All get around, he's on the rebound, hear the sound of our buddy, oh lordy, it's Orby, pinball now to rejoice, he's tugging pinball, craft beer and coffee, mixed with syrup and honey, he wants to laugh with his family in a random tangent, stories of his boys, he's on the poor man's pod network, We're going to get more listeners for the Pinball Nerds Podcast. Coming to you from beautiful River Hibbert, Nova Scotia. Welcome back, Pinball Nerds, to episode 494 of your fifth favorite pinball podcast. My name is Orbital Albert, and on today's show, we're going to be talking about the top ten surprises We saw at this year's Expo the 40th edition of that in the year of our Lord, 2024. I don't really know what that means, in the year of our Lord. I just hear other people saying it, and I wanted to say it once. I'm not a highly religious person. In fact, you could say I'm, I don't know if I'm an atheist, but we're talking about religion. We've gone off topic. We're 20 seconds in. What's going on? Hey, pinball nerds, I have missed you. My name's Orbital Albert. I am hoping someday to be more than this, but for now I'll take your fifth favorite pinball podcaster. So I'm also going to be counting down the top five rad and one bad about Metallica Remastered by John Borg, and new lead software designer, Mr. Raymond Davidson. Congrats, Ray Day. So that's his first lead. I know he's helped with software on many other pins. But this is his first time doing leads, so that is so cool. And Ray Day, I know you've been listening to some of the episodes, so hopefully you listened to this one, and congratulations. I'm even more excited to play Metallica. For many of you who have been listening to the show, maybe not since day one, because that was like eight long years ago, and the show's gone through many transformations since then, but many of you have been listening to me for years, know my soft spot for Metallica. Metallica is, in fact, my second favorite band pin of all time. Of course, my favorite being Kiss, and the Beatles coming in a close third. Now, that being said, part of what I don't like about Metallica is the music. So I'm going to be straight up, I don't love the band Metallica. I don't love that type of music. Two out of three of my best friends, their favorite bands are Metallica. So I grew up listening to a shat's ton of Metallica. But it's just not my favorite type of, I don't know. Again, back then I was more listening to either punk rock and or indie rock and or grunge like Nirvana or even Foo Fighters. But I have came around. I've came around a little bit on Metallica. If I'm at a wedding and I've had just enough screwdrivers or jack and gingers or whatever, I might get up and headbang to a song or two. because I did go on to eventually listen to heavier music. Again, just not Metallica. So just keep in mind when we do the Metallica 5 Rad and One Bad List, keep that in mind. But let's just get right into our expo. It was expo this weekend. First of all, I wanted to start by thanking Tom Graff over there at Fox Cities Pinball. Oh my gosh, he did an incredible job getting commentary, getting commentators, doing everything he had to do to make sure that the Expo Pinball Tournament went off perfectly, as far as the stream went. And the stream was absolutely incredible, went off without a hitch. So great job, Tom. He always does a great job. I know some of those, I think the Saturday had to work like 14 hours or something, or the Friday. So salute to you. I mean, I got tired just watching that stream, never mind having to be the producer, the director, finding people to do commentary, picking out which machine. dealing with jerks like me and Chad who are sometimes argumentative or rude, which I try not to be that guy. But I might bring that up later. I did have a mini. I will bring that up later. I did have a mini beef with, well, I think one person was just a straight-up troll, but the other two people were kind of mimicking the same thing they were saying near the end of the tournament. But I want to start on something fun and fresh and awesome, and that is, that's right, Collins the Kineticist, this week in pinball. You guys all know him. the Media Mixer 2.0 this year. I couldn't go, and I didn't even have time or energy to get a proxy to go, because my voice went out last week on me. So, I was not able to get anyone to go there to represent me. However, sorry about that, you might be able to hear Franchi, my dog. He was going for a nice nap, so I went to record. And of course, just the sound of me getting out the snowball mic, lugging out the big laptop to record, woke this man up and now he's all over me and all over the couch. So I do apologize. The couch, what am I talking about? I'm here in Orbital Albert's recording studio in River Hibbert, Nova Scotia. But first and foremost, I saw something that just warmed my heart. Colin's media mixer looked incredible. I'm trying to go kind of in chronological order. I saw that Cliff Albert made up with, and I love Cliff Albert and I love Colin. I've had them both on the show. I'm hoping to have Colin again someday and maybe even Cliff someday but uh wow it looked like the media mixer went off without a hitch it looked like it was very fun I was hoping to see like a live stream from Don or I don't know someone else there I didn't see a live stream I haven't seen a lot of videos maybe that content's still going to come out I'll be watching that would be interesting to see number two on the list for surprises was the head the dote the degenerate of degenerates himself, Joe Chervino, okay, Joe Chervino and my buddy Ethan Bent, who came down and played Monday Night Pinball Call the Office with us at the Punk Rock Club there, okay, they went on to win the International Flipper Championship, where two countrymen, or women, two country people came from each country, and they had to compete against each other to see, to assert dominance, and Canada one. Take that, America, and UK, and Australia, and New Zealand, and Sweden, and Norway, and Denmark, and everybody else. Take it. Take it, baby. Okay, no, I will not sing. In the year of the Lord, 2024, Orby shall sing no more. I think I just sang that part. The next biggest surprise, the next biggest surprise was, oh, and I want to do a quick shout out, by the way. I haven't been on Patreon in a very long time because of Franchie. Because of Franchie, I can't listen to Canadian. Isn't that ironic? Not Christopher Franchie, but Franchie my dog stepped on, who's now like 50 pounds, stepped on my laptop. And that was the only laptop that I had access to Patreon through, even though I think I can get into it through one of my emails somehow. But anyways, I haven't re-logged back on. I haven't worried about it. So I haven't been on Patreon. If you have content on Patreon, any of the pinball podcasts that I'm part of your Patreon, I'm sorry, I haven't seen it, including Joe Chervino actually has four interviews out right now, including Stephen Silver, really P3 Multimorphic, of course, the lead designer for The Princess Bride. Steven, don't worry, I haven't forgot about you, still want to get you on sometime soon, hopefully before the end of the year at the very least. Now that I'm back at it, I'm back doing podcasts again, I'm feeling better, my mental health is probably the best it's been in years, maybe honestly since COVID, who knows. Sorry, Ian, shouldn't have brought that up. But it is, you know, I'm doing better. I hope the show's going to do better. In lieu of any advertising for my coffee company or even talking about collectibles or asking for donos, which I haven't done since back on my birthday in July, I would like to ask each and every one of you, if you think this episode was slightly better than usual and you can feel them getting better, please tap virtually, tap a friend or family member or other pinball nerd that you know and say, hey, Orby's back, baby. Or maybe he's not back, but at least it's slightly better. That's the goal. That's what I'm going for. So that being said, let's stop going off track and let's get into surprise number three. After advertising for it, even Joe Chervino, Cliff Albert, they were all supposed to go to Olive Garden and somehow the trip to Olive Garden didn't happen. Now, I don't know how the urban legend of Olive Garden started, but I'd like to know. It's an interesting story. I think I did bring it up on my podcast at some point. I guess I should have to go back and listen and find out what Cliff Albert said, but it's very interesting. I miss the Olive Garden. I used to love it. Like once or twice a year, my parents would do the long 45-minute drive to London, Ontario from the rhubarb capital of Canada itself, Sheddon. And we would go get unlimited breadsticks, unlimited pastables. It was glorious. It was wonderful. After Olive Garden left, we did get some other like Italian chain, but it was never the same as Olive Garden. and we always longed for Olive Garden and wanted to have Olive Garden back yet again. But we couldn't because we had to drive to America for it. So I think I've had it once in the last 20 years. Somewhere in and around Detroit, maybe the ones there don't taste as good. They didn't taste as good as it was in the early 90s and such. But anyways, there was no Olive Garden to be had. I couldn't believe that. This shocked me. This shocked me. I know it's not going to be breaking news on any other pinball podcast, but here on Orby's podcast, in my world, it was shocking. Same with number four on the list. not only did our boy Drew, right here from the Poor Men's Pinball Podcast, not only did he do a really cool walk around and a live stream at dinner, but he jokingly, and I hope he was half-heartedly serious, said to Ian, actually no, it might have been Ian who said to Drew, hey, when are we going to do the Ian and Drew show again? Or is it the Drew and Ian show? But anyways, since they've stopped formally doing the Poor Men's Pinball Podcast, I took a little bit of a hiatus, much like I did a couple years ago. Take a break when you need it, right? We're all not putting bacon in the fridge from doing Pinball Podcasting. Very few of us are, and certainly not myself very often. We're all hoping to break even. That is the goal with this sort of thing. But that being said, Ian and Drew announced jokingly that we might see another Ian and Drew show. Ian and Drew show number two. I think the first one came out like six, seven, eight months ago. Can't remember, maybe July? No, sorry, January, February, March, somewhere in there. So I would personally, I think I speak for almost every other tribe member out there. Please, please, please, Druinian, let's have another Druinian show. I would absolutely love it. Also, big shout out to Craft Beer Sally, before I forget. Also, Rachel, whose husband, Dan the Man, is already here in the tribe. but Rachel and Carl Lutz. I don't know how to pronounce your last name. But Carl and Rachel and Crapper Sally, welcome to the tribe, you bunch of nerds. Of course, Drew and Ian are the only ones who can bestow upon them that, and they have done that. And I guess there was a really cool behind-the-scenes, you know, they did an informal, formal ceremony. From what I understand, it probably included a lot of cheese slices. That's all I know. That's all I can say, guys. I have no clue what happened at it, but I'm sure it was a hell of a good time. I've seen tons of pictures from everyone from Jonathan Hall to Brian Kosner to Glenn Wector, Rachel Risto. I'm so jelly. It looks like such a really great time. And I wish I was there. I wish I was there. But I was very surprised to hear, I believe it was actually maybe Ian who said that, they're hoping to record again with the Drew and Ian show. So let's go, boys. get back on the microphone it's not that hard just get in here and just talk like a dork for a bit or like me talk like a nerd for a little all right at number five on the list is speaking of glenn the skateboarder our boy glenn not only did they get like a cool nod for the incredible homebrew saw machine and i will say this all the homebrews were incredible uh but they not only did they get a nod for that, but him and the other dudes from where he's from, Tennessee, Nebraska, Tennessee, the place where he's from, the group of them that all play down there, they won the old-timey pre-war pinball tournament, so good for them. That's great. That's so fun. I know Glenn would have loved to. His heart was in the right spot. He even said it when he was here on the show. he would have loved to have played in the other tournament, but he had to spend time and energy making contacts because he would like to work in the sound and music field in pinball at some point. So make sure you go listen to pinball for y'all and contact Glenn Glenn Waechter or Glenn the Skateboarder. Message me if you can't. If you can't figure out how to get a hold of Glenn, message me and I will put you two in contact. Because I know and hopefully he reached out and made some good resources there. I know he'd love to work in pinball because he did all the sound and the music on Saw, this awesome homebrew that I absolutely love. And, of course, it shoots well because it's Hurricane, right? I always forget the name of that. Is it Hurricane? I'm such a dork. Whirlwind, right? No. Is it Whirlwind? Oh, my God. It's not Hurricane. I think it's Whirlwind. My brain is broken. It's Monday morning. What do you expect? I've watched four days straight of pinball. Oh my God, what an incredible tournament. Cheers to Jack, I can't pronounce his name, Septic High. Cheers to Jack, who did win, shockingly somehow. Cheers to everybody else, though, who did very well. I believe Escher got third, was it Z-Mac got second. Other than that, I might have missed a few parts. I was trying to still be a good house hussy and, you know, a good dad this weekend. Also it was my wife Drop Target Danielle Oh My Gourd event her annual fall event and so I was helping run that One of the vendors pulled out last minute so I had to rush back home and grab a whole bunch of graded comics I had to It wasn that hard It was kind of fun I lived three minutes away from the community center. And so I filled up a whole table. The only issue was my two tables were across the gymnasium, so I was like running back and forth between my two tables plus a coffee table when Daniela had to go leave and deal with one of the 40 vendors. She kind of runs the whole event, or at least is one of the main helpers. anyways we had a great event thanks to everybody who came out uh i actually sold a 1969 reggie jackson card i've been holding on to for some time um probably did almost half a thousand dollar sales which for us for our little small company a little small event like that is really really really good between collectibles and coffee so that was really fun shout out to my ever patient wife danielle who did a great job running that and even put up with me being a little bit irritable or annoying in the morning, but we got all through it. Owen was there to help, of course, covering whichever of the tables needed covered. And I had a great time. I even sold some comics. So even from that table, we had to fill up at the last minute. The main thing is it helps the community center. It's a not-for-profit event. We do pay for our tables, just like everybody else, even though my wife does all the time and energy for the event. Draco Franchi is very excited. I think the neighbors are going for a drive with their dogs in the ATV. And so Draco Franchi is very excited. But let's get back into it. Number six on this list is actually kind of surprising. It's very surprising actually. Okay, let me check here for a second. Oh, it's just the neighbors. You can even hear Elowen upstairs who is going for a nap. It's just the neighbors. Relax, Franchi. Take it easy. It was really nice to see Franchi. And Franchi is actually included in this next one. This could kind of be a two-parter. It was really, really, really nice to see Franchi, and the way that I saw Franchi was actually at the Spooky Booth, and I was as shocked as you to see whose live stream it was. It was Kaneda, so nobody had any clue. Now, maybe it's just because I've been on the Patreon about a week or so since Franchi wrecked my laptop, but I had no clue. I think that most of the Patreon people had no clue, and then to boot, he was on Facebook and YouTube, I believe. Were they put up to both? Maybe it was originally on Facebook, then later put up onto YouTube. I'm not sure. But wow. Kaneda just showing up there. And I will tell you this. If you're only going to watch one piece of Kaneda content this year, take a look at the exact moment. I couldn't tell you when. It's maybe like, to the best of my knowledge, 10, 15 minutes through. Kaneda is actually in Expo. and you see the exact moment that David Fix sees Kaneda. He's walking along. He's got a big smile underneath that mustache and all of a sudden, and he sees Kaneda. He's like, oh my God. And he just pauses and he stops. And it was like, oh my God, I was watching it. I wasn't watching it live, so I couldn't comment on it, but I was watching it like after the fact, I think on YouTube. And that was probably the funniest moment. Now, later, even more shocking, Kaneda goes over to, because there's, him and David Fix don't get along, but the other person in pinball, oh, and then like five minutes later, the security guard, or we don't actually see who it is, but some type of person who works there, either security or administration or someone who works there comes over and says, they'd like to speak to you at the front, are you Kaneda? And they make him go to the front, and Kaneda leaves the live stream running, talk about drama. But then later after that, when he's allowed to go back in, he ends up going over to the spooky table, and he runs into Franchi. And I thought, oh, God, the one person besides Don who's not ever going to, like, probably forgive Kaneda is Franchi. And Franchi was pretty good about it. He did try to run him over. He did try. I saw you, Franchi. Franchi put her into high gear. He turned on the turbo. I think he hurt his ankle or his knee. Sorry, Franchi. I hope you get better soon. but he's got one of these cool little turbo freaking, like, you know, the really, really good one that almost makes you want to be handy capable, like the one in Seinfeld, right? There's my one Seinfeld shout out for the show. And he just floors it and he goes to run over Kaneda and I'm like, these are two of my friends. I'm like, guys, I'm at least, I don't want to say necessarily they're both my friends. I'd like to think, um, Franchi and I are friends. Kaneda and I used to be more so friends we're maybe more, uh, acquaintances now, I guess, really. We don't really talk privately anymore. But, that being said, I wish Kinead all the best. I wish Franchi all the best. I certainly wish Spooky all the best. I'm just, every single day, every single opportunity that you have for Bug or any of the Spooky crew to interact with the public, they just kill it. They kill it with kindness. They kill it with great customer service. They're starting to kill it with getting better animations and better code. And they're definitely killing it with getting better and better licenses and themes. So I don't know, man. Ten years from now, I still think even five, ten years from now, I still think Stern will be number one most likely. But could Spooky be number two? I think so. I think they're already possibly number two in units sold or getting very close to it. I'm not going to say that any Spooky machine is more beautiful than Elton John. I would never do that. Come on, that would just be a straight up lie. but wow between Kaneda showing up surprisingly surprising other people surprising me just watching the live stream then surprising David Fix then you get to just go listen to it to listen to the whole Rob Burke and I'll God bless you Rob Burke Rob Burke did a great job just like being like yo if you're gonna be here just try not to be like negative don't be overtly rude like don't you know don't go up to any I don't know what he said you go back and listen to it, I'm paraphrasing, but Rob dealt with it perfectly. He wasn't too over the top, like, hey, you better not, you know, he didn't tell him he couldn't live stream, he didn't, you know, he said definitely don't sneak in. I think that was the big issue was Kaneda did sneak in there. He did not have a like a vendor pass or a VIP or whatever, and he went in early, and he wasn't supposed to do that. So I think that was Rob Burke definitely mentioned that. But then there might be some other behind the scenes things. I think that the Dutch pinball guy, Melvin, he came and saved the day for him and said, oh yeah, he's part of my marketing, he's here with our boot. Kind of said, kind of lied a little, because like, Canada didn't seem to go over to the, that very often after that, but next on the list, okay, oh, I already had this here, Jack, Septic-Hai winning, okay, because the whole thing is, oh sorry, number seven, number seven is Franchi, all right, so, so nice to see Franchi, he looked healthy, he looked well, he was smiling, He was actually really kind to Kaneda. It was so nice to see Franchi. He looked good. He was having fun. I think he even gave him a Franchi Barbie sticker and put it on there. And everybody that interacted with Franchi looked like he did sign quite a few things if you went over and asked. Looked like he had a great time. So that was number seven on the list. I was just pleasantly surprised to see that. Because honestly, Franchi does have a good amount of reasons. Kaneda has, I think. We all know. In fact, the last time I even stopped talking to Kaneda was because he cut up part of the interview Franchi had with me, and he kept replaying it on his show. So in case people didn't know where that was coming from, that actually came right here from Pitmuller's podcast. But of course you're listening to me, so you probably already know that. And then number eight on the list was Jacksepticeye winning, because we all expected either Z-Mac or Jason Zoller or Escher Lefkoff, or even maybe like a Carlos or a Steven Bowden, Laser Los. um you know even possibly i don't want to use the term older guy but a josh or a zach sharp or you know who knows a jeff teolis maybe but nobody had their money on jack to win and uh this he's a bit younger he's not too too young he's a bit young if i had to guess he's like i don't know 18 to 20 i'm sorry it's hard for me to tell now that i'm in my mid-40s it's hard for me to tell people that age but he's he's definitely younger he doesn't travel that much and they even asked him in the post-interview, like, are you going to be traveling to Freeplay Florida? I believe it was a shout-out to Debra Tallman, who did a great job running the tournament there with the entire Flipout crew. The tournament looks like it was run very well, but she gave the awards away at the end and did a little bit of the interview, the Jeff Teolasing, if you will. He must have been gone already. And she said, like, are you going to be going to any other big tournaments? Or maybe that was in the booth, I forget. But someone asked him, are you going to be going to Freeplay Florida? And he said, no, I'm actually not going to be traveling anymore for the rest of the year. And it's like, whoa, my dude, like you just won the biggest tournament in the world, like 400 players. I think you win a free new in box pinball machine. I think you win some money or wait, is that for Stern circuit finals? You win a lot of money though. You beat out like 380 players or something, including like, you know, the, this tournament started like Wednesday morning. Okay. And this is not ending till Sunday night. Like my guy was playing lights out, perfect pinball in and out. He had to take out Eric Stone and that is no small feat. But we'll be back to Eric Stone in a second or will we just transfer into him right now? At number nine is the Eric Stone conundrum. And actually just this morning, I was watching the IFPA Pinmasters 2024 with Andy Bagwell was commentating and he says this very often and he'll say that he loves emotion and pinball. And when he says he loves to see someone get so emotional and excited, he was talking about me singing along to the Foo Fighters while playing Jack Danger's masterpiece. So I thought, until I saw X-Men, now I've got to play X-Men to see which is better. But I'll say this, maybe they're both masterpieces in their own way, who knows. But I was playing Jack Danger's masterpiece, his first ever cornerstone, believe it or not, Foo Fighters. Perhaps the coolest first cornerstone to ever come out from any pinball creator ever. and I was rocking out. I couldn't handle it. I know I put 500 bucks Canadian. I think it's 350 US to play in pin masters. I put a lot of money on the line. That's half a grand, man. That's like feeding my family groceries for like a month and a half here. And that's with two hungry teenage boys. Mind you, we get all our farm fresh organic eggs for free unlimited all the time. And that does help. But the Eric Stone conundrum goes like this. We want to see a motion in pinball. A lot of the younger players are so good because they're so stoic. Okay, not all the time. You do see some emotion from time to time from like Z-Mac. Definitely Escher sometimes can get really animated, which I love seeing. But for the most part, especially like a Jason Zahler, Jared August, they're very stoic. And that actually helps them. They don't get super excited and make mistakes, right? It actually helps them be a better player. But it's not always the most interesting thing to watch. someone very stoic just hit the same shot multiple times in a row for hours on end right so I love all those guys but so I do love Eric Stone I've got to interview him on his flip phone between him doing you know news forecast for a channel Fox somewhere there in Florida I believe you know and I love I love him I like him most of the time as a person I think sometimes that we have to not like we have to make sure we don't play favorites and that we're yelling carding everybody the same and it happened to be that we were in finals and there was over 500 people live watching and like at my house my sons were going in and out all day long at different times and not that it matters because they've heard me drop f-bombs before it was just how much they lost their temper, I guess. Oh my gosh, there might be someone here in the driveway. Luna's freaking out. Oh, they're just across the road. Relax. Sorry, guys. I do apologize. This is just bad timing with the neighbors doing a whole bunch of work on their front lawn like 30 feet away from where the dogs are. Oh, dear lordy. Eric Stone, the conundrum is it's a blessing and a curse because when he gets on camera, it could also turn off. So say like my children were like even eight years ago when I was just getting into this hobby, this happens sometimes as well. I would have Twitch on the big screen. And now when I am out at pinball tournaments, do I once in a while drop an F-bomb, especially when I'm at a tournament with no one underage? Like I mentioned earlier, I played, you know, my come up for playing pinball was at a crazy, crazy punk rock club where you were going to see people doing everything in the bathroom, like everything. you are going to if you could even get the right people in the right bathrooms that would be one thing but uh you're going to see every you're going to see see and hear like half the time you couldn't even hear any call outs on the machines if there was a band playing because they were so gosh darn tootin loud now i sound like an old man yelling at it but i love watching eric play but at the same time when we're all concentrating on watching finals and we have 500 viewers in there including tons of probably newer viewers to it and there could be other especially like so what had just happened is Colin Sharp Josh Sharpe's son Zach Sharp's son no Josh Sharpe's son I think um he's really good at like cubing he's also pretty good at pinball and he knows his pinball stuff he was in the commentators booth calling all the stuff and it just so happened that moments later you hear Eric go like uh he didn't just go f-bomb he said he was like okay pretend I'm saying I don't know why I'm afraid of swearing today I'm gonna show I'm trying try not to swear anymore but I'm going to say frick you, but imagine I'm saying F you. Now pull your earbuds, turn the volume down. I'm going to like lean back a lot here. But he was like, frick you! And he was just like so angry. And like, I swear to God, dude, I had both dogs on the couch beside me. I had Luna Elowen and Draco Franchi on either side of me. and when he did that now I did have the soundbar on I did have the bass on pretty loud and the commentators were kind of tired after 15 hours a day for the commentators were talking like this and all of a sudden you hear Eric Stone like screaming at the top of his lungs it was jarring to me my wife just looked over like is someone like is there a shooter breaking into the building is someone having a manic-pressive like like is someone losing their mind I've been there live at Lumberjack Johnny's and I didn't even know Eric was there when I first got there my first night and I was getting a drink and I'm standing in line and all of a sudden Eric has like one of these level 10 like escapades or whatever and I you know I don't know I don't know how much of it is purposeful or not I don't know how much of it is flair or showmanship or how much is just like that's just his that's just you know he can't he can't stop himself I don't know I'm a person with a bad temper I don't think I've ever screamed that loud at any pinball tournament ever Even when I won New Brunswick, I don't think I screamed that loud. But the point is, is that when he does this, all of the people that were there playing, doing like, for those of you who don't know, Lumberjack Johnny's is like half axe throwing and half, and there's other people just there drinking and eating pizza. It's not just pinball nerds. I mean, it was more so that weekend because it's pinmasters and nationals. But anyways, the point is, everybody else not playing pinball was like, oh my god, is that person about to get in a fight? Are we about to hear about bottles being smashed? Is this person about to bring out a knife or a gun? Like we were like, what is happening? And that's what I'm saying is that when you're at, it's a time and a place. When you're in a punk rock bar and there's people doing drugs everywhere and screaming F-U-C-K and there's bottles being smashed and people doing drugs everywhere and people crowd surfing and people punching people in the face in the fight circle on purpose. I've been there playing pinball where I was being pressed up on so hard by all the people in the crowd that I literally had to like just like I was pushed with my entire crotch was like against the coin door I was getting pushed in by the crowd that bad like with people like crowdsurfing behind me and stuff now mind you this wasn't at a league night this was just at a regular night playing pinball that's actually kind of fun when you have like a hundred people pushed up against you and you're just stuck in the middle of this crazy mosh pit trying to play pinball but I've gone off topic The Eric Stone conundrum will continue. He's a blessing and a curse. I love it when Eric is playing and he's like talking to himself. And even if he's getting upset and he's like, oh my gosh, or whatever. The two things I don't like with Eric, they're on flip sides of it. It's when he goes onto Facebook and he blames God. And he's like, oh, I should have, you know, he hasn't done this for a while. Thank you, Eric, for not doing this for a while. But he'll say stuff like, oh, I should have, I knew I should have prayed harder. Or maybe the opponent prayed harder than me. Or, you know, maybe it's just God didn't want me to win this tournament. If there is a God, which I highly doubt. But if there is a God, and most scientists are wrong, he doesn't give a crap about Eric Stone's pinball. He doesn't. I'm sorry. Anyways, that's, you know, I'm not going to go down a religious or political road because I don't find joy in speaking about either of those things. But that and when Eric completely loses his shots and it just scares everybody around there, that would scare off... If I didn't know Eric Stone was Eric Stone and I was just watching that stream like if I was one of the 500 viewers that was kind of newer to pinball and I didn't know who Eric Stone was and what he was about and that it was pretty much just normal. Every tournament we're going to hear 20 to 30 like, oh my God, is he about to go on a killing spree type, losing his temper, like baby, childish, whatever's, you know, and then he has to go online and have a hissy fit about it and then he was saying it was garbage how he got fourth and everything else And anyways, Josh Sharpe ended up writing in the chat something about, oh, I put the quote right here. You taught my kid a couple of new words, too. So Josh Sharpe actually wrote that. So it's like, there you go. You have Josh Sharpe himself expressing, he's trying to be funny about it, right? But he's like expressing like, my, I don't know how old the kid is, eight years old, nine years old, my eight or nine year old. Plus, Sterling, another, I think, a 12 or 13-year-old, really good young up-and-coming player. Sterling plays pinball. He's like 50th in the world. Incredible player. Maybe slightly older Sterling. I'm not sure how old you are. Maybe 14, 15, but fairly young. And then these other two brothers, the one that beat Hayden at Lumberjack Johnny's one time, these other, Liam and the other two brothers who are really good, they're there. There's all these kids there. It's not just that you're saying the F word. Of course, they're going to hear F words before, you know, like even on this podcast, I've said the F word before. My point is, like, I'm not a prude. My point is, like, you're having, like, a meltdown, and you're kind of, like, teaching my children who were in the room from time to time, and any other kids, and even just newer people into pinball, that it's okay to lose your shit that bad about a ball going down. And it's like, it's, you know, you've got to learn to have at least a tiny bit of self-control. I don't know. Anyways, that is the conundrum that is Eric Stone. I'll get down off my soapbox. Let's talk about the number 10 surprise, something I'm very shocked about that I absolutely love. And to anyone in chat that I was disagreeing with, no disrespect, like Andy Bagwell, I totally love you. I love entertaining people. I like watching Robert Byers. Robert Byers gets really animated. I've said that for years. Cliff Albert, I love watching Cliff Albert play. Any of these people that just really get amped up and have Dalton. Dalton really is so fun to watch. Dalton is even probably more fun when he's not, you know, really far in a tournament necessarily, when he's kind of just having fun and doing his own thing. Dalton was in commentary. God bless him. I think he's risen to the top. I might enjoy listening to Dalton do commentary almost as much, maybe more than Steven Bowden now. Dalton, congratulations. You might have taken the Orby throne for my favorite pinball commentator. So, anyways, I had a really great time. I think a lot of, I think everybody, everybody who did commentating did at least very well. and so that means that Tom or whoever was choosing who was going to do commentary did a great job. It was certainly very entertaining. I mean if this says anything I watch almost all of Kerry Hardy's content other than him like doing a mod or like cleaning a pinball machine because those are two things I'm not like super interested in watching videos on. But I watch almost all of Kerry Hardy's content and I still haven't watched all of I've watched part of but I haven't watched all of his walk around which I will do this week like I'm excited to do that but I've watched almost every single minute and gone back and watched other parts of the tournament that I didn't see and that's a testament to like yes I do like pinball machines and modding pinball machines and talking about new pinball machines that have came out and I guess rumored pinball machines yada yada yada but mostly I like talking about tournament pinball and I don't know maybe now that final round pinball is not here maybe I can try to fill that void in a tiny, tiny way. I mean, Teolis is like top 250 in the world. I think Marty used to be around the top 1,000 in the world. My highest rating, I believe, was like 1,200th or 1,300th, somewhere around there in the world. I'm currently down to 4,400th, but that could be going up. Before I tell you number 10, I'm going to tell you, I was going to clickbait you guys about a week ago with the, it was going to say trip booked and also do another show, But I didn't clickbait you this time. Everything I've said is the truth. I have booked a trip. I'm going to Maple Pinball at the end of November in Mississauga, just south of Toronto, Ontario. So whether you live in Michigan or you live in, well, even Chicago, really. It's a hop, skip, and a jump. It's, what, five hours to Detroit, hour and a half to London. After that, maybe 40 minutes from there to Mississauga, depending on if you take the 403 or the 401 or you want to pay for the whatever, right? So the point is, wow, wow, wow. I can't wait to go. It is the last tournament was the largest tournament ever in Ontario. And from what I understand, this one's even going to be slightly bigger with even more juicy whoppers. And, you know, bigger players coming and everything else. So I don't know if bigger players are coming. I kind of just made that up. But I'm coming. I'm going. It should be good. I'm going to try to go to Maple each year I can. I can just, I mean, here's the thing. I missed Expo, but I also saved myself between $1,500 to $2,500. When I fly into southwestern Ontario, not only am I usually given a car by a family member or friend, which they probably don't want me taking to Chicago with me. I'm sorry. Maybe Schaumburg's pretty safe from what I understand. Family, friends, and members don't mind me taking the car somewhere an hour away, but not seven or eight hours away into the States. I guess if that makes sense. It's not really a safety thing, but you know where I'm coming from. and then it only cost me between $60 to $90 to fly into Southwestern Ontario and then I'd never have to worry about a hotel because between my two sisters, my dad, my aunt and uncle, my two best friends that live there that always offer me a place, I've just never paid for a hotel any of the times I went back. Now I make sure to buy them dinner, give them some beers, hook them up with some gummies, that sort of thing as a thank you but it's just so cheap for me to go to Southwestern Ontario. I paid $150 Canadian. That's like 99 US or 110 US. And that included all four tournaments. And then even the extra $20 I added in for the Classic. So I think it was only, so it was $150. And I get to play in all four, if not maybe even five tournaments. So that's just incredible. And it's going to be lots of points. If you live in Ohio, it's not that far of a drive. I know Laser Los came up last time. It's not that far. It's not that far. So, you know, even if you're in Chicago and you didn't want to bring your car, you could hop on a train or a very, very, from what I understand, very inexpensive flight to Detroit. Rent a car from there in the U.S. for like $20 a day probably and just drive up. You're in Mississauga in no time. Of course, you could fly right into Toronto. That's probably a little pricier. But then you'd be right there. You could take an Uber just to Maple Pinball. Maple Pinball is incredible if you haven't been there before. It's got, what, 80 pinball machines? I don't want to, I don't want to, I don't know how many were working it up, but they're all in really good condition. And even if not Shane Jackson or one of the other owners or TDs, usually Ian Haywer and Jeff Teolas do TDing there. But also like, you know, you'll see other TDs as well. Obviously, Shane Jackson, one of the owners and the other owner, they'll come over and help with any TDing. So no, it's just set up very well. It's run very well. It's not open to the public, which I kind of like because you don't have randos just coming in. and you don't have to be like, oh no, please don't play that machine and be like a jerk to them, right? That almost happened. That almost happened in the very final game or the second last game of the very final match. But anyways, meet me at Maple Pinball. If you're listening to this now, you should go to Maple Pinball. I think there's only a couple tickets left for the whole weekend. Jeff just posted a couple days ago and I know he just accepted my money, I think yesterday. So there probably is very few left. Make sure you hit up Jeff Teolis or you go look at the, I think on Facebook, It's like the Ontario Maple Pinball. Just go to Maple Pinball and you'll see. All the information will be on there on Facebook. And if not, you can always look on IFPA.com. That will have a listing. You can always go to Canada or Toronto and look under that. Number of kilometers from, number of miles from if you're in the States, that sort of thing. But let's get on to the number 10 surprise before we talk more about Metallica. Number 10 on the list was how much everybody loved Metallica. Now I thought with how people treated the Jurassic Park Anniversary Edition and how angry people got at it and said there wasn't enough value in it and they didn't think that they should be releasing it, including myself, I thought that there would be a lot of harsh people talking about Metallica. But it actually turned out that tons of people were stoked about it. And me, myself, looking at it, I love myself anything oceanic, anything animal. Especially, I have a special place in my heart for the squid, the octopi, the giant sea serpent that is the eight-legged wonder of the world that lives deep, dark under the ocean. The Kraken himself, which is on the Metallica Remastered LE. oh my god it's gorgeous we're not going to talk about that yet but the surprise was how much everybody was dealing with it in a positive way so let's get into the top five rad and one bad now I know that they said they made some shot differentials but I was not able to see any of the shot differentials I haven't got to play it yet it does to me look like just from the videos at the graveyard shot which I always thought especially when you're trying to backhand it you can backhand really easily the first and second grave marker. I find the third grave marker, and especially the target, very, very, very challenging to hit. Sometimes even if you hit it cleanly with a backhand and you do a roll-up and you do like a little micro flip to get that ball about halfway up the flipper before you backhand it, it seems like it's wider open and it's smoother with that metal side. So it should, and it looks like the geometry might have just been, you know, just a degree or two might have been turned, you know, more uh more I'll say horizontal with the cab so it should be a little bit of an easier shot it should actually be easier from the right but way easier from the left as a backhand shot I believe but I'm not going to include that because I don't know I also didn't include the new sculpt for the hammer because I don't really remember what the old one looked like this one kind of looked big and bulky I don't know if I like that better apparently it has a light I don't know if that would make the list I'm not sure if the new sparky is good enough to make the list really I like the old Sparky. I like the old Sparky a lot. The new Sparky looks cool too, but is it new enough or different enough for the list? I would say no. Number five on the top five rad though, which did make the list, is, in order of how rad I thought they were and how awesome they are and how much I think they're going to change the game, is the art. This artwork, as I was already mentioning, especially on I think the LE, now I love green. I do have green eyes myself, so I've been told for years that green is the best color t-shirt or sweater for me to wear, so my eyes pop, so says Drop Target Danielle. However, information you didn't need. However although I love how much the premium artwork just pops the L Kraken artwork on the cab is incredibilso Chef kiss Immaculate gorgeous beautiful delightful scrumdiddlyumptious and just and it foil right It's Metallica with metallic foil. How fitting. So, good for them. Again, we're not going to talk about price. And that isn't the one bad. That isn't the one bad. we're not going to talk about price but obviously of course I would like lower prices because I'm broke broke I'm the poorest man possibly of all the poor men's tribe members as far as I know I'm down there but James Rees Cooper as was predicted actually by a friend of the show Ryan Berry there at Phantom Tilt when are we going to hear a new one from Phantom Tilt? It's been a while hopefully soon, it would be nice to hear from Ryan and Kimba but But James Rees Cooper actually does artwork for the band, and I would have to guess that the band said, hey, is there any way when you redo the art? Because apparently the band did come to them and say, we'd really like an LCD updated, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, which is really cool. When the band is into it, you know you're going to get those assets. So that is really, really cool. The same way that you want a designer and their team to be really into a theme before they do the theme, you really want, especially if it's a band, even maybe more so than a movie, You want the people behind it to be into it, just like Guns N' Roses, so you're guaranteed all the assets, all the songs, not just live concert songs, not just concert video, but also a mixture of being able to do animations and being able to do call-outs and everything else. So I think number five is the artwork, and it's incredible. The Ellie looks incredible. okay the green is also fire but to each and every one of you that got an le probably perhaps for the first time in about five years i can say congrats on snagging an le that is not only gorgeous but we already know the code was fired before we already know the shots were fun before and from what i'm hearing from everybody at expo is that it shoots even better and is even more fun and perhaps even slightly easier right so wow good for you cheers to you guys who cares if it's going to hold its value. You've got one of 500 of the most gorgeous, beautiful pinball machines on planet earth. And because of that, and because of not just John Borg and not just, it is Metallica, a huge massive band that a lot of people love with, you know, Metallica's base, their fan base is getting older and has more money now. So definitely, you know, I think that these particular machines, especially the LEs are going to hold their value really well. All right. Number four of the top five most rad things about Metallica Remastered by Stern Pinball is the eight new songs that we are hearing. So that is incredible. They went from 12 songs to 20. If you do the math, that's almost 200% more, right? 200% more would be 24 songs, be 12 new songs instead of eight. It's a lot. We're talking about like, I'm trying to do the math in my head, 75% more songs. Like that's incredible. Imagine if anything else that you went to go buy at the store, you know, you went to go buy a 2-4 a beer and you got 75% more for free you'd be like what I get I what's 75 18 42 you got 42 beers you only pay for 24 you'd be ecstatic so there you go you before if you are a massive Metallica fan you only had 12 to choose from before now you've got eight new songs this is you're in your freaking glory and I'm glad they did that because if they came out with this and they only changed the artwork and they didn't do everything else they're doing I would be more disappointed and I couldn't even do a top five rad and one bad I'd have to do a five bad and one rad excuse me okay so next on the list is number three and number three is the lighting now usually unless I'm talking about a jersey jack I never put lighting this high but between all of the lighting the uv lighting and how it lights up the new sparky sparky's all uv and everything now then you get the expression lighting which is like just looks incredible on this even it looks like the GI lighting is different and lights up different colors than the old one did, if I'm seeing it right. Then the speaker lights, you get the speaker lights that are, you know, which I think with a band pin, having speaker lights and expression lighting that goes along with it is more valuable than say, like, I don't know, like say Dungeons and Dragons comes out. I don't feel like many people will be like, oh, you got, you got to get the expression light kit for Dungeons the dragons, brah. Like, I don't think, you know what I mean? Like, I think with a band pin, because a part of the concert experience is the lighting and part of, you know, whether it be a music video or going to see them live, how important the lighting is, that really, and how it can go along with the music, that seems to be even more important. So I'm glad that they changed this because that really makes the songs feel like they're coming to life more than it does on the old Metallica. All right. So number three on the list is the UV on Sparky, the Expression Lighting, like all the new lights, all the new lighting combined looks just even including on the topper, right? So number two is the... No, wait. No, there is new lighting coming down, not on the topper. Sorry, from... I don't think... No, the new lighting coming down from the hammer sorry okay so number two on the list is the lcd i don't know what it is i was one of these people saying i don't care if there's a new lcd on it doesn't need a new lcd you don't look up at the lcd blah blah blah blah and then you see it with the new lcd with like showing the uh the new animations which look pretty decent and then they're showing the uh you know especially the concert footage and it's like yeah that adds to the machine and it just it looks more it looks I try to be a minimalist in my personal life, but it just looks more awesome. It looks more rad. It looks fire. It looks more modern. It looks more like the now. You're in. Get in the now, bro. I don't know why I'm doing surfer dude voice today. I did spend a good chunk of the day yesterday down at the beach in joggins. In joggins with the doggins. All right. Number one on the list, and this is the thing I'm the most excited for of all of it. That's right. new lead software engineer, Mr. Raymond Davidson. For the very first time, he's going to get to be the lead on this pony. And good for him. I think he deserves it. He's shown us what he can do between Foo Fighters, Led Zeppelin, and then, of course, Rush. He's done a lot of really cool stuff on Rush, too. So I'm really glad to see Ray Day getting his chance to shine. Sorry for the pun. But I'm really excited he's going to have his moment in the sun. Do you know what I mean? he's going to have his time to get out. He's going to bake it. And hopefully he does a great job. I'm assuming he will. And the reason I put this as number one is because if history is any signal, it means that if you already start with a good foundation, a good base, we know that everything Lyman F. Sheats Jr. did on this pinball machine is incredible. In fact, every time I go to Spin It Records in Moncton, I have the opportunity to play one of 40 pins. And it isn't, it isn't, Keith Elwin's Jurassic Park I run to first. It's not even Star Wars, being a huge Star Wars nerd. It's not even KISS. I start at Metallica almost every time. And I usually go in a loop and I finish on Metallica. Now that's usually because I typically end up getting a free game. But there's just something about shooting those wamps left and right. Like spelling Metallica, getting Lady Justice, Sparky. I like to speedrun Sparky. I like to try to get done Sparky in like a minute and a half. I can backhand Sparky. I can forehand Sparky. I can hit Sparky from every possible angle. I don't like trying to hit the snake or the scoop unless I'm trying to do add a ball. But I love Metallica. I know Metallica well. My good buddy Matt owned Metallica. Did he rent it or own it? I think he owned it. Best friend there, Matt. Matt is also coming to Maple Pinball. That's part of the reason why I'm going back. It's kind of a twofer, you know, two birds for one stone. I get to hang it with my best friend. I also get to see pinball shenanigander himself, Mike Dimas. If you see Mike Dimas to say, go to Expo with Orby next year. I'm trying to get him to go as well. Of course, I'll get to see other people like Julie Dorcher, who's been on the show four or five times. Sean Russell's been on the show a couple times. Jeff Teoles, who's been on the show once, maybe twice. Maybe twice now. At least once. You know, I'll get to see a lot of other people. The Castlemans, of course. Mike Castleman, Carter Castleman. Shout out to Carter Castleman. He just won a big tournament up there in Montreal. Um, yeah. What else? What else can I tell you about Metallica? I have to tell you about the one bad. I do. I have to. I have to tell you about the one bad. And Ray Day, by the way, if you'd like to call into the show, I am doing, um, I am doing interviews again, or at least I like to call them chats with friends. Maybe you want to wait till I get to hang out with you in person and we can talk about it then. Um, hopefully I get to do that sooner rather than later, maybe in the new year, maybe pin masters. I don't know if you're going to go to pin masters Ray Day, but, uh, but if you'd like to you, Radeade, let me know. Reach out to me if you're listening, hopefully. If you'd like to come on the show, I'd love to talk about Metallica and the changes that you made. I don't know if you implemented changes for all eight songs or what you did with the code or you just kind of refined a couple things or balanced it. I know it's already like people already love playing it in tournaments, so I'm sure you didn't have to do too much score balancing but you probably had to like, I think you added a couple new modes I think was mentioned. But really interesting just to pick his brain and just thank him so much for supporting the show over all these years. So anyways, congratulations to Ray Day. Congratulations to John Borg, of course, the designer. It was really nice to get to see and hear from John. We hadn't done that, I think, in the last couple of releases, right? Like maybe since Turtles. So that was nice. If you go watch the four-minute remastered video on Stern's YouTube, great job with the production on that, guys. Now that we've seen how bad the production can be on everything produced by Dutch and Alice, aren't we thankful? Some people say like, oh, but Stern's videos aren't quite as good as a JJP video. Yeah, maybe not, but they're more than adequate. They're in fact very good. They're maybe not like incredible. Maybe they're not dropping the bank like a million bucks per like, you know, maybe instead of doing 22 modes, you just do like 12 modes and they're finished. But anyways, no, I've gone off topic here. I'm trying to be positive today. I've gone off topic. I had a great time being able to follow along with everybody. I'm shocked we didn't see more live streams from Don. I thought we would have seen like, normally Don does between 12 to 15 live streams. I think he did one from his hotel bedroom, showing the picture of a freeway. I was like, dude, we want to see pinball machines. We want to see you interacting with other pinball people and stuff. I don't know. I didn't expect to see him in the tournament area or anything, but anyways, maybe I missed it. Maybe I was so busy watching Fox Cities. Rachel Risto, fellow tribe members she was doing commentary as well I had to leave for a good chunk of that but that was really cool shout out to Rachel I don't know who won the classics in the women's I haven't tried to go on fb and see if the results are there yet I did miss that I do apologize but shout out to everybody who played in the tournament you did a great job um shout out to radio of course on being the uh lead software designer on Metallica remasters and uh thanks to everybody for listening today. Did I have anything else to tell you guys? I think I told you guys already about my trip, so I guess that's it. I do hope, though, there's so many other awesome bands. We've seen Metallica twice now. Before we see Metallica a third time, can we all agree? Oh, the one bad. I got to tell you about the one bad. Listen to me trying to get off the airwaves, though, telling you about the one bad. The one bad is that we've seen now the other Metallica, which had held its price so well for so long and be so hard to be it was almost unobtainium to get a good working Metallica with low plays in good condition and now we're seeing them all over the market the price dropping just like happened to my Guardians of the Galaxy after they started reprinting them perhaps even in a bigger way and it's almost like the same thing I said with the Godzilla anniversary edition the Godzilla one was so gosh darn tootin beautiful anyone who will own the old ones their value did drop a little bit just because the market, you know, so many people wanted to get the newer, prettier one. And that now is the same case. Is Stern shooting themselves in the foot? Just a little. Now, they've got to keep the line running now, but are they borrowing from Peter to give to Rand Paulin the future? Because now, one of their very few pins that you could get that would hold its price was an old Metallica. Now, that one's sinking like a stone, right? Which it will for a while, then eventually it will come back up. It's still a great pin. It doesn't matter whether you're holding the old Metallica or the new one. It's still a great pin. Go play it. Go enjoy playing it. Put it this way. It's impossible to lose money on any pinball machine that you enjoyed playing on it that much. And that's why I've never lost money on a pinball machine. Not even Guardians of the Galaxy after I, in quotes, lost $1,500 on it. I played 2,000 plays on it. I had over 20 or 30 fun family tournaments on it. I had a great time on it. It helped me win the New Brunswick Pinball Championship, which therefore helped me have one of the best experiences of my life. going to pin masters, getting to go play in nationals, getting to go meet so many awesome pinball nerds. Um, shout out to all the poor men, shout out to all the tribes, people that were out. I'm really sorry. I didn't get to go. I know I kind of like, I know I kind of screwed the pooch. I ironically, the Wednesday that I would have been leaving, I got in my very final thing for the pinball nerds podcast trading cards that I need to get, which was my buttons with Escher and I from D82 at, uh, nationals or pin masters. And, um, I, there were the, were the last thing I wanted to be able to have for my Pinball Nerds Podcast trading cards. Got them in. And now what do I do with them? I'm just like, ah, wait till next year's expo. I don't know. Who knows? Anyways, I absolutely love you guys. Thank you very much for listening. Have yourselves a wonderful day. And I'll probably be back in a while. And hopefully I'll be back with a pinterview for you sooner rather than later. Until next time, remember to eat, sleep, and breathe Metallica Remastered.