614: That Phantom Feeling

It's time for episode 614 of the Clockwise Podcast from Relay, recorded Wednesday, July 16th, 2025. Clockwise, four people, four tech topics, 30 minutes.

Welcome back to Clockwise, the tech podcast that's definitely not a cast of four pod people. I am one of your hosts, Micah Sargent, and I am joined across the internet by my good pal, my dear friend. It is Dan the Man. Morin. How you doing, Dan?

Join us, Micah. Join the pod, people. I'm running out of intros, Stan. I mean, can you tell? 600 plus episodes in. I mean, people probably won't notice if we start reusing stuff, right? I mean... to number one someone someone's someone somewhere's keeping track uh while somebody looks through their spreadsheet i am going to go ahead and start introducing our guests to my left six colors contributor writer

Joe Steele dot com. I bet you can guess it's Joe Rosensteele. Welcome back to the show, Joe. Hi, Micah. Thank you for having me back. And to my left this week, it is host of Android Faithful, Jason Howell. Welcome back, Jason. What's going on? Always a fun time. Thanks for the invite. All righty, folks, we have four topics in 30 minutes. Mine for you is this.

Have you ever played an MMORPG? For those of you listening who don't know what that is, interesting, massively multiplayer online role-playing game. Did you or do you enjoy your time playing an MMORPG? Joe, we'll start with you. I used to because people at my office did. And that was World of Warcraft at the time in 2005 to 2000. 2008, basically, we would all work all day long and then we would all go home and hop on a computer.

and play a computer game uh so yeah it was it was uh i was a undead warlock um and uh that was it wow um I believe you'll find it's pronounced... You know, I think by the strictest of definitions... I guess I have not played really. It's weird because this seems like a thing that's right up my alley. And I think had the heyday for it hit a little bit earlier.

when I was still in college or just out of college, I think this would have been more attractive to me. It really needs to hit that sweet spot of the disposable income to pay for it. Because back in the day... I don't know if that's still true, but you have to pay for a lot of these things. There were monthly fees. When I was in college, I did not have $10 a month to spend on a video game.

And so I knew some people who got into them. I'm really into WoW and all that stuff. I don't think the closest I think I got for something I played regularly was Destiny. which isn't really an RPG. It's a, you know, massively online shooter, you know, FPS type thing with some RPG aspects to it. And I paid that for many years. But... I think by the time I had the disposable income, the critical mass had dispersed a little bit because a lot of the people I know...

have kids and other stuff and other demands on their time. And it was harder to get into it. And these days, I think I find the idea of the grind off-putting. I like a game I can get into and play on my own. own schedule and not have to feel like I have to log in every day or week or whatever just to keep stuff going the way it is. So like I said, I think there was probably a time when this was much more appealing to me. I will say my big closest thing is... when I was in high school.

I was super into mushes, which were like muds, but with more of a role-playing theme to them. So I was in several Star Wars-related ones during my high school. Those were all text-based. okay i'm old um anyway yeah jason what about you if you're old then i'm a dinosaur because i totally know what you're talking about um does do does the original doom count no i know that it doesn't um i i

pretty much everything you just said, Dan, applies to me. Like, there was a time in my life, had these come along, where I guarantee you I would have been hooked and I would have been in hook, line, and sinker. I feel like they hit a little... later for me. And by the time they started really hitting, they always just seemed like a really big investment of my time. Like it wasn't even the money aspect. It was just like,

Oh, my goodness. So it just seemed like a commitment that I was just too busy to commit to. And like my real gaming, like. time in my life was when i was much younger you know teens uh early mid-20s let's say and then things got more complicated in life and my time started to get pulled in different directions and i didn't game nearly as much and that's i think when these mmorpgs really started hitting and it just didn't seem like something that i could do so i'd never you know i never

really checked out world of warcraft even though i know everybody was like really into it and everything i played super old school ultima on my commodore 64 but i know that doesn't qualify so you know it's it's just it was bad timing and i'm sure i would have loved them but i never really Did. For me, I have also not played WoW. However, I did growing up play a lot of.

Online games, some of which I think qualify as MMORPGs, including RuneScape and a game called MapleStory. And some of those were... my favorite games that I've I've played. I have not done that in a long time. But occasionally I find myself scrolling through the steam library and thinking today will be the day and then the other part of my brain goes don't you dare do that you'll lose all of your time and so I have not but yeah I was kind of curious if anybody was currently doing any of that

So thank you all for your answers on that topic. Let us go to our next topic, which comes from Joe. So when you guys are traveling and you got to grab a meal or you want a coffee. What do you use to decide where to go? Do you pull up Google Maps? Do you use Apple Maps? Do you do extensive research before you went on your trip and had looked up something on Reddit or Instagram? What do you use to decide?

What's worth stopping at? And is that even a consideration you make or you just go to like some national chain because you can't be bothered? uh this is one of my actually one of my biggest challenges i had i always used to have really bad food karma while traveling like i just i'd hit that point where like

You know, you get too hungry and you're looking at all the menus out of the places outside or whatever and just be like, no, not this, not this. And then you get even hungrier and crankier. And it was never good. My wife is an inveterate planner. She likes to identify places ahead of time that she thinks is good from like...

Usually, some online posts like Eater or something like that. Like, oh, I've heard about this place. It's really good. And we'll put it on a list. I think in the moment when we're looking around, it depends where you are. to a certain extent. There's definitely places where some resources are better than others. I think Google Maps...

tends to have sort of one of the broadest, like if you're traveling internationally or if you're traveling anywhere in the US, like Google Maps gives you like a baseline of like, okay, you know, some people will have reviewed this place probably. I tend to think Yelp... is a little better. But again, it's just very limited in terms of it doesn't work overseas. Anyplace outside the US, I find Yelp is basically nothing. And I think Apple Maps...

They pull from a couple different sources, right? I don't even remember what they pull from now. But I generally do not check the reviews there, though I do use Apple Maps a lot. And so sometimes, yeah, I just end up Googling, like, oh, where's a good place to get...

to get breakfast in this city that I'm in. And I find, you know, yeah, you hit a Reddit thread or something like that or a post on a blog. And I think that tends to be the best way. But I still sometimes end up in those situations where it's like six o'clock and everybody's hungry and like you just end up going to like whatever's...

closest it looks like it's probably palatable jason what about you yeah kind of kind of similar i mean it really depends on where i'm going you know if we're you know last summer we went to italy and i spent More time probably pouring through either the books or pouring through Google Maps kind of recommendations or whatever. I was a lot more.

Kind of dialed in like like a lot more of my spare time while I was there was invested in trying to craft like the greatest place that's near us that we should go to. But if we're just out on a road trip or whatever, like I might, you know. Yeah, it's a combination of Google Maps, maybe a little bit of Yelp. I couldn't even tell you why I decided to do one or the other. It's just like the first thing that pops in my brain. I go, okay, I'll do that. And then I go and...

You know, a meal is a meal. We have, you know, I tend to have about three of them a day. Some of them aren't great. Some of them are amazing. And I just kind of figure that's the case when I'm traveling. Some of them are going to be great. Some are going to be not amazing. And that's okay. That's life. Interesting. For me, most of the time, Joe, I use Apple Maps for the...

little feature of just like hitting one of the buttons that says, I'm looking for a coffee shop. I'm looking for this. But what I find is for me more often than not. It's Yelp behind the scenes in Apple Maps. And so I will also when I'm specifically going, I want to go to a great place that is, you know, serving, I don't know, Mediterranean cuisine, for example.

I will go to Yelp instead because I can get more direct or even if it's not about food, for example, if it's something else, Yelp, I find very handy for that. So yeah, for me, it's a switch between. apple maps and yelp um i wish though that i was the person who use like Reddit or Instagram or some, you know, grouping of those to go, oh, this is that hole in the wall spot that nobody except the locals knows about. That would be super cool. Alas, that is not me. Is it you, Joe? Is it you? Uh...

Sometimes. I use Google Maps's lists feature to make a list of places that I might like to go to if I know I'm going to a city. But when I'm out and about... in a place that I don't know, especially internationally, like Dan said, I'll just use Google Maps to look for any kind of information about the ratings for a place because most places they'll be rated.

5.0 for just being okay or just being fine, because that's what you need these days is five stars to just be acceptable. And so as long as you're in that four to five range, you're going to be fine. And you'll... Not be as picky.

Let's say if you were at home and you might know that that restaurant only has a 3.5 on Google, but you're totally cool with it. But when you're out traveling, you just have no idea what to expect from some of these places. So that's just kind of what I'm going for with that.

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We are back from halftime, and that means it's time for Dan's topic. Yes. So my question is, what technology or gadgets, devices that you never leave the house without? And I want to know if it's more or less stuff. than it used to be for you. Have you cut down a bit on what you take with you or what you consider essential? Jason, we'll start with you. I feel like...

Probably each one of us is going to have at least part of this answer very similarly, right? Like I, if there's one single gadget, I never leave without almost all the time. Like I can't think of the. times that I leave without it. It's the smartphone. I do have, you know, I have a watch, a smartwatch, a wearable. So that probably leaves.

the house on my wrist about 80% of the time, unless I forget to put it on or whatever. And maybe I might have a wireless pair of earbuds in my pocket. And I don't know, like when I think back on as far as like. being more or less than it used to be. I never really used to wear a smartwatch, but like in my earlier incarnation, you know, I had a cell phone, I had a CD Walkman of some sorts and a pair of headphones. So it's kind of same amount of technology.

but doing kind of similar things. Now it's kind of like refined down into less devices to tackle it, I suppose. But yeah, that's what I leave with. Yeah, I think mine has probably gone. up over time, but only slightly because before it would be not leaving home without my phone. And now it's not leaving home without my phone or my watch. I do feel. naked without my watch. So I it's I would see no reason.

that I would ever leave my house without it. But yeah, it's really those two things. Everything else just depends on what's happening. You know, there may be a reason for me to bring my earbuds with me. But if I'm just, you know, driving over to the local coffee shop, then I don't need to bring those. So yeah, most of the time, phone. Watch. What about you, Joe? Phone and watch for me as well.

It's definitely that system where I know that I have it or not by the time I leave the house because there's that phantom feeling of a missing thing on my wrist or a missing thing in my pocket. And it's definitely not something where that... accidentally happens what i do forget though is if i'm going somewhere i might forget my watch charger and then i have a dead watch and then that

That drives me crazy because I don't want to walk around with a dead watch on my wrist. But at the same time, if I take it off, then I have the phantom watch feeling. So those are the those are the things that I really, really need. And sometimes I'll have my Beats Flex, the like spaghetti, even the linguine thing that has the earbuds on it. That one.

I will have if I'm going on any kind of like walk or exercise or will be outdoors for more than 10 minutes because I'm not somebody who's going to subject people around me to listening to podcasts or music via my phone speakers that it has to be. on my headphones. Why are you so considerate, Joe?

Yeah, I mean, like most of you, a phone and watch. I will say the thing that sort of prompted this in my mind is that I do find myself recently I've taken up trying to go for runs more and I will just wear my watch for that and my AirPods. which were basically pulling music from my watch. It's a little uncomfortable to leave the house without my phone, even though I sit there thinking like...

I didn't have a cell phone for the first 23 years of my life or whatever, and it wasn't a problem then. But now that I know I could have it, and I don't have a cellular Apple Watch, though, this has tempted me down that road a little bit more. Oh my gosh, Dan. I know. I feel weird about it. What if something happens to you? I don't know. What if something happened to me when I was 22 and didn't have a phone? Tim Cook, are you on the podcast with us?

So, you know, I, yeah, I think it's, like some of you said, there's more in some ways. I mean, I honestly... It's more stuff, but it's smaller stuff, I think, is part of it. I used to carry a CD player or an iPod or whatever, right? That would be a thing. I was like, maybe I'd bring my iPod and my cell phone. Maybe I wouldn't bring my iPod. And so now I have all that stuff in one. And the fact that I can carry...

my AirPods Pro with me in those tiny little case, it makes me much more likely to throw those in my pocket than it did with an old style of over-the-head headphones, right? Where it's like, I got to be wearing them around my neck or I got to have a bag to put them in or something like that.

So it definitely feels like I've got less stuff, even if I have more gadgets, if that makes any sense. But I guess that's just how capable everything is. So yeah. Thank you all for your thoughts on that. Let's go to our final topic, which comes from Jason.

Yeah, I've got game emulation on the mind because I have an old arcade cabinet that a fan of my work at Twit helped me build. He was a woodworker and we put a Raspberry Pi 3 in it. And then now I'm like upgrading it to Raspberry Pi 5. I'm going through all this like rediscovery of all this stuff, which has me thinking that game emulation, it's great and all. It's it's it's neato, but it's not quite the same as owning like the. arcade cabinet of that game that you loved at the arcade

So I'm curious, what is the game for you that you would love to have as an original arcade cabinet? Not an emulated, not a constructed by you or someone else sort of thing, but the original. Is there a game? What would it be? Oof. So I did miss the end of the question to know that it had to be the arcade cabinet. I'll be honest, not played a whole lot of arcade cabinet games.

But I always love Pac-Man. So I suppose I would have Pac-Man. But if I was just saying that I wanted the original game and game console. I would want GoldenEye on the Nintendo 64 because... those cheats were the best big head mode, uh, would be what I'd be playing and that controller ridiculous and wonderful. So. Yeah, that's my way of cheating the answer that I had for you into it. Joe, what about you? Well, I also did not.

play a ton of arcade cabinet cabinets stuff. But Marvel vs. Capcom 2 was a big one. I would say, of the ones that I played. So I would pick that. But if it was just like, if you could have like the... the system, like Micah said, of something retro. It would be a Mac Plus playing Stunt Copter. That was a favorite of mine as a kid. And it's just not the same if you play it on anything but a Mac Plus or anything like a classic.

Mac-shaped, I should say. Wow, okay. I guess I'm closer to the arcade demographic. I think the one I pick, if I was picking a single cabinet, it would be the... The sit-down original Star Wars game? Like, from, what is it like? the early 80s, 78, like the wire-framed X-Wing one. But there was one where you could sit in it. It would go over your head, and it had a little yolk that you would use. And I think they had that at the amusement park I used to go to when I was visiting.

my cousins growing up. And that thing was... I mean, that was cutting edge. All those little wireframe black and white graphics for the most part. But I really... I have such deep nostalgia for that and just the idea of being able to sit there and use that yoke and try to pilot through the Death Star. Really, really great memories. I think of the other ones, a couple others that I thought of are both the arcade sort of beat-em-up games of the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

which is a great beat-em-up game. And then similarly, I think in the same vein, there was an X-Men game in the 90s. Could you play Storm? It was also like that. yeah okay then i have it was like yeah it was based on the it was like the look and feel of the cartoon basically i think based on

the success of that in the 90s. So a lot of fond memories of playing both those in arcades. And we do have a lot of arcades recently. So I do get to like in our area, like the retro arcade thing has definitely come back around. So I feel like I've gotten to play some of these things. recent years, which is nice, but I don't know. I have the space for one in my house. So Jason, why don't you wrap us up?

For sure. The retro kind of throwback arcade experiences come back. This podcast has taught me one thing. I'm old. I'm older than all of you. But so I would definitely I had as my bonus. pick star wars sit down four words loved it absolutely loved it there was an arcade in boise where i grew up boise idaho called pojos and they had that in there and you know just something about sitting down in the in the thing and then grabbing the yoke and everything

thing like to my young mind i was like okay i'm in star wars right now even though the graphics you know we're all wiry and everything but my pick was a game called discs of tron which was made after obviously the the movie tron so it's like early eighties, but it was the standup cabinet that you go into and it encloses you entirely. It's pretty tight. It was always really warm in there. So that wasn't that amazing, but whatever, it was part of the experience. And it was like, um,

your controllers were two little, what are those little like knobs that you rotate? Whatever those are called sliders. I'm not really quite sure what they are, but one would rotate your hand, which is where you throw the disc. And the other one would, Oh no, the other one.

was just a joystick that you could run around on these pads and you'd throw these discs across the way and it just there was something about the sound environment of that of that cabinet it sounded really good it was all in stereo and you could feel the rumble for the early 80s it was a very kind of immersive experience and i would love to have that or a four player gauntlet because four players a lot of fun all right well with that we have reached

Nearly the end of this episode of Clockwise. Before we get there, though, I do want to ask you a bonus question. My bonus topic for you is this. What's something you've seen or experienced lately? that brought you joy joe we'll start with you uh i saw a bunch of sea otters that were swimming next to a boat that i was in and they were just sitting there just chilling

There's a whole family of sea otters just going on the wave, rafting. That was probably something that just like, it was cute and it brought joy. Like, look at them. They're so cute. They're adorable. How could you not like them? So that's got to be it for me.

we have a habit of like we have a long playlist for my kid in the car and it's a mix of like some kid songs but then like a lot of it's just like songs we like uh and so some of them have gotten into my kid's head and he sings them at daycare which is very, very funny because he's not quite three yet. And so there's nothing quite like hearing an almost three-year-old belting out all the lyrics to Mack the Knife, which if you've never listened to the lyrics of that song...

It's basically about a serial killer. But it's catchy. which is great. So listening to him saying those are, it's just, it's, it cracks me up every time because he has, but like, I'm amazed that he remembers these things that, and we, we had him listening to hit the road, Jack by Ray Charles. Yeah. And then every once in a while, we'd be listening in the back. You hear this little voice go, what you say? Oh, my goodness. That's so cute. Adorable. That's great.

um i was so the the thing that most recently brought me joy was actually yesterday i was invited to do a podcast called soundography and the idea behind the podcast is I bring to the two hosts of the podcast an album that is pivotal to my life. And we talk about it for an hour and they play little clips and everything. Prior to the podcast, I took my dogs for a walk and I threw the album that I picked, which is a band called Slow Dive from the 90s, a shoegaze band and their album called.

which is just oh it just gives me chills to say it out loud because it's that important to me and for the entire hour walk with my dogs i it was amazing like it was like rediscovering the album i had at moments i had tears in my eyes like it brought me back to this nostalgic place. And it was just really wonderful. So that's my most recent. I love that. For me, I was out of town.

recently and I got a text and it was from my significant other. And it said she doesn't want to come back inside. And I look and he's holding his hand out. to one of my dogs, Mizzy, and she is on the ground outside, sort of like on her back. but with the look of joy on her face because she loves sitting outside in the backyard and sunbathing. And a backyard was something we did not have in California. And here in Portland, we do.

have. And she just loves to sit out there and sunbathe. But this one was particularly touching because it was a moment of two of my... I almost had a favorite people, but one of them is not a people, but two of my favorite beings kind of sharing the moment together. And yeah, that super brought me joy when I was in the midst of. a one day trip, uh, of, you know, two, two airplane flights, uh, there and back. So it was a little bit stressful and I saw that and I thought, ah, that's so nice.

So thank you all for your answers on that and bringing us a little bit of joy. If you listening out there would like to get ad free episodes that include a little portion at the end where Dan and I have a conversation, we call it Unwound You. You can become a member of Clockwise. You go to relay.fm slash Clockwise, sign up. It's just $7 a month, $70 a year, and you will help support the show.

All right. With that, it is time to say goodbye to our wonderful guests. Joe Rosenstiel, thank you so much for being here. Thank you for having me. And Jason Hell, thank you so much for joining us this week. Pleasure, as always. Thank you for the invite. And Micah will be back next week. But until then, we remind everyone listening out there, watch what you say and keep watching the clock. Bye, everybody.