Fire Escape Cast #101

Hello, everyone, Welcome back to the fire Escape Cast. It is episode what one hundred and one?

Whoa one on one done?

We would crumble on our one hundredth episode and the.

Mike was doing voices back in the forties and they thought that would bring us down. Mary was talking about Nixon way too much in the sixties. Dan had his Vince McMahon fate. Well, he still likes Vince McMahon, but we just don't talk about it as much. True. So here we are episode one oh one. I'm Mike Mahari. That's Mary Kish. Hello.

We almost we did almost break up on episode one hundred. I think that was probably one of the most intense conversations. But people liked it.

I think people liked it.

I had a second wave of being annoyed because I forgot because I was probably several drinks deep by the point this happened, so I forgot it happened. But I saw someone be like, Wow, I can't believe Mary was arguing Diablo too is more influential than Mario sixty four. And I saw that comment, and I'm like, what about a comment about our own podcast?

I forgot about it, got mad about again. You made a noise I've never heard you make. When she said that, you did like that point where it was just being yeah, it did okay, Mary, Like I I think someone can easily like Diablo too more than Mario and it can be more important in their life. But like, yeah, I think Mary was just trying to she'ld be in a state on you.

At that point.

I just didn't have much to work with. But I know that Diablo two is really important to me, so I was like, I think it is more influential. And then I think what I said something was like, you know, I made the assumption that how I feel is probably how everyone else feels, and it should win. But I did lose that battle. I think the only thing that was really valuable was when the Witch a three.

One in the past episode.

In the past episodes, the important thing is big personal news. You remember my tea kettle in the background. Oh the furnace, Yeah, I remember the furnace sound. Yeah, it's been plaguing my recordings. Well, I was gonna call a furnace guy, which I don't even know where you'd start with that. I don't even just google furnace guy. But the vent is up above my reach, and so I was like, I don't want to go upstairs and get a step stool and just

Ling.

I just pushed it in a little bit, and now no no longer making that noise. So I sold the rug. I just took the rug the FedEx. Today it's like I don't need this joker anymore. It wouldn't do anything anyway.

So but so, okay, so you prefer the room without the rug by default? What's that You prefer the room without the rug, and you wanted to get rid of it because you wanted to see the floor.

I was, uh, sometimes I like to do like stretches and stuff on the hard floor, and being on a slippy little rug thing I didn't like. And so I moved it over closer to that door, and I told Bonk, like, oh I definitely like it over there better because then I have more of the hardwood floor. She's like, wait, the thing you like about the rug now is that it's not on the floor. We're oh, yeah, that's a good point. I should just get rid of it. And so I get rid of it.

So you brought it where? Did you just get to FedEx? Oh you returned it?

Yes, yes, I found that often if there's a noise that's annoying me in the apartment, is something's loose and I just have to tighten it. Yeah.

I just touched it and it just stopped.

Like our our like combo washer dryer we have makes loud noises, and anytime I just lightly touched my finger to the bottom right corner, the whole plastic like facade stops shaking.

It's like, oh, it's just loose. Then I taped it. Yeah, look, home owners.

Yeah, you are not doing the job. Touching things and hoping that they work and returning carpets is not normal.

There's a problem in my house. I got to work on it, and now it's not a problem.

The problems gone.

I was standing on top of chairs and touching metal stuff.

He's thinking about stuff he'sensive.

You have stumbled through life yet again. But I will not give you any like credence nortal for it.

You know how I imagine Dan looking while he's working at his house. You know those photos where people pretend to be thinking as if there's not a camera there in the garden when they make announcements and they're just like, oh, I just have news. I just I'm very pensive right now. I'm thinking about the future. That's how I imagine Dan being.

I'm always pensive and I'm always thinking about things. That's my whole deal.

Yeah.

No, if I'm thinking about stuff like all the time, I'm awake.

I do fix stuff for real here too. Have I told you about robes Pierre, He's the it's the event on the room that was screaming once. What we had a like crazy windstorm, uh it You know those like circular vents that rotate on city roofs around the like smoke stacks.

Oh yeah, the crazy metal things.

Yeah, we had such a like intense windstorm two years ago that it like bent the metal so it was just scraping against the rod, the axle at the center. I went up to the roof and I just WD forty did it and then but then it made the noise again next year, so I actually had to like pry the metal back into place. It's fine now, but I do fix stuff. I don't just tape everything. It's not all band aids.

What what'd you fix?

Mary?

Tell us what your house?

Are you not judging us?

Oh?

Yeah, you got your dvate septum on?

Oh yeah, how was that good?

The reason we recorded so early, Thank you both of you for recording early, was because I had surgery the next day and I was like, oh crap, I probably won't be able to talk or do any thing for several days because I'll be on drugs. So we recorded our one hundredth episode early, and then I got my surgery that following morning, and uh, they knocked me out for it, and I woke up a couple hours later. I assume this is what happened to you, Dan, and they packed me full of gaze. It was probably one

Your face wake up pain in.

Front nose, septum surgery.

Yeah.

The thing I'm shocked about is that you said you got the stense out the next day, like I had four for hours. I actually had like a week of being able to breathe through my nose, Like, yeah, how long until you could breathe out of your nose?

Uh?

Within twenty four hours? So yeah. The first day was miserable. You can't breathe at all, and I'm trying to breathe through my mouth, but it's painful. And I would wake up like every one to two hours because I would need a sip of water because my throat was dry because I was breathing on my mouth. So had it's terrible sleep Monday night. And then Tuesday, I went right back in and he was like, let's see how you're healing.

Okay, that's good to hear, because you have mine was like four operations on top of the sinnest thing. So that must be the discrepancy in like a week for me a day for you.

They were really in there, you know, whereas like for mine, he was like, I straightened your tubes out and I said, thank you very much, and he was like, good, you should be good. Just don't let anything. He said, don't fall and hit your nose and don't have anyone punch you in your nose. And I said, I can handle that. And I think we're back. It's been two weeks now. I feel totally fine. I breathe amazing. I fully recommended it.

Hell, yeah, that's awesome. Yeah, it's great when you were like over the hump with that stuff. It's it's awful when it's like going on. But then once it's all settled, it's okay.

That was worth doing.

Yeah, that was super worth it. So that was my big fixer upper was my own face. I did not do my own surgery. But I also didn't pretend that I fixed it by touching it. So I feel like I'm still on the up from you guys.

I love you face.

Thank you.

That's great.

I'm gonna put it under on Thursday for a little thing today I got. I'm going to get a what do you call it? An inflats?

What are you missing.

Eighteen. I was eighteen and I lost that.

Get a gold one in there.

I could, Oh, no, I'm just gonna get a normal one. But they got to do a sinus lift first, so they got to lift my sinus up and put some fake bone in there, and then put a screw in there and all this stuff. So yeah, they told me when I was eighteen, and I was like, just take it out, and they're like, you sure we can save that tooth.

I was like, bad, just take it out.

And then it was like twenty plus years of like, oh wow, I wish I could chew on this side of my face, and then like now my sinuses and the bone structure were all fucked up.

Probably should have listened to the dentist people when I was.

Ever put a straw in that tooth hole.

No, I never have, or like drink here, but I don't have a straw tarnish in there. I guess this this this week with my last chance.

Yeah wait, now we're a farmer, Is that where you'd put your straw?

Yeah?

Well, if I moved to like Los Angeles, when I got off the bus and I showed want to show that I was a hay seed from Kansas.

That's where I would put the straw.

Yeah yeah, tooth hoole.

Or if you're a getaway driver who wears bomber jackets and toothpicks in his mouth, that's where it would go. And you'd stare at Kerry Mulligan for ten seconds without saying anything.

There's a stack of toothpicks in that because you could put more than one toothpick in that hole, and then you could like give them to other people that need a toothpick.

Cool.

I think people you can put like a Roman candle in there.

Oh yeah, yeah, cigarette or not, all sorts of I'm going to cancel the surgery. I'm going to keep it like this. This seems great.

Keep the keep the hole. There's too much cool stuff you could do with that hole.

Dude, man, I had twenty years of this hole and I didn't know what to do with it.

Now you're running out of time.

I'm still pretty lost.

Yeah, I'm the only one who has not had a surgery during the fire escape tenure cave up.

I know we'll figure something out.

That's right. Bones broke bones, there's never got them fixed. I think I.

Broke another knuckle. Maybe Mary you broke this one.

I'm not liable. I'm not liable for that. I was the one in the room when it happened.

Well, that's true.

The one right next to it has not been bending right and it's been hurting in it ever since. That's when I smashed the vege slicer on it, and like all the bleeding stuff is long done. That was weeks ago, but I still can't bend it right. And I did close the veget slicer on the knuckle.

I don't I think you're talking about the veggie slicer as if we've talked about it. But I don't think we've talked about it, Mary, unless I'm mistaken.

Oh, short version, I slammed my hand and a veggie slicer gathered all over the blaze.

Talk Wait, was the blood from just like crushing it or did the actual blade hit your hand.

A bunch of the blades because it was one of those like fine like like waffle ticktac toe.

Things, And.

Yeah, I was cleaning it and I like dropped it, and as I dropped it, I somehow put my right hand into it and slammed it shut with the left hand. I don't know how that happened. But I just looked down and it hurt real bad for a second, and I just saw blood start pouring out like five different cuts, and so I just like wrapped a towel around he real quickness, like buck. She just runs in and she

Was it your vegetables? Yeah, okay, so you used the vegetable slicer properly and then upon cleaning, you destroyed your hand.

That's great, Okay, just making sure.

Sure that's how you messed your hand up, to.

Make sure I understand that it wasn't in the process of like slicing cucumbers.

Yeah. I burnt it on the air fryer like an hour ago too. Okay, I take it back. You really should not cook like this is. We've mead the whole situation pretty good.

At there's blades held of that sometimes.

He almost chopped his finger off microwaving a factor meal.

Yeah, job hazard of being Dan Riker.

I'm getting used to it. I'm getting a little more used to it now. I still keep getting hurt over and over again.

But yeah, you gotta be careful with your fings. You only get so many of those bad boys, and they're pretty valuable. I feel like you need them, especially to do your job. You know, like there's really though fxterity.

I mean, it's not like I'm talking about stuff way more than I'm like playing stuff for typing stuff these days, I can talk.

But if you had eight fingers, do you think that you would be as good at your job?

I mean, I played a bunch of games with the broken finger, and that was nine.

I said eight, and that the other ones are gone.

Oh they're just missing entirely.

Yeah, you can pick which ones all.

I'd make it work. There's great strides and accessibility these days.

It's true. I do think you're making a lot of excuses for you to lose fingers.

I don't, For the record, I don't want to lose any part of my body.

You'd like to keep them?

All I'm gonna get I'm adding to it I'm putting a fake tooth in there himself.

Soon he'll be unstoppable.

Yeah, he's gonna have eleven fingers and no holes.

Gonna be like three more shoulders. Yeah, it's like dis x mankind divided. I would do that.

I would do, like seriously, if it was like a reputable company and it wasn't some like weird neuralink elon musk thing. I would just if they were like, yeah, we can chop off your head and give you a good robot body and it's safe, I would absolutely do it.

We can rebuild him, we can fill the holes.

Yeah, my holes, what I say to the doctor, Yeah, why are they looking at me?

Weird?

They love it? Well, I'm glad we have no back. Did you have me?

Mike, Mike, get out of the disorges. Talk about the glitterists all day, Mike, Mike, stop talking. They jacked off in a right for us.

We got to just kick him out of kick him out of the call, kick him out, kick him out.

That poor man, that's my best friend.

He did say those things.

Though he did say those things, it's true.

Doesn't know where the glitterist is.

What else is going on? I feel like he does, I'm sure leave him alone. I send him a bunch of salt.

Mike, Yeah, we had.

We had a nice conversation over Christmas break or somewhere around there games the Game Awards where we were talking about salt and he had only had like one kind, and so I asked for his address, and I sent him three different types of chicken salt so that he could taste them and taste the differences of them.

Was it that Portland company that you gave us finishing salt from?

No, but I do really like the finishing. We're big salt people here, but this is more of an Australian thing because Australians like chicken salt on their fries. It's just salt that's flavored like chicken. It usually has MSG, but it's like a heavy flavor component there, so you're

Is he reported back?

Yeah, he liked the one that had the most MSG, which I think is okay the.

Word on MSG these days, because I feel like in the nineties it was like whoa, we got to put no MSG on the packaging and stuff, and like now you don't ever hear about it, so are we just cool with MSG now?

I don't even know what it is.

I think it was like a satanic panic type thing where everyone was like, no one could determine it. Yeah, nobody could actually like mono making sure that it actually was anything. And it is just a form of salt, so it's not for you. It doesn't give you headaches.

And I thought it was she was a form of sugar.

What does Satan have to do with it?

No, she's just saying it's like comparing it to Okay, I thought it was.

I thought it was a kind of sugar that's like supposed to be a I think the narrative was that it's people put it in food to addict you. That was the narrative. And like the early aughts.

Oh, I thought it was that it gave people headaches.

It sounds like it's okay. Now I'm looking at it now, it seems.

Sounds like it's okay. Yeah, it's it's always been okay. And now culturally it's being more accepted. And I think Mike is also right in the sense that like there's a little there's like a tinge of racism in there as well.

Yeah, I'm saying that too.

It's an Asian food thing, and like we don't want that at our food And it's like it's freaking salt. Like let it go.

Speak assault and headaches and a mystery ingredient and French fries.

I got quite a segue. It's gonna connect all four of those things.

I'm really excited about this.

Have you ever talked to anybody who says that the sulfights in red wine give them headaches?

You know, not really talking to many people about wine, to be.

Sure, But the people who think that they're allergic to sulfights in red wine love to bring it up. It's like being it's like CrossFit or being vegan. They can't now talk about it. Sure, there are more sulfights in the average French fry than there are in a bottle of red wine. The amount of sulfur that's added to stabilize a wine after or to stop fermentation, or to clarify it. And this is after six weeks of studying taking night classes.

Yeah, but you've also been screencapping his Instagram stories about wine and my father and so much.

No, I'm just saying anybody who thinks that red wine gives them headaches because the sulfights you're there's more cellfites in French fries than there are in red wine. You're probably getting a headache because you're not drinking water and you're drinking too much red wine.

That's probably what's doing it.

Or maybe there's some other chemical in red wine that's giving you a headache that white wine doesn't. But it's not cell fites. Yeah, dumb asses, No, tannins are tannins. I guess you could have a reaction. If you're allergic to grape skin, then you might have a bad reaction.

Red wine makes me fight. What's in the red wine that does that?

Higher alcohol content?

Yeah, I don't feel any difference between the Oh, if I have tequila, I'm gonna have a crazy night, or if I have this, it's gonna make me be sad or something. Every alcohol I've ever had has the exact same effect on me.

Is that normal?

I feel like wine I'm more mellow if I have a few too many.

Yeah, you know what, I guess you're right on that.

But there's also like sparkling wine and bubbly drinks, carbon dioxide can contribute to getting you a bit woozier. So it might feel you're gtting quote unquote drunk more quickly, but the carbon dioxide is playing into that, so you're not You're not imagining it. If like champagne is getting you drunk more quickly, it's it's just not just alcohol. But yeah, I don't know. I last I read and this stuff I feel like changes every year, and then I end up sounding stupid. So I'm just gonna say

I currently of the mind that like, oh, the o beer before liquor or mixing alcohols and stuff is a bunch of hohoy.

It seems no.

Wait, wait, wait, wait, we did get the email about the beer before liquor thing, and there is some truth to it. Oh, let me look at it's gonna take me foreverything something would like agitate the bubbles would agitate your stomach lining more.

So I learned something if it takes five more seconds.

Someone someone sent it in like two years ago, and it was something about if you start with a certain one. I think it was the more bubbly liquids, it would agitate your stomach lining and then allow.

More before liquor. Never sicker.

Yeah, so I guess maybe there is a but mixing drinks in general.

I think maybe that's where that comes from.

I disagree every time I mix drinks, I do get a little bit more sick. And it doesn't mean that I've had six drinks. If I have three drinks, which I did last night. I had a rum drink because it was the launch of that new Lotus and I always like to have like a tropical drink because I'm on vacation when I'm watching White Lotus. And then I had a whiskey drink because I felt like it. And then I had a vibe could drink because it was getting close to the end of the evening and I

Yeah, you're yeah. There's literally more alcohol in the vast majority of red wines because by definition, the most of the red wines will need to ripen more on the veins so.

They develop drunk.

I don't think it's just the alcohol. I am a very considerate drunk. I think that there's something about red wine that makes me more irritable while I'm drunk. So I am drunk, but I'm also like, I don't like it, like there's something going on.

It could be something.

I'm not bar it's just not unless unless you also get pissed off when you eat French fries, then maybe it is sulfites.

But the opposite pissed off.

Sedate me.

Yeah, so maybe there's something in red wine. There could be some sort of allergen that you react poorly to. But also again, a bottle of red wine is anywhere from thirteen to fifteen percent alcohol, and there's outliers, but that's the general range the white wine is gonna be. I mean, white wine could be like eleven to fourteen or even lower if it's a sweet wine.

Man, I had a bottle of wine and a bunch of beers last night and all I did was played like ten hours of about that.

Sounds pretty seed.

It was awesome.

Yeah, it's like a good Sunday, three day weekend Sunday fun.

Well, speaking of do you want to talk about video games?

Let's do it.

Sure, Okay, we're coming off of an episode of not talking about new games. What was the newest game we talked about in Yeah that No, it's Diablow too.

Oh yeah, I.

Think that's it. It might have been elden Ring. Honestly, I don't think we talked about a newer game than elden Ring. Last tea on the top one hundred or top sixty four games.

Well, probably the newest one eighties.

We talked about a lot, but that was twenty twenty. But anyway, Yeah, we didn't talk about new games last episode, and the odd slot of February is also well upon us. Dan, you have been texting me full disclosure, I have not started Avowed because I'm playing a lot of other stuff and I want to. It seems like a game I want to just like dive into and not deviate from and stack up other games. Yes, but uh, you seem to really like a Vowed.

Yeah, and good call on that, mic, because yeah, I have two other games that I'm sure the embarger will be up by the time this goes up, but no point really saying what they are. But like other games that I want to play, But I was so into a Vow that it's like, I Am not going to touch anything until I'm done with this and then I'll all get to this other stuff. But Avowed right before we record it tonight, I I'm on the definite final stretch of the game.

It was definitely already. I've played fifty hours of it.

Wow, I can't believe you've burned through that many hours of it.

Oh my god, I've known like eight to ten hour days, like pretty much since it came out, Like, I fucking love this game, and it was none on my radar at all, Like I like Skyrim, I like a Blive and follow that three of the Bethesda style things, but like, you know, like the story heavy RPG is not exactly my genre, but I figured I'd give it a shot and got a code for it, and it's like, all right, well it's you know, it's it seems to be a

But I think it's intentional though, Like I think they are trying to get you to play. I think I recognized as well. I'm also playing it, but I'm not nearly as far as you. I'm a couple hours in, and I think in the very beginning they're like, hey, this building probably has some stuff in it. You can walk by it and not go into it. You can go in through the front door and you can fight

Yeah, I feel like there are times where it's like you'll just approach like a house on the side of the road, and it's like, okay, well you could open this door if you want to burn through four of your lock picks, or you could find the actual key to this barn which is somewhere, and I anytime I saw that, I'm like, I'm finding the like bespoke key. I'm not just like burning through my lock picks for this.

It's like you could get twenty of that map into this map. We're not that pussy small map. We're a big, big dig map here, like that was the whole thing. It's just like how big the fucking map would be? And this is like in terms of square mileage. It's not like I'm sure, I don't know, but it wouldn't sprise me with like a Skyrim or a Fallout four

When I was playing it, I was thinking, like, this is a killer game. I feel like this is like in terms of just the game mechanics, like this is like the standard for the genre now for me.

And then the.

Reviews came out, and I think largely they were positive, Like when I last looked, it was a like an eight m Metacritic, but there were definitely some like sixes out there. I think IGNN game Spot both gave it a six, and you know, I was just kind of

Great, because you would need to hit embargo and say you're running out of time and these have this game in particular, in my opinion, I have like eight side quests already and I just started. So if you're not doing those side quests and you're not really exploring that game, you're probably missing a good chunk of what's fun about it.

Yeah, yeah, you're not just missing you are definitely missing some really fun side quests, like some of those are the best quests in the game. But also, I think you're doing yourself a disservice in terms of what you're doing in the main quest, because I do think that, you know, in a lot of the more negative reviews, I saw complaints about, like, oh, the crafting system. I feel like I was always overwhelmed and I was dying

It is good. It is worth it.

Yeah, and you're leveling up your character, which you need. The I'm curious how you're leveling right now. I have I think there's three. There's warrior abilities, there's ranger abilities, and then there's uh magic Yeah, I was gonna call it magic man abilities, but wizardry. I think it's the right one. Yeah, and I went magic Man and so I'm shooting these like balls out and doing a lot

Yeah.

And like the gear upgrading stuff I thought was great.

Like it's not the most like intricate, uh you know system, It's just like, okay, well, these type of things require these two items, and these require these two leveled up versions of those items, so you can combine things to you know.

It's it's all very well thought out.

But like, you know, you've got your which I'm sure if you're a wizard, you've got the wand which is like infinite, Like there's no finite AMMO for.

Any of your right now, mostly the grim War.

Yeah, so that's the thing is like, that's what I love about Wizard is I've got the grim War in my left hand and a wand in my right. So it's like you can boom boom bom boom, like kind of range throw magic at him, but then you can grimwore throw fireballs or rain ice down on them and stuff like that.

And the switch your load out really fast, which I really like because I'm I'm mostly a distance combat person. I very rarely have a sword or a mallet. It's usually like a bow and then my wizard skills, and so it was really neat for me when I ran out of I forget what they call mana, but when you run out of juice, I would whatever and I would switch to my bow and then I would bow them to death. And it was kind of sick that.

Yeah, it's it's the Y button on Xbox to switch, and it's just like switching guns and Call of Duty. So it's like switching to a launcher to knock down on a UAP or something. But like there's also rings and accessories and stuff, so if you want to like, okay, it's very important to me that I'm switching between stuff frequently.

So can you respect if I like have way through the game, I'm like, I actually do want to be a warrior? Can I switch? What does it cost me?

Uh?

I don't know if it goes up every time. I did it once and it cost me like a thousand gold, which is not much at all. No, yeah, okay, Yeah, money comes pretty easily in this, so yeah, you can respect any time.

Uh.

And it's just like it's very easy because like the weapons are simple to like again, you don't have to live up a bunch of different trees. Like I did not have warrior stuff at all, but if I found this super unique you know, exquisite battle axe or something, I could pull that out despite not having any like points that go into like you know heavy weapon abilities

Yeah, the dialogue options have been really interesting. What did you go with? I went with uh, I went with like a shady guy court.

Yes, I think me, you and Bank all did the exact same.

I know I was with a court Auger.

Yeah.

I think I will go ranger for the Wreckord. I'm much more early on than you. But for my first round I did Wizard just because I wanted to see what the magic balls were. Like, you can't just say shoot three balls of magic that do damage and have me not be like, well, I know what a sword and a bo do, but gotta I know what three balls do.

Yes, Mary, that's awesome because like, let's say you like having a Let's say you're a warrior and you've got a sword and shield. You could put a point into that like missile salvo, magic salvo ability and just map it to your dpad, So no matter what weapons you have equipped or anything, you could have your sword and shield out. But you see a dude up there and it's kind of sniping you, you can just look up there, hit a deepad magic missile stuff going that way.

I do need to do that because I found it a little irritated. So I'm not as Yeah, I keep saying this, but like I think I still have a couple qualms of this game that I haven't solved yet that it looks like you've had the time to solve. And one of them is is that like, uh, I'm hitting right bumper to find my magic abilities. It's also how you can tell your partner what to do, which you need to do because my partner has an agro.

Quick Miro, Oh yeah, it's super simple.

So just when you go into that radio menu, so you hit LB, just highlight anything and just tap a deepad thing. RB is your grenade. But then up down, left, right you can have anything. So if that can be companions step too. So if you know, every time into a fight you want him to draw a fire map, it to up and then every time a fight starts to tap up you're good to go. But they will also do that stuff of their own volition in combat.

You know you want control over that. The vines are yea, yeah, I want the vines. Those are the ones that they prevent you from walking forward. I was curious and we were talking about intelligence and things like that. So because I went with a build that was a bit smarter, I had more intelligence options and I can kind of tell when people are lying, or I can kind of I get like, I think a bit of a warning

Yeah, and there are big like you know, that was one of the early ones where it's like, you know, oh, I wonder if I should trust or not because like and it doesn't make it, you know, super duper obvious with some and some of them have huge ramifications for like basically who you're siding with and things like that and what's gonna happen the fate of certain characters, and so there were a lot of decisions where I was like, man, I can't decide what to do here, And a lot

Their own biases too, right, yeah they might not be right.

Yeah, yeah, it's incredibly well written. I love the Companion except for the last one. Last one. I know I do not like that last companion. You'll know when you see.

It's that the yeah, the second, the second I saw, What the fuck is this? I've seen like several review horny reviewers called her out wait, like pro horny.

Uh.

There was like a pull quote on a review that I saw that says something about like the permanently horny mage Yachtsley is fun.

To be horny.

I thought you were saying people were horny for Yatley, which would be no, I don't know, weird.

Okay, okay, that's funny. Yes, she is horny. Her character is.

First of all, you're allowed to be horny for a maze.

You haven't seen it.

You haven't seen Yachtley, I haven't seen. If anyone's horny for y, they need to go to jail.

Based on visual or based on how they after both a little bit.

At just more than like, I think it would be illegal.

This is just a weird animal, weird Harley Quinn something or other like, I just yeah.

You should just just go to jail. Okay, check yourself into a jail if you have sex with.

I really like the guy I have now. He's Blue. I like him. I think that he's really consistent, he's not annoying. He's been very helpful so far, and his attacks have been beneficial to me in battle. So I like this guy.

Guy.

I'm going to keep him around.

That fire like blunderbusting he's got that can burn like vine very effective.

Burning in general is very effective in this game, or at least in the island I'm in now, because I can't tell you many times it's like damn, there's thorns in the way, and it's like not for me, not for me. And Blue Boy because he can burn right through them, So it's it's been nice to have him around, but I have historically had problems with annoying sidekicks, Like it's easy for me to just kind of get tired of people who are around trying to help me out.

What have you.

I you saying, it's well written, but I'm just curious just because of the amount of dialogue in this game, and as someone who is just such a more dewey person, this might just be me because I don't gravitate towards games like Oblivion. This is not my bad. Yeah, I still find it really talky with You can talk to them at the fire when you camp for the night, and they'll have a little asterisk over their head if

You know, I think we're wired the same with that stuff. And just to ease your mind with that, I think each character has that opening salvo of just like tell me about yourself, where are you from?

What's your deal? You know, like what do you like?

And that's what you do with Kai And it's like a lot and I don't know if you got the thing when you do that, like it's like, oh, he taught you this thing and you got like plus two permanent perception bonus or something it did.

Which is why I was like, I'll do that again. But I did speed through it and didn't actually read or listen or care. And I think that that's a bit of a that's a bit of a knock on myself for not probably playing the game I'm supposed to. But I'm also just saying it was a lot to read.

I'll say the story stuff is good like all that. All those conversations with the companions I thought were good. But just to ease your mind when you go back to the party camp in the future, if you have done that opening, you know, what your deal.

What's your backstory?

Like there's everyone has that first like here's seven questions and things. You go down and that's it going forward. After a big story beat or something, you might go back and there's a little thing over Kai's head and he'll.

Just be like, man, that was fucked up back there.

Hopefully things are better, and then that's it, Like you've you're not going to have another like thing, not going to tell me.

A mountain back story because he's already told me his ex r those.

Yeah, each there's three companions.

Each one of them has one longer sequence of kind of getting to know him at the camp, and then once you do that, it's just like quick check ins.

So the good news is that even though there's a lot of dialogue so far, I have enjoyed the dialogue, and my companion was pretty fun, and the characters that I've met so far have also been enjoyable. I haven't been tired or bored by the story in this game, but I don't think I also have the main hook of the plot yet. I think I'm still in that intro area where they're like like, I'm killing stuff and I'm learning everything, but I don't. I haven't met a king yet, and I feel like in this game you're

Well, the king you have? You've heard about the Emperor. He's the one who sent me.

Yeah, I've heard I've heard about him.

Yes, yeah, you're basically going like I heard someone described it as like fantasy Australia.

It's like this like island words.

Right, Oh, your skinny bag of bagdaggons with three XP.

I'll say it's not a lot of like fantasy.

Chicken so own your froy he's there.

He's called chicken soap.

That's that's more cockney.

Get him. Yeah. I turned in to cat me really easily. To Australia, it's called chicken Soap.

I just went into like a Hammersmith kind of Newcastle thing there too. Get in.

Yeah, what is the premise to this? It's sent the Pillars of Eternity Universe.

I know that.

Yeah, I didn't know that until a few hours in.

Andy'd be kind of interested in it because I thought this was an interesting world.

You would hate those games, I'll tell you before.

Yeah, I know there's the RPGs, and I believe I would, but I will say the world.

So much reading in those games.

You, this is the right way for me to take in that world.

The world like people, I'm just saying I wouldn't recommend you play those games, but I wasn't maybe read it wasn't at risk of it.

I just I can appreciate the world here because like, yeah, so basically you are sent you're like an Adyrian, which is basically just like the big conquering uh you know, just like they're like the military basically of the main land here, and you get sent to this island to meet up with this ambassador and Adyrians are starting to like come to the island.

I won't give.

Every beat here, but basically you get there and it's like, oh man, everyone here hates Darians. What's the deal? And then it's like, oh, why are some of these people fucked up? And they got like plants grown out of their face and they're you know, having crazy dreams and going crazy. So it's that's called the dream scourge. Is this like pandemic situation that's going across the island. So

No, you're good. You're good.

You know the charisma check. Lets you say, get to fucking. So it's kind of.

Interesting stuff like that, like, and it's uh, I think I liked the story I did. If you would have told me when I saw the like SGF reveal of this fantasy RPG from Obsidian and the Pillars of a Turn of the Universe, I probably would have been like that ain't for me.

But I like it.

I like it a lot. Like I said, I'm like fifty hours in now. I feel like I'm literally like going up to the last thing right now I had.

What do you think your completion is? Sounds like you've done a lot of side quests. You think really like stretched the boundaries of this game and have done.

A lot of the Yep, all these areas have like these six golden totems you can find. I've gotten every one of those. I've done every bounty. Every place you go to has like five bounties you can pick up. I've done every bounty, every side quest I've run into. Yeah, there's no like in game percentage count or anything like that, but like by the time I've gone on to the next area, every time I don't have a single side

So like a couple of those. But like, I've been doing everything in this game, and I have not gotten tired of it.

I mean, I think that that says a lot, and I appreciate that you haven't just like made an effort to complete this game. You are really getting into playing this game and like discovering all of its secrets. And I think for people who are fans of Oblivion and Skyrim, you kind of want someone who is invested in the world building more than just like ye average play through of the game. So I'm more inclined to listen to you.

Yeah, it's like even like with like Oblivion and Skyrim, which games I really enjoyed, Like I didn't. It felt very fantasy trophy to me, like, Oh, I'm the dragon born and here's you know, the warring factions and the dragons and all that.

It's like, all right, this is every fucking Lord of the Rings thing I've ever seen.

And I was assuming I would be buttoning through a lot more stuff than I was here because I was listening to everything. I was like examining every option. I was really trying to think of, like what I would want to do in this situation.

And it's made it a great experience.

Oh that's great, Dan, I think it's great that you're enjoying it. I have also enjoyed my time with it. But I've been really torn because there's another game that I've really wanted to play, and it was really difficult to decide each evening if I would play this or another game that I want to talk to Mike about thoughts with a vowed Is there anything else do you want to say?

Dan? Uh?

That's that's the you know, I just can't imagine, you know, the last hour I probably have left.

I can't imagine turning hard on it.

It seems unlikely.

Yeah did you pay for it?

Uh?

No, I I was gifted a copy.

Why would be a classic kish? Okay, yeah, I did not kiss it.

I was I was gifted a copy. And I will also say my last piece about this, for we moved to Tales of Iron two that I got a Xbox code and I have not turned my Xbox on in a hot minute. And when I when I turned it on, I was like it was like updating, like a year's worth of updates. Yeah, and uh, it's really gotten me back into having my Xbox on and I really missed having my Xbox, so I think about is cool for doing that too. It's like also revived my love of

I played the first one. I want to say twenty twenty one, the first game I think I talked briefly about back in the day on fire Escape. Odd Bug Studio basically made very very Metroid light, more of a two D side scrolling Souls Born game.

Feel solsy, Yeah, yeah.

Deliberate combat, slow paced. It's the aesthetic is you're a bunch of rats. You're like a rat kingdom that gets assaulted. Yeah, there's always rats in my games. Wait, why what's the deal with the ra I think these are the only two? Or no, there's are mice.

There might be mice.

They're cute. I feel like they're mice versus bats and bats are the bats?

Are the bat guys in this? It was frogs last time, the frog kingdom you were fighting against. But now it's it's very like if you were just to look at the art for the game, he'd be like, oh, that's cute, but like someone gets their head chopped off and you see a spine and there's a blood around it.

Within the Yeah, but it.

Plays out like a cross between the Witcher three because there are monster hunts here where you're following these side quest mythical beasts around the map. Some Metrovenia light elements you do unlock like new tools to get around different areas.

Uh.

Souls born combat and that's reductive.

Just by that, I mean it's very deliberate, and once you commit to an attack, you're the animation is going to play out, uh for better or worse.

But there's also like.

Monster hunter vibes in the sense that the big you kill and the enemies you kill and the biomes you're going to are reflected in your armor, so you're getting a lot more different kinds of armor and weapons in this game.

There are a lot of trade offs to each one.

There's elemental weaknesses, but generally you're going out into the world coming back and you're rebuilding the like the mouse Kingdom or rat Kingdom, and you're building back up your hub, which is very satisfying. There's not really like a tree. You're upgrading things along you're just like going out into the world to get each of these major buildings restructured

Do you have all your stuff? Like, you've rebuilt your four different you have your cook, you have your smithy, you have your I think there's four that you have to.

Get, the armorer and the no the smithy, the cook, the grosser, and there's one more I forget something like that.

But I have those finished.

But there's several There's still a decent amount of question marks on my armor because they show you it's like, oh, here's the hunter tree for your armor. Here's the bone armor tree. It's a very monster hunter. So I still have question marks at the bottom of those. So I either haven't found the beast in a side quest or haven't gotten there in the story.

But so many side quests too, where they're like asking you to do things. I haven't found any of these things yet, but I was just curious your experience. In one of the first areas, there was like a guy who lost his glasses and I'm just like trying to find the glasses. There's another guy who's on.

The fishing poles.

Yeah, so there's lots of different places for you to find things for people, but I haven't found any of that stuff yet.

I found the fishing pole. And once you find the fishing pole, that leads into this whole other part of that side quest.

I actually like those the most.

Those are also when they lean into the Metroidvania aspects of it, where you really have to look for those, but if you ask townsfolk, they'll kind of point you in the right direction, and like it's it reminds me of like Zelda. It's like if you get stuck, talk to townsfolk, they'll give you hints. But I love the combat. The mob's enemy mob variety. They throw it you really makes you. It's a pretty typical like, oh, if they flash red, you have to dodge it. If they flash yellow,

They also put a lot of energy into the Perry system, which I think is really interesting because like, this is a very difficult game. This is a complicated and tough game to get through, and they don't give you a lot of health. You have potion that you can refill at very few stations or berries, and sometimes I would

And this now stupid question.

I did download this and start this, and everything you're saying you're boasting about this sounds intriguing to me. But like I started it up and it was like, I feel like it was like ten minutes of just like very serious narration about the lore of a rat kingdom, and it was just like I can't fucking do this, and I just turned it off. So like it is like, bitch, how much of that is there? Because like you're giving me take these rats? Seriously, you're giving.

Me PTSD from metaphor. Because it was not ten minutes of intro in this game.

I got it, got through the intro, and then it was like, oh, here's like systems, like let's just start throwing like a bunch of like oh that, yes, didn't talk at you, And it's like this has just taken a lot to get into here.

Uh. I definitely think they keep introducing like oh, you're rebuilding your kingdom. There is a certain point where the gameplay overall loop will come more into focus. It's like, all right, I'm going out to these different biomes to recruit.

That's even get attacked. Did you even let the bats attack? How did you get yes, I'm talking to you?

I played.

Look, is there like you know, like certain games are like a ractophobia mode where it's like spiders will turn into pieces of bread. Is there a way that I can just they can be dudes instead of rats? Because I just can't take the like a rat kingdom seriously, like rat kings.

They're rats the whole game.

That's ridiculous.

I don't know, I am bread.

It's just a bread kingdom.

That's being a serious rat lore.

And I think you're getting You're getting the hollow Night treatment because I think dan Is like severely judged this game based on one type.

That's why That's why I said it was a stupid thing. Is like I I realized when I was going off of nothing. I was just like, this seems stupid. I need to get out of here.

You are denying yourself. I think one of the best games of the year, and I think it will come up and so you probably should get it another play. I have adored this game, and it is the reason that I've only played a limited amount of a Vowed. I think it is phenomenal artistically and for combat reasons. Mike, I agree with you. I think the boss fights are spectacular and they're so well earned, and you get this

Yeah, Dan, I don't know if this answer your question, but it does. Once you get past like your kingdom's attacked, it's destroyed, and you're basically going out on a revenge quest to rebuild your town. You're now the rat king and you're the second biome you go to is a bunch of like owl people, owl people that live in a forest that you're helping out, and then you're recruiting someone from there to come do this in your kingdom. Then you go to like the bog marshlands where the

You can't save him. Talk to me.

I feel like the problem with me.

I feel like it's the Lord of the Rings thing where it's like because I think the Hobbits are idiots, and I'm just like, why would I root for these little idiots?

And it's like I just mice. Like if there was like a bunch of mice bad.

Guys, I'd be like, yeah, sure, but like I don't want to root for a little mice, dumb ass that like I want to play as something cool, like I don't know cool.

He's a fucking motherfucker. He kills but we kills them. You think you were tough looking Danny.

One wants you No, I want to be a condrac man.

It's very impressive that a little wee mouse can kill a giant snake monster. Wish like the the like tiny little weapons.

Literally, it's just Game of Thrones.

But they just like Gary was just like normal people instead of little idiots. Super normal for sure.

No talking about the people like you. Yeah, this is the problem.

I understand you guys cannot enjoy Lord of the Rings because all these guys look like little helpless idiots.

And I had the same feeling, like a bunch of mice.

What do we why?

Why are they cool?

Those A those little helpless idiots A bow to no one, and B the rats cut off people's heads and kill giant snakes. You don't have to if you don't want to play the game, that's fine. I feel like I should. I just need to get past this. You're not going to there's you're a rat.

The whole game a therapy.

I would rather be a rat than Elijah Wood.

Yeah, same, I agree.

There, yea, I will say so Buggy.

I don't love how because you are backtracking a lot in this game. On the one hand, I kind of appreciate that the enemy mobs respawns can be randomized. When I was in the forest, i went back. I also don't think the monster hunts are the side ones are always that great. It's less involved boss fight in more whittle away. It's health down a third, then he's going to go somewhere else in the map, go get another the second third of his health down. Some of those

I think I also couldn't find full sets. What I think is interesting about the sets is that, like you were saying, they're all elemental damage, so you're ultimately playing Pokemon, right, Like, if you're going to fight someone who does heavy ice damage, you want to make sure that you have the right attack. If you are attacking someone with a sword that does ice damage against an ice enemy, it does nothing. You're wasting your fucking.

The snake is like fire you need and what when you use the weakness. It really fucks them up.

Like set, Yeah, it fucking kills them. And so I think is fun is that by literally, by changing my armor set and my weapon to be the right element, I was kind of melting certain enemies. That makes me feel like a golden god. Going back to those areas, I think what it's trying to get you to do is, hey,

Also, Yeah, I mean the like the balance once you start getting more and more tools, it's like the balance between the bow enemies. It's like enemies will start reacting and they're like, they know you're using the bow. You just kill them, that's their weakness. So they'll start charging you. So then you're dodging, you're countering, you're using your spell just recharts. So you're shooting this giant fireball at a

It's kind of like oblivion.

Abow.

Yeah you're just.

Getting these Yeah, you're just getting these like spell I just realized I also have the same spell systems. Yeah, it's really funny just to have these spells. In addition, Dan by all means you should like this.

I think I probably will. If I give it a shot, I probably will like it.

I think mechanically it's your jam the.

Like serious storytelling.

If this answer your question really does not stick around, it becomes literally more just like hey, go get this person who can rebuild this aspect of your castle, bring them back. Okay, I don't think it's overly cute. Really throughout the owl character is a bit you're cute.

I think it's just the issue that they're mice.

Do you not like rodents like in real life?

No, it's it's really I mean when I say, it's like the same thing as like the Lord of the Rings thing, where it's like I think if Lord of the Rings didn't have Hobbits and it was just following like Vigo Mortensen trying to kill a big evil guy, I'd probably be into it. But it's just when it's like, who are these dumb like I can't get past that.

He's he's a strong motherfucker. The main character of this game is a beast, and I think if you play literally ten minutes of it, you'll kind of discover that because there's people that you're fighting with and they just a lot of people get brutally murdered in this game, right in front of your main character, and he's like all right, and he fucks people up. So I think you'll I think you'll come to appreciate how strong these characters are.

If I played, I guarantee.

That they're not little weenie boys. They are These are like murderous mice men.

So it's cool and especially hearing about the like you know, I love like in Rogue Legacy and any game or Haites does this too, where you go back and you're like leveling up your hub and stuff like that. Like I'm a sucker for that type of stuff. So like, I have no doubt that if I just got past my stupid thing, I would enjoy it.

Yeah, it's still it's still a bit rough around the edges.

Certain mechanical things like the grappling hook, the the like I don't know how to even describe it. The hit box, yeah, or to recognize, like to give you the prompt is you have to like if you run too far and I'm at a certain point when you're backtracking, I'm just sprinting around the world fast traveling and running back to Oh, I remember there was a chest there.

Oh that mine had a lot of these enemies. I'm gonna go back down there.

The grappling hook I wish was a little more free form, but you really need to be in its like circle of influence for it to give you the button prompt LB or whatever it is.

On controller, I have a nitpick the side quest that you can take. There's like bosses per area and you can replay the bosses. And I accidentally hit replay boss and I don't I didn't want to, so I was like, I'll just undo that quest. You can't once you accept a quest, you just have to kill the fucking boss again. Oh and I wasn't able to undo it, and that really pissed me off.

Wait, sorry, what were you trying to do that? It didn't let you do it.

Didn't let me unselect replay a boss Like I had a boss that you could redo the quest. You can redo their same boss quests and I undo it.

There's also I had a boss down to or no, So I had a particularly tough mob down to, like the last enemy, and he was toward the edge of the screen and I went to swing my sword or axe at him whatever I was using, and it transitioned the screen because I went into the next area. So they all respawned after a pretty difficult fight that only happened once so far. But like now I know why they bring up barriers during boss fights, so you can't just accidentally despawn them and respawn them.

Yeah, it's you could, Like I said, you could tell.

It's like there's a lot of like excellent craft on display here, but there's also some oversights that maybe they'll patch them out, but I don't know. It's one of those games I kind of like because of its rough edges in some ways. It's not a perfect game by

Yeah, going back to the world building that I've really liked about it. I got a couple hollow night vibes from this game. Dan. I was in these corridors. There's lots of different ways to get into the same spaces, so maybe it will be a like a wishing well or something, and going into the well does it. Or maybe there's like a tunnel system, or there's bridges and at one point a boss made the bridge collapse and now the bridge is an entrance into these like tunnel systems,

Oh And I definitely had that. I did appreciate that too.

It's so just like Graham and then it's like, oh, this shopkeeper is being funny and then having a little song and yeah.

Yeah, dad's a nada.

Yeah.

I think that this game has vibes like that, I really do. I think it had its moments where it wants you to relax or enjoy or mourn, which I think is also really interesting. Like there's a lot of fucking people die in this game, and it's brutal, and I kind of started getting a little off put. Every time someone was like, I need you to help me find my brother, I'd be like, your brother's fucking dead, Bud. We all know that, and we would just constantly like

Yeah, I gotta go back and finish it. I think I'm like.

I've heard it's like twelve hours total.

It's really not huge huge too.

Okay, Yeah, it makes the first game seem short, short, but it's still not like A. It like Double A is even pushing it.

I think it depends on how difficult you find it as well, because I've struggled on certain bosses and put like a like an hour into a people, but other places I've kind of been able to breeze through, but I'd like to finish it by the next time we talk as well. My playtime is ten hours. I don't even think I'm I don't think I'm as far as.

You, so yeah, I must be close. I'm about that as well.

But yeah, but I'm stupid, so I feel like I'll have to to really burn through. I was struggling with some of those fights.

Another new game. I've played a lot of Sieve seven at this point. I don't think I love that game.

Oh no, I've heard problems with the launch of this game, and I'm curious what you think about it, because I've heard a lot of people say that maybe it came out too early, it was like bud here something.

I don't have any technical problems with it. I know people are like not loving the UI. I don't think it's as exhaustive with its satorialization and CIVI six. The Civilipedia you could just hover over anything and it would kind of explain it. This you need to dig a bit more. I for those who don't know the basic The big thing here is that whereas in past civilization games you would pick a civilization, you pick ancient Egypt with the leader would be Cleopatra, let's say, Or you'd

So now it's like, well, now.

Now he's become like I have a vendetta against him, So fuck that whole archipelago gasoline whaling plan. I'm going I'm going to build up my eastern front. I make plans in SIV seven, and the game just does not give me the room to see them through it all. It's like, oh, here's a new narrative thing. You have to choose between letting these immigrants in or turning them away, or oh, this world leader, the city state leader like of Sparta, wants you to help them in this minor skirmish.

But there is a lot of cool stuff there.

I and if for acxis has proven anything they can do that x chosen like every expansion for at the first expansion they release of every game, it's like, oh, this is what the game should have been. I just you know, put fifteen hours into it before that expansion came out. So if anybody's like on the fence about it, and if you're you really like seeing a leader and a civilization through and setting out a goal for yourself and keeping it in sight even when other cool stuff

Uh?

Game about digging a hole? Yeah?

Is that what's called?

Yep, you dig a hole?

In a game so perfectly named? Since uh yeah, that's it's always.

After I'm talking about, I know, strategy, something really deep where it's like the whole time, I'm just having flashbacks to uh and Gifted Class. That was the one game we would have on the computers where we play CIV too, And I remember, like, again, I'm easily the dumbest person in that class because like everybody else was really into it and talking about diplomacy and all that stuff, and I would get on there, and it's like, why is this not Command of Conquer?

Right?

Like, how do I build the tanks? How do I build the cure offs? And like and it just kept like so from CIV to I've never understood that series. So the whole time you're describing that, I'm thinking about how it was just way too much for me. Yeah you tossed to me and it's like, oh yeah, game about digging a hole? Yeah, that's that's your speed, my speed?

Yeah, what is so? Yeah?

What is a game about digging a hole?

How does this?

So you dig a hole?

Uh?

You I beat it in about probably an hour and a half on stream yesterday. And you get a house and you got a backyard and there's a spot for you to dig a hole. And you got a garage, and when you go to the garage, there's an upgrade terminal. There is a like sell computer, so there's like an upgrade bench and like a computer where you can sell the shit you find.

Uh. That's pretty much it.

And the upgrades you can do are your shovel, your inventory, uh, your battery because your shovel is like an auto shovel thing.

They're like, well, probably.

Once you upgrade it at first, it's probably.

Start well, so it starts. It is an automated thing with a battery and a tiny battery at first. But it's just like and I've heard, uh, I heard the next land you guys were saying it's not great on mouse and keyboard because you have to click every time.

For the shovel controller, you can just hold the trigger.

So when you start, you have this tiny, dumb ass little shovel and you go into your backyard. It's like it's just like little tiny bits of dirt coming up and it's like, ah, fuck, this sucks. And uh then like every one in obviously like, oh there's a rock. Okay, we're a stone. Okay, I got a stone. You take the stone back to your computer. You sell a stone for a dollar, and you can, you know, cost money to get your upgrades from.

The upgrade.

People.

I love it so much, un ironically, and so it's like, yeah, you start and there's like a lot of stones right at the service and I got five stones.

I'm gonna go sell that for five dollars. Then I'm gonna upgrade my thing.

And then you get a shovel upgrade and it's like ooh, the radius of the thing you're digging is now much bigger. It's like, oh, I'm actually okay. I'm like I'm down to my ankles in this hole. Now this is great.

At a certain point, it's like I'm having trouble getting out of this hole.

And jetpack. Yeah, and so I bought a jet pack. And you can just gonna get a bunch of rocks and jet pack out of a hole?

Is it?

First person?

First person?

Dude, I guess any scratch, Yeah, yeah, And so yeah, you're just going deeper and deeper, and you can buy a little upgrades, like you can get like lamps and stuff because it starts getting dark and you can put lamps on the on the walls, and like at times, like you like a little radar like metal detector thing that's like, oh, you need to, you know, go in

Well, there's other whole based scenarios that you could come up with besides Barbarian.

I mean it a hallway underground and it may be called holes.

I have not seen holes. I've seen Barbarian, but you got to go that.

You must go see Madam Zarne on the mountain.

What's he doing?

You should see holes?

But I like holes.

Yeah, we know, Dan.

Yeah, but we didn't talk about you saw Barbarian.

We should we talk about it?

Yeah, about it tonight. We always got on an episode one hundred okay, gotten show or yeah, maybe I was swear you might have stepped away it was great, okay, or maybe.

We discussed it before we.

Did, but that was the last episode. Yeah, okay.

Anyway, Anyway, the game about digging a hole sounds pretty straightforward, but there's jet packs, so maybe it's not.

You get a jet pack, you get likes to get dynamites. You'll get to like lava rocks and stuff like that that you can't dig pass and so you die. Yeah, there's health, and you gotta you can pay to get your health back.

It looks like a five dollars like it was.

It five dollars. It's worth five dollars for sure. So yeah, you just just keep digging further and further. You just have a good time.

I can see this as one of my like mental health. Like, listen, I'm putting some I'm putting Simpsons on TV, and I would like to play a game on the steam deck on my couch and not really give a ship. That is what this says. This is Wow, you're doing powerwash Stimulator.

Yes, it is that. It is the whole version of Wash Simulate.

Yeah, this is very simple, but I do I do like simple mechanics for a night or two. I think like at a five dollars price point, this is a reasonable investment for someone who is maybe like stressed out and wants like I consider this a cozy game. This is a I could see that this is a cozy game.

I see it as a like dopamine game where it's like you get you know, if you're using the shovel for so long, you upgrade to the drill, and it's like it's like, oh man, this is an incredible feeling right now.

Yeah yeah, if it brings you joy, I mean, I think that's great. And I and I am an advocate for like simple mechanics, right, Like I remember like when I was doing my uh I forget, I was like a I was like a bar made, you know, like in an RPG, and I poured beers and I mopped the floor, and I was like, this is a nice existence. You're digging a fucking hole. This isn't rocket science. You go down and then maybe you sometimes once you're down there long enough, you go left and right.

Sometimes you will.

Yeah, yeah, but I think it's probably pretty nice to stumble across like a chest with like stuff in.

It, right, and they make it rare enough to where it matters.

It's like, oh, this had a bunch of money and some dynamite and some lamps in it, and it's like, oh shit, that's great. And then it's like as you're going deeper, you come back up and you got a big inventory. It's like I got twenty fucking things of gold and silver and platinum, and you cash like I just got three thousand dollars from that hole where it's like when you start and you're getting like three dollars a hole. You know, it's it's very just simple, just

I think that's great. I think this is simple and something I would probably play on like a stress like to relieve stress after a tough day is probably how I would do this. So I'm kind of in, yeah, like dumbest shit, but like effective at bringing joy.

Yes, what does this face MIC's had for the last two minutes.

I don't know. I was just like making a face up that I like a person would make when they're listening about a game about digging a hole. It's not knocking to it. It looks I've been watching like the gameplay on Steam. The gifts are mesmerizing.

Yeah, it's five dollars. That's like that's a no brainer. Yeah, Dan or no Mary, what's spirit swap?

Yeah?

So on the other end of uh, what I would call like cozy relaxing games is spirit swap low five beats to match three two A bit of a mouthful, but as you can imagine, it is a match three game with lots of story and friend building mechanics. So you're like a new You're like in a town. You're going over to people's houses. You play a couple match three versus games against them. Matching three is exactly how you remember it on your phones. You match the shapes

What Tetris block would you want to fuck?

This is square?

The stick?

No no no, no, no no no, the the block the no, like, I don't even know how to describe it, is l block.

Well there's the block. There's the block. Yeah no, not the T block, the one that block like an hour.

The.

Little freak. Yeah, there's always one.

It's already, it's already, it looks ready to go.

Elaborate. No, I am I really almost said something vile? Please please please?

What was it? No? Was it?

You can't suspense I'm not a creep.

I am not a creep.

Dan, what's this? Eternal strands?

You guys don't have anything else to say about.

Puzzle blocks.

There's no conversation about this.

I don't know. It's nice.

I'm just trying to move on, not from your talking about the game.

From okay.

Sorry, I was holding back all of my like does everything you have to have fucking in it? That thoughts?

So, like, I know why I didn't know that this would have romance options, and in general I did not want that from this game. So I didn't partake. I don't want that. I said no, but I was able to say no and it was very comfortable. It wasn't awkward. I was just like, no, thanks, we're friends. Just the coffee and the swap three for me. So I mean, you can uh not do that.

As a puzzle game by itself? Is it good?

I think that it is a simple swap three game mechanic, so I think it succeeds at doing swap three mechanics. Does it get more complicated than that? Not really, except for the as I was saying, you get those special moves, which is like you've made an X out of your colors or you've made a tea. There's different shapes that you can make that do special moves. But I think it is a simple game. I don't think this is

This reminds me of a Goodbye Volcano High. Like the art style, the character design kind of yeah, like Haities meets Goodbye Volcano High and people are.

Hot in it, like everyone's attractive. But I was like, no, I didn't. I didn't want them that way.

Very I just always horny. Maybe I feel like you bring up horny games a lot and I.

Can't help it.

There are a lot of horny.

Games now for the In my defense, I was never like playing Haites and was like, uh, like trying to get it on. I was just trying to play this sick game. And then I was like everybody's hot, Like why did they make all these people so hot? And it was I was like, no, off put by it. I was surprised and I was not prepared for how sexy they made all these characters. And then Spirra Swap like they just kind of like made these good looking

I wish horniness was merely a choice for me.

It's a way of life.

I love video games, and I'm also, you know, a horny as as human beings will get, I just they don't intertwine.

I just don't like, I'm not against it because except have you played uh what what are the I'm trying to think of the game, oh, Dark Watch back in the day, No, that was a horny vampire while West Shooter game I'm.

Trying to think of, like a horny game that could break most people.

You've never even realized was horny until I saw people talking about.

So okay, look, there was like maybe like okay, I'm saying late nineties, So there's a sweet spot, a little bit of you know, Anna Williams and tech in a little bit of looking for the nude code and tomb Raider.

Yes, you know I was.

I was dude to teenager as a teenager like anyone. But I can't say I've been horny while playing a video game since the nineties.

I think it's been a minute.

I got to put the controller down every once in a while.

Yeah, Haiti's switch in my brain. I wasn't prepared for that one.

But it didn't get me.

Haities got me for I didn't.

Even realize that it was supposed to be horny. Like I beat that game and I started reading all this stuff about it. I was like, oh, what, it's horny, Like I just had no idea that.

Did something to me. But I I think generally I'm able to ignore it as well. But I also feel like I'm constantly playing games like Mike, Like I'm playing like some kind of mouse fighting game or some kind of like Orri where you're like some weird alien forest creature. And it's like that's not meant to invoke anything inside of me.

That's how I feel about it.

It's like, this is like a rat lady, you should not be horny about what is this?

What's with them in the room?

And yet he has a problem with rats yeah, but you're fucking rats and he's been like digging holes with no boners. You guys are both.

As I'm not.

She's like a cat bird type something like. I don't know that's what it's. It's weird when people are horny for things that are supposed to look like animals.

You are allowed to escape our regular earthly planes from time to time. Have you ever played mass effect?

Like, come on, I did play all the mass effects? Are those horny? I know they're romance options, but I didn't consider them horny games.

Oh my god, you have no dick?

Should I put that on the soundboard?

Yes? Da?

What's eternal strands?

Oh?

I was way hotter on this.

Before every furry in the world comes to kill you, I'm gonna I got no.

Problem with furries. They can do whatever they want to do.

Subscribed a furry basically.

But I'm saying stuff's not for me doesn't mean it.

Does not be for Everyone's like you don't have to be but there is like an element of like. But if it has for and ears, you're not supposed to be attracted to that.

It's is like, well, I think it's a general rule you shouldn't want to have sex with animals.

I don't think that's not an extreme thing, right, I don't know.

I mean, I think we're just it is a spectrum.

I tried.

I tried to move on to the next game.

Again.

Consenting adults go to town.

Walking around, conditioning the air, walking around screwing each other's brains out. Okay, yeah, before I'm gonna what is Eternal Strands? I think this is the third time I was.

I was way hotter on the support how it came out. It's okay, this sounds much better. I'm not meaning to insult this game, but it's like, it makes me think of Breath of the Wild meats Shadow of the Classes meets Dragon's Dogma, but I want to specifically tipper that with like but definitely not on that level.

You know. This is definitely a smaller budget, more like an indie title. It is good.

I was having a great time with it, and I do. I still think it's a really fun game, but UH avowed it. It's kind of one of those things where it's like, Okay, I can't imagine going back to finish

It is a good game.

Eternal Strands kind of looks like at a glance.

Phoenix writing the Old Gods, the Monsters, Mortals, Phoenix Rising. Yeah, it's got that look.

And I will say that the story it's It's very like that Prince of Persian New Crown, where it's like, I think I'm into everything but the story, the character is the art style, And I don't even think that's just like a me Dan, You're.

Into everything but the story, the characters in the art style. Yeah, No, I mean yeah, I mean I'm just a lot yeah, thechanics.

Gameplay, guy, it's.

A fun game, you know, but it's like there's not a lot going on there with with anything else outside of just you know, pure gameplay loop stuff, which it does well. But uh yeah, it's just hard to get too excited about it. There's just you know, bigger and better out there. But I'm sure this is cheaper. It's so if you don't want to, if you don't have game Pass, or you don't want to spend fifty sixty dollars on a full fledged thing like it's a it's a fun little title.

I would have been way hotter about this. We talked about this before about.

Yeah, I see what you're saying.

Yeah, right, I think that's everything. No, yeah, rude, what did I forget.

Under Magnolia bloom missed?

That does not sound like a real You made that name up?

That's a real game that I'm going to under.

Magnolia bloom in the mess sounds like a game you would in the name, you would have made up for, like Mike's Game of the Year.

You said that when I was talking about there that prequel, the one the predecessor under Quietest of the Night, under Something, you said the exact same thing. This is the sequel to that. I said that, Yeah, yeah, you said this sounds like a fake game. Yeah, under Lily's Quietest of the Night. And now it's Interermagnolia.

That's right.

So it's a metroid Vanian ann and I actually think it's pretty good. It's got some really neat mechanics where you are actually not fighting. There are homuncular I'm gonna try and say that right, and homuncular fight on your behalf. So when you hit attack, a person like comes out of you and slashes. The animation looks pretty sick and you end up getting I think I think four different

I don't know.

It kind of reminds me of like Sultan Sanctuary, Like it's a very simple, desaturated, sad world, but very quickly. Oh and you get a wolf, which I fucking love, and I'll get to that. But I think what I have enjoyed about it is that very quickly this game ramped up and gave me several homunculi that allow me to play this game in lots of different ways. And you can upgrade your characters with different skill tree sets. They can be quite different, and so I feel like

Yeah, I've ever being impressed by the last one kind of came out of nowhere, and there's so many metro advenias nowadays, and I remember thinking that the like you know when you talk about the different summons or however you want to call them, Like, it's got an interesting take on combat, Like I should check this one out.

Yeah, it's got a nice vibe to it as well. It's sorrowful, but it's not like too depressing. And I also think, respectfully, they've known when to shut up, Like I've really gotten to avoid talking, and a lot of this game, a lot of it is you can just like ZipZap through, like you know all of your humunculized backstory and get to the fighting. So I also respect that about this game. It knows its place. Let me fight the boss.

Nice cool.

I think that is everything. Pretty sure. I don't need to talk about Dragons Dogma two. They finally uncapped the frames on console.

So I went back, Oh that's big, Okay.

I still really like that game a lot. I like it about as much, but now it's not fucking chugging. I played like twenty hours of or Less a few weeks.

That's one of those where I, yeah, I got code for PlayStation and I played it a little bit and I have the pro and it was like chugging, and I was like I had to go back and like, can I get it on PC? Like this is just like the performance was like noticeably annoying.

I love the Pond system. I love making my pond, upgrading my pond, trading with other people's ponds. It's a if you can't tell I like Ponds, it's a it's a good game, so we get it. You like Ponds, I have I'm a pawn addict. Are you guys wanna emails or marry what what did you say?

I have one more?

You don't?

Are you adding stuff?

No?

I thought of another one I played.

Okay, wait, hold on is it I thought another one too. I've been playing Warrior Land.

Oh wait, okay, Mary's adding it is Freezing Bulldog Assassin. You.

I didn't type that, I done. That's not my game.

What is your game?

It says it's called Crab Champions.

Oh my god, that sounds more like a very.

Yeah. Crab Champions. It's a real game that I played.

With some of my coworkers for fun. This game is from twenty twenty three. Uh, it's a oh god, it's a crab third person crab shooter. They drop you off on an island. You have to kill everything once you've Once you've cleared the island, you get three treasure chests. You pick which treasure chests you want, which will give you one upgrade, So you can choose if you want to upgrade maybe your defense or your gun, or how fast you shoot, or your reload speed, or a million

Cool.

I feel like you never have anything to say about my games.

I don't. There's not much to like.

You guys didn't anything to say about the whole.

Yeah I did. I said it was spoke after Civilization. Well that's oh, I'm Mary, I'm the vipiting here. No one said shit after civilization. Fuck you, we suck it up.

You talked enough about it, and ditto to you, crab champion.

I can keep talking about the whole.

We get let's okay.

On the kind of three, let's all talk about the alta about civilization. Dan talks, No, I don't want to do that. It's not gonna be fun.

It's experiment.

I'm glad you started that. It wasn't a good idea. Crab Champions, Champions, the shooting, there's a boss fight at the end.

What is the other themes? What's the theme? What's the overarching are there?

Is there a subtext?

No, there's no there's no story. There's no dialogue at all. You start immediately as a crab and you just start killing.

Let me do I'm gonna do my Waypoint host character. What about the meta text?

Though there is no meta text? You're a crab?

Is there an text here?

What's you?

Guys don't know what?

Oh god right, I forgot You're you're not normally on Waypoint?

Are they still around? They came back?

What are what are what are the what kind.

Of thematic undertow is there?

The characters?

It's definitely like an underdog story because you're like this simple little crab and you end up taking on these giant boss fights.

It's about it's about class disparity, yeah, capitalism, colonialism. Yeah, I'm just joking. I loved Waypoint. Yeah, I don't know. It sounds like a simple game, and you you didn't. I'm not gonna play it, but.

Come on, it's your crab.

Maybe maybe i'll play it.

What kind of crabs?

Like a normal one?

The red, the orange red? But you can actually change your color. You can change your skin when you play. You get unlockable so you can look like a green leaf and stuff like that, which I think is neat. But I think you just play it so that you can smash into stuff and kill it. It's hard to get health back, so you have to be really careful taking damage over time because you don't you're never guaranteed health.

That's how life is.

Uh.

Yeah, maybe it's about healthcare systems.

The crabs under capitalism.

Yeah yeah, it's privatized.

Yeah, I like my game is to explore these things.

Yeah, digging a hole. It's just uh, it's uh, it's about how all of us just are trying to escape reality capital All right, you've done enough are the crabs? Gay? I just don't like it.

Could be.

Want about emails to do that all the time? Do you want to read some emails?

Sure?

Yeah, Okay, we're gonna get into emails.

But first, and I'll mention this again at the end of the episode, but both Vinnie and I, Vinnie being over at Next Lander, have been talking about a show we've been doing. We have several episodes recorded. We are getting closer to ready launch. We are looking at March third, twenty twenty five. That is basically next week it's fire

Or Vinnie and Mike.

I don't know. You know, Vinnie, he's an ego maniac. If I say Mike first, he'll freak out.

Younger. Is he like a like TikTok kid or what's his Vinnie's deal?

Uh? He does some stuff on Chive and snap check. But yeah, if you're already subscribed to fire Escapes video tier on Patreon, you will have access to this. It is a top tier exclusive series for us, you will see our whole series. We're basically doing that campaign every other week. We're going to put a new episode up on fire Escape in our off weeks when there's no new podcast episode. If you want to see the evil campaign that Vinny and I are also playing in parallel,

So it's been fun to have both to follows. You're not missing anything.

If you're only subscribed, you're you're missing another campaign if you want to see it, but you're not separate show.

The series itself is not jumping to another channel, correct.

Yeah, but check out Next Landers tiers as well. They do great stuff over there.

I'm frequently on a podcast they do called Never Been a Better Podcast, and that is basically just a beast Cast reunion podcast, and so it's me Abby Backler, Alex Austin, Vinnie just shooting the shit about whatever. So they got good stuff over there. Check them out as well as checking out our Patreon.

That's awesome. I just am such a fan of those guys and they do great work. So it's awesome to see you, Mike working with them for some Patreon exclusive content. I think that's awesome for everybody, A win win.

We're having fun already. We've got a few episodes banked and some funny stuff has already happened that Vinnie was not aware was in the game that I was hoping. So it's been fun. But anyway, for emails, as usually, you can rite into firescape cast at gmail dot com for questions, comments, concerns, which we take very seriously. Don't pass over at all. You want to send in questions to be read on the show that is fires kip Cast at gmail dot com. This first one tonight from

Okay, hey guys, so I recently fell down a nineties movie action marathon. This weekend, after getting off of shift at the hospital, I watched con Air, The Rock, Heat, and Bad Boys. I've seen all of these movies before, but at the age of thirty six, it's been fifteen to twenty years. Each of them had their flaws, but Heat was a movie I thought, I'm so fondly that when I watched it, I had to turn it off. The plot, especially the end, was so awful. What movie have you seen before?

Wait? What? Heat?

Yeah?

We just watched Heat recently. I absolutely it's still a good movie. But I think, yeah, it's still a really good movie. I didn't even see it back then. It's not an astulted thing. I saw it in my thirties. Watch again recently ago. It's one of me and Bong's favorites. I think it holds up like it's amazer than like.

As much as I love the perfect film nineties action movies, I feel like Heat is a different level of like filmmaking and holding up.

There's nothing cheesy about Heat.

No, it's amazing. We watched it literally two or three weeks ago. It's great.

But the question here, I think is still interesting that that doc had.

What movie have you seen before that you think of? So finally, but when you watch again, it holds up like Dan's toilet after a Taco Bell night Listen, Doc, I've said up before, everyone makes that fucking joke about Taco Bell. He's like, Oh, I'm gonna get Taco Bell, Like, oh, feel bad for your toilet the next day. I haven't gotten diarrhea a single fucking time from Taco Bell. I've had Taco Bell five hundred times probably more in my life,

Yeah, Doc, you're not scoring points. However, you have an answer a movie that I recently watched, A Man and I watched I think two years ago at this point that I decided is not nearly as good as I thought as Drive.

That movie sucks.

I've heard that and I remember thinking it was good. I'll tell you what it is. It starts off on a high note. They're doing like the Coen Brothers. Not much dialogue, but you see the process, you see his escape, you see the bank robbery.

It's awesome.

As soon as fucking William winding Refin tries to do anything with characters, it falls apart. And I love Bronson. I'm not saying I dislike all his movies. Uh, but it's the stuff with him. Is it Carry Mulligan or Michelle Uh? I think it's Kerry Mulligan the love interest. Yeah, their whole relationship where it's like this, it's just like eighties pop since stuff playing while they stare at each

My zoom just said, are you playing music?

Yeah?

Picked that up? Yeah?

Are? They just stare at each other without saying anything, And like college me thought it was really romantic. I was like, that's what I want.

I want, But like, now that I watch it with.

Someone, I'm very deeply in love with him, Like this fucking sucks, Like I hate what who thought? Also, William finding Reffin said, like only God Forgives is a masterpiece, and William is it William Nicholas Finding Reffin. Sorry, William Friedkin is always on my mind when I say Nicholas Finding rEFInd because William Freakin interviewed him for like a movie podcast and Nicholas Finding Refin told him that he thinks only God Forgives is a masterpiece, and William Freakin laughed in his face.

Yeah.

I feel like.

Because Drive did very well and it was well regarded at the time, and then I feel like everything that referenced since then has been like not loved outside of Destraining Force.

But I I I halfway through Drive, I told him at I was like, I thought this was better, Like I remember this being very good.

No, it's her first time.

Isn't that the worst feeling when it's like you remember something it's good, it's like, oh, this one's gonna be awesome, and you can tell it's like this is yeah, very well.

Yeah.

That doesn't surprise me about Drive, I think that's a bummer. But I remember when I I remember being like, there's so much atmosphere, but I don't remember anything about I don't remember one line or like one character development where I was like, ah, that's good stuff. Like I just remember the the visual style, how it looks and how it sounded is how.

I remember it.

I remember someone gets beat up in an elevator.

Yeah, he stops, he's like he stomps his skull and then he looks over at Carrie Mulligan with his face covered in blood, and it does that like he does a slow back out of frame. It's very artistic. Nicholas Vining Refin is a genius. Yeah, I think that. I think that movie has aged very poorly, or it was always like that and I just grew out of liking it.

I think that's what really happens sometimes.

I think it's us right, Like it's not that the movie hasn't changed. The movie is the same, and we are now like in a different frame of mind. I think I have a good answer for this, which is almost every movie that was about like trying to get some in high school or there's that like era where it was like uh after. I'm not going to include American Pie because I think that was kind of like iconic for its time, and I do actually think it

I never saw, Oh god, Ryan Reynolds annoys me in generally so bad.

I think that I went through a phase watching Waiting, Oh I had to and Van Wilder this was during his earlier years of acting very different than where he is now. But he's actually kind of the same annoying character in all of his films, but in this earlier genre he kind of played like the cool guy who was funny and had like really good facial expressions, who always got the girl in the end or something like that.

I had to watch it on the floor of dance basement.

Away by this history. But that's real stuff.

I don't think I've ever seen Ryan Reynolds in a movie.

Dan, why you made me watch Waiting on your basements?

I didn't.

It was doctor Ryan did a donation during a charity stream in movie. I don't think I've ever seen a Ryan Reilds movie. It's just homophone one video game where we covered.

That no free free, Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know by that guy.

You know, he's never out of character in Welcome Marexham him and Rob Mackelhoney, like Ryan Reynolds cannot not be in that character.

Oh it's it's truly annoying.

I'm guessing.

Ah, I remember liking Jungle to Jungle in nineteen ninety seven. I'm guessing that it doesn't hold up.

Well.

I never saw it.

Tim Allen is a high powered executive in New York City, and uh, he goes to South America and uh, his ex wife introduces him to a kid that was raised in like a tribal village.

Oh jungle, like concrete jungle, Jungle to.

Jungle, and then he takes this kid was raised with like a blowgo and takes him back to Manhattan. I'm guessing that's not good.

Probably not similar storyline, probably still kicks asses in Sino man I.

Actually holds up, but I don't know.

I don't like this. I just love Sean Assen, I love Brendan Fraser. Uh what was the movie I was speaking of high school kids trying to have sex. Super Bad.

That's like a weird that's so weird. That's on the soundboard.

No, yeah, super Bad is that's the plot point.

They're trying to get beer and then go to a party and hook up with these with Emma Stone and I don't know the other actor's name, but that was like a defining movie for my high school years.

I like that movie still, the American Pie for like the next get Yeah, I haven't watched.

It in a few years, and I wonder if it's I don't remember enough specifics, but like I remember being as smart like Apatow, like.

It was Judd Apatow.

Yeah, yeah, I remember. I would hope that holds up Seth Rogan like a lot of talent there. Yeah yeah, uh, he still fucking rules. I don't know what the hell they're talking about. It's awesome, It is fucking incredible.

Uh. None other's none, No others come to mind. Like I still watch Annihilation pretty regularly, and that movie's still really fucking good. Actually avowed the vine stuff growing out of People reminded me of Annihilation. Yep.

I've been thinking about Annihilation a lot during that. I'm hoping because tomorrow night, Bonk and I are gonna watch two thousand and one, and I haven't seen it since I was high school Kubrick film obsessive, serious film guy, and I remember loving two thousand and one, and she thinks she's seen some parts of it, but it's been forever and doesn't know if she's seen the whole movie. And I think I've kind of built it up because it's like it's Kubrick and it's like it's like a

It's the sixties. I mean, this is an older one.

So no, the Godfather Part one, wouldn't that have been before?

I think that was seventies. That was seventies.

God two thousand and one was sixties.

I think it was late. I want to say it was like sixty nine or something like that.

Yeah, that's I'm amazed that you even got it when you were younger Dan.

I don't know if I did. I think I just thought Cooper was very cool and like sunbelizably.

If you like good cinema, you would know that two thousand Space Odyssey was all about symbolism. Symbolism.

If you have a minute appreciation of good cinema, Yeah.

It's nineteen sixty eight.

God damn, yeahs nineteen sixty eight. Yeah, I watched it a few years ago. It's like it's it's hard to look at and not be mesmerized.

Visually, and like the audio. I remember being like, this is incredible. Yeah, maybe I'll understand more now as a you know, refined the symbolism attuned adult The.

Only other movie I would say that if I watched recently, that did not hold up as well as I thought. And I don't think it's bad by any means still, but I did not like it follows as much when I watched it recently.

Oh that's a bummer. I still talk really highly of that movie, and I still recommend it for horror fanatics as like a good vibe. I could see that it's maybe slower on your second go, like, once you know all the secrets, what makes it scary as you're like, what.

Is going on?

Yeah, No, I still think it's decent.

I think horror movies just get like go leaps and bounds every time a new one comes out. And then now that like Robert Eggers and Ari Astor are doing their thing, everything they release is just kind of changing the genre in some way. So I don't know, maybe it's just like horror is just evolving so quickly that it just feels a bit dated now.

But I mean, I've never been a big horror guy, and Bonk isn't a big fan either for the most part. But Barbarians, Seriously, both of us were head over heels for that movie that.

I mean, it's so well made and it's it is like extraordinary at its ability to create tension. And I also think, as someone who is a horror aficionado and has seen most horror films out there, one of my favorite things is when you can play with the juxaposition of like horror and then have a bit of laugh and then back to horror, and that movie kills it. Like there is genuine laugh out loud moments in that in that movie, and they will also it will absolutely

There's so much I would say about it, about what's surprising and stuff about it that like I just don't want to do here because I wouldn't want to rob anyone of Like you guys told me to, like don't look up anything about it, and I didn't.

Yeah, and that helped, Like this is just a trust me thing, like yeah, it's yeah.

I think it's really important for a lot of horror films specifically because I think unlike a rom com or something like that, where when you explain the plot that might intrigue people, the whole point generally of horror is to understand what's happening, right, Like a lot of tension comes from not knowing what's going on and misdirection, and this movie misdirects the viewer multiple times. So if you look it up, you're not going to be misdirected and

Well?

If you look too much shit up, you'll ruin it for yourself. You will don't look up horror movies. I'm telling you, just watch them and a half.

I will watch a trailer, like I'll do that, but I don't read beyond it. Like I just showed Bank the trailer for Mickey seventeen.

Make seventeen looks dope. I'm very excited about that.

We're going to see that opening weekend, and like, yeah, I'll watch the trailer and that will get me in the door for sure. Like, although if you say it's from the director Parasite, that also would probably work.

But the trailer was very good.

There's lots of ways to hook you. I think horror is a specific genre where I like to do it by word of mouth. When someone says watch this horror movie, I just watch it. I don't really question it, and I find that that yields better results than looking up stuff and then possibly having it get altered. For me, it's just so important to not have that be messed up.

That's a special tear friend where I feel that way with you guys about like Mary, you gave me the hard cell on Barbarian and I was like, all right, I trust Mary.

Mary wouldn't stand me wrong.

I'm just gonna go in blind Mike with games as several times been like hey, trust me, just try Outer Wilds or something, and led to it. So like yeah, you two, like you know Ben Hansen, ten Terry. You know, I've got friends that I'm like, okay, you know my taste enough, I respect your taste enough where I'm just going to go off your recommendation purely.

You know.

I think I have a horror movie that I watched the other day that I was like, this was such my jam in high school, and now I was like, ooh, it doesn't hold up anymore. It was this one. Oh man, you guys are gonna laugh as I try to solve this riddle in real time. As I describe it, a person is being stalked and they everyone around them is dying because of Urban Legends, and the movie is called Final Destination Urban Legends.

Wait, is that the name of it?

Yeah, it's actually okay, it's not good. That's unfortunate. I watched it again and the other day it doesn't hold up. But the movie Urban Legends. When I was growing up, I was like, this movie's fucking so sick. Can I spoil it? Or is that not cool?

He needs you can spoil nineteen ninety eight Urban Legends starring Jared Leto.

I think that's fair.

Oh yeah, please do.

I forgot he was in this Okay. Urban Legends starts out with a girl in the car and she's getting gas on a rainy night and a guy is like he has a stutter and he's he's scaring her, and he's like, I need to talk to you, got to come in the gas station. And then she's like, you don't need to talk to me. You're trying to kill me or whatever, and he's like no, no, no, that's

It's the posters are the most like nineties stars I've ever reads in it.

I'm telling you, I see that's the other guy. No, okay, sorry, it's the blonde guy from UH. I don't want to wait for our lives to be colder?

Doin?

Joshua Jackson. Joshua Jackson's in it. Josh Jackson right now is in it.

So they go on a date and he's like trying to fuck her and She's like, no, I'm not ready yet because I'm a prude, and he's like, whatever, you prude. And he gets out of the car and the killer puts a noose around his neck and strings him up, but he's on top of the car. So she's in the car freaking out because she can hear something squeaking on the top of the car, but it's him trying to get her to stay because he needs to keep his feet on the car so that he doesn't get killed.

So sick.

Upon revisiting Urban Legend, this movie, it is so obvious who the killer is. It is so obvious what is going on, And a lot of these scenes are just grossly not well put together. There's plot holes galore in it. Tara Reid is like in the radio host and she's constantly like giving sex advice, like leave him, honey, like you need a real man, and the killer is in the booth, so she's running to all these different audio booths trying to avoid the killer, and the killer finds

But I'm guessing they got their stuff together by the time the third movie Urban Legends, Bloody Mary, came out. During Kate Mara, I have seen that one.

I don't think I ever watched one past the third one. They even have Urban Legends final cut.

Yeah that was the second one.

Yeah, four point four on Rotten to Oh that's a shame. I really liked these teen slashers. I also think they're generational. I know what you did last summer. Very iconic for me growing up like Scream, big fan of Jennifer love Hewett. The Scream series is iconic, So yeah, these are important to me, and Urban Legend was a part of that time. Valentine I saw in theaters, which is so fucking funny because there is a new Valentine horror movie coming out for this generation. It just probably came out.

Just now, Valentine, or is it not My Bloody Valentine?

So the new one that just came out that you are talking about is called My blood Valentine, and it's about a killer that's killing couples in love, probably because they're a forlorned lover. Valentine is the one that came out when I was in high school, and it was also about a killer that was killing people's because they were a forlorned lover. And Denise Richards is in it. Can I just describe this this scene, it's so sick. Denise Richards is in a hot tub.

I think she's gone.

It's Valentine. Denise Richards isn't a hot tub. I think she's gonna bang, but it like doesn't work out or something like that. This hot tub has a glass lid

No.

No, with movies, I got normal horny all the time. Movies I got super horny. Most of my horny was with movies. I understand that.

Fully.

My horny is movie base.

Okay, in Golden Yeah.

You're still normal anyway. I think there's a lot of horror movies that probably don't hold up like I wanted them to, especially from my high school era. But I mean, I just still have soft spots for a lot of these horror movies because when I was growing up, I was like, that's fucking crazy. I can't believe you killed Denise Richards like that, but I doubt it holds water anymore.

Ah, that was a hot tub pun.

But she like sucks through the hole, so yeah, she probably.

Okay. Well, thank you, Doc Hansler, minus the heat slander.

You're wrong.

I can't divide that note.

I could do this one from Jake from Media Pa or is it Medea? I don't know. Hello, Escape Artists. I'm a longtime email her first time listener. In twenty twenty four, I made a New Year's resolution to read more. I started small and set a goal to read six books. I also joined a book club to make sure I hit that goal. I had such a blast reading the assigned books that I crushed my goal and ended.

Up reading sixteen books.

Excuse me. In the midst of this goal, there's an email that came in asking for book recommendations, and Mike gave some titles that I jotted down with the intent to submit them to the group. I'm happy to say I just finished In the Distance by Aaron and Diaz, and I'm excited to hear what my group thinks of it when it gets discussed.

In April, I love that book.

Anyway, this twenty twenty four resolution has reshaped my thoughts on reading and now it's a full hobby of mine instead of something I do once in a blue moon. So my question to you all is was there a resolution you made in the past that ended up being something you stuck to well after the year was made. Thanks for all the laughs, I hope you're twenty twenty five is starting out well. Jake from Media Media, Pennsylvania.

That's a great question.

Yeah.

I try not to do too many, just like specifically, like, oh, New Year's resolutions, because I feel like that's just like, you know, I don't know if you're going to do something to.

Do it arbitrary timeline. Yeah.

Yeah, but I mean, you know, there.

Are definitely those times where it's like, you know, after the holidays, you know, Okay, starting in January, I'm gonna blah blah blah. And it's almost always like a health or food or exercise related thing. So I feel like, not necessarily just a New Year's thing, but just a life long thing of trying to kind of hone in what works for me in terms of eating and exercising

You know.

It's like, oh, I found out that I like yoga, so I've been doing yoga for twenty years, you know, stuff like that, or the running stuff, you know, the things I learned from last year with the half marathons that I'm bringing into this year with the full marathons and stuff. But it's rarely like specifically a like New Year's resolution thing.

You know.

I'm very similar to you Dan. I almost avoid New Year's resolutions because I lose. It can depress me or make me sad when I break them, and so I try and give myself lots of leniency with my resolutions. And so you know, talking about the reading one of like having six books a year, Jake, Like, that's what I did, and I did not read sixteen. That's so cool that you were like able to read that much.

Can't underdsk treadmill. Right, that's so cool.

I mean I like that kind of stuff. And so for me, mineor much more lenient, but walking every day, making sure to read several books a year. I say several because it could be ten and it could be two based on how big they are. And like the shit that goes down in my life. And then I'd say the last one that's been really beneficial is although I do go on and off of it. I had a New Year's resolution I think three years ago to fast and I still to this day use it as

Good for me.

Yeah, I like what you said about like not going too crazy. You said to like be lenient with yourself on it, because like I kind of do the mistake where I go way too hard too suddenly all the time. And so like, you know, I finished that last half marathon in October, and since then, you know, I put on a lot of the weight that I lost over all that stuff.

You know, I put on twenty five pounds since then.

And it's like, all right, well, I need to be ready, you know, once May comes around, I'm training for the marathon. So January like one of the few like strict things I told myself, you know, with January was that I want this to be my biggest steps month ever in terms of average steps a day. And so I looked back years and it's like, all right, I got to be you know, my best average was when I lived in New York City and I was walking all the time, and I got like over thirteen thousand steps a day.

Thousand steps a day, you know, so that way the average will be the best ever. And so I got I have this underdesk treadmill, and I was walking like hours a day. I was walking so fucking much, and it was you know, it's cold outside, can't go outside, so it's just like on the treadmill hours every day. And I did it.

I broke my step record. But now it's like the intention was I was going to do that, and then that was going to lead into more like cardio stuff like daily you know, runs and bikes on the peloton and stuff like that. But my feet are fucked up now because I went too hard all of a sudden, like I put on you know, twenty plus pounds. Now I'm walking more than I've ever walked in my life, and now my ankles and my the balls, my feet. Now my plan for shita stuff is like shitty now.

Got to learn, you know, yeah, you just I think some of it is like just the mentality as well, because for me, if I break a New Year's resolution, I'll feel pretty bad about myself and be like, of course you were never gonna do that.

Right.

If I was like read a book every month and one month I miss my thing, I will quit and I'll be like I'll just not do it anymore. But if my if my limit is really reasonable, or if I have a lot of flexibility, then all of a sudden, it's like you're allowed to have an off month. And this is for like everyone who needs to hear that.

Yeah. I also don't really go hard on New Year's resolutions, but in the sense that, like I have had things become full fledged hobbies that I did not really intend on. Like I do a lot lot of indoor gardening, Like much of my every single Sunday is pruning plants, repotting them. We have skylights here, which is great that I can make use.

Of that, and like you've got lots of natural light in your place.

Yeah, so like we uh project we're doing now I'm just putting hanging plants in every window.

But like it.

I'm always impressed by people who like they can play an instrument, they know several languages. They have those like they just went hard and got really good at a few things, And.

I'm like, well, what are my hobbies?

Like I read a lot, like I'm definitely into wine, but I also like, I'm like I forget that I'm I also spend a lot of time like doing some indoor gardening. It's just something that I enjoy so much. I don't even think of it as a hobby that I would put like in my bio, if that makes sense. So like I definitely kind of like I think I got a couple plants a few years ago, and now all of a sudden, it's just like it's parts of

You do outside in New York?

Yeah?

You do?

Yeah?

Is that hard with all the streets and crossing now.

My neighborhood, My like if I go like to the south end of my neighborhood, back up, the water. The water especially it's really trail, but also like I know the streets well enough to know which intersections are going to be dead when i'm and which ones have stop signs as opposed to traffic lights, et cetera. It's yeah, I wasn't really a new Year's resolution. It's just like I sleep so much better on average when I'm running more.

I think that there is just something though about like it's probably not a coincidence that it's you know, January first, because like the holidays, Like I was definitely you know, near the end of the year where it's like okay, holidays and travel and drinking and eating like shit and everything. Like you know, I told myself like, you know what, I'll do a strict thing. I'll do the full I'm gonna be the dry January thing. And like at the time that sounds so great because it's like, okay, I've

But I was going to do all these different things and then also like a dry January, and it was the thing where it was like you know, January twelfth or something, it was some weekend and Hanson invited us over for like a board game night, and it's like, look, I'm gonna have a good time playing you know, board games at Ben Hanson's.

Place no matter what. But like it's like it was like a Saturday night. It's like it is the most primed, just like, let's have a few beers while you know we're doing this. And you know, obviously people that like there are good reasons to stop entirely from drinking, but with me, it's never been a thing that like ever caused any trouble and just like caused me to get kind of like a beer gut at worst, you know.

You know. Have we talked about dry January on fire Escape before?

I don't know if we have.

I'm kind of a snob toward not to people's faces.

I saw you posting some Instagram memes about a dry wine.

Well, so.

Dry January you only drink dry wine. That's funny. I think you said that to me too, you little scamp.

Was it the Pedro Pascal Nicholas cage thing or dry cabinet truck and reastling is really dry? I just I don't I'm I'm gonna I get the idea of taking a month off to reset, like as a cleanse. A lot of people do it just to like show that they can show themselves that they can and prove to themselves, which is good. Yeah. I just think everybody would be better off if it just presracticing moderation throughout the year.

Yes, Like I think that's way healthier.

And like everybody I know who drinks a lot and then hits January and goes dry, they feel like shit throughout that January, and then afterwards they're like, well now I'm just back to drinking. I don't know.

Maybe maybe people maybe.

There's drinking excessively.

Maybe if there's people who dry January really helps them.

I just think if I don't see that one January correcting eleven months of really bad habits.

Yeah, I feel that same way.

And again, this is a thing where it's like I know people have had good success with this and everything, and I'm not saying it's stupid across the bord or anything, but that.

And things like that.

Yeah, yeah, like intermidt and fasting. I've known plenty of people who've lost like a lot of weight on like intermritten fasting. But it's a thing where it's like, Okay, you do this thing for a month or two or however long you do it, you lose a ton of weight, that's great. But if you're not doing things that are actually like changing the way you eat in your relationship to that stuff and lifestyle choices, then it's like it's it's a band aid and then it's gonna come off something.

Yeah, that the January becomes like, uh, like a sprint that you get through and you just muscle through, But what about the next eleven months? Like, I think it's just not sustainable. Towards to your point, Dan, that's almost the equivalent of running eight miles one day and then walking like the thirty thousand steps to the next. It's

For some people. It can be also like the first step towards sobriety, which is just like, wow, this isles. And I had person who like did it and was like, I like myself better and I'm not actually going to drink anymore, and they just didn't drink after that, and I was like, well, that's like a really cool realization to have. So I think it can work. And I understand what you're saying, which is just like, it's not going to solve your binge drinking if that's what you're doing.

So I think, yeah, that's all their own.

The reason I like the fasting concept, and the reason I think it works for me is because I can still like eat fast food and I can still drink. It's just after eight pm, I'm done. And it stops me from getting drunk on a Tuesday, and it stops me from having like I don't know, Taketo's, you know, from my freezer at eleven thirty at night. It's just like these things that have given me like a little blocker to be like you can it's past eight pm sor read those to the rules, and it's given me

But are you doing it in the way that Like when I've had friends that have been the intermittent fasting thing, it's been like I've got this two hour window where I can just go ape shit and I eat everything, and then I don't eat for twenty two hours.

Like that's what mineus eight hours on, sixteen off. So I eat from noon until eight pm. So maybe, but I don't eat as much as I can and eight.

Hours, Yeah, I feel like I've heard for people be like they're just shoveling stuff in for like two hours and it's like, all right, I'm good until tomorrow.

I suspect if you're really really hungry, you probably are like binging. And I would say, like the first three days when I start my fast, I'm hungry because my stomach is like, but why aren't you eating at nine pm? And it's and once I get adjusted to it, my stomach leaves me alone and like it learns like, yeah,

I know.

I've actually broken my fast a couple times because I gotta have a beer when I bowl. You guys, it's so hard. I know it's hard. It's hard to break, but it's been good for me to have limitations and those rules. And so I wonder for a lot of people if like dry January is like, oh well, it's my dry January. So it's my rule, and it helps you to be able to say no in social situations or like say no to yourself for God's sakes, which is like in December, I don't say no to shit.

That's the hard part is like I feel like I'm all the way on or all the way off. Usually it's like the you know, the crusty doll, the good to evil switch.

Yeah, yeah, literally, like that's the problem right here, You've said it on to fat bastard. Yeah.

So it's either like okay, Well, if I'm in the middle of like training for like a marathon thing, it's like, well, okay, I have to be good about this to some degree, and I still allow myself to occasionally, you know, I'll drink, I'll have fast food once a week or something. But you know, you got to stay on it versus like when that switch gets flipped off. It's so easy for me to just be like, uh, fuck it, like fuck

Just that's a problem.

I can't just go from being an asshole and then go into being a marathon train guy.

You know, like it's you got to just find that moderation in between the things.

Yeah you've got you know, you're too fast, too fast, too fast, And there are people who do that, who are like I'm gonna do a marathon and they fuck their body up. They like wreck there. You can like get shin splints or like you know, hurt your ankle bones, all sorts of stuff.

I remember many years ago, they used to just thing where they would bring in these guest hosts for Monday Night Raw. It was terrible, but one of them was his boxer named Ricky Hatton, and I never heard of him. I don't really follow boxing, and I guess I looked him up after that and like he has two he's Ricky Hatton. But also when he's not training for a fight, he's known as Ricky Fatten because he just like gets himself real fat and just eats and drinks like shit.

I didn't know you could do that all right, Like, yeah, you can just switch back and forth. That sounds great. That's probably not healthy, so bad to learn that.

And girls have everybody has different versions of this, but like for me growing up, a lot of that was like extreme dieting to lose weight. She's like something just a lot of girls that I grew up with dealt with and figured out and it's just really really bad to learn and it's hard to unlearn to have those extreme measures. So maybe that's your aversion to dry January,

I think that's the harder thing.

I think if if I had proof I had a history of getting in fights and getting arrested and missing work and missing flights and shit like that, I think that would be so much easier to be like, well, Okay, I'm just gonna like not drink. But it's like, I don't know, I like drinking a lot, and I've never gotten in trouble for it, and I've never gotten health, you know, like outside of just like weight and stuff and maybe like a hangover anxiety thing.

Like.

It's when there's not that like need to where like that like, oh you have to you got the shit, got to get your shit together, it's easy to be like, well, whatever, it's not going to be what's the worst is gonna happen?

You know.

Yeah, it's a slippery slope, but it's good that you have that in check.

Yeah, it's yeah, if it's something where someone really needs to take a step back, then sure go for it. Yes, And then if they realize they, like Mary, you said, your friend just likes themselves better when they're sober, then.

They literally were like I think I'm happier and we were.

Like and January was like the foundation for that. I think my thing is like when people I know who are going to get hammered on February first, I'm like, there's no point forward, There's no Yeah. If February first is what you're looking forward to the whole time, I think you should examine maybe have like drinks, drink better, not harder, almost like drink stuff you really enjoy in small in like moderation and like because again, like alcohol can enhance social situations.

It can, it can, It can help people develop like like.

A little bit of crack, a little bit of yeah, a little bit of crack.

Never anybody a little a little a little crisch, a little cristy crack.

All right, well, thank you from media. I'm gonna call the media.

Mary. You want to read this last one? That's kind of directed me, but I'm gonna I'm I pick out the emails, so I indulge myself with this one. It's about what sure Jacob? From which to talk to Jacobs?

Okay, cool with Cheta.

Which Cheetah, Cheita, Hello, escapees, congratulations on one hundred episodes all of this? Uh talk about uh? Not drinking or drinking in moderation made Dan thirsty and make him made him go get a beer. Yeah, congratulations on one hundred episodes. I have a question. I'm going to Italy with my family in April, and I just want to know if Mike has recommendations about certain food and wine pairings I

Book of wine grapes before I let you do the nose snot and we go low brow. Okay, I think I'm gonna I'm gonna do a teach a man to fish rather than give a man a fit. I forget the phrase bouchet. Thing to keep in mind, you're probably gonna be having a lot of pasta in Italy. Depending on where you're going, there might be a lot of lamb, there might be some truffles if you're in Northwest, but

I wouldn't go to a place with less than six hundred active grapes when I travel.

Yeah, it's a good I like that you had a limit.

Look, you just don't wait till you get to week ten of your courses of courses.

Well, I haven't talked about it much at Firescape, But Mary, why does it gross you out to snot in the shower?

I mean, I think there's a couple things that I just personally don't think are shower things that I think other people do. So you know, if you are standing, sit down for this, because I think some people will be like what, But like, I don't think the shower is the place for you to brush your teeth?

No, right, why what's the benefit save because it's all time, I guess.

But you're already in there and you're cleaning your body, so why not clean the teeth?

Right?

But I feel like there's certainly like I shave.

I shaved my head in the shower, you know, I because like the hair goes into the drain, there's a there's a use to that. I don't feel like brushing the teeth like you're gonna spit the shit in the sink anyway?

Right? Does it?

Does it make it gross for you?

Can?

I just can you elaborate it?

I don't think.

I've just never even considered it, honestly, Like, I just I don't think i'd be grossed out. I think I would just be like, why, I feel like the water would be hitting my face and it would just be like slobbering.

It's like, yeah, you're like getting toothpaste on yours.

I don't need that.

I don't. I don't like the thought of brushing my teeth with warm water getting into my mouth. That's gross to me. Like I need cold water a.

Very different reasons. But I but I'm glad that we all kind of feel this vibe. There's a lot of people who brush their teeth in the shower to save time.

I don't think they're saving time. I would I would argue, and I would ask them to prove to me. I'm gonna sit in the bathroom next time they brush to either shower.

Are they like brushing with one hand and soaping with the Otherwise it's going to take the.

Same taking to the thirty seconds or forty five seconds it takes a brush your teeth after the shower.

I know into you're wasting more water, if any.

But I don't think it's that rare. I think there's a good chunk of ours that probably brush their teeth in the shower. And so that's why I like preface what people subscribers have plummeted fifteen fifteen?

Do you think fifteen brush your teeth through the shower?

I think I think they are a minority, and I think it's probably around ten to fifteen. That is my guess.

Maybe there's a benefit I'm missing, like that I'm being completely callous.

Tell me to ignore, Please tell me.

Okay, So here's my problem with blowing your nose in the shower. Jacob, you say you think it sounds like the best time, probably because you're cleaning your body, right, so like why not clean this because you're blowing snot on your hands and it's going in between your fingers and stuff, and you're like, yeah, but I'm cleaning those parts. But it's like, yeah, but blow your nose before you get in the shower and.

Then wash You're you're it's all the steam, you're.

Loosened the goop, but like it goes into a tissue and then you can wash your hands. I think there's just something I don't want snot all over my hands.

That's so gross, And even.

If I rinse them in the shower post blow, I just feel like I'm a little gross.

I don't know, maybe I'm misremembering something. If that's what they're doing, then yeah, that's horrendous. I think what he's saying by snot in the shower is like one of these over the drain.

I've never I've never tried doing that's want to do that.

That's way less gross than going into your hands for no reason. They're both weird, and I agree.

I'm just in general, are not are not acceptable?

Uh? I've never done a snot rock I'm not going to go into.

The privacy of your shower.

So if you, uh, we're talking about it right now, we're if you blow.

Your nose and you're brushing your teeth in the shower, like, live your best life, that's your fucking thing. Me, I just don't think that showers are for like face whole things. I don't clean my ear holes in the shower. I don't blow my nose or do snot rockets in the shower, and I don't brush my teeth in the shower. That's for pre and post shower. The shower is for the crevices of the body. It's for all the knickknacks, it's for all the innerds in the outers, just get clean.

How I was raised.

Butt hole in the sink.

Oh my god, what do you mean, kid?

I don't know.

That's why I said face holes. I think you can get your holes in the shower if you need to clean your holes, which I do encourage, like you can clean your holes. But again, that's what the shower is for It's for the body crev and nooks. If you're

I we've been talking for the past two and a half hours whatever, and so I know where I am on. Like I could tell when Dan's looking at my panel, and I love how when you just said that I butt hole in the sink, I could tell you were looking at me waiting for me to laugh. But I didn't get it. So you're just like it's like you were leaning on me to laugh. You don't know me.

I don't get it.

He knows you like the back of his no.

But I fully I make sure you say buttthole for last in the shower because it's like I don't want to like but even if you like, you know, wash your hands and stuff after, Yes, I'm down there cleaning like once I'm in there and doing all this stuff in between the stuff in there in there. Yes, once I'm in there, I'm not touching my face. I'm not rubbing my hands on my chest. I'm not doing anything actually.

Washing right, like you your your hands are clean post shower. But I think it's like more of like the mentality of like you're in all these crevices and stuff, like, I'm really not putting my hands all up in my face as I'm cleaning out the body.

Like eventhole is the last thing before I turn the water off. I'm giving a full soapy hand situation, like I don't want butt hands going around day to day that my keyboard.

Let me get out of the shower. I'm steering clear of you.

You want my butt have nothing to do after the shower.

Yeah, he's got butt all over his beer right now?

Are people?

No, I went into the loop a thing like in the last year. Yeah, I'm currently loop person. I did just learn that you're supposed to swap them out.

Yeah, I didn't know that.

Such a funny conversation. Yeah, regularly it's like a sponge in the right like it's a crewing.

I mean quarter, I'd say use your best judgments.

Yeah, was like it's just I would even say you could go more than quarterly at least I would say I'm probably fine.

They're crewing stuff. Again, I think a lot of our people are like, listen, I'm not going to change out my loofa every two months. And it's like that's totally fine, Like.

Just get a bunch though. When you go to the grocery store, they're like two dollars.

Or ye old hand towel, which is what like you know, like a little wash cloth. You can throw them in the washing machine. You know.

The reason I like no was like a little wash I feel like once it's up in there, it's like that needs to go right into the washer afterwards.

You throw your underwear after every use.

Yeah, but that's not like up in my butthole the way that like when you put you put your loof in yours, the cloth into my anus. I like it is very much making direct contact and rubbing back and forth as I'm do with my boxers.

I bet your boxers touch your asshole.

They're hanging out down there, but they're not like getting up in there the way that like you're putting your.

Buttthole touching boxers in your laundry. Where it's touching it is.

It is a grazing of the butthole with the underpants. I think with a washbrag, you are actively trying to contact the butthole, which would never happen with boxers.

I think that you can wash something in a washing machine and it is washing the butthole off of the item, and then you can use it again, depending on how badly that experience went. Because yeah, if you like shit on your loofah, just get a new loofa, just like if you shit your underpants, don't take those to the dry cleaner. They're done.

I mean, I've never had skid marks the way my dad says everyone always has them all the time. I don't subscribe to that. I don't think my butthole is a very chaotic environment.

I'm glad that you have a really nice and neutral butthole situation, and I think we're actually on the same page. And I'm not trying to fight you on how dirty the things are that touch your butthole. But what I am just suggesting is is you can wash a washcloth just like you wash your underwear, and they're clean.

Wash wash you know what the difference is, I'm not taking my underwear and rubbing it all over the rest of my body. A washrag next time it's deployed is going to be going all over my shoulders and chest and legs and stuff.

So it is your loofa.

No, we're not talking about that way boxers versus like a boxer like even if it's hanging out by the butthole a lot. Yeah, I'm not rubbing the boxers all over my neck and shit.

I understand, But do you is the loofa that you loofah your butthole with on?

No?

Oh, okay, so this is important.

Do you have a butthole loofa dan?

No?

No, No, here's what I do.

It's like a tiny on a tea chain, like it just goes in plug. Yeah.

I do all of my head stuff first. I do beard, I do hair, I do face before butthole is even on the table top. Yeah, the litteral head is just done first, and then I do loof up and then I squirt the body wash on it, and then I do the big areas and the chest, I do the arms, I do thighs as well. Uh, I do stomach with the loop, get in the belly button, yeah, yeah, yeah, I get in there and everything, and then I do

So I do just hand hands on the pits and soap on pits, okay.

And then I go down and I need to know this, but I'm so interesting. I'm just we're breaking this down.

And then I go down to the guy bits there and I do the stuff with the soap with my hands there to make sure that's nice and clean with my hands. Yes, And then the last I get the body washed up on my hands. And then you do your buttole work with your hands with your hands.

Okay, So the loofa never touches your holes.

The loofah doesn't even know I have an asshole. It's just that is.

The hands go in the crevice there and everything, make sure that's good. And then you do a separate hand clean just to make sure all the butthole stuff is offerd.

The last thing you do is clean the hands because those are butt hands.

Yeah, yes, so nothing.

There's not a single loofa or anything that even has been in the neighborhood of my asshole.

I mean, I don't see a lot of fault with this. It sounds very anal like in the sense that it sounds like you're being very particular with what touches what.

I don't even I mean, I don't think.

I don't even think about that. You know, but you just started loofaing.

I started loof loofing in the last like year.

Okay, so before that, were you all hands all time?

Bar of soap goes everywhere?

Yeah, okay, I mean I have no problem with bar of soap or soapy hands getting up in the crevices and holes. I'm for all of this. I like that you're a clean person, and I think you're you're doing great, and so I don't have any notes. I will just state like, you can also get stuff on your hole and wash it, and then it's fine, and you can you can also it's all bit and fine. Maybe when people have a toothbrush on the shower, that's their asshole toothbrush.

Don't put the toothbrush in your asshole.

It's the only way to get a clean hole.

It probably would work, but oh oh, I forgot to say too. Part of the reason I don't do the loofa on the guy bits or the butthole is because it has such a naturally coarse thing, and I feel.

Like that it's like it's rough rough on that skin.

Don't want rough loofa towel or something on your bits or your butthole. So that's why it's like it's a nice feather touch on that.

I have a glove. I bought these like exfoliating gloves.

It literally glove for your hat.

It's an of glove for like dead skin. It's not for your butthole. It's like I use it on my arms and it gets all the dead skin. It's an exfoliator. But I definitely you could put it on your button stuff and have like a smooth, smooth baby butt if you want. But I wouldn't put rough surface on the tender stuff. That sounds awful.

Look into these of glove assholevers, Yeah, yeah, it's a it's nuts.

There's no of glove for the asshole. They are exfoliating gloves for regular parts.

Of the skin and what with it is your own business.

Jacob from Wichita. I don't think that you should listen to any of this advice. In fact, most of you, if you're going to ask us for like really specific advice on like how to clean your body or like take care of yourself, use a pseudonym or like fake name. I don't think you'll want us to like give you true advice here. But I think ultimately clean your holes,

And then wash your hands was and is definitely a good safe bet with most PASTA.

Thank you, Jacob from Wichita. A so much about Dan and way too much about Dan.

Ask you a question. I'm going to answer it.

He didn't ask.

Was it named?

In this email?

You?

You weren't even brought.

Up Dan, Mary.

You were egging him on every step of the way. Don't play like you had nothing to do with this. I'm reading about movehead over here. I had nothing. I was trying to distance myself. But anyway, that's fire Escape Cast at gmail dot com. Thank you Jacob, thank you Jake, Thank you doc Hensla terrible taste in movies, have fun in Italy and what was Jake Jake enjoy reading? Let us know what other books you read, and I'm curious

Uh is that it?

Yeah, Firescape cast, Firescape merch dot.

Com, fire Escape Merch. I'm checking, although I think of nope, nope, deep I go to that.

Noire dot com goes to merch dot com.

Why do we keep buying these?

Uh? So if you want to be if you want to add free episodes, or you want to get linked to our store, go to Deep dishpussy dot com.

You can sign up outside of that. Dan, what do you have going on in the meantime?

Giant Bomb and Twitch and Blue Sky and Instagram? Dan record on everything, Mary go ah your voice.

I've been pretty good on trying to keep up in the socials, mostly Instagram. I've been trying to do better about Blue Sky and Twitch usually on Mondays, usually cool.

I'm mainly here unless you want to follow me on Instagram. I opened a two thousand and one Kyanti Classico. It's really interesting story. It's actually the last vintage. But how do you clean your butthole with a wine decanter?

So all when you were you posted a thing of you decanting a wine thing recently, and you said for those asking, one of the things I.

Said were concerned, So I didn't realize how I post, and I like eight eight people responded asking why what was wrong with that bottle? No, I don't do it for those asking unless people are asking. Yeah, if you

People thought the whole bottle was sludge.

Several people bottom eighth, which is usual with that year of grape. It's a tanic grape. Yes, yes, Dan, I don't.

I don't need to cater to your lowbrow sensibilities on my Instagram posts. I don't get what you think. No, I want you to keep doing it because it's very funny to me. Yes, but yeah, that wine was really good. It was not. It was the second oldest wine I've ever had and it was still the delicious. Uh. It's twenty four years old, which is not crazy old, but it was really good. I'm gonna I'm going to open like an old wine for you at some point, Dan, I think you'd like it a lot.

Not right, Yeah, sure, it's great.

Yeah but anyway. Yeah, I'm im Mahardy over on Instagram.

That's it. That's our episode. We'll be back in two weeks. In the meantime, Oh, Mary, I'm going to promise it now, just so we stay accountable. Mary and I are going to finish Resumel four remake for Knievel Thanks or whatever we call it, KENI we have.

It's been I think six months since we did the penultimate episode.

I don't want to know. We're going to finish it.

We're going to finish it. That'll be up. If you're not subscribed to our YouTube channel, go subscribe to that. That's where we post those. We will finish it because that We've got a few other lost chapters of games that we have you haven't played in residue Evil, but we'll play those at some point. We'll try to do revelations too at some point. But yeah, we're also going to finish resumeelfour remake mary Is. I've been telling.

Her every week we got on, then kill you all right, let's go all right, see.

Everybody in a couple of weeks.

But