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. Welcome back, Pinball Nerds, to episode 630 of your fifth favorite pinball podcast. My name is Orbital Albert, and on today's show, I couldn't be more stoked to be letting you know, in case you haven't heard the news, you've been sleeping under a rock for the last three hours, Mr. Jack Danger. formerly do i now say formally or not formally formerly of the dead flip streaming channel by far the most watched most infamous most famous biggest most interesting ski ball live streaming channel on earth but also pinball channel come on can he not be both and i'm not joking for those of you who don't know the lore jack danger i believe for multiple years in a row if if not at least the one that I watched or two that I watched live streamed like the world championships of skeeball or some big skeeball tournament. And it was so cool because multiple people got perfect. But you're not here to listen to me jibber jab about skeeball. My wife likes skeeball perhaps more than pinball, but she would never admit that in front of you pinball nerds. You know, it's not like she wants to buy a skeeball machine to have in her house. She just likes to do it every time she sees it when we're out. um but anyway speaking of being out this is still part blog i know i have a professional microphone now i could do asmr if i wanted no i don't i don't know how to do that but i could try i could try um but my wife has left me that's right many of you suspected it i knew would happen just about every summer this happens she goes back home and for a whole week she's hanging out with friends and family members that I lovingly joke in my home province of Ontario. Of course, I did not make that name up. I heard it a lot when I was hanging out up in Whitehorse and even Vancouver. And I know in Alberta, it's a very popular colloquialism that they like to call us there. But of course, am I an Ontario-anite or a Nova Scotian? I don't know. I've been here six years, I'd like to think a little bit of both, okay? But this isn't about me. This is about our boy, Jack Danger. Now, I'm not doing video for today's show for a couple reasons. Like I mentioned, it's Bachelor Week. I'm not going to be doing a lot of beard trimming or unnecessary hair combing or even honestly, I frankly didn't feel like putting on pants. And I didn't plan on doing a podcast today whatsoever. So I did promise you I would dig up my streaming cameras back from when Jack Danger and I used to stream sometimes at the same time and sometimes on the same day. I remember one time I was live streaming and there was no one in chat, like after like 10 or 15 minutes of playing, like no one. It was up to two or three, then it was down to no one. So I decided to just sit there and eat my lunch. And I was eating like a quesadilla or something. And I see one chat pop up and it's Jack Danger. He's like, oh, interesting pinball you've got here. And I'm like, I'm sorry I stopped to eat lunch. Like, but he knows what it's about. I I know famously he was eating a burrito one time at Pinball Expo, and that's what caused Mrs. Pin of Mrs. Pin's Pinball podcast to start up a pinball podcast because she thought if he could sit there and have a burrito and have hundreds of people in chat. And, of course, I didn't get hundreds of people in chat. I had one. I do miss Mrs. Pin. Mrs. Pin, come back. Do a one-time, one-off episode. Update us with Dr. Pin. Maybe, Franchi, you could set that up. Maybe it would be a Christmas episode. Hell, maybe I have to start doing interviews again myself so I can interview interesting people in the pinball world that I don't know what happened to them. I couldn't tell you if Mrs. Pin and Dr. Pin own 10 pins or none. I'm assuming they got a Harry Potter because I'm pretty sure that was very, very high up on their list for pins they wanted, but I don't know. Now, earlier today, we heard from Mr. Jack Danger, formerly and now back again, of Dead Flip Streaming. I'm pretty sure and I haven't done the numbers I could probably ask chat but I'm trying to go AI free today okay Jack Danger's 32.8 thousand followers on dead flip probably is equivalent let's look at Buffalo Pinball um let me go over to Buffalo's actually live right now shout out Buffalo Pinball okay we're gonna don't uh copyright strike me it'll probably be a commercial I knew it'd be a commercial darn tootin commercial okay hopefully you didn't hear that uh but I'm looking at Buffalo Pinball right now. I've got to guess they've got the second biggest audience, and they're at 9,300. So that's still really, really, really good for pinball, 9,300. But it's not even, you know, I guess it's more than a third, but, you know, it's quite a bit more than double them, and that's just Jack Danger. And he's been out of the game for, what, four or five years now? Almost right as I moved to the East Coast, he got the job doing that, right? So new pinball night, Venom premium gameplay with Kevin. Shout out to Kevin. He's wearing Barry's barbecue shirt there, and he's playing a little bit. So Kevin Manning, everybody. Thank you very much. So here's the thing. Even though they have a little less than half, there is 30 people currently right now in there. Jack Danger, I think the least I've ever seen, maybe in the first hour when he first started streaming, was like 100 to 150. maybe like very very late at night like it got down to 80 or 90 and none of these things matter because what really does matter is that jack danger has been the only live streamer for as long as i can remember that's managed to break the mold and get out of the typical well for one all of the other pinball players stream under pinball jack danger always streamed under just chatting that would always bring in new people jack danger's mods were particularly good at making sure that the you know even the the subscribers and the people who've been long-term fans of jack danger in there were always nice and and cool and like chill with newbies uh never gatekeeping or being rude or being mean or making fun of them for buying their dream theme even if it loses a little bit of money or after time like come on that's not how we grow pinball i think we can agree for the most part almost all pinball podcasters content creators and even pinball nerds listening to this show right now want to grow pinball i want to put pinball everywhere i've talked about this for a long time it's a dream of mine to start a non-profit called put pinball everywhere of course after covid happened with ppes i thought well that's we've got to change the name a little like put pinball anywhere ppas i don't know uh this is i'm getting what is the public the pdas public displays of affection which you probably shouldn't do with your side hustle girl if you're at coldplay uh i did see a funny meme which don't worry it's somewhat pinball related i did see a funny meme and it was of uh um dave girl famously from the foo fighters of course of jack danger's pinball machine that he famously designed and it's such a wonderful pinball machine by the way congratulations jack awesome design love the flow i love all the weird wild wonderful whimsical shots on it i like all the times you don't know where the ball's going in where it's coming out what's going on the mechs the toy everything i love the artwork i love of Of course, the music, I mean, I paid, I think it's the most I've ever paid to go see a band. Maybe Radiohead would have been close per ticket, but it was like $2.29 a ticket or $2.39 a ticket to go see the Foo Fighters on their acoustic tour called the Skin and Bones Tour, which I got to go see them at a really world-renowned, and the name of it is slipping my mind, but really cool theater in Toronto there. Really good acoustics on it for a much smaller show, much more intimate Foo Fighters concert than most people would get to see them at. but going back to Jack Danger for a second here, Jack Danger is going to be, again, we don't, the one question I wanted answered, and Colin, thank you so much, Colin of the Kineticist, of course, he asked five really relevant, excellent, interesting questions. I'm not going to reread those for you, but that answered some of my questions. The one question I wanted answered is, will you still be designing? Will you still be updating your old games? I think the answer to updating your old games would be yes. Designing future games, we don't know it sounds like he's currently working on a game or he was and now it sounds i'm just going to read from officially from stern okay stern pinball.com right here this was released just a couple hours ago twitch pinball superstar jack danger is back and ready to stream in a new role a new role see when you hear that part a new role it makes me assume that there's probably a good chance that it sounds like he's not going to be designing as much or at all. And I don't know which one of those is true. But let's just read this first and then I'm going to give you my opinion because sometimes I go off topic too much. And today I'm attempting to go off topic slightly less. Chicago, Illinois, July 21st, just nine days till Orby's 45th birthday. I'm going to be more famously halfway to 90. That's right. I've always said within 10 years of not being able to, A, be able to lovingly hold hands with my wife, or within 10 years of not being able to play disc golf or ball golf, I don't care to live on this planet Earth. And of course, as I become a bigger pinball nerd over the last five to 10 years, that's all changed. If I can't play pinball anymore, put me in a casket, put me in, and I'm probably the only one, not, you know, nut bar enough to actually do this. I legit want to be not buried because that's just weird. I don't want to be buried. I don't, I don't like that. I want to be cremated in a pinball cabinet. That's right. The Jersey Jack, see the Mina Lima, boy, they will be happy to hear about that. Wait, you're going to take a perfectly good pinball cabinet and you're going to put it on a C, a C minus grade pinball podcaster and burn them up in it and say, yeah, that's what's going to happen uh but this is not this is not jersey jack's day this is stern's day so let's just get back into it here uh stern pinball is happy to announce that jack danger is taking on new responsibilities as head of community i love that jack is such a person perfect person to do that jack is just very welcoming like i said especially to newer players older players young people old people everyone in between he he is a very like forward-thinking dude he just he's he's not judgmental he takes everyone for who they are you know what I mean like he's just a welcoming I just think he's just a great ambassador for pinball and I'm so happy to see him getting back into this role he let's be honest before he went over to Stern he was still kind of the head of the community he kind of was we kind of thought of him that way the joke in chat is people call him dad or papa or something like that right and i understand why uh they would spend three four or five nights a week for two three four hours a night near the last few years he was only streaming like three hours a night but when i first started watching him i'm guessing it would have been back in 2017 2018 he was still streaming sometimes he'd start streaming at like 5 p.m eastern standard time it wouldn't stop to like 10 11 12 um i know what the the most epic stream I ever spent with him. I think I started watching him at like 4.30 in the afternoon and I think he was walking around downtown. He was just doing all this different stuff and then he ended up I think it was his last stream in his old, like two or three ago arcades and then he was moving to a new arcade and he was cleaning up and stuff like that and for some reason there was a ladder in the room and I swear to God he's the most entertained I've probably ever been during a quote-unquote pinball stream. He danced with the ladder. He did a ladder like dance with the ladder like he was partying and it was funny it was very funny it was entertaining that was a very good stream there's been so many other great streams he did a stream where he had the um paps blue ribbon and you could play pinball with the remote control that was inside the can that was crazy uh he had that automated batman 66 that you could play through the internet for years he set that all up and worked with i mean he worked with the people who did it i don't know how much of that was like him and but he had something to do with it of course Jack Danger has live streamed every new pinball machine since forever, basically, from Stern, right? And before that, he was live streaming not just Stern, but like I think he would do Spookies. I think he would do – he would basically like – I remember even Alien. That was one of the first live streams I watched him on. He was the very first person to live stream Alien in North America or ever. I'm not sure. You know, he would always go cover whenever Stern – this is before he worked for Stern. Whenever there would be a brand-new machine, like I know with – I believe it was the Munsters. They call them the Kid. Jason Werdrick, I believe, won that one. My memory might be a little rusty. The Munsters came out quite some time ago. But he would go down to like Logan Arcade, I believe, or some local Chicago arcade where they were having like the official Stern. Like this is – I think back then, I don't even know if Stern would have like tons of these. But I know they always had like a launch party at like Logan Arcade or one of these other big arcades there in Chicago. And Jack Danger would go live stream the whole tournament, right? And so it would be neat because you'd be seeing him talking to other people at the bar and other pinball nerds and other pinball people would come over and chat for a bit. And, you know, one of the things – excuse me. Say what you will about Jack Danger. One of the things that makes him stand out from every other pinball live streamer that I've ever seen until Dirty Pool. Until Dirty Pool. Dirty Pool is almost as good as doing it. Shout out to Dirty Pool Pinball on Twitch, and he also streams on YouTube. But he just had Hattie on as well. I believe that was a pretty good interview. Well, okay, I listened to the first like five or ten minutes. I've got to go back and finish listening to it. I also got to catch up right here on the Poor Man's Pinball Network. I've got to catch up. The Pinball Junk Drawer. They were chatting all about shout out to tribe member Rachel Risto who actually just won the Wisconsin Ladies Flip something But go back and listen to episode 77 That came out about five or six days ago with Craft Beer Sally and Foghorn Leghorn And listen to that one Again, I'm sorry. I am a little bit behind. Believe it or not, I thought with my wife going away, I'd have all this extra time. But then I gave myself like five weird, strange. I don't want to go too far off topic, but I'm doing like I'm trying to do 15,000 steps a day. I'm doing a weird eating challenge. I'm doing all this other fun stuff. Don't worry. I am recording some of the content for YouTube as well. in the future. But go listen to that as well. And shout out to Rachel Resto. So I know she's had some big wins in the past, but I think this is like a really big win for her. So I'd love to, that's another reason why I got started doing interviews, not just to finally get Jack Danger. Don't worry, buddy. I'm still looking for your pickle beer. There is a place actually in the town. It's a real town called Dildo, Newfoundland that makes a pickle beer. So if I can take the 16 hour ferry over to Newfoundland and spend two or three grand out of my hard-earned pocket to bring my wife on our trip for our anniversary next summer jack danger i will get you on the microphone i do remember your promise but here's the thing i would love to chat with rachel risto as well because it's been so long since we've got to hear her in tribe multiball there you go see i was starting to remember and then she was also on the ray ray show right with raymond davidson right here on the poor man pimple network uh we're down to just two shows but that's okay because i suspect someday i don't know if i don't want to say sooner rather than later i don't want to get the tribe members and everybody else excited but wouldn't it be great to hear from drew again wouldn't it be even better to hear from drew and ian i don't know if it will ever happen let a man dream okay jack danger i never thought jack danger be coming back to streaming and jack danger is back baby yeah let's do it let's get into it okay let's finish reading this come on um jack has a history of being a twitch streamer and a Stern brand ambassador before fully devoting his time to being a game designer. Jack has designed some fan favorite pinball games, including Foo Fighters and the Uncanny X-Men, as well as exciting unannounced title that he's still completing. Jack will make his return to streaming during the San Diego Comic-Con this week, baby. So that's right. If you're listening, rate meow get over to twitch like and sub up get ready make sure you have your notifications on because it's gonna be a banger i think we're all excited to see jack again um and again let me read at least a couple comments here okay i'm not going to i don't want to read too too far into here jack immediately stood out on twitch with his uniquely interactive skilled pinball streams will expanding the reach of pinball on the platform jack's love for pinball and community surrounding it sparked his initial path to becoming a streamer and eventually both a brand ambassador and a designer. When he had the opportunity to join Stern and design the Jurassic Park Home Pin Game, that's right, sometimes we forget that he did design the Jurassic Park Home Edition game, which is, I mean, it's obviously my favorite, come on, not that there's that many to choose from, it's what, that one and the Star Wars one, but with this change, Jack will be returning to balancing his time between completing the delivery of his current game with the support of the broader Stern team and spending time on his new responsibilities. Jack's new responsibilities will include serving as an ambassador for the company, elevating Pinball's visibility through community engagement, strategic content creation, and relationship building within our community. This community communication will expand to encompass multiple platforms, including video platforms like Twitch and YouTube, as well as other social community platforms. Jack will also continue to stream broader pinball and other content on the official Deadflip Twitch channel. Welcome back, Jack. You did it, buddy. All right. I'm not going to read this last paragraph. You can head over to stern.com and read it yourself. I think also Jason Knapp of Knapps Arcade. Thank you so much for that he did a bit of an update as well which i read uh i'm just really excited oh the other thing jason app did which i thought was pretty cool i think that's over on his facebook page he did about a nine minute video he actually went to london uk do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do i'm gonna have some piggies in a blanket all right i'm sorry i'm sorry Marc Silk i don't think he listens to every show but if he does i don't know why i always go to the i can't do british i have to hear it to be and then i can maybe do a little bit but he's over there in london Robert Englunds jason knapp looks like he was with his family i believe and he went into the mina lima actual store and they have a harry potter ce the most beautiful pinball machine on planet earth right there inside okay okay okay the derpy dragon maybe not the most beautiful ever although probably the most valuable ever i predict in the year 2035 this ce version of the derpy dragon if it were new in box would be more expensive than even a stern supreme machine which is sold for as high as 50 to 70 000 depending on who you ask and who you believe just because they ask for 80 grand it doesn't mean they got it so here's the thing if you become a stern insider blah blah you can hear about that too so what is not clear here what is clear as mud is we don't know how often Jack Danger will actually be live streaming for Stern and building Stern's YouTube channel and Stern's Twitch channel if you think about it isn't it criminally insane okay I'm trying to be more measured maybe I took that a little bit too far isn't it wild isn't it like just like see I can't think of a better word to explain it so I'll just go with criminally insane isn't it like shouldn't by now stern already have a twitch channel and shouldn't stern by now almost have like literally just have a stern live stream room set up and just have different members whenever on break or when they're doing a new like shouldn't they just be building the community all the way that like like it's almost like been a missed opportunity for five years that they didn't do that like spooky pinball live streams jersey jack doesn't do it either that's a missed opportunity there i mean bug and spooky like uh they stream like every wednesday right so it's just very like uh and cheers to them for doing that that's great but like stern's such a bigger company and they have a need to sell a lot more pins and i actually think this is one of the smartest moves that stern could do while they still get to keep let's just assume for a second that some of the some of the haters out there are correct and jack danger's like not as good as Elwin or Pat Lawler or Steve Ritchie. I'm willing to not put him in that God tier yet, but let's just say he's not S tier. Let's just say he's A tier, okay? But his live streaming pinball is SSS tier. Like I was saying before, he is the only person, Dirty Pool comes close, but he's the only person that can 100% read all your comments, not just cradled up in single ball play, but like in the middle of multiball, he'll just be like, oh, wow, thanks Pinball Nerds Podcast for that sub uh cheers dude that's rad you know so jack danger has this special ability not it's that's not just what makes him special it's that he can connect with each and every person in the audience and make them feel like they're special and make them feel like they're loved and make them feel like they're part of that family and that's what he really does he makes it a family he makes it like a community which makes sense for him to be a community dude so let me be the first one to say welcome back jack um i i always thought maybe someday we'd get to see you like that again and i always obviously when you're being a full-time designer that's probably more than 40 hours a week he's also a full-time dad he also has many extra hobbies himself so i am happy to hear i think this will be this will create a better life balance for jack because i'm sure he was burnt out from streaming before and the change of designing was good but i think that even though Jack Danger may be an S tier designer. I haven't played X-Men yet. I don't want to, you know, with, with having only played, you know, two of his pins, I don't want to be guessing at that yet. I think if not yet, he's well on his way to getting there. And I am glad to hear he's still working on pins in the future. And I, I, I for one, don't hope he ever goes full time to doing live streaming, unless that's what's going to make him happy. In which case, that's probably what's going to be best for the community and best for him and best for his family. But I hope that just, he's kind of like a part-time designer, part-time live streamer, full-time community engagement person. And I can't think of a better person on planet Earth to do that. Now, let me read a couple awesome comments here. Speaking of Rachel Risto, wow, Rach, you get two shout outs today. You go, girl. She's also could be head of the community. She is a shining beam of light in our pinball community. So she has nothing but love for everybody. Someday, I hope to be half as positive as Rachel Risto or Jack Danger because they are two of the people who deserve nothing, but they deserve all the flowers. So let me give Rachel a little bit of flowers here. She says, head of community, love. If there could ever be a better title for you, nor a better ambassador to pinball for all. Congrats, my friend, and I'll see you on the stream soon. Now, I scrolled by the best comment of the night. No, I didn't. I read Rachel's right there. I scrolled by the second best comment of the night. That was, of course, by yours truly, Albert Agar. Huge congrats, buddy. Oh, no, I forgot to put the NT. Okay, I'm going to have to add the NT. I put there is, but it should say there isn't a more rad person for this position on the planet. Well-deserved buddy. I can't wait to interact with you again more while streaming. And so privately, privately, like if I, if I was going to do a top five rad and one bad, it would be like the, the, the number one rad thing is that it's going to help grow the pinball community inside of Twitch, outside of Twitch at places like San Diego comic-con. And I can't wait to see what, what Jack does next to like bring more people into pinball. but I'm sure he's got stuff up his sleeve for the last five years and he can't wait to share it with everybody number two it's going to cause Jack to be probably more happy doing something that he enjoys that he missed that he used to love doing that he's still very good at doing and so therefore if he's even happier he might do even better with the rules or sorry he might do even better with designing he might do even better with helping out with the rules he might do even better with everything that he does on the other side of that and we find a lot of times when people find a better work-life balance or more purpose to the work that they're doing or go back to an old purpose that they had that they used to love, they tend to be more effective with their time used in all their other projects that they're doing as well. And so I think that, again, not that his designs need to be better, but I think that they'll be even more refreshing and be even better. That's just how it usually will work, right? So I'm really happy for Jack. I'm really happy for stern i think it's a smart move i think it was a missed opportunity hashtag marketing fail i'll say right here was a little bit of a marketing fail that stern didn't have i don't think they had to be streaming 24 7 but imagine if they did honestly jack danger and probably i don't want to give jack danger too much work but jack danger and probably two to five days maybe it takes a week i don't know could probably set up a stern twitch channel that's streaming 24 7 excuse me showing stuff that's really relatable to newcomers as well, like that heads-up challenge that you see on ESPN. Sometimes it was done back in the day. And I just want to make sure when I'm glazing up good old Jack Danger here, I want to make sure that I give all the flowers as well to Carl D'Python Anghelo of IE Pinball, who's kind of the godfather of modern pinball streaming, especially for tournaments, right, the rig and everything like that. And Jack Danger as well has – I don't know how much Jack Danger got from Carl and vice versa but I know that there was a lot of that going back and forth in the day and Carl still does an incredible job and Carl to boot is just like an incredible player Jack Danger is an incredible player but again Jack Danger is like an A++ at pinball Carl's S tier like can get top 10 in majors sometimes that kind of like S tier like like you know what I mean so and then never forget of course least we forget sorry to hear about it a little sad song here we'll do a little moment of silence. There you go. The first and last moment of silence you'll ever hear on the Pinball Nerds podcast was brought to you by the sound of crying from good old Tom of Fox Cities Pinball. Tom talks. He's got something to say. Tom talks. He's no longer first. Tom talks. I'm sorry, Tom. So with Jack Danger coming back, Tom did a very funny post on Fox Cities Pinball. and he said something to the extent of, well, I guess I'll be saying goodbye to my number one spot on Twitch. And yes, Tom, you probably will be, but not yet. It could take a couple months. I don't assume Jack Danger's gonna start live streaming like three, four, five days a week again. That would be really cool. I, for one, will be going on Twitch more often and believe it or not, that will actually help the other Twitch channels. Now, I will say this because I was doing the top five rad and the one bad. I already thought about this and the one bad with, because I've done way more than five good things about Jack coming back to live streaming. OK, the one bad thing is we might see less of his designs in the future. And that could be completely phased out at some point. And I think that would be a massive, severe loss. Now, my first gut internal reaction. Which was, you know, just basically happiness for myself, like on a personal level, I'll get to interact with him more, which affects my life in such a positive way, or at least it did before. I don't know. I don't know if I'll be on Twitch all the time like I used to be. I still am for tournaments. I will be watching Fox Cities for Pinburgh. Good luck to everybody doing Pinburgh. If someone out there is listening and they'd really like to be my Pinburgh pin turn, I'll just have five quick questions for you to do while you're on the floor. I'd love for someone to do that. I know I've had other people to offer to do that in the past. if you're one of those people who have either offered in the past or missed out previously, and you'd like to be my pin turn. We're not going to do anything too serious. You don't even have to necessarily do recorded audio if you don't want to, but I'd love to have a person on the ground in Pembroke. That would be cool. So either get at me on Facebook. That's your best chance of getting a hold of me. I only check the email like once every week or two to be honest and it kind of summertime It been very until today there was no news Like I was going to do tomorrow or the next day It been a while I kind of miss you guys You know, I'm kind of bored. My wife's gone. I was going to do, and Stern, thank you for the material. I was going to do a top five rad for, or top five ranked for pinball machine themes that need to be done out of video games. And believe it or not, Stern put it on their Facebook page. Hey, which video games? So I did that whole list. I'm going to save that for another show in the future in a couple days. I'll tell you guys what. I'll tell you guys what. I used to be able to get to 300 listens in the first like 6 to 12 hours. Unless I had like David Dennis or Craig Bobby. Where in the world is Craig Bobby? Where in the world is Carmen Sandiego? I don't know where Craig Bobby is. I hope he's okay. The last time he was seen was at the D. Jennings. Joe Chervino what did you do to Craig Bobby after he went with those those sadistic women on stage we never he was never seen from again Craig Bobby okay no I don't I don't want to talk negatively of any comment I'm not talking negatively I'm joking Craig Bobby and I are bros or I think I hope we are I want to hang out with them someday soon that would be really cool I'm probably coming back to Ontario and also Chicago for Expo that's still on my list whether or not financially I can afford it will honestly depend how much it costs to get my car safetied or some places they call it certified other places call it like well e-test is kind of different missions tests out here on the east coast they call it an MVI a motor vehicle inspection I think in some places in the states they call that basically every two years you gotta make sure your car is roadworthy and i'm telling you right now that corolla is at 350 000 kilometers okay that thing's older than me coming in there hot at 45 but it's making a hell of a lot of sounds around the wheel wells the engine sounds great the transmission is wonderful but everything else is getting a little rickety so i'm guessing it's going to cost one or two grand don't worry canadian that's only like what's what's what's one grand canadian like 700 bucks american or like $1,400 American would be $2,000. So it's going to cost me, I'm guessing, around that. But if I'm wrong and it costs me, like, they find just tons of stuff at the Toyota dealership and I get to spend $3,000 or $4,000 to fix this car, sorry, I'm not coming to Expo. So I just want to set the precedent. It is possible I don't make it to Expo. I want nothing else better to go to Expo other than being broke and not having money for groceries. So, like, short of that happening, I just, the only thing worse than not going to Expo this year would be like being broke at the end of the year. So if I can at all afford it, I will sell the shirt off my back. I will sell the blood in my veins, even if I have to go to the old US of America to do it. And I think up here you can only sell two things. You can only sell two bodily functions. And one of them is plasma. And because I'm trying to go PG today, I'll let you guess what the other one is. And I really don't want to give up either of those things. I've heard especially giving up plasma is painful and it's not very healthy for you. And because I have still and fully undiscovered or unknown autoimmune disorder, potentially, probably, most likely, I don't even want to F with that. So and the other one's just like, I don't know. I don't know. I want to go to Expo. I don't want to go to Expo that bad. You know what I mean? I don't want to take it into my own hands. You know what I'm saying? Like, that's not how bad I want to go to Expo. Not quite. I really want to see everybody at Expo. I don't even care about playing in the pinball tournament of course I would probably I mean I do but I don't like it would be very hard because there'd be so many people there I've wanted to meet people from the tribe just mostly Americans even Canadians across Canada that I haven't ever met before or haven't seen in many years but man if I'm there for that giant flip out tournament you know I'd have to play it the good news is there's no shot I'd be going to finals like no shot with that caliber of players no shot so I definitely have the whole like Sunday free to like hang out and party with everybody so I can still stay up late and and I don't know if I can't quite full send anymore 45 guys I tried the other night I tried I had like four beers and I was like I just I'm drunk enough I just don't want four beers now they weren't like they weren't like light beers or something they were tall cans full pines 16 ouncers and they were I mean well the sour was only four percent but the other ones were six six and a half and seven so anyways I've gone off topic here guys i love you i'm in love with you jack danger is a pioneer i don't use that term lightly i was there during not the very start of jack's come up but i was definitely there the first few years when he was on the come up i think when i first started following he had like 18 000 maybe 20 000 subs i i could be wrong but it was like half what it is now right and he would everyone in pinball knew him but like people outside of pinball didn't really know him He wasn't getting like hundreds and hundreds of people watching him all the time. That was closer to like 2019, 2020. And he was sometimes. I shouldn't say that. He was sometimes. And I just loved joining his streams. I loved how accessible he made pinball. He didn't try to sell you every machine he was playing. It wasn't really a sales pitch. It was more just, hey, let me show you some cool stuff. Every single night, he let chat like choose like what was going to be his goals. Like, hey, on this game, am I trying to, like, see how quickly I can get to multiball? Am I trying to get to the mini wizard mode? Am I trying to just have fun and see, like, sometimes he would just have, like, oh, I'm just going to keep going, restarting until I get this thing or this thing. And it was just interesting. Sometimes he'd play old machines and show you how fun an old machine was. It wasn't just all about, you know, a brand-new stern that's super fast. Sometimes he would go play a really cool – and quite often he played music. I wonder if he'll start playing music again. I don't know what the DMCA stuff is with that. but you'd just be sitting there and he would just have like a cool pinball mix he would have like a like an indie rock mix you'd have this different type of mix and he would just you know you'd be like hanging with jack danger listening to his spotify mix having a beer with him chatting ordering dinner with him sometimes off like postmates or like doordash or uber eats or whatever and like just talking about his day catching up with him how he's doing some of my favorite streams he wasn't even playing pinball i was there for almost almost i won't say everyone But almost every – he did like a crowdfunding how to build a whitewood of a beautiful pinball machine. So now that's mostly all I have to say about that. And I know that's quite a bit. I didn't mean for this to go on so long. Let me come back here and see where we're at. Okay. We are at 36 minutes, a little further than I wanted to go. But if I can, this is the point where I say to Christopher Franchi and everybody else listening, you get a gold star. You get a pat on the back. Pat yourself right there. There you go. You remember Pat Smear? Pat Smear always made me laugh from the Foo Fighters. I don't think he's in the Foo Fighters anymore. I don't even know if he's alive. I'm sorry, Pat. Maybe you are. I don't know. Should look up Pat Smear. He always he was the guy with the goofy look on his face during the talked about it. Didn't do. Never was it true. But it's you. I fell into big you big one, big on you, big you big you? I think it's big you anyways, what a guy was he in Nirvana too, right? I don't know, anyways I've lost the cause but you've all been dismissed, I do want to take it, this is also, it's a pinball podcast with a little blog style on here, speaking of blog styles shout out to Retro Ralph my dude, Retro Ralph really cool pinball podcast the other day my guy just so open and honest and talking about the struggles of not getting mad at yourself and i will say this like he he's ranked like uh you know whatever eight thousandth in the world or something like that i think i'm only five thousand so i'm not that far ahead of you retro elf but because i once won i am a former new brunswick pinball champion i honestly put extra weight every time i go to play when i go and play and I lose to like two or three newbies like I did several times at the last pinball tournament in Moncton, where I had a great time, by the way, but when I lose to several people who are brand new and I can see they don't, sometimes they just hit the same flipper buttons at the same time, and I lose to them, how do you think I feel? And I'm like, dude, you used to be the New Brunswick pinball champion. Now you're 11th of 20 people. You're not even in the top half. Like, what is going on, my guy? I did okay for the first six or seven rounds. Then I did have some bad, I had a mixture of bad luck and I didn't play as well as I could have and honestly after you play for after you've after you've done everything you wanted in pinball like say your whole life you just want to break into like the top thousand that was one of my goals for a long time I think I got to like 11 or 1200 I got very close many years ago before I moved out here to the coast but getting into the top thousand nowadays as far as ranking going would be very hard as far as rating going I could easily do that again. I'm very, very, very close to that right now. So of course, my last tournament didn't help that. But I just wanted to talk for a second about a couple of fun times that I had personally with Jack Danger, not just how good it's going to be for the community. I think Jack Danger speaks to a younger audience. I think he speaks to an audience that is more modern. One thing I noticed in Jack Danger's chat was it seemed to have a very good parody of men to women and not just that. Jack, of course, is, you know, I would say an advocate for the LGBTQ community. And certainly, you know, I don't want to talk about toxic masculinity in pinball because it's not a fun issue. And I want this to be a fun thing. But I can say this about Jack. I don't know if I'm masculine or not, but I know to me, Jack is pretty freaking masculine. He's strong. He's tall. He's handsome. He drives a motorbike. Like he's just a cool, rad dude, but also he's in touch with his feminine side. You know, once in a while, one of his daughters will paint his nails and he's mature enough and adult enough and yes, even manly and masculine enough to go, I don't care. I have a wife at home. I have kids. I don't care if I have painted nails. That doesn't say anything good, bad or indefinite about me. And even if it did, I wouldn't care. And I think that that's something that we can all appreciate about Jack is that he is good representation he's what you want from a community member not only now is he good at streaming but now he knows all the design features he's going to be able to explain coding and rules of pinball even better than he used to before and he was one of the best before this so um on a private note i remember one of the times i ran into actually the very first time i ran into jack danger i was with peaceman nick also known as just peace of course uh local resident of pinberg there who's a very prominent, fun, entertaining dude in the local scene there. He was walking with me to go to the local arcade to pick up our badges and everything for Pemburg the night before Pemburg started. And I'm not live streaming. I'm just walking down the road. Actually, Colin Urban? No, no, not Colin Urban. Colin, oh, my gosh. Colin, he works with a pinball company doing rules now. Oh, my gosh. I can't remember his name, but Colin had just played Willy Wonka with me. It was my first time playing Willy Wonka. I think it was his first time or one of his first times because he specifically went to that arcade to play Willy Wonka. Imagine being into pinball so long. You remember Willy Wonka coming out. And as I'm walking down the street, Jack Danger is live streaming coming towards me. I'm like, oh, my God, he's on the live stream right now. And I'm like, this is so wild. Like I've seen his live stream literally hundreds of times for thousands of hours. and there he is walking and I'm on the live stream walking towards him and I'm like is he going to recognize me I know Jack Danger's seen my pictures he's maybe popped into three or four maybe five of my live streams ever is he going to recognize me will he know who I am and right away he's like Albert how's it going I'm like Jack Danger so nice to meet you and I'm trying not to like fall down on the ground like oh my god like I mean again short of meeting maybe Keith Elwin or possibly perhaps getting to use Gary Stern bathroom you know yeah those types of important things in pinball this was right up there was meeting jack danger and he didn't just talk to me for like 30 seconds i think he gave me someone's gonna go back and find the stream be like he talked to you for like five seconds bro it felt like he talked to me for two or three minutes right in the middle of his stream it was so kind um obviously i was going to pick up my stuff and he was going the opposite way and he was actually with i believe he was with the other two members of the original for those of you don't know the lore jack danger used to be on a pinball team uh i believe it was in Chicago or was it like Portland or somewhere really cool I can't remember but he played he played on a team and they were called the dead flip pinball team like that was the name of their team and that's where he got the name so two of the other founding members of the dead flip team were there to play in Pimberg of course not knowing that it was going to be their very last Pimberg ever none of us knew we how could we right nobody knew COVID was coming you just couldn't know but when we were playing in that that um that Pimberg I remember uh Nick Greenan fan of the show. I don't know if he still listens as much, but Nick Greenham was there. Very good pinball player. I think he's ranked in the top 150, 200 now, maybe even top 100. Wouldn't be surprised. Very gifted pinball player was there. His first big pinball tournament, my first big pinball tournament. And I said, Nick, I'm going to do a live stream. He goes, oh, I'll walk around with you. I said, okay, no problem. I live streamed for like an hour and 10 minutes. It cost me over $100 in overages. I joke around. That's the $100 live stream. We went over to the big Ferris wheel. Yes, there was a pinball tournament inside a convention center so big in Philadelphia that it had a full-size, I don't know about full-size, but a very big Ferris wheel indoors. It wasn't even really a Ferris wheel because, like, you went upside down and stuff. It was wild. But it also was the Intergalactic Pinball Arcade. No, it was Intergalactic Pinball Tournament, and then it was the largest arcade in the world for those, like, five days. So, like, of the, I don't know, 100,000 people that came, only 1% of them, only the 1,000 of us were there to play in Pinburg. only a thousand right can you imagine pinberg with a thousand people nowadays i think they're trying to slowly get back up to that i don't know if they can in their current location but anyways i'm doing this live stream and i've ran into yada yada yada like the jeff teolis's and julie dorsers and i'm trying to remember joe joe chervino i remember seeing him there um you know just like like like even uh dr pin mrs pin uh jeff from the pinball players podcast that also went on to co not head What Jeff ended up having the person who went over to head over on that Anyways, shout out to Jeff. He is a radio show host there. And Jeff, it'd be nice to see all these cool people in pinball. I would love to do interviews again. I'm going to start working on figuring out how to make interviews happen. But while I'm doing this epic live stream, we go up on stage. We show like the, all the pinball machines that are going to be in A finals on stage. And as I'm walking away from the Canada Pavilion saying hi to all the Canadians, Jack Dangerous, surprise, surprise, live streaming again. And like we were live streaming each other's live streams. And I think just momentarily we like switched cameras or something and we're like, oh my God, hi stream, hi stream. And we both said hi to each other's streams. or even if we didn't switch cameras, but we switched where the direction of our cameras were pointing. Instead of being pointed at each other like our own selves, we pointed at each other, if that makes sense. So I always joked it was kind of like don't let the streams cross in Ghostbusters. That's how I kind of felt. Now, at the time, I fancied myself. Yes, my ego was just as big, perhaps bigger. I fancied myself maybe the next Jack Danger. What a silly thought, right? Come on. Nobody can be the next Jack Danger. I'm definitely not even the next Dirty Pool. I'm definitely not even the next Carl D'Python Anghelo or Tom at Fox Cities or any of that. However, I do really, really, really long in my soul to get back into live streaming. And now that we have the Elon Musk machine, my oldest son Hayden has moved out. That means my wife's new bedroom has moved from the arcade to Hayden's old bedroom, which means I can start working on the arcade again. Now, I can't actually afford any pinball machines to put in there, but I'm not even joking. I'm thinking about selling all of my personal collection PC cards for Pokemon. And I don't have that many. And I don't have any worth very much money. They're all like usually $20 to $30 cards for my PC. But I could probably get like a cheap low-end solid state if I sold them all off. And that's all I would need. Now, I wouldn't be live streaming five, six days a week with just like Future Spa. Check out Hot Doggin for the nighttime today. Ralph wouldn't like that. I'm playing Hot Doggin again. Ralph, Hot Doggin is not that bad. It's pretty fun. when hotdogging is the funnest in fact at mike dimas shout out to pinball shenanigan himself uh mike dimas whenever i would go to his house on fridays didn't matter if there was three of us four of us usually he didn't invite more than five or six but we would always play loony games on hotdog and why because we've played loony games on anything else when i was the worst player out of those four or five of the top like you know sometimes you'd have jeff tiolas there julie dorsers or sean russell or joe stanzik or you guys don't know half these people but we would have tons of players in the top 500 or at least 800 in the world playing on a Friday night there you can't play loony games on it could honestly be a three-hour game with four good players on like roadshow or like Star Wars or like even without playing extra balls so that just would not be fun I had four hours I'm exaggerating a little I'm not Robert Gagno here shout out uh I did just see he's overseas having a lot of fun there so shout out for real though to Robert but Jack Danger and I ran into each other and that was such a real surreal moment because according to socialblade.com in fact in the airport when I was traveling back to Canada only a couple months later after I moved to the East Coast I was showing up for trending to be number three behind Buffalo Pinball on socialblade.com when I was live streaming lots on Twitch I was showing up to be the number three live streamer on Twitch just with the it had been you know three or four months of me grinding hard I had gained a decent amount of followers. Again, not very many, but like just that's where the trending direction was. So in my head, I was like, wow, am I meeting like could I maybe be the junior Jack Danger? Could I be just single Danger, not double Danger? You know what I mean? And the answer is no. But at the time, it was such a unique moment for me. And then all of a sudden, you know, later on that night being invited by Jack Danger himself to go to the Dead Flip after party. and me going, what? I'm getting invited to go to the dead flip after party and then going to the dead flip after party. And there's like Steven Bowden's right there saying hi to him. Very, albeit very briefly, I was so nervous to talk to him and I just got there. I probably just enjoyed a very, a very yummy gummy or two and had some very nice, fresh Canadian British Columbia air outside before I came in. So I didn't want to stop and talk to him for too long, but I can remember this clear as day. I said hi to all the Canadian people sitting there and I hadn't sat there for 20 seconds and Jack Danger was walking by me and he literally just pointed at me and like did this with his finger like come here and I went with him and I shat you guys not I went up and did a shot with just me and three other people and it was myself Jack Danger and you have to remember I've been in Jack Danger's chat all the time for years leading up to that so constantly being funny and entertaining and like kind of sort of yeah sticking up when people being mean or rude to him you know but i don't know how i don't know why but somehow some way he called me aside and said dude you haven't had a shot with me yet come on up here i said okay and he ordered four shots or whatever couldn't even tell you what they were and it was myself kate martin who looks like she had an awesome time in australia shout out to kate martin friend of the show uh well a friend of me i don't know i i'm friendly with her on facebook i have no clue if she's ever listened to the show probably not why would she but she i had a shot with her said hello very quickly i don't think she knew me from anything maybe kind of vaguely recognized me on facebook and then i said hello to keith ellen he definitely didn't know who the fi was probably still doesn't which is totally cool and uh then jack danger was chatting with him mostly and then him and kate took off and it was just it literally was just keith ellen and myself sitting there and i've told the story before but like you know i went on to tell him how much i love the shots and i love the rules and i love the code and iron maiden i said i'm not a big fan of the music and he may or may not If you guys can just hold on one second. Mr. Draco Franchi himself would like to join the party. Okay, there we go. There we go. We got Draco in the house here, everybody. Okay, might have to end the show soon. This man needs to go outside. He needs a bathroom break. So anyways, I did actually tell Keith Elwin that I wasn't a huge fan of the music. And he may or may not have shared some secret information with me that other people are privy to that I would not mention here. But we had a very short three to five minute talk. It felt like I talked to him for hours in my head, but it was a very short talk. Couldn't tell you what we said, but it was like one of the coolest moments of my life. When I walked away, I literally went over to my friends sitting down like all the Canadians went. I just had a shot with them, talked to Keith Elwin for five minutes, and they kind of looked at me like, are you kidding me? And they knew he's there, like we're there with him and they know he's there. And even they were like, that's pretty cool, dude, that you actually got to talk to him. Mind you, I had got a selfie with him, you know, not with him, but I had got a selfie. Draco, you're sitting on my wire for my computer. Okay. Franchi knew I was talking about Stern, so he came over to ruin it. No, I'm just kidding, Franchi. I'm just kidding, Draco Franchi. All right. All right. Yes, yes, yes. I can see that. So that was like a really cool moment that I got to have with him. There was also the Degenerates after party. I was at the Degenerates after party I had already done an interview with Joe Chervino and I was interviewing the other two gentlemen from the Deadflip you know original Deadflip team and Jack Danger I won't say stumbles in but he came in very late that night like getting very close to 2am and as he came in I said to him dude you bought me a shot the other day I never had the chance to buy you back a beer I just had like the most amazing sour or something can I order you a beer and he's like yeah sure man cool and I grabbed the server and she was like, oh, I'm sorry. It's last call. I said, please, it's Jack Danger. He's the biggest live streamer in pinball. He's my hero. I love the guy. Please, I've wanted to buy him a beer my whole life. Can we just get two sours? We'll drink them quick. Then I think we proceeded to drink them slowly over 45 minutes. In fact, I remember they were vacuuming. They were vacuuming the floors around us. I wasn't just talking to Jack Danger. I was talking to tons of other people there as well. I think I did an interview with Neetsan Gabi. Excuse me, I probably butchered your last name, Nitsan, but I think I did an interview with him there. It was fun. It was a very fun night. I do remember leaving there, though. I had a very long walk back because Peace had left me there, and I had a very long walk back to Peace's neighborhood through some neighborhoods that obviously have some challenges, and it was a little scary. I got to practice my cross-country running. Let's just put it that way. And again, not that anything bad happened to me, just in my own head, I was like, hmm, yeah, white dude from Nova Scotia with Canadian plates. And well, I mean, I didn't, my car was parked there. But anyways, I had a great time. I ended up finding on the ground and nothing happened to me. Okay, I felt very safe. I'm just suggesting merely some people wouldn't recommend to walk through those neighborhoods at 4 a.m. by yourself alone when you're not a local there or even from that country. However, I survived. I just wouldn't recommend it, but I did survive. Everything was fine. I had a great time. I actually didn't even have – I didn't even have – the only negative or rude thing that happened of four days at Pemburg, and I've said this before and I shouldn't even really bring it up right now, but someone who was a fan of another pinball content creator came up and said, why did you call yours the Pinball Nerds Podcast? We already knew it was about pinball. Shouldn't it just be the Nerds Podcast? It doesn't have to have pinball in it, does it? And I was like, yeah, good one, buddy. Good, good, good, good one. Why don't you go start a pinball podcast and you can call it the Pinball Pinball Podcast if you want. Anyways, that was literally the only negative experience. I do regret not going over and speaking with Lyman Sheets. I kind of regret not saying hi to Josh and Zach Sharp. They were behind me in line. I think I was behind them once and they were behind me another time at the bathrooms. and I really wanted to be like, hey, guys, I've watched all your videos and I've seen your Vice thing. But I just couldn't do it. Now, thankfully, Julie Dorsers, my friend, my old TD there at Monday Night Pinball in Laupel, she was like, Albert, you've got to talk to Roger Sharp. So she grabbed right. She knew I was having a bit of a tough time. I somehow qualified for A, and after I qualified for A the second day, I did horrible. I was getting like fourth, fourth, third, fourth, I think, in the first few rounds. I was doing very poorly. I was rated the very, very – I think at some point I was in last place in A Division. I was just having a rough day. I partied too hard. You know, I had the night at the DeGeney's, DeGenerates after party. Yes, I've been part of Pimple Degenerate for that long. I can't even believe that. Wow. But, oh, and when I was leaving there, I found a Bells and Chimes shirt, and I gave that to my wife, and she's had that ever since. I asked everybody. I asked Jack. I asked, like, Jack Danger and Steven Bowden and myself and maybe, like, three or four other people. we closed down that bar that night. I think we got them to serve us a couple times after they said they were closed. It was great. Like they literally had vacuumed all the way around us before we left. But, of course, the negatives of staying up to 4 or 5 a.m. is that you've now got to wake up at like 7 a.m. to start your first round at like 8 a.m. or 9 a.m. in Division A. And if you're hungover and not that good of a pinball player and you played out of your mind to even make it into A, you're probably not going to play that well. So out of the 1,000 players there, including like probably 900 of the top 1,000, maybe even 920 or 925 of the top 1000 players in the world, I somehow qualified for A, which meant I was in the top 200 in the world. I am quite clearly not. One of these things is not like the other, not like the other, not like the other. Okay, I shouldn't have been an A. As Jeff Teeloff told me the first time he saw me, and I'll never forget it, he said, flew a little too close to the sun did you there orby i think he calls me albert but anyways shout out to jeff diolos i know in a couple weeks as well actually i think next weekend the weekend after pimberg there is the beast so if there is any spots left you guys go sign up for the beast that's going to be a hell of a um a tournament he did mention that the tilts are a little bit a little bit less crazy this time a little bit less nutty they're a little bit more sane they're a little bit they're not going to be easy tilts but they're not going to be so tight that you can't even get in a little whisper, a dust, a dust, tiny little, you know, a little, a little, a little, a little flip-flop, a little save, save, a little nudge, nudge, right? What else can I say about Jack Danger? I didn't ever see Jack Danger and have never seen him ever again since Pemberg, but during Pemberg, I saw him every day, multiple times per day, and I guess the last thing I will talk about, probably the most meaningful thing I ever did, and this was so hard, even though I had bought Jack Danger a beer, even though I had interviewed the other two members, even though he knew I had interviewed like Steven Bowden and I had interviewed Joe Chervino and I had, uh, I, I interviewed 69 people, guys. I interviewed a lot of people at that Pemberg. I interviewed, um, uh, the British pinball podcast. Uh, what is his name? I can see his face. I'm sorry. It'll come back to me. Um, Neil, I interviewed Neil and, uh, yeah, I interviewed so many people and, and, and the one person I really wanted to interview by far the most was Jack danger because I had spent so many thousands of hours with him. So my voice was actually shaking when I went and asked him. He said, dude, of course. To the best of my memory, and maybe I'm making this up a little because it's been so long, but to the best of my memory, he basically was like, well, yeah, when were you going to ask? I was waiting for you to ask, dude. And I think I had asked a couple days before that just casually like, hey, sometime before it's done when you're not busy. And he had been like, yeah, no problem. Such a cool, awesome dude. We sat down and one of the things that struck me when I talked to him is we both really wanted to get younger people more into pinball and that was something we talked about family run arcades and more themes for younger people but we talked about tournament pinball we talked about themes um i don't know if i actually asked him hey would you ever want to design a pinball machine but i'd like to think i did and uh i might try to i'm going to try to dig that up and throw you know what i'm gonna i don't have a link to my youtube channel i don't have a link to anything else for you today so i'm gonna throw in a link to that first interview with jack danger if and when I find it. I think I'll be able to find it. I hope I'll be able to find it. If I find it, you'll see it there in the links. Everybody, I love you. I'm in love with you. Jack Danger, welcome freaking back. I can't wait. I can't wait. I can't wait to see what you're going to do next, Jack. I'm excited for Dead Flip and whatever it's going to do moving forward. I know it's going to innovate. I know it's going to be fun. I know it's going to be rad. And I can't wait to cover whatever it is that you do next. Until next time, pinball nerds, remember to eat, sleep, and breathe. Jack Danger Pinball.