Well said, Ice and thank you.

I'll be quiet now.

Ice I mostly agree what you are saying......BUT......because you were not around, here is where I think you are a little skewed. I think the response to Avi doing the original Norris design was to raise money and to spite John, NOT you per se. This of course came about because of the lack of progress on the whitewood by John and that Avi was already working on it at John's direction all while he was doing everything else BUT working on it.

Whether you want to see it or not, many of us were not happy with the amount of money that was spent with so little to show for. Didn't matter who the donor was, it just wasn't right. That is EXACTLY why many of us jumped aboard when Avi said, shit, I will build it myself.

Avi is a newbie with pinball. He dumped his EM's he was working on because he couldn't fix them without someone holding his hand and to honestly think he could "build" the Jon Norris designed pin with guidance from Pinside members and not physically being there to help and guide was doomed from the start.

Me personally, I would do solid state over EM all day long and be just fine. But in hindsight, you are correct.

Yes this- 100% John's interpretation of trolling is not the traditional definition. What he considers trolling is having guys call him a complete idiot and a scammer when he feels he doesn't need to explain he has extensive pinball building skills and never scammed anybody(which he didn't)

What is this bullcrap?! Haha.Who is the pinball gizzard and what makes him think john owes him any sort of explanation?! Seriously, who are ya!? Why not just go visit a different thread and drain this one.! I just kept laughing at all you guys for continously trashing him and he just pretended to be oblivious to it all and ignore it... and it just made everyone act worse! Just let the man enjoy himself and build a pin. Nobody (especially Iceman) is getting scammed or taken for any $$. * edit - my apologies, i see gizzard is now going

* hot take- Now you guys are gonna run with this "troll post" vendetta and make him "accountable" for what he said.. let it go and go play pinball!

In a hobby of so many disillusioned, lack of reality grasp folk, GWJ definitely reigns supreme.

Congratulations on 3rd place in the ifpa finals John! That's awesome.

i agree with Haymaker's post #68. Except john isn't a rookie and he made some changes that many felt weren't necessarily needed for that norris designed flow monster! Still can't wait to see someone build it.. i'm sure Trey is progressing along!

delete

**toomuchwine welcome back John, good luck with the game

So everything you posted over the past six months was a bs joke that wasn't representative of the actual work being done

+

now that you have an intern to work for ten weeks the build will finally move forward.

Are you able to see that these two things do not fit together?

Honestly I’m just getting in before the lock. This is amazing he’s trying to do the same thing as before. Sucking people in for attention. Misses that amazing spotlight…

You sound like J. Jonah Jameson in a Spider-Man comic... "Who is this Spider-Man?!?!?"

Who am I? That's a deep question. Who are any of us really? Are we just bags of carbon flying around the universe or do we all have a deeper purpose?

Who am I? Well...

I am a husband.
I am a father of four.
I am a Christian.
I am an Eagle Scout.
I am a veteran of Operation Enduring Freedom.
I am a doctor.
I am a teacher.
I am a player of Magic the Gathering.
I am a mediocre guitar player.
I am a dungeon master.
I'm a joker, a smoker and a midnight toker.
I am a restorer and collector of pinball machines.
I am a member of the Pinside online community.

That last one is important too. Pinside is many things but at the core of it, I think it exists to allow people to come together and share their pinball experiences, knowledge and stories. It is a way for people across the world to come together as fans of pinball.

You're right, John doesn't owe me an explanation but he does owe the community one...at least if he wants to continue to be a part of that community. See, at some point there is a basic requirement to be considered a productive part of the Pinside community and that is that you are at least coming here with good intentions. If you are here to troll other people and cause conflict...well then you are Kaneda and you are a destructive influence.

So, John does owe this community an explanation since he himself stated that he spent 6 months of his life wasting his own time, our time and Ice's money just to troll Pinside. He also threw you, Ice and Avi all under the bus in that post and forced all of you to deny that you were part of the troll as well, yet here you are defending him again. I'm not sure why, but I do at least believe that you have good intentions. I'm not so sure about John.

$6k to build a whitewood, when the whole project was supposed to be $10k. Something seriously doesn't add up.

Not to get swept up into the drama here, but this whole saga is more disappointing to me than anything else.

The original thread started out being so fun. We actually got to have cool interactions between a veteran designer and builder as (what we thought) was a build happening in real time.

Then it just devolved into nonsense, which I admit was fun for a little while. Now its just... sad? All of these amazing resources completely squandered.

Lol and nobody is being harmed by it at all either. Just drain the thread and then you don't have to see it if it really twists your panties that much. Theres zero reason for locking this thread, it breaks no rules at all.

Lol this is just absurd. Stop. Why? Why are you even doing that? Lmao. Stop contacting anyone. Just build a one off TPB game. I don't understand why this is such a hard concept to grasp. Nobody is going to green light you to build this game, and even if they did, it 100% does not matter. Nobody can stop you from making a one off game on a theme you like.

Avi never had a snowball's chance in hell to build a game on his own. Even less than John, no matter how much help we offered. Nothing against him, thems just the facts. He's just too green. It also doesn't matter if we were happy or not with what was being done with the money, it wasn't our money. It was Ice's money and he was perfectly content with spending it how he did. This isn't like DR where it was just a continuation of an ongoing scam (that was bigger than we even realized), I can understand being upset about that. Its one thing if you want to giggle about how he spent his money in this case, but no point in being upset about it. This all played out exactly how we expected.

Regarding the GFM, thats why I would have only donated like 20 bucks. I had little to no expectations that GWJ could or would pull this off. We've seen this same song and dance from him in the past and via his stories can see this has been his MO most, if not all of his life. However, I knew it would be entertaining regardless, and I didn't mind giving the guy a small chance to prove me wrong along the way. I feel no shame about the GFM or what I would have been willing to put into it (I could always donate more if things started going in a way I liked), I still think it was a good idea with good intentions. In the end though, I think Ice and others are right when there might have been just too much blood in the water with so many people fronting the bill and having less than realistic expectations.

By rookie mistakes I meant more like not ordering more parts in one batch. Ordering from the wrong vendors, or skipping over certain vendors for no reason. Ordering weird NOS drop banks. Using a piece of paneling to start with. Not having the operating system nailed down, ect.
The design changes are a whole separate topic in my mind, with just....baffling changes. Some things that I still don't understand how they are supposed to work, or that just took a good design and made it...questionable. I wouldn't call those rookie mistakes...I don't even know what to call it lol. Maybe just mistakes! But I will say, as baffled as I am, it makes me want to see the GWJ design in action even more, and yes, I totally agree with you that I can't wait to see what Treybo comes up with on the original design!

Fact is you are not building anything, you have an apprentice doing it.

Do you remember when John first went fishing for money and how he often referenced his "Team" for this build.

Once the intern is gone, it'll grind to a halt again.

I hope you are not referring to your labour which you had said would be gratis to the project.....Though it would make more sense if you had charged out your labour as its hard to see where $6000 has been spent....

Ain't that the truth!

Well, fun homebrew section gets some attention. This thread will probably explode and be the biggest hb-thread in record speed.

I'm curious...was not knowing how to reset your email password a troll, or was that real? I don't know what to believe anymore.

You nailed this right on the head. If John wishes to continue to push the fallacy that the previous six months was all some sort of concocted joke made on someone else's dime, then yes, he should face the consequences of such a stunt. Close this thread and ban him from Pinside like others who have made such a calculated disruption.

The problem is it just doesn't add up.

First of all, the donor of the funds for this build is an attorney. If he was the victim of $6K out of pocket for the expense of some joke, GWJ, you would be hiding, not trying to exploit this continued pipe dream.

The fact that we are right back at square one, back on the Trailer Park Boys path is so YOU. So that was all part of the elaborate joke too or is this now a continuation of the joke? So the cease and desist letter doesn't exist? Uh hum, yeah sure.

Whales and Mini whales were part of the joke too?

The whole issue with Aaron and Fast Pinball was calculated and fake?

I could go on with this list of not a chance for an entire day, but anyone who has followed this whole thing, other than a minute few, can plainly see that the very idea that the past 180 days was an elaborate joke is just complete and utter nonsense.

I do not have to explain to those who see through all of this where the actual joke lies, and that is sad. To the point that GWJ may not even realize how badly his reputation has taken a beating. There are many of us who see the root cause, some have been through that very same hell and see all the symptoms. I don't need to point out anything further.

Ball is completely in your court Mr. GWJ. Come clean or not, it's your decision. However you handle it from here will determine how people will treat you and/or this thread.

John please seek a mental health professional. That is all.

So the game won't be trailer park boys?

I have an idea... stop worrying about approval and then just make it Trailer Park Boys! Approval is not necessary. I do not believe that Doug is the coach any longer (Ice please correct me if I am wrong), so needing his approval should no longer be necessary either.

Sounds like the Coach has resigned but the Athletic Director refused to accept!

First homebrew section thread to reach dumpster fire status… maybe a Pinside award for that one.

Still don’t understand the slow pace of first 6 months.. pawned off as a joke on us but all signs point to that being no joke and continuing on minus some intern work - which doesn’t look like interning it looks like he’s building it, same way Avi was for a while.

No matter tho - hoping for build pics and progress this year after people settle down.

Look how John still bitterly dredges this up without any apparent reason. Clearly this well deserved snub chapped his ass good and he cannot hide it.

My next build is 100% going to be FAST as I will happily go out of my way to support anyone who kicks this clown in the nuts.

This post positively illustrates how John Greatwich is just a bald faced liar and not some eccentric misunderstood colorful character who has his own way of doing things. Just a devious manipulative schemer who feeds off the generosity of others.

Enjoy your last externally funded project John. You will never find another one here…

This answer is a complete deflection by someone who is in denial. John, myself and several others here have given you an open door to come and give us the truth. You simply refuse by deflecting any sort of responsibility and continue to play a game of charades. Bottom line is you screwed off on someone else's money for almost 6 months. Now, by some miracle, we should all just magically believe that those 6 months were some sort of a joke and the next year will be entirely different?

I am not buying it and many more here are not buying it. All you had to do was say guys, I screwed up, I am going to fix this and make it right by all that were involved(The team, Avi, your donor, pinside), and have it done by TPF 2024. Instead, you made up a smoke screen story, now pretend that story never happened and we should all just accept things for what it is and enjoy the new ride. Sorry John , you did burn everyone on Pinside. You burned anyone that had any trust in you. I know I encouraged you to re-open a thread on this build in PM's. Since you are so boldly in denial, I now regret that encouragement.

This is stupid, that is all. Yawn.

John, I don't think everyone thought you and your team couldn't build it, it was the time line of Texas 2023 for a completed pin that set it off course.

Wow I'm months behind on this apparently and trying to get caught up here. I think the last thing I read was when the intern had been there for like 2 weeks.

So best I can tell now, iceman was in fact not defrauded and there is still a pin of some sort on the way for spring 2024, and gwj is now basically this:

https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/i-was-only-pretending-to-be-retarded

Does that about sum up the current state?

delete

Yes, but now the great pretend didn't happen either.

John's newest update ready for TPF:

Screenshot_20230124-165755 (resized).png

I can buy Ice as the coach, but there's no way in hell GWJ is athletic nor a director.

It now appears that Avi has sold everything pinball and has removed himself completely. He has shut down his account here on Pinside. You have to wonder if things blew up on the other end too.

You forgot the coin door? Remember, anything that takes a quarter is considered a pro machine in the Maritimes.

god bless

This saga went from crazy entertainment to just downright embarrassing a few months ago. And when I asked my thread be shut down and GWJ couldn't keep it going, he bailed to save face by claiming a troll job.

It's over, nothing to see here.