FoosTalk Live | Ep 238 | Donald Wilson TKO & USTSO

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[00:01:51] Visit www.original-leonhardt-usa.com and use promo code FOOS TALK to save 10% off your purchase price. And we are live on Foos Talk Live once again. Hey there, I'm Tom Robinson. After a week off last week, we are back.

[00:02:14] However, oddly enough, there's a bit of a weather emergency in the state of Alabama coming up because of the cold weather coming up. So as a consequence, Randy Raposo was called out to work at the very last minute today. And so, as always, we're going to go live regardless. So we have decided to go to our, well, shall we say, our stalwart companion who's always ready to jump in at the last second.

[00:02:42] And of course, he's dressed for the weather tonight from the great state of Mississippi. Let's welcome back Donald Wilson. Hello, Donald. Hey, how you doing? It's cold here, but I guess it's cold there too? Oh, absolutely. Yeah, tonight it's going to get down to 20 degrees. That just blows my mind. Yeah, and then it's going to get up into the high 30s.

[00:03:09] And then they say Tuesday, and this is something crazy too because from Mississippi, we don't get much snow. Right, yeah. Yeah. And our forecast is worse than the Jackson area, which is about, you know, 100 miles north. Okay. And New Orleans. Huh. The Louisiana down below us, their prediction of snow and ice is worse than ours. So the further south you go, the more snow and ice you're going to get. How much snow are you supposed to get?

[00:03:38] Well, they're saying for us, three to five inches. Oh, that's quite a lot. Which the most we get is a dusting, you know, and every now and then we might get an inch, but yeah, three to five inches. And I live on some rolling hills. Yeah. In my back pasture, all 12, you know, 12 plus acres. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. My grandkids will have fun on the little fleds and stuff that we don't have because we're from the south. So, but I do have a lot of garbage can lids. There you go.

[00:04:08] That'll work. We did that in college. We used to steal the garbage can lids to go down the slopes on the college campus. And, you know, when it works pretty good. Well, I have a bunch of tote boxes and lids, so I know that'll work. That'll do. Probably work better. I guess if you got very young kids, you could use even those plastic bins you would use to collect mail in. You know, that'll work. Yeah. So, but, you know, snow is snow. Yeah, it'll be fun. Wow. We got a day. Tomorrow it's not going to snow. It's just going to keep, stay cold.

[00:04:37] And then tomorrow night it's going to get really down there. Boy. And then Tuesday's winter is fecking. And down below, like I said, we're five to, we're three to five. Yeah. And down below us it's like five to eight or something like that. Wow. Down around New Orleans. Yeah, the entire East Coast is really, is going to be socked with something. If it's not snow, it's going to be really cold.

[00:05:00] I think by, by Wednesday this, this, this week, it's supposed to be minus two at night here. But that's typical for upstate New York. I mean, we're kind of like, yeah, whatever. Yeah. Like I told you earlier, cold front for us in Mississippi is in the forties. Yeah. And with it getting down to 10 on Wednesday morning, that's, that's unheard of. That's, that's outrageous.

[00:05:26] I mean, I'm probably going to do like they do on some of these videos where you got some boiling hot water and go outside and throw it up in there and watch it freeze. There you go. That's a great experiment. That would be cool. It actually works. Yeah. I'm going to try that. I think I will try that. I know my daughter will if I don't. That should be fun. Take advantage of the, of the situation while you can, uh, and try to keep the, uh, the pond, uh, you know, from freezing up on the chickens, right? They, they, they, do they drink out of the pond? I got, I got, I got three, uh, big swimming pools, you know, taller swimming pools that I

[00:05:55] keep full. And, uh, you know, I would think that they would stay away from it, but a couple of weeks ago, a week ago, we, we did get down in the freezing and, and I let them out and them ducks go over there and jump in those little swimming pools and chickens around and trying to get some water and there's nothing but ice. Yeah. And so they start hitting it with their beaks and jumping up and down and broke it. And then they started swimming in it with ice floating in there. I'm like, are these things crazy?

[00:06:24] They're swimming in ice water. That's what they do. That's what they do. Yeah. That's why. And they didn't, they didn't fuss about it. They had their fun, got there and flapped their wings, went back to doing what they do. They didn't go on strike. You know, they, they kept, kept laying eggs. That's good. That's good. But, uh, you know, that little coach nap kind of messed my chickens up because I covered up the windows with some cardboard. So I'm just a block to win. And I didn't know that putting them in darkness like that, they stopped laying eggs. Oh, interesting. Okay. And I didn't give them fresh, fresh water.

[00:06:54] Like it's the water that had the pond and all that kind of stuff. So they quit laying eggs. I apologized to them and I took off the cardboard, put clear plastic. So they would see the daylight and made sure they had fresh water and they started back laying eggs yesterday. So they're all good. So you, you found out, you found out the hard way, you know, can't go without the eggs, man. That's, that's. Well, when the temperature changed like that, they do go through what they call a molting

[00:07:19] time where they, you know, they, they shed feathers, get more feathers and they just, you know. So they're ready. They're ready for this more, more so than we, we people were just not, you know, we're not used to this. So we don't molt our feathers. These doggone suckers will jump on top of the pen. The coop that he is and just go up there and the wind will be blowing and it'll be like under 30 degrees. And I'm like, what is wrong with these birds? Well, I make them get down and go inside. All right.

[00:07:47] Well, but like I, I think I told you earlier, uh, they're, they're hens that lay eggs, but also made sure they were, they were meat hens. So you can eat them. Okay. Okay. If any of them freeze, I think we'll, uh, just take them straight to the freezer. Well, that'll be, that'll be an easy process. It's more simple to, uh, to make use of your resources there and you won't be starving to death by any means. Right. Wow. That's right. Well, I have chickens. I'll always have something to eat. You know, eggs are supposed to be, these eggs that we eat. We do.

[00:08:16] We get are good. Yeah. Some eggs that I've brought them. They are good. They're really, really special. Absolutely. I give them their chicken feed as a mega threes in there. So it's, it's, it's not, you know, eggs aren't bad. Like people think they're really good for you. No, no. We, we have a, a, a farm just 10 minutes from us here in upstate New York and they, it's a dairy farm, but they also have lots of eggs and it's all fresh. You know, it's a, you can get it the day that it came out of the machine, so to speak.

[00:08:46] Yeah. They're good. I mean, yeah, I'll get them and they still be warm when I bring them up here and crack them open. There you go. Uh, that's the best way to get them and eat them. But if you ever stack them up, uh, you can get a little spanker every now and then. And once you get one, it's a couple of days for you to eat eggs again. Yeah. I hear you. Cause this messes with your head. You just don't expect a cracking egg and see something green. Yeah, that is true. That is true. You never forget the smell. It takes about two days to forget it. Well, that is the chance we take. I did learn a trick. Okay.

[00:09:16] I did learn a trick. Instead of just cracking them open, just tap them. Tap them. Okay. Just tap it till the shell starts breaking, but they don't break the liner. Oh. And if, and if it makes a poof noise and kind of separates, but don't bust the liner. Don't, don't open it. Don't do it. Don't do it. Okay. Another way to do it is put it in water. Mm-hmm. And if they float, don't, don't do it. But that's very rare. That's very rare. Go figure.

[00:09:43] You know, you tune into a show about foosball and you're going to learn about how to tell whether an egg has gone bad. I mean, that's right. Who would have guessed that could have happened? Who would have thought it? Well, you know, everybody has a story. Yes. Everybody has something to do. They do. You know, now everybody's going to know, hey, he runs foosball tournaments. He's a tournament director. He plays. Hey. Pro player. And now he has chickens. And now, and now you're living the good life. So. Yeah. Chickens, ducks, dogs, rabbits. And it's.

[00:10:12] Nate was talking about looking at some goats. Okay. Goats. I said, y'all don't look at no goats. Not yet. You know, I know my name is Donald, but I don't want to be old McDonald. Not yet. Well, uh, we got to work your way up to that. You know, give yourself time, you know, get settled in with the birds first and then, you know, maybe, maybe a couple of goats. Why not? Yeah. They'll mow the lawn for you. I think, I think we're doing good. We, we, we hovering right around, but you know, close to 40 chickens and haven't lost them anymore.

[00:10:42] And, uh, when they giving out eggs, there's more than I can handle. So I give them to Mark Maddorise. I even took some to a tournament. Let's see. Which tournament was that? Uh, I took it to, uh, Louisiana state. Okay. And I brought Mary two dozen and she was up there cooking eggs every day for the staff. There you go. That was cool. Yeah. That's a, that's a treat. And she said they were the best eggs she ever ate. Well, no doubt. No doubt. Speaking of which, uh, we, we've got some serious stuff happening here very soon. It's 2025.

[00:11:12] It's, it's arrived. What are we? Two weekends away now from TKO tournament kickoff. Wow. Right. Uh, world foosball tour. They're very first. Major tournament. That is right. Very first. Uh, I gotta, I gotta do something. Randy, I love you. And I did this for you, but I don't know how you do it, bro. He's going to take the hoodie off. Uh, there we go. There's, there's the Donald. There's the Donald. We know there's the Donald. We know in life. Yeah.

[00:11:41] With, with now we're back to normal. We are, we are back to normal and you're right. The WFT. I gotta be careful when I do it. I don't want to get them letters out of the order. Yes. Because if you do, that's not a very nice thing. Now we had Ryan on here a couple of weeks ago and he really, I mean, he's charged. You can tell he's really ready to go. And, uh, we're, we're also very excited. I think everybody who's going to be there is just anticipating something really special.

[00:12:11] So how about yourself? You're, you're, uh, you're the man on the, on the, on the battlefield here. You're the one, you know, going out there and taking care of business while, while Ryan kind of steps back and watches what happens. What, uh, what's going through your mind? Well, um, I'll be honest with you. Ryan has got so much that he's doing right now. He's got, you know, he's got another business and he's doing that, but now he's got this and his passion is really in this.

[00:12:41] I mean, he is really all in and, and, you know, as is, as is TD, you know, I know some things, but on a scale of one to 10 of knowing things, I only know about 2%. Yeah. Cause he has so many ideas. He's working on so many stuff, but he don't want to say anything about it till he knows it's going to go through and happen. Right. Right. Right. And, and so if I need to talk to him, I know I won't get him every time. So I just put, put me in your rotation. Cool.

[00:13:10] Cause that's how busy he is. He has calls, calls, calls. And, uh, he is so hyped on this and he's trying to do everything. So, so, so perfect to where, you know, it's, it's, it's transparent. It's, you know, it's easy for everybody to understand. And he just wants it to be just an open book to everybody, you know, so he's doing a real good job, especially with the points.

[00:13:35] Um, there's been some players that's called in and, and asked to be moved down and they looked at it and the majority of them get denied, but some of them do get approved. Okay. Cause you know, you look at their, their history and, uh, you know, I requested to be moved down and they laughed at no way. And I said, well, show me my top finishes as an expert. And, and they said, no, you're not going to move down. So you wanted to get busted, busted down to amateur? No, back to expert. Oh, back to expert. Cause I'm pro. I'm pro.

[00:14:05] Oh, that's right. But, but really I did it as a test because, you know, I'm not one of those who want to really get moved back down. Yeah. I mean, now that I've, I reached pro, I want to stay pro. I was nervous. My first few tournaments are not doing good. Okay. And actually going back down. Oh, and that can happen. So when they denied, they, when they denied me, they sent me an email saying, was you trying to go down to amateur and singles? I said, no, I wasn't. I was wanting to go back to expert. They said, well, you need to look at the points. Cause you finished the year at expert.

[00:14:32] And I went back and looked at, I was like three points under pro. Oh, I wasn't that high of a pro. I was only like 3,040 or 50 or I think the highest I got was 3,090, but you have a couple of bad tournaments. Yeah. You know, especially smaller tournaments when you're like the number one seed or number two seed. And if you get like fifth, sixth or seventh, eighth, you done lost 30, 40 points. So I finished the year as an expert and I said, no, I don't want to be amateur. I really wanted to stay pro, but you know, it is what it is. Yeah.

[00:15:03] But like I said, they're treating everybody, you know, fair and they're looking at it and he's not a part of it. He's got an independent committee. Right. And those, those people know points and it's going good. But, but just, just back to Ryan, you know, he, he, he, he's so excited. He called me the other day. He said, Donald, you need to get ready and you need to saddle the freak up because. Okay. Because we fixing to rock and roll.

[00:15:31] He said, man, we, we already 40%, 46% higher on room sales than we were last year's TKO. Really? And that was a big tournament. And I'm like, what? Yeah. Yeah. So he was, he was telling me, you know, being a first tournament, there's going to be people that are skeptical. There's people that want to come out and do it. Oh, sure. You know, but you know, first term of the year, he said, if I can just break even, if I can just get the same.

[00:15:59] What I mean by break even is have the same amount as last year. I'll be happy. Yeah. Yeah. And, and we, we're going to surpass that by far. So he's going to be tickled to death. And, you know, now that we reach 400 possibly, he said, let's not stop there. Let's get 500. Why not? I mean, it's him. You know, when people start being successful, they kind of just, ah, let's just enjoy this. Yeah. That's when, you know, that's when you turn it up. That's dangerous. That's dangerous. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:16:26] You don't want to rest in your loss, especially the first tournament, because you've got what, uh, the four majors during the week there during the year, the week during the year, you have to be ready. You've got to, and if this, if this works and if it's a success, which is likely it will be, uh, you know, what worked, what didn't, there's always going to be make, there's always adjustments. Like in any, any good foosball player, uh, who, who plays at a high level, there's adjustments. Yeah.

[00:16:54] So, well, I didn't call him before we got on here. I thought about calling him and say, Hey, what can I say? And what can I not say? Hmm. Okay. But again, there's not a whole lot. I know that's secretive, but I do know this. I do know this. Okay. It's going to feel different. Hmm. It might be the same hotel. It's not going to look the same. Okay. Okay. There's going to be a lot of things that is going to be different and look different. Oh, that's exciting.

[00:17:23] I think you're going to feel it. I mean, foosball players want to love it. Yeah. Uh, I will say this. We was only going to have right at, I think, I don't know, 40 something tables. Mm-hmm. Then he said, no, we're going to have all 50. 50. And then now we're going to have like 63 tables. 63. I think close to something like that. We're going to need them all. Yeah. But it's going to be, it's going to be big. I mean, we're going to, you know, need to be ready for it. Uh, we do want to make this tournament be, uh, very efficient and run good.

[00:17:50] Normally I try to play, you know, I get, I usually play around five or six events, but I'm probably going to cut it to one or two. Okay. Because we need to take care of the tournament, make sure we don't, you know, get behind in anything. And, uh, if things are running good, I might jump out there and play, but you know, we're, we're just wanting this to be a good experience for everyone. And I'm going to do my part. I was looking at the flyer today, just, you know, to see some, just so what events are there.

[00:18:16] And it did seem that like there are less events necessarily, uh, than we have seen in the past. Although, you know, I don't know, I guess there, um, there's junior events. But I, there's what, one or two senior events. Am I correct on that? There is senior events. Um, now I don't know which version, you know, that flyer does get updated. Oh, it does. I see. It does. So, okay.

[00:18:42] He, he told me, Donald, I'm getting, he started getting messages about, you know, goalie wars and things like that. Where they at? And he said, you know what, let's do it. So he just started throwing some more events on there. So I don't know what the most current one is. Um, I think, I think I saw roller ball. Yeah. It, yeah. Roller ball. I mean, he, he's replacing it and unless somebody else copied it. Once you replace them on Facebook, anybody who shared it, that changes too. Oh, got it. Right.

[00:19:12] Okay. So he changed the original and everything else changes. But if I was to copy it and repost it, that don't change. So. Okay. We'll have some current flyers out there for people to look at. We'll have it posted. Uh, it's going to be, it's going to be, it's going to be awesome. And then you just got, and it's not everything. This is just the first tournament. And he, and he, and he said at the beginning, this is going to be just a, you know, about

[00:19:35] like mom's tournament, maybe with some bling, but, but the, the Vegas tournament nationals and world, it's like, he's building. Yeah. Yeah. Boom. Boom. There's a stage for everything. And if you think this tournament is, is, is something, wait till you see the other ones. It's only going to get better. I tell you what, it's going to be, it's going to be a lot of, a lot of fun and it's, and it's really shaping up, uh, to, to be a big one. So it's going to be memorable.

[00:20:05] We know we have some, uh, players that hadn't played in a long time, like Tom Spear. Tom Spear. I was just going to ask you about that. So I've been watching videos. He's having a good time. I watched a video, uh, that, uh, Ray Cardova puts out there. Ray Gunn puts out there. And, and I actually had him dancing one time. I saw that. Did you see that video? I did. I saw that today. He's having a good time. And I, and I liked it. I liked that he's having a good time. I mean, uh, you know, we need that kind of stuff.

[00:20:35] You know, we need the fun, fun and foosball needs to come back for sure. Foosball is like that. You know, you can be away from it for more 10, 15 years and then rediscover it. And then it becomes, you know, it's joyous. You know, it's, it's something that I think happens to a lot of people when they step away for whatever reason they step away for. And then they get back into it and realize, Hey, I miss this so much. And that's great. I think Tom Spears specifically, I think it's going to be a, a really interesting person to watch.

[00:21:05] Uh, there's probably going to be a lot of people standing around the table, no matter where he is in the room. I think there'll be a lot of interested parties there. Yeah. I mean, I can't wait to see him. He probably won't remember me cause I was just a chart doer a long time ago. Okay. I don't think I played him, but, uh, you know, he's, he's, he's, he's a, he's a legend. Oh, no question about it. And, uh, it'd be good to see him. And I'm, like I said, I'm happy for him. I'm glad he's, uh, having fun and, and, uh, back in the game.

[00:21:32] We'd love to have him on the show, you know, during the, during the weekend, we'd love to have him on, you know, if, if it's something that he'd be willing to do. So we'll have to, we'll have to look into that. Maybe stay up. Maybe he will. Yep. You never know. You never know. Well, I tell you what, you're going to be set up at TKO, right? I am indeed. Well, we might see if we can get him over in the booth, see if he wants to talk about anything. Okay. Very good. Yeah. No, that would be cool. Any, anything we can do to get him on. That would be, that would be awesome. And just, um, and I'd love to see, you know, obviously.

[00:22:02] Uh, some of the, the doubles and singles winners, you know, step into the, into the, into the booth area and just chat about the, the whole experience because that's, uh, we want to, we want to get this down for the ages. We want to make sure it's a, we may, we mark it as, as a piece of history that people can always listen back to. But, uh, yeah, that's this idea. I think to me, the way Ryan is treating the media, it's, it's, it's a huge part of what he, he refers to as the production, right? It's, it's a production.

[00:22:33] Exactly. And modern foods, they're going to be there. They're going to be doing their thing. Um, and it's, it's, uh, uh, it's going to be, they're pumped about it. So yeah. Well, well covered. Uh, so you can, you can watch for free. Um, you know, I think it's YouTube and, um, and also, um, I think Twitch as well. If, if you're on Twitch tonight, you know, you know, you can, you can go to modern foods and watch the coverage of the TKO. Yeah. Um, yeah, they're getting, they're getting big numbers watching and that's, that's a

[00:23:02] part about being the free, you know? I mean, it's, I understand when you have a business and charging, you know, subscriptions and all that stuff. I do understand that. Oh, sure. But, uh, you know, you're only going to have a captured audience and the people that would pay would be the people that play. Yep. And don't go to the tournaments, but if it's free, you're going to get people that don't play and go, Whoa, what? What is this? I played this in college. What? You know, so they'll, they'll plug in, you know, and that's, that's what we want.

[00:23:32] That's just, it's going to be a good thing. Uh, Adam and Clay were on a couple of weeks ago or last, yeah, it wasn't last week, but the week before last. And they were talking about how some of their 30 and 42nd clips that they put up, uh, as just, you know, quick, uh, quick pieces on Instagram or whatever. In some of the cases, they have 2 million views on some of those clips. I think it was the Sam and Sullivan clip. That is, that is, yeah. I've watched, you know, out of that, out of that 1.7 million or whatever it is, I'm probably about 30 of them.

[00:24:01] Cause I've really watched it a few times and it's pretty cool. You know, it is great. It pops up on, on, on reels and stuff like that. So it's pretty cool. And if people are looking at that, they're going to want to say, Hey, you know, if, if, uh, Sam and Sullivan or all these other people, they're seeing these clips are going to be at this one place. And why wouldn't they tune in, you know, to Twitch and, or, uh, and YouTube and to, to check that out.

[00:24:25] Um, and it, it's funny cause you and I know that to watch a foosball match, it's easy for us because we know what's happening. We, we know what's going on. We know the players. We know it's what's, uh, what's what, and we can get a lot of value out of it. Now people have to learn to say, Oh, I I've never really played this at a high level, but look at these people, man, and get, get addicted. Like, like, like anybody else who's a fan. Right. And hopefully that's right. I mean, it's, it, it, it, it, it's something else too, that they did.

[00:24:55] Um, they've upgraded the, uh, the texting. I don't know if Ryan talked about that last week or not. No, I don't think so. Or when he was on a couple of weeks ago. Well, you know, the, first of all, the texting is not, is not, uh, the main thing you depend on. Okay. You depend on looking at the chart, get on your phone, look at the charts or go by and look at the charts. Yes. The texting is something to help you.

[00:25:23] It's something to help reminder, but it's only going to be as good as your reception is. Yeah. If you're on the elevator, forget it. If you're in a bad spot, you might not get it. Right. Okay. It's all depends on your reception. Cause it's a text, right? Right. But they've upgraded it. And I think it would only do like 10 to 15, maybe 20 calls out at a time. And when we're putting matches in there, if they all, you know, but they just updated

[00:25:51] it to where it can handle up to 5,000 at one time. 5,000. Wow. Yeah. That's, uh, that's impressive. I don't think that's confidential information. No. I'm sorry, Ryan. But anyway, he, he did a test. Um, you know, he, he text out 5,000 texts to everybody a couple of weeks ago saying, Hey, this is modern foosball. Uh, you know, this is, uh, sorry. This is WF. I get so worried about saying the letter. World foosball tour. World foosball tour.

[00:26:21] I need to just quit saying WFT. Cause I don't want to screw up and get. Get it the other way around. Anyway, yeah. It's world foosball tour. They, uh, they sent out a blanket text to everybody. And I'm sure. And like, like he said, I'm sure some people say, what is this? Mm-hmm. And I, I might read it. It might want to come out, you know? Oh, it's a nice reminder. Yeah, it is. And people who hadn't played in a while, they might go, Oh, it's changed. Oh, it's different. Oh, you know, so we'll see.

[00:26:51] Yeah. We'll see. Now I want to know, you know, when it comes to you personally, because you are, you are the guy you're the, you're out on the, on the, on the, the battle battle fleet field and you're there to make sure this thing runs smoothly. What's changing this time before you actually get there? What's changing when it comes to your, your, uh, your, your attitude or what, you know, what are the things you need to know more about this time than you did? Let's say the last time you did this same event.

[00:27:17] Well, every time I talked to Ryan, he's pumping me up. Mm-hmm. Just hearing him be excited. Gets me excited. I have a job to do. Yes. Right. We all have a job to do. And, and, and, and we're there to make it be a, to be a good, good time for all the players. Yes. Um, and, and, and just to make sure that events run on time, start on time, people running.

[00:27:47] Mm-hmm. We don't, I mean, you know, this is something else too, that's kind of funny. You know, players say, man, I've been here. I hadn't played in three hours. Well, as a player, I don't like that either. But as a worker, man, I wish you'd hurry up and play too. Yeah. Right. Yeah. We, we, we, we want these brackets to fly. Yeah. But you know, there's always going to be conflicts when you have some lower rated players that are really on fire. Sure. And really doing good.

[00:28:15] That's that, that can tie up a tournament, but we try to keep things going smooth. We try to put priority on certain events and make sure they push through. Mm-hmm. But, um, he's, he's got some ideas. I can't say because it's still experimental. Yeah. But he's got some ideas to where we can actually keep you posted throughout the day. What we're fixing to do next. Okay. And, and, and maybe there'll be some supper breaks for people. Oh. When we start some big events. Say, if you're not in this event, you got a couple hours. You know, I don't know. We'll see. Yeah.

[00:28:44] I know people enjoy breaks and enjoy, you know, this. Oh, sure. You know, having some time off and knowing they come back, we're going to be experimenting with a lot of things, but this is all Ryan. He's got these ideas and man, I haven't heard a bad one yet. Good. Good, good, good. That's exciting. And, and, and he's got some other things going. I don't know if I can talk about that yet. That's probably going to be something. You're doing this to us. As for people, when they're not playing foosball, I don't know if he even brought this up, but when, if you're not playing foosball, there's going to be some other things for you to do. Uh-huh.

[00:29:15] I don't know. Did he mention anything about that? Well, he did. I did ask him specifically because, uh, I noticed, you know, when things end for the day and the room closes, uh, people are still bouncing around. They still want to do stuff. And that he did say that there's going to be some, well, shall we say, things to do. Like what? Did he say? Well, he mentioned that there was going to be some tables available, you know, that'll be outside the room that people can play on. Yeah.

[00:29:43] And, uh, it'll be in a specific area. So noise won't be an issue and that kind of thing. Um, that was pretty much as far as he would go though, as far as. Okay. Well, I'm not going to go any further. There's going to be some other things there for you to do and look at, but I can't say. I see. I can't say. It's just going to be something. And it's going to be something fun for everybody. Okay. Not just, you know, even if you're not a foosball player, you might want to do this. You know, I don't know. I mean, there's so many. I'm not going to stay.

[00:30:09] So many times you go to a foosball tournament and, you know, the room closes at, you know, midnight or whatever. And, uh, you got to figure out, okay, got to do something, man. I mean, I, I, I'm, it's hard for me to, I step late anyway. Uh, I, you know, I'm always looking for a pickup game or two and, uh, there's traditional, traditional pickup games, you know, and sometimes it could get a little out of hand, which is always the idea. But, uh, what else could possibly happen?

[00:30:38] No, I think it was Clay Toomey just jumped on here on, uh, on Twitch and said, uh, cornhole and beer pong. Is he correct? Okay. I didn't want to, I didn't want to say it. I didn't, I didn't know if he, I didn't know if, I didn't know if Ryan told anybody and that's why I didn't say anything. But yes, there is a cornhole and it's custom. I can't say what it's going to look like, but it's custom. Now, of course I don't drink. So when he showed it to me, I said, Oh, you got a mountain dew pong game. Oh, nice.

[00:31:09] And, uh, but anyway, yeah, I didn't know Clay if he, uh, I didn't know if he told us about it or anybody about it or not, but yeah, that's just a couple of things. But then there's a new thing. Okay. Brand new that I don't even know what it is. You don't know what it is? It's going to be a surprise to everybody. Huh? Okay. Yeah. Because on my little schematics, it said new game. Hmm. And I said, what is it? He said, Oh man, something new. You just have to wait and see. Wow. You know, a lot of things. It's going to be fun. Okay.

[00:31:38] And he's going to make it fun for everybody. And all that stuff will be out there after the doors and rooms close. Mm-hmm. Yep. It'll be out there for everybody. So, and plus there's going to be cameras everywhere. So don't think he's going to steal any of them beanbags or ping pong balls or whatever, you know, because there's eyes in the sky everywhere. Of course. Of course. But anyway, uh, it's going to be a lot of fun. I know what, uh, during the world championships for tornado this last year, um, it got really interesting on Saturday night.

[00:32:07] I think it was, uh, Oh, I don't know what time of the morning it was, but, uh, there was some, some sing-along happening in one of the rooms. And there must've been 30 people in there singing. And I, I, I came by the room and somebody had said, Hey man, you know, there's a party going on. You should go check it out. So, uh, Oh, it was on the first floor. I'm pretty sure. But as I was approaching the room, I noticed there was a security guard coming the opposite direction, uh, towards that room as well.

[00:32:34] And as I'm standing, as I stand, I stopped, uh, I was standing in front of the room and I stopped to listen and I could hear the singing. I mean, I was just, I was laughing and the guy comes up and he goes, did you call me? I said, no, I didn't call security. So I just turned around and left. Uh, but I guess they got busted. I don't know. I think I know who, I think I know where it was. I was crossing the hall. I didn't hear anything, but that's, they're not going to be in that room.

[00:33:02] Uh, we're going to have staff all down that hallway and they'll be wanting their sleep. So, Oh, I'm sure we get done. We'll be wanting our sleep, but, um, man, some of the things they do after tournaments, the stories I know, the stories I could tell you. Interesting. This is, this is masters all the way down to, uh, amateur. They get out there and do some of the craziest things. What's the craziest things I've seen? Let's see.

[00:33:29] I've seen them get a foosball and put a glass about 50 foot away. Oh, and there'll be 10 or 15 of them. And each time, each one of them will take their turn, throwing the ball down, down and try to get it in the cup. I think I saw that last time. I'm pretty sure. And they'll put a dollar person up and it, and it, it gets big. Sometimes they throw five. Now, I don't know. That's just one thing. I saw them do that in Georgia. 50 feet away. They did it one time over there.

[00:33:57] And they, yeah, you know, maybe 30, but it's a good ways. Yeah. I've seen them pitch quarters to the wall. Close as one. I've seen them. I know it, it might've been worlds or could have been last year's TKO. They had a, uh, like a, a diamond or octagon or some kind of little thing that they would, a top. A top. Okay. And they would, and it's black or red and they would spin it and everybody started throwing black, red. All right. I got your black, red.

[00:34:25] And they, they did that for several hours. No kidding. I finally had, I went to my room and woke up my buddy. I said, dude, they doing exactly what you like to do. And he got out there and he stayed for a couple hours and come back ahead. You know, they were, they were just, they were just having fun. They want to hang out and do stuff. It didn't matter what they were doing. Yeah. No, it's, you know, blowing off steam after the, after the day is over. Yeah. You know, you gotta, you gotta have, I think that's especially for the foosball community,

[00:34:53] the family, you know, it's like this, this is how you, you know, you're battling each other during the day. You're two and a half feet away from the person you want to kill them. And, and, and then later on, you're like buying them a drink and, and playing beer pong. Oh yeah. They was all having fun. Nobody got mad. I mean, even, even when, I mean, they was all yelling and hollering. Just having fun, you know? And then, then finally, I think I went on to sleep, but I think they finally broke it up around three, 30, four o'clock. Everybody went to sleep. But, you know, cause they got to play too.

[00:35:23] And I always tell people, Hey, don't know. Nine o'clock comes early. Yeah, it does. And, you know, recall, you know, come shortly after they start up. So, you know, they, they pretty good about it. Now, one of the things that just, this reminds me because of the, just the number of players that showed up, but I was participating in the amateur division with my, my partner, Mark Trillette. And we were there.

[00:35:50] I'm trying to think now it might've been Saturday, but Saturday, or was it, it might've been late Saturday. We started around, I know eight or nine o'clock. And, you know, we went through our first five or six matches without a loss. And then by the time that was done, uh, you guys closed the room. You said, Oh, that's it. You know, you can't go any further. Uh, you're going to pick up this play tomorrow. So, and I think it did start at like nine or 10 o'clock. It was 10 o'clock. It started the next day.

[00:36:19] And I'm like, man, I lost all my fire. I had like, you know, couldn't, couldn't, uh, we couldn't win to save our lives. You know, we were out two matches, but we still ended up in fifth, but it was still like, man, you know, I kind of felt like I wanted to keep going, but I can see it. I can see why people are thinking, Hey, you can't play these things until two, three, four o'clock in the morning. You just can't do it. Yeah. I hear both sides of the coin. Yeah. I hear people, man, please call it, man. Please.

[00:36:48] If I can just make it back tomorrow, I'll play better. Please. I, you know, I'm so, I can't play anymore. Please. Then I got some, man, keep it going. I'm on fire. Yeah, exactly. As soon as I get up, call me. As soon as I get up, call me. And then I have some room closes at 2 AM or room closes at 1 30. Hey, if they want to play, can we play? I said, I don't care. Yeah. But I'm not making you. Right. But you know, and I've had some play. It just helps us get further than the bracket, you know, because I'll be there a little bit before I got to wind down too.

[00:37:15] You know, if I was to leave straight from the tournament room and go to my room, I'd be watching TV for an hour winding down so I can go to sleep. Right. You know, so, so I understand. Are you going to be, are you going to be joined by Kristen Grogan and, and the rest of the staff this time? We're going to have, so far what we have is, is Donna Carroll, Scott Ramsey and Arthur Mitchell. And then it'll be just me. Okay. Gotcha.

[00:37:43] And then, and then we'll see about Vegas after that. Got it. Okay. Yeah. Interesting. It's going to be a little different, of course, with us, because usually when we do registration, we also keep up with wraps and balls and all that kind of stuff. But, but registration is only going to be for events. We won't have any balls. We won't have any wraps. Okay. We won't sell you anything. We're only going to take your money. Right. Registration. So that'll, that'll streamline things right there.

[00:38:12] We're going to streamline it because one, we're going to have computers on one side of us. And once you get through with the computers, you pay us and you move right on down the line to the Fuskier booth. And that's where you're going to get your ball. And if you want shirts, you'll pick your shirt out and you go up there and get your shirt done. So it's all going to be streamlined. It's all going to be just right there in a row. Don't bring any balls from the house because they're not going to match. We have them all here. Yeah. We've noticed a big change.

[00:38:38] A big, uh, uh, there was a, we did a tournament yesterday here in upstate New York, uh, the smash down and we had a, a, a, a new shipment of balls that just came in and they were different. They were weird. Were they purple? Almost. Almost. There were, there were definitely a darker red. Um, yeah, but the, the textures seemed very odd, uh, you know, rough, but still odd. So. And they were slick. Mm-hmm. They were difficult to trap.

[00:39:07] Well, I think, I think what happened, I can't speak for tornado, but what I think happened was they, they were broke down for so long. Yeah. And they had to get some, some parts. And when they start, when they got the balls in, they were doing a faster turnaround. Now, now the top, the balls we use on our tournaments are, are, are, I guess tumbled for five hours. Okay. Okay. Okay.

[00:39:34] And so the ones they put in the tables, they send out, I don't think it's five hours. I think it's more like three or something like that. Okay. Yeah. Something like that. So they play a little different, you know, but, uh, yeah, we, we got some balls sent to us that were almost, you know, looking purple. And of course, you know, Ryan want to make sure that tornado getting, didn't get, you know, screwed over by getting that in like that. Right. Right. So they said they noticed some different colors too.

[00:40:01] And they're going to, they're going to check with what happened. Yeah. You know, on the makeup. And so they actually went through all the balls and they, they shipping us the pink, the, the regular balls, how they used to supposed to look. The standard. Yeah. And send them to us. So, uh, you know, you know, they have people they have to deal with too, you know? They're not consistent with what they give them. They'll just have to find another provider or something like that. You know, I noticed these, uh, these balls we were playing with yesterday too, tended to

[00:40:29] pick up more material, like more, more, uh, whatever was in the table. If there was a little bit of fuzz or whatever, it, it stuck to the ball much more effectively. It's like, what is that, man? It's helping clean the table. That's it. You know, um, but you know, it's, I guess there'll be a lot of hold up, hold up. Can I get that off the ball? That's, that's pretty much it. You know, uh, especially if somebody is stuck in their pocket, forget about it. Oh yeah. Just come out covered in lint.

[00:40:58] So, but. Well, there's always something, you know, I know they was working on men with the shoulders breaking. Yes. Uh, not too many people knew this, but I was sent some, some experimental men in July. Okay. Okay. And I put them on two tables that we used on tour. Mm-hmm. And from July to the end of the year, no shoulders broke. There was some spidering where you could see some little black lines. Okay. But they didn't break apart.

[00:41:28] Huh. Like they are now on some other ones. Yes. So that's a step in the right direction. So now I know they're, they're upgrading that. They're looking at rods right now. Good. Um, they, they had some sent in and they wasn't, uh, drilled the right, you know, didn't have the right settings. Yeah. And so they're getting some more sent back. And if these rods were, I mean, these rods are some good rods. They do rods that come on the, uh, fireball tables. Oh, interesting. Okay. Those are good rods.

[00:41:58] Okay. So if they can get those drilled right and they do good, they're back to the best rods in the world. Good. You know, on tornado tables. That's, that's awesome. People have been really talking about it. That kind of works now. We don't know the timeframe on that, but you know, it takes time, takes money. So. Oh, sure. Well. You know, that's, that's that. Here's the thing. You've got the, the best foosball table in the world. Uh, it's played on, you know, especially in this country, it's pretty exclusive, you know? Yeah.

[00:42:24] Um, and if you've got top pros who are saying, Hey, listen, this table is just not functioning the way it should. You know, it's just not what I'm accustomed to doing it. And consistently people across the board are saying this isn't working. Um, you know, manufacturers got to do something about it. You know, it's, uh. Yeah. And they, they finally, uh, I don't think they knew this. We had a meeting with them, USTSO. And then, uh, Steve Murray. Mm-hmm. Um, I think it was Tracy McMillan, myself and Steve Murray.

[00:42:53] We went and had a meeting with them back in, uh, 2000 and I don't know, 20, 21, something like that. 21. And we was talking to them about the importance of being a part of the ITSF big tournaments, you know? And, uh, I mentioned to them that it's just not USA's home table. Yeah. I said, there's 15 countries that consider tornado their home table. Mm-hmm. And they did not know that. I said, yeah, there's people that love your table all over the world. Oh, that's true.

[00:43:21] They just can't get them, you know? But, but there's 15 countries and I think that kind of blew them away a little bit. But, and it made them, I guess, kind of realize, Hey, this is, this could be, this could be big, you know? So they got back involved with that and their strong supporter. Good, good, good, good. You know? So, uh, well, it's, it's a good thing, especially if we can get somebody overseas starting to sell some tables that would really benefit them big time. Oh, you'd think that would do really well, you know, uh, distributor, you know, in, in Europe or Asia or both.

[00:43:50] Uh, yeah, that would make a lot of sense. Cause he, cause I mean, I talked to both of them, Kelly and Trey. Both of them. And, and one of the things he said that he would love to send the full container, you know, one after another, you empty one and I'll send you another one, you know? There you go. Uh, cause that way, you know, it just, it, it helps out. You just don't want to send one or two or the shipping would be outrageous. Right. You know? Understood. Understood. So, um, well, it's, it's, it's all good. Yeah. It's, it's, uh, it's exciting.

[00:44:18] I mean, this is the, obviously when, when, uh, when this kind of, uh, energy and, and excitement gets, uh, gets applied to the sport, the way it is in this next, uh, this next round is this, uh, this next tournament. Uh, yeah, there's going to be a real push for anybody who wants to, you know, make this happen and make it happen. Right. You know, the right from right to the manufacturers, man, we got to get this done and it's, uh, it's gotta be good. What I'm going to, what I'm going to say about this tournament coming up, if you haven't

[00:44:48] made plans to be there yet, you need to make plans to be there. Yep. This is. Two weeks. Let me put it to you like this. This is going to be the only first tournament for WFT. Mm-hmm. The only first one after it, it'd be second, third, fourth, fifth, but this is the very first one. The premier. You can say you're on the ground floor of the WFT foosball tour and it's going to be exciting. Mm-hmm. It's going to be very exciting. I look forward.

[00:45:17] The people that don't go are going to wish they did. Yeah. And I'm sure everybody that goes is going to talk to everybody about it, you know? So, you know, we definitely want, want it to be a positive thing for everybody. And, uh, you know, like I said, every time I talked around, he fires me up. Yeah. And it's going to be good. The, the only thing that would, I think that would, uh, would be, I don't know, uh, an issue would, would be weather, you know, if, if the weather were not cooperating, but

[00:45:44] I'm not going to say that too loud, not too loud, but just, you know, just saying. Yeah. But no, we're going to talk about the big W. Yeah. Unless it's the big WFT. Yeah. Right. Uh, well, you know, uh, it's, it is what it is. I think, I think we're going to have something this week. Okay. And then it'll get better and we'll be all right. I fly out. I fly out Monday. Okay. Wow. Tomorrow, but a week from Monday, but the next Monday. So hopefully it'll be everything to be good.

[00:46:14] Yeah. And I'm going early because we're, we're transitioning, uh, IFP to WFT. So I got to count inventory, all that stuff that they wasn't able to do at Louisiana state. I'll be there early to do that. Okay. And I think we start, it's going to take us two days to set everything up. Mm-hmm. I don't doubt it. A lot of, uh, 50, 63 tables, tables and that stuff. They usually configure the pits. Mm-hmm. Actually, there's going to be two sets of those.

[00:46:44] Oh, they're talking about the rest. No, we're talking about the, the, the, uh, the seating, the stands. We're going to have three sets of bleachers. Mm-hmm. And, uh, but we've had these before. Okay. But we're going to have the, uh, the stuff that separates the tables and lights hang down from them in the pits. Right. Okay. Okay. The, um, this, it's going to be a new design. It's never been seen before by baseball players. Different from the ITSF when they did their thing in Dallas last year. I mean different from that. Ooh.

[00:47:13] Now that's, now that's big, huge stuff for them. Oh, I know. And they're used to doing that. So don't, it's not going to be like that, but it's going to be different. Okay. It's going to be new, brand new. And, uh, it's, it's, it's going to be good. Yeah. I can't wait to see that. Yeah, me either. I can't wait. Yeah. And I'll probably be helping putting it up too. So. Okay. It'll be a learning, learning curve for, for me. Oh, no doubt. But, uh, it's going to be, it's going to be a lot of fun. Wow.

[00:47:47] Uh, I gave the players, the top players in each division. I sent them a, I wanted to make it a little different. So I sent everyone an email and, uh, only got three back and I found their correct emails and sent that to them. Good. Okay. Okay. So, uh, I sent out an email, I'm getting responses back. Uh, I gave everybody to the 24th to tell me whether or not they're coming. Okay. And that way after the 24th, it people, I didn't get any comments.

[00:48:13] I'll try to call them and, um, I'll have the bracket set before we even start. That way you can prepare, see who you're going to play and work up any strategies or whatever, you know, but, uh, we'll have that all set and ready before people get there. How many, um, how many contestants so far are now registered and ready to play for the USTSO that weekend? Um, I was 30 or 40 of them so far. Nice. Okay. Good. We have everybody show up that, that made it, it'd be like 76 players or something like that. Yeah. That's decent.

[00:48:42] I've had a few that can't make it due to work obligations or, uh, can only take so many days a year and they want to go to Vegas or, or tornado championships or whatever, you know? So, uh, but that's, uh, 40, 40 USTSO players. A lot of people there ready to play. It is just going to be more than that. I predict we'll have, we usually have around 50 to 55. I feel like we'll have the same, if not a little more. And every place pays. Yeah. You know, last place pays first place pays.

[00:49:13] Really? That's how I, you know, I raised money each year for this. Now the money this year wasn't as much as the last couple, just cause that's how it worked out. Yeah. But still everybody's going to get paid for last place. Minimum last place is $25. Interesting. Okay. So, so, so you just show up, you get 25 and you know, that's how much the dues are. And, and last year, most everybody that once they got paid, they said, here's my 25 for next year. There you go. And I signed them up and then I sent it on PayPal only. And, you know.

[00:49:43] Now this is a qualifier for, for going to the world cup. Correct. No, no, no, no, no, no. This is qualifying to get into the USTSO championship. Oh, that's okay. It's a points race. We have, see, I didn't want, uh, that, that when we started talking about what, what can we do for the players, you know, this, now we're getting into what USTSO is. USTSO is United States table soccer organization. It's the players federation. Right.

[00:50:13] So what we do is we, we, we have to be a federation and have a federation in order for players to be eligible to play overseas. Got it. Okay. World cup, world championship. And. You know, it's usually anywhere from 40 to 50, 60 people that do that each time it happens. Well, we want more than just 40, 50, 60 members. So we wanted to do something for everybody. Hey, you become a member of USTSO.

[00:50:42] Number one, you're supporting United States table soccer. Yep. You're supporting, um, you're, you're, well, you're, you're being a part of a points race to where when you play singles, you accumulate points in the top 16 in each division have a playoff to first place. First place gets money, trophy, and a jacket. Last place gets $25 and it goes up each round. Okay.

[00:51:12] Thing elimination. And it's no entry fee. See, we changed it up. We was going to charge $25 entry fee and, you know, just go like that. But we, we decided, Hey, it's something free for y'all. We thank y'all for being a member. We want to try to give them some worth, you know, you know, something they can have, you know, to, to participate in, not just for the ones that go overseas. Cause not everybody goes, you know, we'll, uh, you know, we're doing it again this year. We, we was eventually going to try to do doubles and, and, and stuff like that, but

[00:51:42] we want to get singles down and we want to get the brackets full before we start going into doubles. We'll, uh, will the finals be under the lights with the cameras? Well, I'm sure, I'm sure we can do that. Yes. We will try to have all the finals in the pit. Uh, and we're not calling it pits. Not the pits. Call the pit. The pit. It is the pit. That's the area, which is known as the pit. The pit. Right. Right. Okay.

[00:52:10] We'll, we'll, we'll try to get those in there and, uh, because they still probably all finish at different times because, uh, usually history shows that there's more rookies. Rookies always has their full 16 amateurs to be next, then expert, then pro and open. And then, uh, women's D1 and D2. Uh, there's so many women are moving up though, to the D1. Okay. Our D2 only had like about eight people that signed up. Huh?

[00:52:40] Our, our six. And, uh, so out of that, I think only four are coming. So. Okay. So they're, they're, you know, they're going to get money. Right. Yeah. So it pays to be a part of USTSO. I mean, you not only get to participate in this, uh, you get to participate in a free event at the end of the year. If you're in the top 16, you know, it's a, it's a lot of fun. And another thing, a part of being a part of USTSO, you belong, you belong to a group

[00:53:09] of players that represent our country and as part of our country, you know, we are foosball. It's, it's, uh, it's, it's necessary obviously to, to generate interest in this, but also like you say, we need representation. Yeah. Well, you get to belong. Yeah. You get to say you're a, you know, USTSO member, the United States table soccer federation

[00:53:33] member, um, and you know, the, the, the, the thing a long time ago that I haven't heard a whole lot is that we just want to increase our numbers, show that it's a good sport. It's a thriving sport. And the push was try to get it in the Olympics. Well, that would be the hope, right? Someday. Yeah. There's, but the, but the thing that kills that is, is it's, it'd probably be hard to be in the Olympics and be on multi tables.

[00:54:02] It would have to be on one table. Yeah. And you know, if we did tornado, everybody say it's not fair, you know? Oh, I see what you're saying. Not just one table at one time, but just, I get you. So instead of Bonzini and have a table, you know, I don't know how they would choose a table. Boy, that would be tough. We are, we are trying to still kind of push it in there a little bit.

[00:54:29] Um, and just be something that's recognized, but not a actual event. Okay. Does that make sense? Well, I mean, it seems like when, when you watch a world cup events and, and there's, uh, that, that, that team competition that's going on between the different countries, they go back and forth between two different tables typically. Right. It's like a, like you go from Bonzini to Leonhardt or you go from Leonhardt to tornado. Is that, is that typical or is what, how does that work? Yeah.

[00:54:57] What, what they do is, is, uh, when you play somebody from another country, their home table, if it's different from yours and say you're doing a race to 40, like it's going to be at this world cup, you do, you do four banks of 10. Okay. You start off, you do, you do, uh, I think it's one, uh, D1, D2, D1, uh, D1, S1, D2, S2.

[00:55:24] You do, uh, I forgot how, I mean, I'm, I'm not looking at it, so I really don't know, but you do, you do a singles one S1 and D2 doubles two. And you have two doubles teams and two singles teams. That's where you get your six people. And then you have three alternates or three subs. We don't like to call them subs because everybody's pretty much equal on a team. Yeah. You know, but you got, you know, you can only play six at one time and you got three in case something happens or you get on a different table. This player might be stronger. You swap it out.

[00:55:54] Okay. So, uh, and again, you know, thinking about it, you got to take, I don't know why they couldn't do multi tables in Olympics because you have people there that can swap the tables out. Yeah, sure. You know, I don't think there'd be any question. In fact, I think it would make it more interesting for the general audience to see play on different tables. Um, and to see the strength of the French on the Bonzini as opposed to the strength of the, of the U S on, on tornado. And, you know, and of course vice versa, if, if the, the Americans can, uh, kick butt on the

[00:56:23] Bonzini, uh, in front of Olympic audience, like, oh, they don't, that's not their table, but they're, you know, they're killing it. Yeah. Oh, that would make some good stories. Yeah. Um, I can see it happening and I'd like to see it happen. Um, you know, um, you know, we always was told my first time I went was in, uh, 2017. I went to Germany. Okay. And I was told, man, don't worry about winning on their table. Just score some points. Yeah. It's all about the points. Yeah.

[00:56:48] And when we got over there, we was scoring and we was actually winning some games on their tables. Nice. Yeah. So that worked out good. I mean, I just liked foosball playing on other tables. Only table I could not play on was that Roberto sport. Roberto. I just couldn't get it, but I didn't have to play on. I only played in my qualifying rounds. I only played, I played Garlando once and the rest were tornado. Mm-hmm. Okay. So, I mean, I got lucky.

[00:57:15] You know, of course I had to play some locals, you know, some USA players. I didn't like doing that, but, uh, you know, it's fun. I liked Roberto sport. Now I can play on it. My hardest. Now, when I went in 22, my hardest was the Bonzini. The Bonzini, of course. Yeah. And I was playing decent on it, but for some reason, when I got over there, it's like, Oh, what's going on here? It's a. I just put a new surface on there too, but I don't think that messed me up. It's a completely different, uh, thought process, you know, trapping the ball and there's,

[00:57:43] you know, it's just the, the ball's moving constantly, it seems. Uh, and they, they have different ways of, uh, of, uh, they have the, what is it? The Euro pin, the, the, the, the, the pinning on the toe. And I started shooting the European on the Bonzini and I can do it. Okay. Pretty well. Yeah. Uh, as long as I remember to put my thumb in the right. Yes. Not try, you know, I can do a decent when I, when I remember that, but, um, I like how Alan Cribbs sold us a Bonzini to a Wayne Carroll over here. Oh, okay.

[00:58:13] Mississippi. And that's where we went up and trained a lot. And, uh, Alan came by one time and we was playing and, and I said, man, I might want to come hit one of them Bonzini tables. I get to play as a rookie or amateur. He said, Nope, you're going to be an expert. Okay. Okay. Almost pro. I said, no. And, uh, so he kind of made me, I think I've been just trying to make me feel good. Oh, I see. Um, by the way, we're being corrected here. Clay, Clay Toomey says, no, not the Euro pin.

[00:58:42] Just call it a front pin. They don't own that. They don't. They don't own it. Oh. Even though, uh, Frederico Collignon probably dominated most, most tournaments with it. It's still the front pin, not the Euro pin. So. Okay. Well, I've always heard the other players. Sorry, Clay, but I've heard all the players talk about the Euro pin. Yeah. So much. I just, you know, uh, we probably played. Well, I don't know who played foosball first, us or them.

[00:59:12] Oh, I think it was them. It was them. I think it was the idea. Oh, if they want to call it the Euro pin. Well. I guess that'd be up to them. We, we brought it over here and made it better though. Of course. Of course. Yeah. And it's, I mean, it's so unique, you know, when you're playing it on a tornado, it's so different from anything else. Um, I, you know, I think that, and it's funny the, I think the history where the very first

[00:59:37] foosball tables appeared somewhere, I think now, again, I'm, I'm, I'm not sure because I think there's dispute about this, but what, 1926, 1927, something like that. Um, and, and that was in England at the time. Yeah. What I, what I heard was it was brought over here to the States as therapy for soldiers. Yes. Yep. That is true.

[01:00:03] I hand coordination and get all that kind of, you know, that's, that's, and I don't, I don't know, um, I don't know if that was in the fifties or sixties. I don't know. So it was 1921. According to Clay, it was 1921 in the UK. So in England is where it all started. Yeah. Um, but yeah. I'm trying to find a chance, but the chats I'm looking at is from 2023. Oops.

[01:00:30] Um, so the, the, um, I know that during the, the Vietnam war, um, there were some tables brought across, uh, whether that was the first time, I'm not sure, but I know, um, in our area, we saw Bonzini, uh, in the early seventies because of the, uh, the, the people that had brought it across at the time, uh, in the sixties and seventies. And, uh, that's all we had in our town was Bonzini.

[01:00:56] So it was, um, there was eventually, I think I saw a quarter million dollar table, a TS table later, much to bet, must've been late seventies, early, early eighties when I finally saw a TS table. Yeah. But yeah, Bonzini was it. But well, I've, uh, I've, I kind of have fun on a Bonzini. It's a lot of fun. Oh, it's great. I definitely shoot different. I just, every time I go to shoot a pool, I stub up. But I was showed how I needed to shoot it and I can still pull it off.

[01:01:26] Oh yeah. You know, shooting it, but, uh, you can get used to it for sure. A front pin. And I like how you can change out the handles. You can put your own handles on there too, which is kind of, kind of a cool idea. But, uh. Yeah. That's one thing too, when you go over there, uh, the first day you get the balls, you have to buy the balls and you rent the handles. Right. And if you play singles, you got to rent eight of them suckers. Yeah. The floor for your table and the floor for their table.

[01:01:57] But I think, uh, the only handles they change out now are just the Bonzini. Just Bonzini. Yeah. I think on, um, on the Garlando, they got their Garlando handles. On Leonhardt, they got the Leonhardt handles. Tornado, the Tornado handles. Mm-hmm. And same for Roberto's floor. I think Bonzini's the only handle you can swap out now. It's what I'm being told. Yeah. That's, I think I've noticed that. Yeah. When I was, um, over there in France, um, I believe that was the only ones that changed out.

[01:02:26] I'm not, I can't remember. Okay. Spent a few years, you know. Well, um, so what, what, uh, what do you think when it comes to, uh, the next, this next year, what do you think is going to change the most about foosball in America? What, what's your, what's your best guess here? Okay. Well, just, just from the fact that there's an, there's a new company, WFT is causing so much excitement.

[01:02:54] It's going to spill off to other promoters, other foosball groups. Um, and we haven't got into this yet. I mean, you know, we talked a little bit about USTSO and what we're doing each year. We start off charging the $25 membership and our website is almost done. We, we've been working on a long time. It's just cause we had so much going on. Okay. And, uh, but, but we're, we're basically putting content and we're ready to release it like soon.

[01:03:23] And, uh, hopefully before TKO. Um, so it's, it's already out there. We just have to put some more stuff in there. Okay. Make it good. But, uh, we, we charge that each year so people can be eligible throughout the whole year. Uh, last year we sanctioned our, should I say certified 13 events for the points race. And then for sanctioning, we did six events for, for sanctioning.

[01:03:51] And then we had three of them as qualifiers a year. Hmm. Hmm. Now this year we want to, we want to meet the same goals. WFT wants to sanction all their events. Mm-hmm. Uh, Texas state is going to be ran this year with the world series. The world series is back the same time. I heard that.

[01:04:14] It's going to be more day weekend, but, uh, Texas state, uh, we, we just couldn't get things going like they wanted to. And when I do Texas state, they want to do it right. Of course. Okay. And they wasn't able to get things rolling and it was going to, it's going to be one of them things where we didn't get our act, you know, didn't get our act together and get everything down like we needed to. And we want just the best. So it was a good opportunity for them to have the world series come over and introduce it to everybody and see that style of play.

[01:04:44] Because the owners of tornado liked that kind of play where you have the Swiss and you have assigned times. Oh, it's a lot of fun too. Yeah. It's a lot of fun, but the only thing is when you have promoters that run multiple events for everyone so they can have fun and play the different games and play more than just one or two events a weekend, they, they can't do it like that. Yeah. You'd have to have double or triple the tables to do it. Oh yeah. And you don't have enough time to do it for every event. So it's not for everybody.

[01:05:15] And it's good that they do it just for the ITSF world cup and world series. Because if every promoter did that, they, they would lose a lot of people because a lot of people go because they like to play in a bunch of events. Yes. You know, there's some players just want to play in two or three and that's good, but there's some that want to see how many they can play in. Yeah. But that's going to happen again, this may, but this time they are going to have the Texas state events.

[01:05:44] They're going to have the main event. During the same weekend. During the same weekend. Okay. They're going to do the rookie. They're going to do the amateur expert pro and open is going to be the open of the ITSF. So they are going to bring back the main events for Texas state interest all the players that were upset and didn't go to the world series because they wanted their events. Your voices were heard and they're going to have the main events for the world series at Texas state.

[01:06:12] This is a really interesting meeting of the ways here because you know, ITSF. And of course what we've always done in this side of the pond is now coming to some kind of consensus. It seems that's a, that's a really interesting idea. I'm planning on being there. That's just because of last year's experience. It was just so much fun. Such a great place to be for the, for the weekend, except for the storms in Dallas. Do it again. Yeah. But yeah, no, I would go there in a heartbeat for sure. Okay.

[01:06:42] Well, we're, what we're doing now, we're meeting on it and we wanted to have the flyer out last week. We wasn't able to, so I'm sure the flyer will be out this week. Okay. For the 2025 world series. It will be a auto qualifier under ITSF for the 2027 world cup at a place not determined yet. Hmm. What they do each, each time they have a world cup at the last day of the world cup, they

[01:07:09] do a sneak preview and show a video of the next country that it's going to be at. Huh? Okay. And then they play a, got a song. It's really cool. I mean, that's one of the things we look forward to at the end is having the closing ceremony and see where the next one is going to be. This last one though, after the close of the ceremony, he said, that's it. We haven't negotiated our contract yet. We'll let you know by June. Didn't reveal. Okay. But then, but then they, they let us know, uh, by the end of that year, it was, uh, Zaragoza, Spain.

[01:07:39] And so, uh, some of the, I heard some of them that was in the running was China. Huh? It was Saudi Arabia, Switzerland. And then France and then Spain. And I think that's it. Hmm. Okay. That was who was in the running and then Spain ended up, Spain ended up getting it. Well, uh, the reason we postponed it, we listen to me like I'm ITSL.

[01:08:05] The reason they postponed it is because the Olympics was 24 in Paris. Oh, okay. And so they knew there'd be high prices on airfare and rooms. Right. Difficult. So that was challenging. Anyway, we're every two years now. So it'd be, yeah. Well, that makes sense. Five, 27, 29. That makes sense. But anyway, that's, that's something coming up in May. So that's, we expect that to be a big turnout just from the push from the WFT starting up. It's going to cause everybody back into wanting to play foosball again.

[01:08:36] It's, you know, the Texas state players didn't come last year. They're hungry for it. So now they're getting their main events back. They'll come. So we're, we're hoping that we double. We had 186, I think, or 180 something. Not too bad. We're hoping to have 400 or more. Oh. And just the fact that it's going to be a week or two after the Bonzini. Yes. Uh, World Series. Hopefully we'll have a hundred or two come over. Yeah. I was talking to one country.

[01:09:00] Um, they're, they're needing what they call, uh, visa invitations or welcome invitations. Okay. And, uh, this country's hoping to bring 40 players. I think it's, uh, it was India. I think they have some players coming. So they want to bring about 40 players. That would be exciting. Jeez. Yeah. But we have some probably coming to TKO. They haven't, uh, told me for sure yet, but they were trying to bring some kids to come play. Nice. Yeah. It's like they did a few years back.

[01:09:27] What, uh, what's your anticipation when it comes to TKO? What's your anticipation of the number of kids? Do you think it's going to be a good, a good size junior division event? Well, that's hard to say because, you know, school has started back. Hmm. Right. And we're, um, I haven't looked when it's going to be, I think it's Sunday. Is that right? Juniors on Sunday. Oh yeah.

[01:09:57] I think that was what I saw. I should probably look at the schedule since I'm running tournaments. Right. Kind of need to know. Yeah. But, uh, well, you know, that's part of my getting ready before I do go. I will be looking at the schedule and something I do before every tournament is I read the rule book. Okay. I always refresh my mind, read the rule book before every tournament. That's just a little. Well, that only makes sense, right? Yeah. Because, you know, if there's ever discrepancy out there, they go to the head of the official. And if that, if that don't work, they go to the tournament director to settle any disputes.

[01:10:27] So I kind of need to know what I'm doing. Um, but, um, we have a quick question from, uh, from our audience on Twitch TV. Klepto Kilo Gaming, uh, Kilo Gaming is asking, uh, will the UTSO championship always be at the TKO or have, do you have plans otherwise? Uh, well, not necessarily because, uh, we were seeing about trying to move it to the last tournament of the year. We, we want it to either be the first tournament of the year or last tournament of the year

[01:10:54] because they gained points all throughout the year. Yep. Okay. And our cutoff is November 31st. All right. So, uh, Louisiana state ended up being on the first week of December. So that would have been perfect, but it happened kind of late in the game. So we just have it at our first term of the year. Yeah. Right. Which is TKO. But to answer that question, no, it won't always be TKO.

[01:11:23] Um, but you know, the TKO is probably going to start moving around the country. Yes. I heard that. Remember Ryan made a comment that TKO might skip around to other countries, other states, other states. Because I remember, yeah, other states, because I remember my first TKO was in New Orleans. Then I had one that was in, I thought Houston. So, I mean, they go to Georgia. I mean, they hop all around, so it will go to different places, but, uh, it should always be the first term of the year. Hmm. Okay. Not the first, the last.

[01:11:54] You know, last would probably make more sense because you're playing for the top 2024 player. Yep. And when you go to 25, it kind of real confusion, but, but I make sure that. When I order the jackets, I make sure and tell them that this is for 24. Right. Right. Right. I gotcha. I gotcha. It's, it's, I guess it would, with the equivalent would be like, uh, the FedEx cup with golf, something like that. Because it's a point system. You're getting points the entire time. Yeah. Yeah.

[01:12:21] Um, I, I, like I said, I have a spreadsheet every time there's a tournament. This is, this is all done manual, but this year it's not going to be manual anymore. Okay. Because they have the new software, which is called Coral. Yes. I've seen it. And it's going to keep up with all sanctioned and certified events. And for us, I had them put a master pro expert, you know, amateur and rookie division. So now I can filter it to just masters and see what they did. Okay.

[01:12:51] So now it'd be more, I can just at the end of the year, just jot down what the points are, see who the top are and go, you know, after each tournament, I'd have to copy all the players and open singles, pick out the masters that are, are USTSO members and then give them their rating. Okay. So I had to do that with each event and it's time consuming. And, you know, last year I said I was going to do better, but until it gets, you know,

[01:13:19] computerized or, or just done like that, it's always going to be a slow go when you do it manually. Because believe it or not, I have a life outside of foosball. Really now? Yeah. I have chickens. How could, how could you even think of such a thing? And I have a wife. Don, Don, how could you, you call yourself a foosball player? I mean, what's the deal here? What's going on? I have a, I have family too, you know, but I look for this year to be, uh, you know,

[01:13:49] they always say foosball is on a roller coaster. I think that dip don't go as low anymore. It's more like a. More of an even keel. I'm sure I start seeing some of this. Yeah. The higher peaks and less plummets. I think the peaks are going to be higher and the lows are not going to be that, that low. That's good to know. I look for more people to start playing this year. I look for better tournaments. I look for fun tournaments and, uh, it's going to be, it's going to be different.

[01:14:18] It's going to be, it's going to be fun in a way seeing players. Like I had a message. Hey, which tournament should I go to? I said, man, let me tell you about the pros and cons of this tournament. Let me tell you about the pros. Well, you may just need to go to both. You got to pick and choose. It's true. You know, um, I understand people got to work. Yeah. Well, here's what I, you know, here's what I look forward to. If it's at all possible, uh, really developing a solid league system.

[01:14:44] Leagues and is as in, if you're playing your local on a Friday night, you know, how you do it, your local affects your league standing and this, the standing within, within the ratings, the rankings. That'd be kind of cool. Well, well, you know, we've been flirting with the idea, uh, for the last few years of starting clubs. I mean, you heard me get thrashed on there one night at a, one of y'all's radio shows about, about clubs, but, uh, it's kind of out of my hands.

[01:15:13] You know, USTSO is like the umbrella. Yes. We have clubs underneath our umbrella, but it's run by different people. And then we have kids club that's ran by different people, but it's under the umbrella of USTSO. So I don't have direct control over those. Right. But I do know this, the club system is ready. We are ready. Good. We're waiting on Coral software to be released for USA. And it's supposed to be done within the next two weeks.

[01:15:40] And once we do that, we'll come on here and make a public announcement, go to Coral, take over an account in your name. Yep. Uh, you know, the players that went to the world series last year already did this, but we need everybody in USA to go to Coral and, and capture your, your, uh, recover your, your account. Yes. Everybody has a, uh, ITSF number, but the easiest way to do it is to go to Coral software.

[01:16:10] Click on recover your system, type your name in. When you see your name, click on it, fill out that thing, send it in. I'll see it. I'll approve it. Send it back. You can choose your password and send it. And I'll approve it one more time. And you're in cool. And once it's, once it's released, that's the only way you're gonna be able to sign up for the world series too, by the way. Oh, interesting. Okay. Yeah. I did it last year. And if you ever go overseas and play, you use that software too. You're in there. Now, um, what it's going to do is in there, you have your own profile, you can set it up on the website.

[01:16:40] So it'd be like your page. You can have a tweet, see who the top players are results from, you know, tournaments, all that kind of stuff, you know? So that's, that's going to be a need to do. You can also go on there and say, create a club. So if you play at a place where you have 20 guys or 20, 20 players, they come and play. Hey, let's have a club. So you come up with a unique name. You sign up, make a club and, and the clubs to be a member of a club is going to be absolutely free.

[01:17:10] Hey, we like that thing with USTSO. You'll become a club member of USTSO, which is a zero fee. Okay. It's also zero for ITSL. That's just to play your local clubs. But now if you want to start playing tournaments, be in the points race and all that stuff, then that's when you pay that you upgrade to $25 and that covers club and that. And that's annual, right? 25. Yeah. 25 a year starts every, every January. Yeah. It's nothing.

[01:17:39] And like I said, everybody plays in the championship. They're going to get paid. And last year they said, just put it on my, just put it on my, just put it on my membership. So that, that was a good drive there just because everybody, they get free money and they just put it back. Yeah. You know, I would, uh, I would, uh, I would love to see our, our club quote unquote here in the Albany area become, you know, a club and then go out and play other clubs on the road, you know, and, uh, see how we could do, especially because I think on our club, we might have, Oh, I don't know. Tommy, you're.

[01:18:09] Yeah. I don't know. Just saying. Yeah. I mean, you played with him. Oh yeah. A couple of times. You had to help him out. Ah, you know, it was, it was a tough carry. I gotta say. You had to keep score. That's right. I mean, make sure not mess up. Somebody had to do that just, you know, and I had a little extra lume to help me with that, but, but no, it's, uh. Well, it's, it's fun club competition. You know, every, every time we do a national and we have the team competition, you know,

[01:18:39] they all seem apprehensive right at first, but once they get into it, they start yelling for their team and they start cheering. And if it goes to shoot out, they start hollering. Oh yeah. This is so much fun. And we try to get off that rush to say, we can have clubs local. We need, you know, you have your own clubs and you can play the same way. Build a scene. You can have more than one club in a city. If you have different locations. Oh, no question. You know, uh, if you have, uh, like, like, I'll just use Mississippi.

[01:19:07] Well, I'll use Louisiana as an expense, as, as an example, they have players out of Homa. They have players out of Lafayette. They have players out of New Orleans, but they can have several clubs and then they could get together and play against each other and just have competitions. Yes. Just good, friendly competition. And then when it comes time for say national, then they have three clubs ready to go. And you might have more than one club at a club. You see what I'm saying? I gotcha.

[01:19:37] Like New Orleans might have 40 players in there. Well, that could be three or four clubs. That could be four clubs. Sure. Inside it. You know, so, you know, they had seven, I think, excuse me, they had five or six teams at nationals. That was just from Louisiana. That's great. You know, so it's good. Yeah. But we see, we see them having interstate tournaments. Then we might see them have tri-state tournaments or we have the region broke into five groups.

[01:20:04] We could see different regions playing each other and getting regional champions and then possibly having a national champion team competition. Cool. And, you know, that could be hosted by USTSL. It could be hosted by, you know, promoters that, you know, want to, want to have a, like, like if nationals want to be the place to have it, then they would do it. But I know Ryan's wanting to do leagues as well. Yes. And so really it helps each other out because when they start setting up their clubs, they can compete and join that league.

[01:20:34] I mean, it all works hand in hand. It really don't matter where the clubs are from as long as you're a club. Oh, of course. And you play in the league. But also, I think the other thing too is being able to compare yourself to, you know, other players across the country, even if you don't travel to Kentucky or you don't travel to Dallas or someplace like that to work, you know, to, to play on the, the tour, you still have a rank. You still are compared to everybody else who plays, you know, in a league.

[01:21:04] Well, see, the thing about the USTSO leagues, the only requirement is to play one turn in a month. And that happens everywhere. Yeah. It happens everywhere. Yeah. All right. So, um, you know, and, and I liked the way Jerry Todd come up with it for the, uh, nationals. I think that was his format where you have one master on the team, one pro, a female player,

[01:21:31] two experts, two amateurs, and I guess two rookies. Yeah. That way everybody gets the play, you know, because you don't, I mean, everybody would love to have a team with six masters or seven masters and try to wipe it all out, but to make fair competition, have your rookies and amateurs play and experts. Yeah. You know, you want to have, maybe they don't do rookies. I don't, maybe it's just amateurs.

[01:22:01] Well, just amateurs, experts, pros and pro masters. Yeah. And we, and you do doubles and singles. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah. So, well, that would, that means you're, that, that would make your masters want to help your rook, your amateur. Of course. Help your experts. Yeah. To, to, to, to win. Cause usually if you have a good amateur and expert team, you can pick up four wins and you just got to steal a couple upper rank. So usually you're, you're, you're better experts and amateurs usually what wins them, but it's,

[01:22:31] that's a lot of fun. I've been in, I've been in several of them. I won, I've been gold medal in some of them. Mississippi teams. Nice. Won some silver. Yeah. I mean, it's been fun. It's, it's always a lot of fun. Yeah. It's, I mean, we got Georgia to get in it and I think Alabama got in it and they've had, they've had fun. I mean, everybody loves it and said, we need to do more of this. Well, the time's come. Yep. This is it. This is a. Brian's going to be doing leagues.

[01:22:56] ITSF is going to be doing leagues and we're still doing our national championship with, with, with events. So I have this unusual feeling that by this time next year in let's say 2026, prior to the next TKO, we're going to be talking about a whole new standard when it comes to tournaments and foosball in general. Whole new standard. Yeah. It's going to, we're going to have some different stuff at TKO. Again, I don't want to get into a lot of it.

[01:23:23] Um, the room format has changed a couple of times, but I think this last, last one was the best. Okay. You know, it's going to be really, really good. Um, it's going to be a little, it's going to be good. A little, little, little bling bling show here, show there. All right. Um, Donna, are you, it's a starting point. Are you, uh, are you personally, um, nervous about this at all? Are you any, any nerves?

[01:23:52] Uh, not really. Okay. Good. I'm excited. Yeah. Um, charged up nervous. Well, I guess, I guess if, uh, if I screwed up, I'd be nervous. Well, I mean, but I mean, I'm going to run the bracket as best I can. Uh, you know, usually Mary's behind the scenes running the brackets when I go play or, uh,

[01:24:18] when we have other things going on and, and now that Mary's retired, there's no. You know, it's going to be different. Okay. Well, uh, it's, it's, uh, it's, it's only two weeks away and, uh, before you know it, we'll all be there. So I'm looking forward to seeing you in person. And like I say, I know you're going to be busy, so I'll just, I'll just wave. Hey, what's up?

[01:24:43] Well, you know, we, we, we, we, I can't tell you everything. Golly. Uh, it's going to be, it's going to be a little different. You know, well, I'm going to be running charts, but I, I, I, we're really, I was really just going to be an information person. Yep. I'm going to be doing a term director, watching over things, you know, answering questions and talk to people. And, uh, it just didn't work out this way.

[01:25:11] I'm going to be doing charts and trying to answer questions at the same time. Boy. So let me just make this public announcement here. If you come up to me to ask me something and I go, that means give me just a minute. I need to make sure I got all the matches called. Yep. I'm not, I'm not being rude. I'm just doing what I need to do. And then you'll have my undivided attention after that. Understood. Now I have a baseball cap. Get a baseball cap? If I have this on. Yeah. If I have this on.

[01:25:43] Do not disturb. I got that on. Don't, don't even stop. Yes. Cause I'm not even going to look up. I'm going to have it just like this. For the edification of, of you who are listening on this, on this podcast, he is wearing a baseball cap in, in very nice letters, by the way, do not disturb on the, on the top of the baseball cap. So that's a great look there, Don. That's a great look. Very first, very first time I wore that cap. I got, I said, I gotta have that hat. I gotta have that hat. Yeah. The very first time I wore it and forgot I had it on.

[01:26:13] I went to my grandson's first tee ball game. Mm-hmm. And I was watching and I even went out there and did the basis for him sometime when I was watching and then was on the way back. I said, people didn't seem too friendly. And she says, well, you got a hat on that says do not disturb. I said, oh yeah. It's an, but it's nice. It's in, it's in cursive. So it's not as, not as bold, you know. And it does work. Yeah. It's not in your face.

[01:26:43] It's not in your face. It's, it's, it's no nastiness or. Yeah. No, it's, that's a very. Do not. Only thing that could have been different is up at the top, say please. Yeah. Right. But you know, yeah, I'm excited for this coming up year of foosball. Yeah. Um, this is, this is going to be, uh, an amazing thing. Uh, I look forward to being on an upswing for everybody, even the local promoters. Yeah. I'm, uh, working on Mississippi state now trying to lock down a good date.

[01:27:10] Every time I get close to, uh, booking my stuff. Is it going to be, uh, do you want to have it in the same places last year? Or do you think about the same location? Uh, I, I liked the place last year, but. The room rate on the weekend just kind of killed us. It was like. It was a clarion. You know, you get like $79 during the week and then goes to like 170 on Friday and Saturday just because it's close to the coast. Yeah. I did get it negotiated down to 149.

[01:27:40] Ooh, still pretty steep. Still high. Yeah. We, I mean, if I could get it down to 119, I would book it. That'd be a good standard for sure. But I don't think I can get that. Uh, so I'm, I'm thinking about maybe pulling it back up to, uh, the center of Mississippi around Jackson area, uh, North of Jackson, a place called, uh, Richland. They have, uh, they have an embassy suites there. Oh, nice. That would be nice to have it. Those are, that's a nice place.

[01:28:06] But last time I talked to them, they wanted like 149 a night. Still up there. I don't know. We, uh, I'm going to, uh, do some research and try to get it nailed down before TKO. So I can have a flyer at TKO and let everyone know. But, um, yes. And also Louisiana state, we're looking at Louisiana state. Um, yes, we, we need to see if, you know, I'm not sure if they're having a, uh, a Colorado state, you know, they, they, they weren't able to get one last year.

[01:28:36] Doesn't look promising. I've heard they want to have one this year. Oh, really? And so, yeah. So we need to see what weekend they're going to try to get, uh, kind of stay away from that. A lot of people, like a couple of weeks apart. A lot of people disappointed about that. You know, 2024, there's no Colorado state. It was really a pretty disappointing. Well, they was, they was trying to get to a bigger, a little bit better hotel. They had something that they thought was going to work and it didn't end up working out. And then they wasn't able to find a hotel. So their, their hands were kind of.

[01:29:06] Stuff happens. Yeah. And that's, you know, that's one of the things that, uh, Ryan has learned. You can't, you, you almost had to book these things a year in advance. Oh, no doubt. When you want some good venues, you have to, because you're not the only one wanting good venues. Mm-hmm. You know? Competition. So. Yep. And you got to find a weekend where they really need the business, you know? Yeah. And then it also has to coincide with the rest of the calendar when it comes to foosball. So. Yeah. That's always been a challenge. And that was, that was kind of like the Bardo last year.

[01:29:36] I know they didn't, uh, are, are, are. Was that 24? Yeah. Yeah. There was no Bardo last year. Yeah. All right. Well, you know, it was two weeks before worlds. Mm-hmm. And, you know, Mary was like, well, I hate to see players have to choose between worlds and the Bardo because she said the Bardo is a very important tournament. Oh, sure. I want them to have a lot of people there.

[01:30:00] And, uh, you know, I found out why they got two weeks before worlds because, uh, that's all they were offered. They gave them their two slow times. It was going to be the weekend, uh, two weeks before, uh, tornado championships. Okay. Or, or it was going to be Thanksgiving weekend. And so, you know, with those two dates, they just chose the lesser of two evils, I guess, and went with the one two weeks before. Right.

[01:30:28] But, um, yeah, that wasn't a good, good pull there. They had, uh, the, uh, the water park, uh, resort. Oh, that place was awesome. You know? Yeah. I heard lots of great stuff about that. Oh, it was so awesome. Yeah. And, uh, you know, if, if they do it again, that'd be great. Do it again there. Or if I'm a part of it, we do it there. I'm going to call everybody in my family and say, Hey, I know you don't play foosball, but $129 a night and you got a water park. Oh, no resort fee. You need to come. Yep.

[01:30:58] Do it. Yeah. Man, we went to that water park. It was a lot of fun. Yeah. No, it's, I guess, uh, there was a point though. I still remember, uh, talking to, I forgot who it was. It might've been Adam Gilson, but they said that, uh, they had to close part of the outdoor pool because it got too warm. It was too hot in the water. Oh, it was hot. No kidding. So you had to go indoors to get in the pool. Go figure. It was an indoor water park. So yeah. Yeah.

[01:31:23] But, uh, they got, it's two water parks, an indoor and outdoor, but I never went to the outdoor. I stayed indoor. Yeah. I gotcha. Well. And they also had something else going on that same weekend. It was 110 degrees, uh, believe that weekend, uh, in that part. Yeah. They also had something else going that same time we had the tournament. It was a comic con. I think. Yeah. It was, it's got its own name, but it's like a comic con. Yep. And, uh, cosplay and the whole nine.

[01:31:51] They were, and I was told by the, by the people that run this place that our people have been told to make sure they dress a little bit better. Yeah. And not show as much. Ooh. But I think something didn't get the memo. I'm not sure. You know, but they have some nice looking cars. Some of the, some of the, I guess. Oh, did they? People that are in those things. Yeah. The voices or whatever. They had cars painted up to what they did. And it was pretty neat. They had a roped off out there. It was probably about a dozen of them.

[01:32:21] Are we talking about the, uh, the voice actors? Yeah. The ones that do the, uh, comic con. Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. Those guys, uh, you never would have figured that a voice actor would ever become, especially, um, after so many years of just hearing a voice, they become celebrities because the kids, they, they love that voice and they want to go and meet that person who does that voice in these comic cons. And they'll, they'll pay, you know, they'll pay the 50 bucks to have their, their picture taken. I did not know it cost that much. Oh yeah.

[01:32:51] 50 bucks to get a signature from some of these guys. Oh, you got busted there. You got busted? For what? Because I found, I found out they had, my kid goes to those comic cons. Right. And so here I am, I'm thinking, man, this is so cool. I met the guy who, who set up the stage for the concert downstairs. Okay. We're having it. He said, man, come on by and check it out. I said, my kids do it, but I've never, never seen one. So I thought it was cool. So I, I'm riding down the escalator and I start seeing people setting up these booths

[01:33:20] and I said, this would be a perfect time for a Facebook live. Yeah. So I got my Facebook live on. I said, all right, everybody, I'm outside this, whatever it is, comic con or whatever. And I'm just walking in and take a look. And I go in, I start looking. Then I hear somebody say behind me, that guy's got a camera. Oh no, we need to get him. And I'm looking around and I go, I don't think I'm supposed to be in here. And I'm still showing around. Then all of a sudden three of them get in front of me. Are you recording?

[01:33:48] I'm like, yeah. It's just Facebook to my family. You can't do that. You can't do that. You can't do that here. Oh, you got to cut it off. I said, okay. I said, guys, I'm signing out. I guess I'm not supposed to be doing this. And I cut it off. And then I was telling him, hey, so-and-so said I could come in here and check it out. He said, yeah, but he didn't say you could video. And then I got a few phone calls. Aha, you got busted. So I didn't know it was that serious.

[01:34:16] At least you get hauled away by the cops or something. Yeah. Then I found out the tickets were like $50 per day. It's expensive. And I'm like, holy cow. Yeah. And so they didn't want to see some of the people. You know, some of the people didn't. They get paid to be seen. Oh, sure. So they didn't want to. Oh, yeah. So I didn't actually know I was doing anything wrong, but I guess I was. And these people, these famous voices get paid some sweet money just to spend the weekend there. You know, it's a. Yeah. But I tell you what.

[01:34:45] They come up there and they'd walk by and they would check it out. And they loved the idea we had foosball going on. Right. And some of them even asked, man, I hope y'all have it the same time we have this again. That'd be neat. Mm-hmm. Come and play. Come and see what it's all about. You know, it's a. And also, same thing at Vegas, too. When we was out there last year. Mm-hmm. We was out there with the dart people. Oh, the darts. Oh, interesting. And they come checking it out. Oh, yeah. Oh, they loved it. Yeah, we have fun.

[01:35:13] And we're going to be at the same hotel. Same. Okay. I'm talking with them again. And, you know, they help us out and we help them out. The classic is the one on my list that I've never been to the classic. And it's one of those, you know, again, foosball bucket list things I got to do. I have to do that before I check out of here permanently, you know? Before that happens. Yeah, it's going to be at the West Gate like it was last year.

[01:35:41] West Gate's a little bit closer to the strip. Okay. I mean, Monorail. The Monorail comes to the West Gate and it goes all the way down to the strip. Nice. And it's a few bucks to get on there. Clay just mentioned that they had one of the dart commentators on with them during the big matches. Really? Yeah. Wow. So cross-pollination in the media. Yeah. Well, man, it's cool. And if you saw how many dart boards they had in there. Oh my gosh. No kidding. Wow.

[01:36:10] Well, that's the... Clay probably knows how many dart boards were there because the guy probably told them. Yeah, no doubt. No doubt. Well, I mean, it's probably the world or the national championships right there of darts. I don't know. It was huge. Yeah. They had, if I'm not mistaken, I want to say they had like the number 800 and something comes in my head. I don't know about how many players they had. Clay says they had roughly 4,000 dart players or what they called darters.

[01:36:40] 4,000 darters at the tournament. Well, they might have had 800 and something dart boards up there or something. They had a lot. Had a lot of them. Oh, it's something to aspire to when it comes to foosball. 4,000 participants. That's outstanding. Yeah, that's huge. Yeah, man. And you know some of them dart players probably played foosball at one point or time. No question. No question. And there's a...

[01:37:06] Again, we have a magazine in the Northeast called Tavern Players. I've seen it. And it's terrific. Ron Butcher is the editor and he's been doing this for a long time. But if you open up that magazine, you're going to see pool. You're going to see darts. You're going to see table soccer or foosball. Also, one of the episodes recently, I was looking at the back of it. There is bubble hockey. What?

[01:37:36] Bubble hockey. You know, the big bubble with the hockey. Yeah. Yeah, bubble hockey. And they did it because there was a big weekend tournament of actual hockey on a frozen lake. And the lake itself wasn't quite frozen enough. So they brought in a bunch of bubble hockey games to play. And they had like a big tournament. They could bubble hockey. Really? Okay. It's probably going to be the next big thing on ESPN.

[01:38:05] You know, bubble hockey. You know, I saw two things on YouTube that I'm like, really? They do this? Yeah. They had a miniature baseball field. What? A miniature baseball field. And you actually hold the bat. The bat's only about smaller than a pencil. Really? You actually swing and hit. Yeah. Yeah.

[01:38:34] And it's actually competition. That's funny. And they got like tables all over and people are playing. That's hilarious. And I could not believe it. Then there's another one where it's been on YouTube. It's been on Facebook on some of them reels. Finger soccer. Finger soccer. Yeah. I saw a guy. He's sitting there. He had he had he was sitting there and he was having a free kick at the goal. And he was moving around like that. Finger soccer. Yeah. Like that.

[01:39:04] And then he then he thumped it with his finger and went to go. And when he made it, he goes. Yeah. I mean, he started yelling. And that was like. Finger soccer. Okay, then. Yeah. Well, I guess that would be a little repetitive stress injury might be be an issue with that. You know, especially. I wonder how many people are going to YouTube now to type it in and see it. Finger soccer. I've seen it.

[01:39:28] Now, the baseball was cool because the artwork they had, they had like it was a packed stadium. Like a stadium. Yeah. I was eating a house. That's hilarious. Wow. I love it. It's good stuff. Hey. I mean, you can't. You got to swing with your hand, your fingers. I mean, and the guy, the guy that hit that I watched hit a home run. And no kidding. Of course, they don't run around the bases with their hands. I think it. Yeah, I was going to say. It tells you what you get. Yeah. How do you cover the base?

[01:39:56] You just have to hit it a certain distance before you classify it as a base hit or whatever. I mean. Well, it's got if you hit it a certain place, it's a hit. Single, double, triple. Oh. It's an out. Okay. Or somebody catches it at a fly ball or something like that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Geez. That is hilarious. That's good stuff. The thing people do. Well, hey, man. I mean, there's pillow fighting. There's slap fighting. You name it. It's out there. Hey, don't forget about one of clay's best. The thing he likes to do in his spare time. Yeah.

[01:40:26] Is he still on there? Yeah. Is he still on there? I want him to hear this. Where they get the stick horse and do the. Hobby horses? Have you seen that? No, I have not. Where they got hobby horse where you hold it and you jump over those rails. Really? Okay. And they have competition doing that. Do you have to. I was just joking about clay doing it, but I'm just saying they actually have that. Do they have to wear like extra protection?

[01:40:55] They, they, well, I don't know. I've only seen girls. Hasn't seen any guys do. But, uh, I can't imagine. Oh my gosh. If you go to church for that, I promise you it's there. And they are serious about that. Clay said it was Adam that said that, not him. But, uh, well, they do have it. I've seen it. Hobby horses. Wow. Okay. Well, you know, then, you know, the sky's the limit. A hobby horse is cheaper to keep than a real horse. Right. And it's cheaper than keeping a foosball table. I'm sure.

[01:41:25] Um, well, this is degraded. Um, but yeah. So we've talked about hobby horse. We've talked about finger soccer and, uh, baseball. What else are we going to talk about? I think we run the gamut here, but, uh, I do, uh, you know, getting back to our, our focus here. I think that, yeah, I think, uh, this, this, um, TKO is just going to be one for the ages. Hey, it's going to be something. I know modern foosball, they, they got some stuff they're going to do.

[01:41:54] It's going to be a blowout. Uh, I know they're pumped about it. I know they've been working on getting some stuff going for it. Can't wait to see what they have planned. And, uh, it's, it's going to be a new setup for them. So I know they're going to be excited about doing that. I'm sure they got a lot of cameras to hook up. Oh, Clay mentioned that. Yeah. I do not envy their job to do that, but I'll be there watching. Oh yeah. And, and, uh, the results will, will speak for themselves, obviously.

[01:42:22] When, when you watch, when you're watching the stream and you're, you're, uh, you can't make it, you'll be able to get all the coverage, man. That's exciting stuff. That's really good. It's going to be fun. I know they're going to have a good time. I know they're going to do a good job. Um, but of course we want you to be there anyway. We want you to be there in person. Cause that's just, I do have a request though. Okay. There's close to, you know, I'll go ahead and tell you, Mary, Mary told me and she knows what she's talking about. She's done it for a long time.

[01:42:51] I've, I've been promoting and running tournaments for over 40 years myself too. Along Mississippi, Louisiana, all around in there. Long time. Well, Mary told me that only a third of the people sign up in advance. A third on the computer because everybody wastes the last minute. Oh, all right. Well, we're already over 200 signed up. Oh, all right. 200 signed up. If that holds true, that means 600 people.

[01:43:20] Yeah. But Ryan's been pushing it real hard. So probably some people that wait to the last minute might've signed up. But what I need for those people that are already signed up to do, it would help tremendously if you'd go ahead and pay. Right away. Yeah. Yeah. Because if we have 500 people get in line all at one time, you can imagine how long the wait's going to be. Oh. Okay. So you can pay through PayPal.

[01:43:48] And I think he's going to, this is something new. And I think he's going to have another option closer to the tournament. I think it might be, I don't know. I don't know what it is. I don't know if it's Venmo or Zelle or what. Okay. I don't know. Okay. But I think they're working on trying to get another option to help out. That would be great. But I know for a fact, PayPal is now open where you can pay online. Oh, that's great. Because I'll use that. If you'd like to help out and do that, you can avoid the line.

[01:44:16] Because you know, you won't be coming up to get a ball from us. But we still would like for you to fill out that registration form so we can make sure everybody's email is up to date on their account. Yeah. Because when I sent out my little 75 emails for the USTSO championships, I had, I think four or five of them came back. That was not deliverable. Deliverable. So I had to call and get the email.

[01:44:40] So I'm sure if he sent out 5,000, there's probably quite a bit that probably came back bad. So. Got it. Please fill out that little registration form for us. You pay online, just come give it to us. You ain't got to say nothing. Say, here you go. I'll have a basket set up for you to put your registration form in there. Okay. And it's just so we can go back to it at a later time and make sure all your information on there is correct. Cool. Okay. If your information is the same, just put your name up there and then write my information is the same down across where everything else is.

[01:45:10] That way we know. Okay. That'll help us out. And also pay in advance. And you can start tomorrow. Yeah. Let's see how many people we can get paid before time. Okay. That would really help us out and it would help the lines be shorter. Yeah. Make, make things run smoother. And I appreciate it. Anything we can do. It's going to be a great time. Yeah. Y'all come with expectation of having a great time. There you go. Okay. And just know this, it's going to get better as we go. Mm-hmm.

[01:45:38] Don, I think we've, we've, shall we say, tantalized the, the, the hardcore fuzers first of all, but also some people that might've been kind of on the fence may have made up their mind tonight. Who knows? I'll tell you what, if you don't, if you're, if you're on the fence of not coming, you're going to regret, you're going to regret not coming. Yeah. That's it. Once you watch the coverage from modern foos and you see pictures start, you see people start taking pictures and putting their, you know, information on there. You start watching some of the videos and I mean, you just want to. Yeah.

[01:46:08] I wish you were there. It's okay to watch, but I mean, nothing like being a person, you know? Oh yeah. And I'll have to, I'll have to do this too. I, you know, if you know me, you know how I live.

[01:46:48] Okay. Yeah. You put cameras all over the place, you know, that local TV channel after the fire in the hotel. Uh, they ended up being there and, uh, and Ryan and, uh, Tommy, you're going at it, man. That was the energy in the air was just amazing. It was good. And you know, we, we did stop the event so everybody could get over there and watch, but not everybody came over, but still it was unfortunate what happened. Yeah. Luckily nobody got hurt. Nobody, you know, it was no issues. Mm.

[01:47:18] Everything was fine. The smoked up rooms. Yep. And it helped us get some coverage. Yeah. Go figure. Go figure. Don't need to go to that extreme this time. Not necessary. We don't have to do that. Yeah. This time though. We've got to get them out there anyway. Oh yeah. Yeah. No question. Well, Don. If most, uh, local sports casters knew a week or two in advance, something was coming. They would be there. They would love to come out there. They would be there. We've had that happen here.

[01:47:44] In fact, we've, we've actually had, uh, several occasions where we've had, uh, a couple of news reporters. Once they covered our, our tournament, they ended up showing up at our DYP for several weeks. Wow. Yeah. There was two of them. In fact, they were boyfriend, girlfriend and decided to, to come out and watch us play. But then they ended up getting involved and they, they kept showing up for like, like six months. Well, that's good. Then, uh, the, the, the female reporter, she ended up getting relocated to a place in Jersey.

[01:48:14] So they left, but they were, they were getting into it. So cool. Well, that's, that's almost kind of like, uh, well, when I went to Germany, uh, I was fortunate enough on the senior men's team to, uh, win the gold medal. Nice. And you know, my dad, I guess he's one of my biggest fans. Cause he always asked how the tournament go. How'd your work go? How did everything run? Okay. Did you win anything? Wayne. Well, when, when he found out I wanted to go metal, he said, you need to let people know.

[01:48:43] I said, nah, it's all right. Well, he went ahead and called the TV channel and said, my son want to go metal, went to Germany. Well, anyway, this guy wanted to know about it. So he called me and said, Hey, I'd like to do an interview. Wow. So I said, okay, meet me at the training center. So I went to where Wayne has mobility medical and we went in the food spa room. We had five tables in there. Okay. And he actually interviewed me in there and asked about my purse. That's extraordinary. A bunch of things. They did a little segment. Yeah.

[01:49:09] You know, at that time I was just a year over having a pace, uh, pay, uh, pacemaker and, uh, artificial heart valve putting in. Okay. Okay. And he, he made a story a little bit about that, a little bit about overseas showing some videos and wow. And it just says, you never know a person, what they do and what they have going on. And, and they thought it was wild about the food spa. It's a, it's a great, that guy was going to cover more in the future, but then he got relocated somewhere and he sent me a message saying, sorry, I won't be able to, you know,

[01:49:38] but that's pretty cool. That is great. I mean, it's, and more, the more media, the better, obviously, cause it gets, gets the word out. But yeah, I think that, uh, you know, especially with the TKO and, and, uh, just the way Ryan is thinking of things. Yeah. I think we can count on that. I know he's on top of that. Yeah. Yep. Yep. So I can't wait to see who all is going to be out there. Wow. Again, this first one is just a starting place. Mm-hmm. Each tour event is going to get better because you know, you know, beyond a shadow of a doubt,

[01:50:06] he's going to see what works this week, this tournament, see what he can improve on. And then some of the things he's already got planned for improvements to start taking an effect as we get there. Yeah. Cause everything couldn't be, couldn't be done right before this tournament. And plus this, oh, I can't say it. I'll go ahead and say it. This, this facility couldn't hold everything he's got in his mind. Ooh. Ooh. So we're thinking maybe a different location possibly.

[01:50:36] Oh yeah. Most definitely. This is probably, it's probably safe to say this is the last tournament there. Ooh. Well, he did intimate that too, as well. I think that was kind of a, he made that pretty clear. And it was, it was good for what it was for and it did good. But, uh, if you're going to take it to the next level, you can't. Got to plan to get bigger. You got it. You got to grow it. You got to get, uh, yeah, that makes a whole lot of sense. And so that makes it even more exciting.

[01:51:04] So, and if you really get crazy with it, it can't go in a hotel period. Yeah. Yeah. You got to find yourself a stadium someplace or, or, you know, an arena. That arena. Yeah. Something. That's what they do overseas. And they, they pull in. I mean, you know, they had a thousand, almost a thousand players at the Leon, a Bronzine or Leonhardt, one of them. That's so cool. Could you imagine that being in a hotel? Oh yeah. Not exactly. Not going to work. Not going to work. Especially, you know, in Europe, when you have a thousand spectators, just people there to watch.

[01:51:34] Um, that would be a challenge to say the least. I think I've told this before, but when we was in France, they had at 4,000 kids. Wow. 4,000. And I have some videos saved where they're out there with those things, making a lot of noise and hearing and chanting. Yeah. They're into it. Yeah. Well, this is, this is what we have to look forward to something to, to work towards and to, to make happen. So collectively speaking, if we're, we're all on board, that's, that's going to happen. You know? Yeah.

[01:52:04] So very cool. Well, I'm excited. It's going to be good. I'm, I'm, I'm ready. I'm ready. Well, Don, uh, I got to thank you, especially because, uh, just truth be told, uh, I dragged you out here at the last minute because Randy had, uh, had this work in emergency happen and it all has to do with the weather. And man, I, I truly, truly hope that you guys don't, uh, don't, don't get too cold. Yeah. Well, 10 degrees is something new for us. Yeah. No kidding.

[01:52:34] I can't remember, especially this far South, but you know, I feel bad for the people in New Orleans, Louisiana. They're going to get more than we get. Right. Wow. It's, and they've never seen it. I don't believe, I don't even know if it's ever snowed down there. I guess it has, but. Still. But anyway. Not often. It's going to be good. Yeah. Yeah. So at any rate, I, I, I truly, truly want to express my, my gratitude and thanks to you for, for jumping on. It's been a blast, uh, hanging out. I appreciate you calling me. I know. I don't know what, what time did you call? What time? Oh, it must've been what?

[01:53:03] Four this afternoon. Something like that. Four o'clock. Yeah. Yeah. So I think I told you, yeah, sure. But I'll, I'll do my best. You know, and we ended up talking about chickens and ducks. Of course. And then baseball, finger baseball. And we talked about two, you know, I talked about rotten eggs, how to check them. There you go. Like you said, you covered the whole gamut. This is, this is the, the idea, right? We need, we need this content and it goes a long way. It goes a long way. Oh my gosh. It's almost 10 o'clock.

[01:53:33] So it's time for you to, to, uh, well, make sure those chickens are warm. So. Yeah. I'm fixing to go. Well, I already put them up. They're already good. Okay. All right. Yeah. I've already got all the pens and everything settled for the night. Cool. Well. Yes. There was four of them that did not want to go back in their pen. No kidding. Yeah. So my, my, my daughter said, come help me with these four so I can pull them in there. So all right now. And all I gotta do is stick my arms out there and walk at them. Mm-hmm. They move. Take about four steps and they turn around running the coop.

[01:54:02] So it's funny. I want, I'll tell you what, I want to shoot a video. Okay. Thank you. Of me opening the pen and then take off running. And I'm going to have 35, 36 chickens and eight ducks chasing me. Wow. Just cause they want to hang out with me. That's great. Oh, that's, that's amazing. It's cool. You, do you give them names by the way? A couple of them. A couple of them. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You have to be like, they want to hang out and have a beer.

[01:54:31] Well, there's one bright gold when that's my, uh, my youngest son and he named it. So I know what it is. Cause it's the only big, beautiful gold chicken there is. And the ducks, they're all unique in different cup, different colors. So they're easy. And I got, I got one duck. We call duck dog. Duck dog. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It won't go in a coop. No. With everybody else. Huh. He goes, hangs out with the dogs. Really? He won't eat, he won't eat duck food.

[01:55:01] He waits for us to feed the dogs and he eats dog food. He eats the dog food. And it's not supposed to be healthy for him. I was going to say. Yeah. He eats it. That's what he eats. Huh? Well, to each his own. Well, he's in right now, he's on this side of the house. He's in a pen with another dog sitting in a, laying in the hay. It would not go in the duck pen. Wow. That is funny. That is funny. Wow.

[01:55:27] You know, mother nature has her ways and, uh, that's, that's a great example, man. And, uh, well, the thing about this and it makes it special. It, it was the, it was a duck that we hatched here. Oh, we actually hatched. Uh, four ducks. Interesting. And this one, the, the skull didn't close up all the way. So there's a soft spot up top. Okay. And whenever a duck does that, they grow feathers there. So he's got a big old Afro coming out of the top of his head.

[01:55:58] So funny. And then he's got one, uh, feather follicle, I guess. And he's got like three feathers to come out of the side of his, side of his head. And he goes off to the side. Totally unique. And it's a male duck. So he looks, it's, it's a funny, we call him duck dog. He'd be hanging out. That's for sure. Wow. Yeah. That's great. It's some fun stuff out here in the country. You gotta start. I wish I'd have done it sooner. Don, you gotta start writing a book. That's all there is to it.

[01:56:23] Um, there's, um, I don't know if you're familiar, but there's, um, uh, a presenter from England who used to do a show called, um, Top Gear. And, uh, he's, he's an older guy now, but he was very famous for, for doing this car show with these two other gentlemen. One, his name is, uh, Jeremy Clark. And, uh, uh, he's now a farmer. He's opened up a farm, uh, in the North of England and had never done this before.

[01:56:50] And he's making so many mistakes, but he's, he's, they're recording it. It's, it's video being, uh, it turned into a TV show. Uh, I'm sorry, Jeremy, Jeremy Clarkson is his last name. Um, but he's, he's been doing this now for a couple of years and you see him go through the whole process of trying to learn how to plant a field. Then he has to learn how to take care of livestock and he, and he, he did the goat thing, uh, but, but chickens and you name it. And, uh, he's, he's trying to make a go of it and he's getting killed because it's

[01:57:18] so expensive, but, um, yeah, he's, uh, he's, he's determined that he's going to be a successful farmer at the age of, I think he's like 60 something, but, uh, It's fun. Yeah. I've never driven a tractor in my life. Really? Until I moved out here. Okay. Okay. And it was hilarious. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The guy I went, I went and checked the tractor out from the guy. He said, well, here, get on the ride. I said, well, you do it first. Let me watch it. Yeah. Cause I didn't even know how to crank one. Of course. Doesn't it turn the key?

[01:57:47] It's, well, after I watched him, I went around a couple of times. He said, you're doing pretty good. And they cut the, cut the, uh, Cut the bush hog on and cut some yard for me. I said, okay. It was fun to me. Yeah. Right. Now, now it's, I've, I've learned it pretty good. I've learned you got to raise the bush hog when you turn the corners or it's going to dig into your ground. Mm-hmm. Did not know that. Yep. It's, uh, it's amazing to, to know that, you know, the people that, that grow our food

[01:58:14] and, uh, and, uh, and, and essentially take care of the rest of us are working so darn hard, uh, every single day. And it's not, it's not five days a week. We're talking seven, seven days a week from sunup to sundown. It's quite literally, you know, full-time, full-time, full-time job. And, you know, they, they get by, but just barely in some cases. So, uh, kudos to anybody who does that for a living. Kudos. You're right. You're right. Thank you. Oh yeah, absolutely.

[01:58:43] No, it's, um, fully aware. I appreciate you again having me on here. Oh yeah, Don. Um, I guess you can always count on me to talk about anything. That's, uh, that is, uh, here's the thing. I think we'll have to do some unwinding behind the microphone when we get to TKO. If, if you've got the time, that is, I don't want to, you know, don't want to force you, but, uh, if, if you've got the time, we'll have to, we'll do some chatting and we'll get an update as to how things are going. It might be 830 in the morning or, or 230 at night. Done, done, done.

[01:59:13] It's a. Can you walk around and do it? You can. I do have a, I have a device you can do that with. Um, it's not a cell phone by the way, but, um, it's a, it's a, it's, it's about the size of a pack of cigarettes and it's a very high end, um, recorder that you can put regular real microphones attached to it. Not like the little mics, but the big, big giant guys. And last year at Vegas, there was a guy there. His name was Julian. He's, uh, from over in England. Yep. I think our Germany.

[01:59:43] Oh, Julian. Yeah. I know who you're talking about. Yeah. He's from, from, um, they call themselves foosball TV. And, uh, he had a, he had a, uh, trap, uh, a cart. Mm-hmm. Like, uh, I only had a laptop sitting on a thing. It had a camera and he was pushing that around everywhere he went. Right. He was doing live broadcasting back in, uh, Germany. Yep. And he said, here, talk to the people in Germany. I was like, Hey. So you might all get one of those. Oh yeah. Yeah.

[02:00:10] It's a, it's a, it's in, it's on the shopping list. No doubt. There you go. But as time goes on, we'll talk to Ryan and see if he can, uh, we can get us, get us hooked up. But, um, anyway, I'm, I'm looking forward to it. It's going to be a great time. TKO is just, uh, just, uh, two weeks away. And by the way, have a, have a safe journey, you know, a week from Monday. I hope, hope everything goes well and you get there in one piece and we're, we're ready to, to. Well, I'm flying. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I hope I get there in one piece. If not, I know where I'm going.

[02:00:41] Well, Don, uh, again, thank you so much for, for jumping on. And, and, uh, this has been episode number 238 of Foos Talk Live. Uh, hopefully Randy will be back, back with us next week, depending upon his situation with, uh, with his job, but we're looking forward to it. And there Don is putting up his hoodie just in, in honor of Randy Raposo. And, uh, and again, uh, this, this has been, uh, episode 238 coming up next.

[02:01:07] We have a very long list, uh, on the Foos Talk Live tournament beat. Foosball tournaments are everywhere. Foos Talk Live proudly presents a weekly update of events near you with the Foos Talk Live tournament beat. Here's what's up. The 2025 Arizona State Foosball Championships, January 24th through the 26th. Salt Fire Brewing Tap House, Tempe, Arizona.

[02:01:35] Introducing the World Foosball Tour. Make your plans to compete at the $30,000 World Foosball Tour kickoff, January 30th through February 2nd, 2025 at the Clarion Hotel, Lexington, Kentucky. It's the 2025 South Dakota State Championship, February 21st through the 23rd, Royal River Casino, Flandreau, South Dakota. Take your vacation with the 2025 Costa Rica Summer Beach Tournament, March 13th through

[02:02:04] the 16th at the Amapola Resort and Hotel, Jaco, Costa Rica. House of Tournaments presents Moneyball Northwest, March 13th through the 16th at the Crown Plaza in Portland, Oregon. The 2025 Wisconsin Foosball State Championship, March 20th through the 23rd, Mad Apple Billiards in Appleton, Wisconsin. Tavern Players Magazine presents a Foosball Tournament, March 22nd, Hobbs Tavern Brewery

[02:02:33] and Restaurant, Ossipi, New Hampshire. The 2025 Hall of Fame Classic, April 9th through the 13th at Westgate Las Vegas Hotel and Casino, Las Vegas, Nevada. RK Foosball presents the 2025 Florida State Championships, May 1st through the 4th, Holiday in St. Petersburg, Clearwater, Florida. The 2025 Minnesota State Foosball Championships, May 2nd through the 5th, Wyndham Garden, Minneapolis, Minnesota.

[02:03:03] The ITSF presents the 2025 Tornado World Series and ITSF Gold Series Finals, May 23rd through May 26th at the Westin-Dallas-Fort Worth Airport, Dallas, Texas. It's the 2025 Illinois State Championship, June 5th through the 8th. More details coming soon. Each week, we do our best to give you the most up-to-date listing of Foosball tournaments near you.

[02:03:29] If you have an event you'd like to add, send us all the details at foosballradio at gmail.com. Tune in every week for the Foos Talk Live Tournament Beat. Foos Talk Live is a product of Foosball Radio. With gratitude, we recognize our Foosball Radio Patreons. Our Foos Talk Live sponsor, original-leonhart-usa.com.

[02:03:55] And thanks to InsideFoos.com for use of their audio during the show. Tune in again next week for another episode of Foos Talk Live. In the meantime, we'll see you at Foosin'.