything close to the chest because they don't want any leaks. And hey, we totally get it. It doesn't bother us one bit. But the other cool part, too, is they will be at TPF. They're going to have a VIP room. I don't know what that's about, but apparently we've got passes for that as well. So there's going to be a lot of cool things going on at TPF this year. I mean, my wife was listening to the episode we did after TPF last year, and we were kind of like, nothing really happened. And yeah, we're still TPF. It was fun, but no one revealed anything. You know what I'm saying? Right. This year we've. This feels big. There's anticipation. And I will say also that. So Robert opened up deep root for the for the reveal or at least the media reveal. and they actually, they're putting money into this guys. So they are, they've actually paid for my hotel the night before and the night after. And there's also, they chartered a bus to get us from San Antonio to Frisco and I got a ride on that bus. And so this is a guy who is putting the chips in the center of the table. He's saying, come at me. This is what we have. But I'm super excited to find out what this guy has just because everything so far, yes, there is bravado. And certainly, justifiably, he's caught flack for that. But it's bravado until you back it up. And if you back it up, the sky's the limit, right? Yep. I can only see one, two ways because I've seen the schedule. I've seen the things that they're doing for us. I really wish I could be there. I just, I cannot make it work that Wednesday. It just, it breaks my heart because it's like a one-in-a-lifetime opportunity, but I'll live vicariously through you. But the stuff they're doing, either they're going to try to smooth you into saying Deep Roots good stuff, which we're always kind of, you got to play it before you say it, you know. Or they really believe in this product and they want everyone to not have an excuse not to come down and enjoy it. And I think it's the latter. I think Robert, yeah, he said some pretty brash stuff, but everyone said put up or shut up. Well, now he's putting up. So we'll find out more here in two weeks, three weeks. Yeah, and the good news is we certainly tend to be on the, I guess, the more optimistic side of the pinball podcasting. And the way I look at it is there are really good things about every company. that we don't really brush aside the challenges that we see with companies, though. We're not going to tell you something's good if we don't feel it's good. But I think there are also things that you can see that are positive about every company and what they're doing. Yep. I agree. We've already talked this out. We kind of want to do a TPF preview episode. We're going to do that here in a week or two. But I do want to say one thing just because I want to get a small segment out of the way because I want people to hear this before we go to TPF. I want to do just a couple twippy predictions. Are you on board with this, Scott? Yeah, go ahead. Okay. I want to save the most predictions until we do our next episode, but the one I really, really want to point out is favorite pinball podcast because I've put a lot of thought into this. Maybe it's because I am a podcast, and I think it would be really cool to win the award. and I don't know why I just overthink a lot of crap, right? I want your prediction, though. Who do you think is going to win the pinball podcast? Well, okay. So Chris at Kaneda has won the last two years, right? Yes. He has a very passionate fan base who follow him, and he is a very talented podcaster. He certainly has a way of drawing the audience in and engaging them in conversations. I would be surprised if his fan base does not rise up and go for the three-peat. I agree. Okay. Now, so my money is on Chris and what he's doing. I think there are some acceptable, excellent podcasts out there that may not have as as a rabbit of a fan base, but are certainly quality podcasts out there. You could you could argue with head to head. They they've been consistently high achievers. They got the Stern pinball, Gary Stern, excuse me, interview. and if you're being able to bring in Gary Stern into an interview, that says something. That says you're doing something well. And even with Special Winlet, what they were doing, it was certainly aggressive. I think they got a little burned out, which is why they're transitioning to a slightly different format and they're consolidating into the pinball network. so I would think those two would also be up there this week in pinball they have a fun podcast and I love Dennis I love Zach and I see how what they're doing in the future so if I were to rank the top four that I think are likely to get votes it's probably those so But I would be surprised if Chris doesn't get it again. So I agree with you, but I want to put some information out there. We don't know. Okay, first off, disclaimer, we know nothing about – no one knows anything what's going to go on the Twitter. We have no inside information. Correct. We have been asked to present an award, and we'll talk about that here in a second. But I'm going to give you some numbers and you make the decision for yourself. Okay. Chris Kouleris, aka Kaneda Pinball Podcast, is on SoundCloud just like us. And if you go on SoundCloud, you can see that all their listening numbers are public. We can't hide our numbers. It's not something we can do with our settings. So if a podcast is on SoundCloud as their main RSS feed, you can look at all their numbers. So if you take Kaneda numbers, they are anywhere from 2,000 to 3,000 listens per episode. It's very consistent over the last year. You factor in interviews and stuff like that. And Chris has some really good numbers there. And so 2,000 to 3,000 is very respectable for an episode. That's a solid number. Yeah, absolutely. That is a wonderful number for those that are in the podcasting in the pinball podcast world. Take a word for it. Those are fantastic numbers. Our numbers, if you look on SoundCloud, as of recently, we want to thank you because this is awesome. We're breaking over a thousand thousand listens consistently for the last six, seven episodes. Yeah. And so but I want to bring up a particular episode. we did an episode oh four months ago where we invited Zach Manny to come on a lot of people gave us some good response to it they said it was a different side of Zach that they'd never seen before and they just loved the episode because it was very relaxed but it was Zach puts on a personality when he does his podcasts and that personality was very tapered down when he was with us but if you look at those numbers there zach had that episode had 2300 plus listens that is mid canada numbers almost mid canada numbers for guest hosting i want that to sink in for a second because we've had other podcasts and we've had we've had keith elwin on we've had Eric Meunier We've had Josh Sharpe. We've had arguably big names in the pinball hobby on our show, and they've only come to about half the listening numbers of what Zach's episoded. And that was guest hosting. So I can only imagine what This Week in Pinball got for numbers for their weekly show. And that is why I'm going with This Week in Pinball as the winner for the Twippy. the bottom line is it's a popularity contest this is king and queen of the prom it's cool but I don't want anybody to feel diminished if they don't get that right? if Chris is one of the last two years great that's impressive, that's a testament to what he is doing if someone else wins it I don't think it diminishes what Chris does and I think it's certainly a possibility that Zach could take at home, Zach and Dennis. Maybe. I guess I'll put a solid maybe in there because it seems like a different type of show. If you look at our show, the way I look at our shows, if you're looking at the ESPN broad strokes, we're a little bit more on the outside the lines where we don't talk about everything in pinball, but we try to select some stories that I think will bubble to the top and be meaningful to people. Yep. This Week in Pinball is more of a, that's more of the sports center, right? You're telling everything that's this week in pinball. And it depends on what your, I guess what your motivation is or what your listening preferences. However, Zach certainly is a, his gravitational pull of being able to bring people to listen to him. I think that could be a dark horse of, yeah, it's going to surprise people if that happens because they only started last year with us, right? Yep. That's my prediction. I think just after we had him on and watching those numbers and just doing just a little bit of digging I really think this week in pinball is a strong contender against Kaneda Okay Whoever wins congratulations So, yeah, there is that. I know some people just don't give a crap about the Twippies, which is fine. Like, it is what it is. But I think it's a cool way to celebrate the Hothby. It's fun. And I'll put it another way. when I watch Keith Elwin play a game that doesn't diminish my enjoyment of me playing a game so that's my one prediction I want to get out of the way I think if we're close enough to the twippies that it's not going to affect voting because voting is closed down but I think we're far enough away that people will hear this and say oh yeah Loser Kid did predict it I hope I think it'd be cool if we predicted hey this is what's going to happen. So yeah, I, I, I, you certainly have a great argument for it. So that's my argument. I'm placing on the table and, uh, we're going to go from there. So, okay. Uh, two more things. Let's, let's hit before we wrap this all up. You remember the last episode? Who did we have on last episode? I can't remember. Hmm. Who was it? Oh yeah. Keith. Keith. Oh yeah. Yeah. That guy, that guy, the kid, the kid, as Joe called the kid, Keith, the kid, Elwin. it has a ring to it yeah i still think keith the goat elwyn's better but hey um well kid is a kid goat you know yeah yeah hey hey that's a good point i didn't think of that anywho uh we we threw out the the challenge if Keith Elwin was to make the worst thing possible which he picked laundry day would you buy it did you see these results scott uh no i didn't i i was looking for them and I didn't see them. Okay. What do you think people said? Okay. Well, now I voted on this and it was overwhelmingly at the time that I voted that yes, I would buy Keith's game regardless. Laundry day. And actually in many ways, I thought laundry day actually sounded kind of fun. Kind of like sunshine laundry mat. Yeah. We had 30 to 40 people vote and 66% of those votes said yes i would buy a keith helwin game even if it was a laundry day yeah that my good sir is very impressive yeah you know laundry day is the up-and-coming game i think that's uh i think we should do it we should license it it just goes it just goes to show that the number one thing yes the number one thing on selling a game absolutely is theme and it's It's been proven over and over again. The thing that keeps it in the collection is the playability. Because we have seen so many initial release purchases and people lose their affinity after a while because the gameplay is not so good. I've said it before. I'm in the minority. I love the Iron Maiden music. I grew up with it. And I'm totally happy with it. I know that that theme is not the theme for everybody. But that theme is able to be carried by an excellent design. So people still have it in their home collection, even though their number one band is Mariah Carey, I don't know, Matchbox 20, whatever. Or any music that's come out the last 20 years. well and um i don't know why i'm thinking of this um because it's because while we're interviewing keith on one i hadn't even heard this and you bring it up you're like so what do you think of heavy metal meltdown or not meltdown but heavy metal and keith's like i haven't a clue what you're talking about and uh yeah and then it it had been spilled that day like an hour or two before we started recording but we never got to talk about this because because Keith had a clue what was being made. So what do you think of Heavy Metal? I think they're going to have to thread that needle. This is the same question I had when Elvira came out, is it okay to be sexy in 2020? and I really don't want to get into the weeds on a deep discussion but there certainly is a long history of themes that have been male-dominated type themes where the woman is more of a prop and just think of most of the James Bond films out there. Uh, so heavy metal has a history of being a very on the edge, um, sexualized type, uh, theme. However, it tends to be, uh, the different, one way you could look at it as different is that the female characters in heavy metal don't tend to be props. They're just to be pretty. They are, you know, if you're looking at the gauntlet scenario, you know, you have the barbarian and you have the Valkyrie and they're both warriors. So if you if you take that theme, yes, it's it's entirely possible to find something that threads that needle of walking something that's provocative, but is still acceptable by today's standards. I think it will be challenging, but this is what heavy metal has been doing for 40 years. So we'll see if they're able to pull it off. I was a little surprised by Elvira being able to pull it off just because it is a different scenario. It's a different time. I do think that it's one of those where, hey, it's a contract game, and their heavy metal seems to have approached them and they have these these themes or these playfields that they can incorporate with a marketing strategy so it looks fun that way but this is why I'm not in marketing because I have a hard time trying to figure out what really what the response on people would be what was your thought when you found out more about heavy metal I just I don't know it's one of those things that it's not for me so I just don't care I saw it I thought well that's interesting I guess we'll try it at TPF if it's there and I'll make a decision I have no emotional attachment to it I remember seeing the the movie cover at the video rental store when I was a kid thinking what the heck is that? Because you see the hot chick holding a sword above her head, riding a pterodactyl or something. I can't remember what it is. Yeah, it was certainly a warrior, a female warrior of sorts. I would say a little more provocative superhero type outfit that's all chromed out. But you have seen this in comic books, even on the X-Men machine. There's, um, comic books have a long history of having a, uh, let's just say a very risque outfit, especially for female characters. Yeah. Um, I just, I find it weird. Like I said, I don't, like you said, let's not really get into the weeds. I do want to point out if you haven't watched Carrie Hardy's video on this, um, I felt like it kind of hit some of it on the head. Um, so just go ahead and watch that. I'm not going to recap that whole video. It's a good video. I think it's like 15, 17 minutes long. Go give it a listen. Carrie's a great dude. Which, by the way, congratulations to Carrie Hardy and Emoto for being the hosts of the Twippy Awards. We'll be there with you. So we're going to be one of the presenters of the awards. So we don't know what we're presenting. How do you say Emoto's last name? Because I only think of her as Emoto. But do you remember how I say her last name? I thought it was Harney. H-A-R-N-E-Y So I don't know if she likes to go by that Or she likes to go by EmotoRK Right like Cher or Madonna Like a one name So I've always known her as Emoto Just wanted to make sure that everybody gets their full due Yep she's an awesome woman So Very excited about that Other than that I want to make a quick apology Martin I'm so sorry We had you on a month or plus ago, we did Slam the Top 100, me and you. I never talked about the results on the show. So I want to apologize for that really quick. I pulled them up. Before we announced the results, did you listen to that, Scott? Did you listen to that episode? Yes, I did. Of course I did. It was a great episode. I thought you were going to dump me and do Marty after that. No, never. Marty's a great guy. We need to have Ryan on sometime. And Joe. that's a different story yeah we we need to get get everybody out so we slammed the top 100 with it was adam's family versus pinbot i noticed you didn't vote though so do you want to vote now it might change the result adam's family versus pinbot based off of the discussion well okay well and it's been a while so i haven't really remembered the discussion however um i was on record was saying I would burn Pinbot or Jackbot to the ground because I think it's an ugly play field. Oh, true. Yes. And Pinbot's the exact same. Well, Pinbot is like a worse version of Jackbot. Exactly. I would take Adam's Family just because it started... It was a right turn in Pinball and we haven't turned back. It was basically like the Beatles for... Everything else has always been able to tie their roots back to Adam's family. So before your vote, Martin had won by one vote. And I'm still going to give it to you. You did a wonderful job. You kicked my trash at selling Pinbot versus Adam's family. Okay, well, he hates Adam's family. He hates all Waller games. Yeah, true. But with your vote, it ties up. Oh, there you go. So it's a tie, my good sir. You're going to have to come back on. and we're going to have to slam another top 100. It just is what it is. We'll see you soon, Martin. Yeah, nice, nice. Which he did announce he's coming to TPF. He's actually going to be at Deep Root, too. Are we announcing that? Did he announce that? Did he announce it, or did he just message us? Are we breaking the news here? No, no, we're not breaking the news. Him and Jeff Teelis on their new show, Final Round, he announced it. So we're good to see. There's all these secrets. we got to keep in track which ones have been said and which ones haven't done yeah um other than that dude i'm excited i'm excited for tpf like this is a dream come true and it's my first tpf i've always said i wanted to go and it seems like this year we're involved a lot of stuff and i just i can't wait so yeah it'll be fun uh and uh tune in next week uh we did not reveal the surprise guest, but it will be Jeff Rivera from the Pinball Podcast. And so we will talk to him and we will get our predictions and our anticipation for the TPF and we shall see what is going to be on the horizon. I think it's going to be a big, big festival that will be friendly to both people who are casual hobbyists versus hardcore players versus enthusiasts versus people who go there to check out the games to buy. A couple other line items really quickly About TPF We've said it a couple episodes now We're coming down to crunch time guys and gals If you want a hat, if you want a beanie If you want a t-shirt I know this is the first time we're saying this guys We're going to make We did make a t-shirt I'm going to post it, I was wearing it May I find someone better to wear it And take a picture I'm going to post the t-shirt We're doing them at Scott and I haven't discussed the price but it'll be reasonable. Okay. I'll tell you what, we're making nothing off these. The bottom line is we're buying the shirts and whatever the cost is to make them and ship them out. That's basically what we're charging. So most of the shirts, pinball podcast shirts, about 30 bucks. We're going to do 32. And the only reason is it's printed on the front and on the back and it costs us to print on both sides. So, but we're going to, we're going to post that up there. If you want the shirt, I'll bring them to TPF. If you're not going to TPF, I'll mail it to you. this is kind of going to be like a, we're not going to order a ton of these. So it might be a little bit of wait time to get your shirt. If you message us at loser kid, pinball podcast.com or sorry, loser kid, pinball podcast at gmail.com. We will hit you up or we'll get you taken care of with a shirt. So, yeah. And we are, I am looking at ordering stickers. And so we'll, if you see us at TPF, hit us up and we'll be able to pass you out in a few stickers. and we are looking into having a website. So just really starting a basic website, we're moving up to the bigger leagues and be able to have links to our, you know, basically our shows. You can ask us questions. You can have some sort of things, but also we're going to try to find an aggregator to say, hey, by the way, these are the products that these are, you're maintaining your pinball machines. Click on this link and it'll take you to some of these areas so it just cuts out some of the guesswork on that. Awesome. I'm excited. Once again, we are the Loser Kid Pinball Podcast. If you want to get a hold of us, you can send us an email at LoserKidPinballPodcast at gmail.com. We are also on Facebook at Loser Kid Pinball Podcast, and we're on Instagram as well. If you want to get a hold of Scott or me, you can message us individually. I'm Josh Root. He's Scott Larson. We're pretty easy to find. And it seems like we're friends with everyone in the pinball community, or at least you click on Facebook. It says, hey, 100 mutual friends. Like I said, if you want to get a hat, if you want to get a beanie, if you want to get a shirt, and you want us to bring it down to TPF with us, please, please, please hit us up. Any way you hit us up, Facebook, Gmail. Other than that, I think we're locked, cocked, and ready to rock, my good sir. What do you say? We are fired up and ready to go, and we will see you for our TPF preview in one to two weeks. Can I tease? Can I just tease? You haven't told anyone on our podcast yet. You're going to have a special outfit for presenting, aren't you? Are you going to do this? Well, okay, you and I are going to have special outfits. Yes. They are in my Amazon cart as we speak, and I just need to hit click go. Now, this is the eye candy for all the players out there, is that they had one extra large and one large. So one of us may be being a little more tight. It's like putting 20 pounds of poop into a 10-pound hat. So we're going to wet your whistle with that. That's what we're leaving on. Yeah, exactly. You'll probably need to have your pin shade so you can forget that. Thanks again for tuning in. Talk to you later. See ya.