Well the guy that snapped picture of Kevin and posted i am sure did its job. yes we are still watching, yes we never forget. That type of non confrontational does wonders too. And was a very civilised polite thing if he wasn't burn by the guy.
Of course I probably would have at least got his attention first for a frontal shot. And if actually burned....well we can not post such things as it would NOT be civil.

Were you another of JPop's unpaid "interns"? Reminds me of one of the best posts from this thread, back before things had fully imploded:

lol

"Apprentice." He had to get his own coffee.

This -> https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/kevin-kulek-shows-up-at-w-s-auction-today-91915#post-2694171

No one said anything? Let him talk about how he makes pins? Let him bid, buy and load games with nothing said with his friend right there $2K in the hole?

Sorry, I confront people who stole from me. I don't do anything illegal, but I let them know what trash they are and that they owe me.

Careful, that would be considered uncivilized by some lemmings in this thread. They will report you for inciting violence lol Seriously, he will haha.

Anyway, yea if he owed me money, there would not be a post or a vid... Just a talk amongts associates!

So any more news on what the hell this is? In streamwood, about 2 miles from JPop old shop.
http://american-pinball.com/

I don't think this is very likely. He knows, if nothing else, his goodwill in the community is burned to zero and just about everyone either hates him or thinks he's a joke.

He doesn't have the fortitude to go.

Hmm, someone should pop by that address to see what's up. google street view shows a typical industrial park building
https://www.google.com/maps/place/1448+Yorkshire+Dr,+Streamwood,+IL+60107/@42.012041,-88.1520817,17z/data=!4m5!3m4!1s0x880fa9c7bd5e8f49:0x4288ec6f782e3afc!8m2!3d42.012041!4d-88.149893

Whois lists an abuse contact:
http://www.tcpiputils.com/browse/domain/american-pinball.com

1.602.716.5396

That phone number brings up this guy:
http://www.allthepeople.net/adam-spriggs

Is he paying someone to work on his website this time? or making more promises of free pinball machine to get monkeys to do his bidding?

American Pinball's name came up before. I guess it is moving ahead. Here is what I dug up before:

I hope this isn't the case where Jpop managed to "sell" his work to this new company. So John potentially drew a salary from our money all these years, then took a cash out a second time. I wouldn't put it past him.

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/i-miss-beelzeboob/page/7#post-2717712

Can someone TL:DR this for me?

Pinball is hard.

20 miles away, with a Portillo's hot dog joint nearby - might make a nice lunch hour trip.

Within 20 miles and no one takes a quick look would be nuts.... a get a good Portillo dog on the way back

weren't you JPops buddy that was helping him to assemble his one game? just drop on over and get some info

I'm sure someone will swing by when they're in town for Expo. Great suggestion about the hot dog, I love the food out there too.

My choice would be the Italian Beef and hand-cut fries at Nana's in Streamwood. Closer than Portillo's and also award-winning. Oh, and don't forget to order a chocolate malt to go with it.

Nanas_beef_n_fries (resized).jpg

Sorry. Didn't mean to break up your black panther party...

OMG - are you suggesting that slop is actually food??? Surely not.

It beats Australian food

Don't act like you're not impressed...

Nana's is awesome, well worth a visit!

Hey now, Australia's finest food export is the bloomin onion!

If pinball had a meme where the pictures changed but the text stayed the same, that would be the text.

The story of this thread is that JPOP is crazy, teased designs for years, took lots of money from a small amount of people for an uber rare game, then had to sell more because the total collected would never cover building a machine. Then came out with 2 more titles while blowing the money collected on himself and rented workspace that wasn't needed. People tried to help get the first game to a show after he only brought a cab for the second game ~2 years prior. MG wasn't anywhere close to finished and the rest were even further behind. JPOP has not been seen in months.

Hilton
Come on, buddy. Give the "buddy" thing a rest. Your misrepresentations really are old and piss me off.

The ONLY time I spent with John was 20 hours to help Bill Brandes and pdxmonkey get the damn MG to the NW show. Some appreciated the effort , nobody accused me of being part on Johns scheme or his buddy, except you.

I've got friends who got screwed - and many pinball people here that needed and deserve help - that's it - give it a rest.

I have not seen Or heard from John after that 20 hour blitz - I got no pay - it was volunteer - Bill thanked me in person at Terry's , some here appreciated the effort .

End of story

Ah thank you kind sir.

It was a valuable service because - if anything - it finally put this project out of its mystery. When people saw that sad thing at the show, I think people finally realized that this thing was never going to happen. Probably saved even more people from throwing their money away.

I just read johnpoadiuk.com. Wow.

I've been out of the hobby for several years. Jpop is an asshole!

Exactly

Checking this streamwood il American pinball in a few minutes.

glad to see you clear that up. Back when you were on the inside you were all secretive and defensive of Jpop and made it seem like you were his friend/buddy. Nice to see that was not the case. thanks and I am sorry

Thanks for understanding. Apology accepted.

I visited the Streamwood American Pinball, found 3 things
#1. Nana's was good. Portillo's is better.
#2. The industrial building indeed does have an American Pinball piece of paper stuck on the door, its backwards and upside down - maybe they only turn it around when they want to look real?
#3 The windows are mostly with the blinds down, some of the blinds are broken, and it looks pretty empty, except for a few metal desks.

Then it got interesting, b/c someone came around the corner to say "Hi". See next post for the rest of that story, and some pics.

I am here refreshing this page!!!

image (resized).png

post quicker

Ok this got interesting quick......

I'm pulling my hair out. And that is quite difficult when you are bald.

Popcorn.gif

Damn animated GIFs still don't work for me (yes, original size)

for some reason i am hearing the final jeopardy tune in my head . . .

I visited American Pinball at 1448 Yorkshire in Streamwood - here's the rest of the story.

First, see earlier posts on some searches pinsiders have done on American Pinball. Here is the location and Phone#
https://www.mapquest.com/us/illinois/business-streamwood/american-pinball-369093009

Here is the name of the owner https://govtribe.com/vendor/american-pinball-inc-streamwood-il - Dhaval Vasani

So the pics are pretty much what you see on Google street view, the backward paper sign taped to the door indeed says "American Pinball". A few blinds, some broken, nothing but a few desks in there. I didn't want to snoop too much - there was another car in the lot, and that's it, and I suspected someone was inside, but the door was locked and nobody answered the buzzer. Obviously I got someone's attention from inside, because someone comes outside and talkes to me.

Turns out its Dhaval Vasani coming out of the side door to meet me - I'm sure he's wondering who the hell am I and why am I wandering around when the front door is locked.

I decided if I met anybody, I was going to be straight with them, and go for the "heard a new pinball business was around, came to check it out. I'll try to keep the notes short - but here's how it went.

Hey, I'm Dan, a loacl pinball collector and heard about this "American Pinball" from some of the other pinball guys and decided to check it out over lunch.
DV - Oh, where did you hear of us, where you from, what's you name and email, we will send you some info.
(I may be foolish, but I gave my real name, my alternative email (but a real one, just rarely used), said I owned machines as my hobby, and have bought a few boutique games, from Spooky and Jersey Jack - and interested in news of a new pinball maker in Chicago)
me- I heard it from some of the locals, and googled it, and mapquest pulled up the address, figured "what the heck"
me - are you guys going to be a distributor or design and make games as a new boutique manufacturer.
DV - manufacture, but we are just getting started.
me - ok, are you working with local designers? Chicago has always been the center of pinball, I presume that's why you picked here to start up?
DV - yes, we have talked to a few designers, and plan on connecting with local suppliers.
me - Have you talked with Jpop or other designers? John has been working on a few boutique games too.
DV - yes, we have been talking with John...... (and a long pause) ... and a few other designers.
me - (hmm, that seemed like a quick thinking add-on cover story). Do you have any idea when you might have a game in the works, or plan to do any shows like Expo or Midwest Gaming?
DV - we are just starting out, too early to tell if we'd have anything worthwhile to share by then. It takes a couple years to design and produce a game, as you know from Spooky and JJP.
me - Yep, I followed both from their startup, and have talked to both Charlie and Jack in person. Im very interested in hearing progress or news that you are willing to share.....
DV - no problem. We are just in the early stages - but I'll email some things as we go along.
------------

Ok, so that was awkward to say the least. I stuck with the "curious collector, like new stuff" and tried to get him to volunteer details. Not surprising that Dhaval was very cautious, but even though hesistant, he did chat for about 10 minutes.

I'm sure I'm being googled by him right now, and I will definitely share any emails or followup I get.

SO... that's the story - what do you guys think?

IMG_1352 (resized).JPG

IMG_1353 (resized).JPG

IMG_1354 (resized).JPG

IMG_1355 (resized).JPG

thanks for sharing.

Wish you would have asked him if he knew about JPOPs past and how he stole millions from pinheads in the past few years?

One more thing, and of course nothing interesting was said:
me - do you have any game ideas in the works, themes or such?
DV - we have a few themes, but nothing to share yet.

That place is so damn greasy, I couldn't take it anymore. Used to work about 3 miles from there.

Maybe a front for some illegal activities? It does not sound like they are doing anything if there is no activity there.

Almost did - I'm hoping not saying too much on my end, may lead to either him or John sending me something.

It was unsaid - but Dhaval and I both knew each other had a lot more knowledge about things than was being said.

Thanks for the report.

My hunch is John is a "consultant" for them, paid or some other deal. Likely the original zidware customers will be told to pound sand.

At least Bill's deal attempted to make right with all the original customers, which turned out to be mission impossible.

I'm shocked that someone of any business success, as this new guy apparently is, from their other business interests, can see any potential here at all. Right out of the gate they are repeating one of John's big mistakes which was cash burn on commercial rent.

I'm going to laugh my fool head off if these guys were convinced by John that his games were "90%" done and they went balls deep on this thinking they could get these games out and make some easy money.