Fire Escape Cast #76

A Hi, folks, I'm Dan. You're used to hearing Mike Maharty's voice right now, but this is Dan's and I have Mary here. Mary, Hi, Hi. It's so weird. How do we do this without him? Yeah? This is weird because we've had Mike gone before, but I feel like you were also gone. So I just had Ben Hanson over and I just recorded my own like kind of bespoke set up here. It's something weird by yourself, but this is like you and me together. Yeah,

And so we had to figure out. We learned exactly the stuff that we don't know and that Mike does. He knows how to log into Zoom. He probably knows if we have a paid Zoom account or if we're gonna get kicked off. In like twenty minutes. I feel like there were like six things We're like, oh, emails, Like two minutes before we got on the Zoom call. It was like, oh shit, these are the old emails, and I said, like copy and paste really quick. Yeah.

But we're here, right, I mean, we exist, I understand. I feel like this these are the moments where you realize how valuable Mike is. I mean, obviously always he talks and stuff, and he's got like a good knowledge of wine and fine cheese, but the understanding that he's actually paying attention to the accounts that we're supposed to use the emails. I don't look at that stuff. I didn't realize this guy's important. Yeah, we do. Uh, it's a little fly by night around here, but we

did. We do need an adult. We need an adult here on this podcast. Everyone in a while, we need to weird to think that Maharty would have been the adult. But I guess, I guess kind of in this since as we've got an even more adult, we've got the most adult here. We've got someone I know well from the shoot gig ladies and gentlemen. Oh god, I just realized, Mary, this is the first time you've had two out of three wrestling folks on this podcast. We got Joff

Crab, I got a wife and kids. I'm an adult. You are Jeff Grubb. That you start off by saying you're used to se hearing Michael Macharty. Do you ever get used to hearing Mike Mharty. He's always so he's keeping you on your toes. I don't think you get used to it. I think we might be used to it. It's been a long lit to it. Very rare that he like shocks me anymore. And neither of you, Greb. I gotta be on my toes for you this time. So I don't know. I don't know what you're capable of. You,

I'm sleepy. You don't have to worry about anything. You're good. I didn't give the kids a math, and that was a whole handful, so they decided it was time to break down. So no, I'm worn out. What does that look like? What is that like when you say breakdown? What does a kid do like? And also addendum to that, I think I used that word right. Why can't you just tell the kid like, hey, just chill out. This is going to take ten minutes and

they're going to go to bed. Yeah, So tonight it was they recently got gifts for Valentine's Day. They each have got the same exact gift, so it was fair and it was like stuff for the bath, and they both had bubble bath and the last time the kid got ahold of her bubble bath and used all of it. So this time when the other kid was like, can eye my bubble Beth. I'm like, yeah, here's something, and I gave a little bit to the other kid, but she's like,

I didn't get the same amount, so it's not fair. And I had to explain, no, that's not yours. And she's like, well, she should share, and I'm like, that's not what sharing is telling someone else you want their stuff. It's not sharing. It's when you give other things to other people. And she was not having any of those explanations Tights, so she started but just like wailing and pretend crying for the most part, but it was like genuine anguish. But I mean, I do

try to explain it. It doesn't see again, but I do find if I kind of mimic Fred Rogers, mister Rogers, if I mimic his tamber and he's like slow talking and never getting upset and trying to like soothe, like even though when they're very upset, that does actually kind of unwind them a little bit. It doesn't completely undo it. But she would be in a much better mood than if I got frustrated or something like that. But there is no explaining it to them. They're just going to lose their mind.

Do they know who mister Rogers is and do they know you're emulating him? No, they don't know that I'm emulating him, but they're a little bit aware. Mister Rogers. The more aware of Daniel Tiger, which is a show that is based on the characters. For mister Rogers. It's a cartoon that's more modern than mister Rodgers these days. He's been dead for a few years, so the Tiger, mister Rogers, the Tiger might be dead. I have n't checked in on him in a while. Okay, Mary,

what what Grub is explaining here is? I didn't realize how familiar this was going to sound, but I realized Grubs also describing what he does when uh, I guess usually me and yeah, I'm like, when you're being a bit about taking a bath. We got a GM at night tonight, we got important people coming over. I've gotten fine with baths and showers. Yeah, I'll do I'll do my a as I get enough bubbs. Yeah. I think that's really cool that you have that that background and that information

to be able to do that. I've always been assigned to the idea of just lying. So someone's like where time, I'm like, oh, the bubble fairy just ran out, but I was talking to him back in the back room and he's gonna come back with double the bubbs and I time, so just like no bubbs this time, more bubs next time. Agree and then they agree and they think there's a bubble fairy. And that has worked up until a point. Yeah, that works. The line has been a

big tool in the toolbox for years. She is now seven, and lying is being is less effective, or she expects you actually to follow up on the lies, and it's like, oh no, you used to forget thirty minutes later. Now you're not forgetting. And I got to like actually come up with something here. Or is you're gonna think you can't trust anyone in your life for the rest of your life, and you're gonna need, you know, therapy and all this stuff, and I don't need that on my

conscience. No, you want to be careful with like those rules. I had a friend who had a baby when they were still really young. They didn't have a lot of money, and so for the first few Christmases when this is like a very young child, they just wrapped up stuff in the house. Oh yeah, good, and then they opened it and then they went and the kid. The kid got excited. Of course she had the kids and they didn't know, and then they put it back on the counter.

I thought that was I think that was it. What do you call those white lies? Those are like sweet little baby lies, like nobody worries about that. You're still still getting in, You'll still see the gates of heaven. Yeah, oh yeah. I had some pretty bulletproof white lies when I would baby sit my sisters because I was eight years older than them, the twins, and so my big one was I was always eating skittles, never not eating skittles, and they always wanted them, and I'd say,

no, no, no, no, this is my medicine. You can't this is my medicine. This will hurt you, but it helps me. And that worked for years, and anytime they were being little shits, you just pick up the phone and you're like, I'm calling Santa. I'm calling Santa right now. Okay, I got three more buttons of the press. Are you gonna stop freaking out? Are you gonna get wine? One? Two? Santa? I did call a one once just to see what would happen. When I was at my dad's house, when i'd probably look like

five or six. Yeah, and like you hear by nine one one on the TV and it's like, that's an interesting You just type in a magic number and then people show up and help you or whatever. I'm gonna try that and see what happens. I'm gonna bly and uh yeah. My dad was home. I think he was like watching Beavis and Buttheaders something, and I picked up the phone. I called nine one one. I'm just I'm talking to them, and my dad's like, who are you talking to?

He was like, I'm talking to the cops. Dad, He's like, what are you doing. He got on and he's like, hey, I'm sorry, my son is being an asshole. Sorry hung up and he's like, you cannot do that. Did they Did they come out? Because that's what I always hear like these days, if you call nine one one, no matter what, they have to come to check it out. No. I feel like I remember that. I remember my dad just getting Kansas, a small town that was so you call nine one, they got to come

out. They're gonna they gotta come out. They got to bring all their guns, so don't there probably are a couple of lies. I was told as a kid that I still believe, like I would have to like I would have to actually like re examine them and be like, oh my god, they lied to me. Yeah, that definitely happens. Yeah, the Ohio contingent here is strong. Yeah. I went to Westerville South. She was not too far away. I also went to Westerville for like one year

or two. Oh really, yes, I did. I forget what the name of it was, but I lived there was South and North back then. So I went to this is not what it sounds like. It wasn't like a little private school. It was a school for like science. I only had like twenty four students or something like that. And it was a lottery. And I got into this like little Westerville lottery. And so I did that for like first through fifth and then I moved to Hilliard for the

rest of it. But I lived. I lived in Westerville for like five years a Hilliard. There's a Hilliard restaurant that's reopening that someone and night my super chats on my podcast keeps talking about like Nancy's Home kitchen or something like that. Are you familiar with this restaurant, because that's all right? Yeah, Okay, Yeah, I've never I've never been there. I've never heard of it, So I'm like, why is the one bringing up? But I'm like, is it is because Mary is it? Would she know or

something? But are you a fair enough I don't know. There's a couple mom and pop. I always actually love any mom and pop restaurants, so I shouldn't be such a g it, But yeah, I think there's a couple real good ones there. I'm just always grateful when there's any mom and pop restaurants that aren't just these like chain monsters that are making their way through the Midwest. So it's always lovely to have something that's like a bit more

local. Yeah, there was a gian Carlos or Giodorno's. There was something like that right down the street from us. That we would go to, an Italian restaurant in Westernville. We hit that up all the time. What movie complex did you go to when you went to go see movies in Columbus? We went to Marcus pretty frequently on twenty three and two seventy, right off the highway there. Yeah, I don't I need a second. I

wish I could remember this off of the cuff. And I can't, right, But I went to a really small movie theater that had like only two theaters in it, and it was in what was that little fucking place called

in Columbus. I'm gonna google it. Yeah, go ahead. It's amazing how quickly with movie theaters getting better in recent years, especially like since the pandemic, that when you go back to one that like we saw Done Too last night and like a nice movie theater, it was fine, but the seats didn't recline, and like AMC like all has those like awesome AMC recliners now, especially like Dune two, like almost three hour movie, Like you want to be back there reclient? Yeah yeah, and these were like cuffy

seats, but we want to put our peede up. Yeah I do. I You're right. It's very interesting how little it takes me to be like, well, I can't go back to just normal seats sitting down. That's for schmucks. I need to be laying down and watching a movie. Yeah, that's the problem with SO. Like SO, I was just saying how much I really like mom and pop restaurants because I think there's more, there's more TLC. There's just like more appreciation movie theaters. It's the opposite.

You want big theater, you want Corporo seat Master three thousand because they have all the innovations in popcorn, technol laser projectors. Yeah, all that's not all that shit in a theater. So it's like the opposite. The place where I used to always go, which I can't find now is like I hope it didn't maybe it shut down. Uh it it like had only two theaters and the audio was not very good, and I just remember being like,

you know, it's not a great theater, but it's ours. Yeah, crappy theater we like in Ohio. Do you have B and B theaters? What's that? Okay? I had never heard of this either until I stayed in Kansas for like a month last summer. I was waiting for my house to close, and apparently B and B is like a big chain. Now. I didn't know if it was like all the Midwest or just Kansas, but it was. It was fine where we saw Barbie and Oppenheimer.

But yeah, it starts with this like really earnest thing of the family talking about how important it is that you went to a B and B theater, And it's like from our own family and there's like nine hundred kids. I don't know if it's like this giant. It's like a very giant, very like Christian looking family from Kansas, I imagine. But they're from Liberty, Missouri. That checks out. Oh yeah, yes, yes, all right, yes, where you have to have eighteen kids. Yeah, but I

guess those are like big. Now I didn't have to stretch all the way out to Ohio, but it was fine. Yeah. I never saw one in Ohio before I moved in. Now coming back, it's like, now, it's all it's a MC and Regal. That's about all I see. So, yeah, that's all I see too. It's it's the big it's the big dogs they've taken. Uh huh. I don't know if I've seen Regal. I amc has been everywhere. I mean, I worked there for years. Uh, there's I saw Lows I think in New York. I

don't remember what San Francisco is. Cinemark is that one of them. We had a Cinemark growing mark. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Cinemark was all right. I don't know if they're still around. Dick and Sign. I got addicted to the Alamo Draft House in Denver. That's stuff, but you got to get addicted to the Alamo. It was awesome. I I was just think, it's like, you know, since having kids, you know that whole thing about it's not your life anymore, it's your kids' lives and

you're like there to be there for them. And I fully subscribe to that. So I'm like and I like have no resentment towards that at all. But I was like, Okay, So then before I had kids, like, what was the greatest like time in my life? And it was when we were going to Alamo Draft House like once a week for a whole year.

They would have those beer dinners and they'd be like, Okay, now tonight, we're doing Rocky four and we're going to make a dinner for you that is like, you know, inspired by the movie, and we're going to pair up with a draft beer company from Denver and they're gonna have three beers come out all night and you just pay for it all up front and it just comes to you. And we we did literally like forty five of those in one year, and it was it was just the best. It

was so good. I really enjoyed that. And then you know, eventually we moved him. Like, I started going to MC's and they have the reclient seats and they didn't have that at Alamo at the time. So I'm like, well this is nice too, but I still I missed. I miss the Alamo Draft House quite a bit. Well, Alamo's definitely company now, because the only time I've gone in the last like ten years was when I fell asleep in the front row got Zilla minus one right after our Right,

Yeah, they did have the recliners at that, that's right. Yeah, it's company enough to fall asleep, which I never fucking do in theaters. But I guess the key is just you know what, I can't sleep on planes either, So maybe before I fly now, maybe we just need to put on a live show and then and then immediately get on a plane. Yeah, completely wiped. Yeah. I knew I was going to fall asleep in that movie. So I was like, jan, when you hear me snoring, I poke me, and like halfway through me alone, I

fell. I knew, I knew it was. I was dead tired. I was so tired, and so about halfway through, I'm like, I don't feel like I'm asleep, but I can. I know my eyes are closing. I can feel that, but I don't feel like I'm asleep. And then Jan's just like, you know, elbow to my elbow and I'm like, oh, was I snoring? He's like yeah, dude, cool, cool, thank you. And then I stayed up for the rest of it. It was a good movie. I enjoyed it. I'm like some

people, I might as well have not seen it. The little bit opinion I have of it. It's such a good film too, but you get to enjoy it for the first time again because really good. Yeah, but I can also see how you would fall asleep in it though, because it's very kind of I don't know, it's muted, the black and white kind of lens itself. No whit be able to like, uh well, okay, either way, it's muted. It's not very saturated. You know what

the difference between Godzilla minus one and Godzilla minus Color or whatever. It's like about the same. It's a very desaturated film. I've heard it's very good. Maybe I'll go back to it at some point. I feel ashamed of it. I recommend it at gub It was Grand View Theater. This is oh sure, Yeah, it was like that like smaller indie independent theater it used to go to and you could have beer in it, and I remember thinking that was really cool. Yes, that's becoming standard. I think you're

in the theater. Yeah, so awesome. Even AMC has the like mcguffins thing now mcguffins. Yeah, the AMC at Easton would have mcguffins. That's the first time I saw like a bar in a theater and being like, oh, yeah, that's cool. One day I'll be able to drink and

enjoy that. Yeah, I remember. Yeah, we went to Universal to do we did the Mario movie thing when we're out there for Summer Games vest you know, grab me, you and Manati and jam what to see it and uh yeah, I remember they had a bunch of like Jurassic World gimmick drinks and stuff and got to buy those and bring them to Mario and that's a good time, Like yeah, oh yeah, absolutely. Then that was fun. That was cool, cool seeing the movie like they're at Universal and

all that stuff. At that time. Mary, I feel like whenever you're talking to Grub, it's always under the high pressure interrogation lights, you know, really drilling down into the heart of the industry and your day job and the hard questions and everything, and she's the best at like just smacking them away too, so that's always fun. I try to stay frosty with those hard hitting grub questions, like I don't know some bullshit that happened to Twitch,

I didn't do that shit. Bit leave me alone. I can't.

I'm usually running around during those things all the time, so i don't even like get to see a lot of them, So like, are there any like grub are you going after her with like twitch questions or is it just I would just like I'm like I'll just bring it up, and then when she slaps away, it's like, yeah, cool, that's completely fair, Like that's just like I don't want to be like, oh, they're ignoring it, And if she wants to talk about she has the opportunity, and

if she doesn't want to talk about it, then that's good too, Like yeah, that's the way it kind of go. That's the process in my brain where I'm like, it's at least worth bringing up, and then if we don't talk about it, that's fine too. It is relevant. It's what the people are talking about. But usually and this is what I would do for anyone who asked me that. I would always be like, oh, that's definitely a CEO question. Do you want me to go get him?

And then I'll go get him and bring him in and then he can answer the hard hitting questions, because right, and that's what and I figure most of the time that's what's going to happen. And it's like I think that that's you know, writing news for a very long time, it was like, well, did you ask for a comment? It's for my editor and so they're not going to respond. But the point is you still need to go ask. So they say they didn't respond, So you did your

part, You did your due diligence. And I think it's that part of my brain that's like firing there. Your journalistic integrity kicks it on this in Google alert, Yeah, exactly going on. I saw someone mad about this on the internet and I didn't look any further. So why don't you tell me about it? Mary? Yeah, what are you seeing? What's everyone pissed about? Grumb what is it? Everyone's mad about everything right now?

Don't you worry about that. It's been a stressful week. Actually, I would just say, like, this is one of those like what a tough year in games where like every time when there's something trending, when gaming is trending, I'm like, ah, what the shit is up now? And I know it's bad. I know some shit went down in the industry and we're all gonna have to like deal with it. It's just been that year.

People are just people are on edge, and everyone I think is kind of at each other's throats because of that a little bit in like the community, it seems like so it's like I I don't want to feed it, like that's usually where I'm at, Like I don't want to like fan those flames at all, Like hopefully it just dies down. I mean, do you think like everyone that's like Madden on edge, do you think they just stopped paying attention to video games entirely and just like really took up like bird

watching or something that it would just like instantly fix. Like Oh, they'd be fucking really pissed about birds. No one blue jays, and we think it's the mayor's fault and we're going over to his house right now to throw rocks at his window, like the old bird watching drama. There's drama every scene groups of bird watching with the internal drama. Yeah, you too many crows, Like there's always like some problem that the bird community is. Really

if there's people involved and birds, then there's going to be drama. Absolutely. Yes, So like Grub, you've been doing the news thing for like did you did you like want to go into news when you wanted to go in dow. Yeah. I think when I was like like coming up, I would uh yeah, I would read Quarterman and the news stuff first, like the EGM, and then I would read the reviews, and then I

think I would read the previews things like that. And the previews were always like, you know, nebulous about like, well, what is this actually gonna matter? It's this game actually gonna be good? No one could tell

you yet, So I'm only a little interested in that. But and then when I would start listening to video game podcast, I enjoyed the news conversations the most, like it's like, uh, people talk about what's actually happening, and then you know, the video game conversations were definitely up there as well. But yeah, I think part of me has always been attracted to

that. Yes, when do you think news got like because you know, we both grew up in the age of you know, EGM and Game and Former in like very nineties games magazine that we're not saying anything important and not trying to When was that shoe? I mean, what do you say? It was around like the Joystick Kataku kind of like late twentys, early twenty tens like that from my head goes I think where it started getting a little

more like, hey, take us seriously. Yeah, I mean I think it was it was EA spouses, right, That's when it was when the spouses of EA employees were saying, hey, we never see the people that were married to that are making all your video games. And then I think a lot of people were like, wait, why aren't we talking about this

like they're human beings responsible for all these things. We need to like, yeah, we could keep talking about how excited we are for a game and how many guns and how many levels are in each thing, but that seems kind of stupid compared to real human lives. And I think something clicked at that point, And then ever since, people have been like re examining exactly what their role is inside the video game industry apparatus and all that stuff.

Was that around at the same time as I didn't you know, San Diego with Red Dead there was like a wives of Rockstar thing? Was that That was a few years later, Yeah, but yes, it was definitely part of that lineage. Yeah, okay, yeah. It's like I feel like for all the similarities you and I have grub I think the way we were getting the same magazines and reading the same stuff, and we're roughly around the same age I was. You know, I would read the Quarterman stuff and

I would read this stuff about like the business stuff. It didn't really I went straight to the review crew. That was my thing. And I remember when I all I did was review before Game Informer, and I think it was my first week at Game Informer. Disney bought Marble, and I never once written a new story in my life, never thought about writing a new story. I was a reviews. I've written six hundred reviews, zero news

stories. And I remember Reiner, my boss Game Informer, came up and he's like, hey, can you write up a new story about Disney buying Marble, which, first of all topic I know nothing about either of those companies, no interest in either of those companies, and I don't know how to write a news story, but I just started my dream job and I was just kind of like I didn't want to suck it up, and so I was like, how many stars do I give it? Out of five?

It was a ten point system. It was a fun factor on this acquisition, off the charts. But I was like trying to figure out how to ask without seeming like a complete dumbass. And I was like, yeah, so, like, you know, with a story like this, you know, what would you know, like step one, what do you think? You know, what's the usual you know thing here? And he's like, oh, you know, uh, call him up. I was like, I'm sorry, what, Yeah, call him up? And or Marvel,

what are you fucking talking about? Like I think the article is. I think I found it on the internet archive or something. It's whatever week that happened and would have been on the old ass game and former site. And I'm sure it's just a riveting riveting Uh, I'm sure. I talked to everyone. I talked to Walt. He had a lot to say. God, But yeah, that was my first one, and I spent the rest of my career trying to never have to do news. Yeah, it

was It's dimple. You're right, Like, it's like I would go to it and I would do one thing you do that I think, which is kind of different interest in that stuff. But when I was learning to write about news, though, it was still a pretty similar process where I'm like,

I actually don't know how this sausage is made. So when I went from like writing a blog on one up to being and then realizing like around two thousand and eight that that all that stuff was going to blow up, so trying to start my own thing and then doing a little bit of stuff here on the side. But then when Dan Shue left one up and started bitmob and I went to go volunteer for him, part of that was like They're like, we'll edit you well, and I'm like, okay, that

sounds pretty cool. I wonder I wish I could make that happen. And eventually someone got me in there and they started editing me and teaching me the basics, and it was, you know, learn on the job. Basically, do the volunteer work, write a news thing every other day or something like that, and we are going to edit the hell out of you. And they were a tough edit, but I really didn't know what I was doing. I could not have just gone from reading it to them producing the

news without having that guidance. So yeah, it was a process for me. It Texas specific type, because I do find that, I would say, the majority of people, at least in the time that I was kind

of coming up and everything. It might it's probably different now, but like I think most people wanted to get free games and play games at work and review games and so like it was so rare, Like we had eighteen editors when I started the Game Informer, and nobody wanted to do news, so we would have a rotating news lead day and so it would just be like, all right, Dan, it's you today, Tim, it's you today, you know, And it was always just like, you know, try

to do one story an hour. So it was always oh, new box Art announced for saying throw three or whatever. It's like, okay, great, here's the box Art news story or whatever, because none of us want to do it. And then enough of us complained all the time and tried to get out of our news duties that like, I think they got the message that, like we need to have a dedicated news guy, and so

they brought on Jim Riley from from IGN. Then they brought in Mike Futter, and then after I left, it was Emern Kahan and so they actually started like bringing in news people and like as soon as we started doing that, like everyone else was like, oh my god, we can pretty easy and yeah, not have to do this thing that we are not. It's it's not doing anyone any favors. We weren't doing good newswork by any means. I mean, I don't want to speak for everyone, but like me

and others that didn't want to do news, we're get it. You're bad at your job. I think, yes, job, it's a special, unique role that I think some people gravitate towards. And I also think that it's something that in my observing because I am also not a news person, I was features. So we're kind of a three headed hydra. Right now, we have news and we have features. Right somebody's calling up rock Star

because they said that they're going to be delayed. Somebody's reviewing GTA five, and somebody asked to make that feature about how you get all the sick cars, And that was me. I would never probably touch news very often.

What my experience was was Eddie M McHugh, who did news for Game Spot, that dude was always on and it was like something about this like always on personality where it didn't as far as I'm aware, Maybe it did, but like, as far as I was aware, it didn't seem to bother him that like if some crazy news dropped at like nine pm, story was out, story was out, fifteen minutes later it was it was published, and it was ready to go, And I was like, was he doing

right now? And he's probably like at dinner, you know, like hanging out with his mom, not listening to her like on his phone. He's getting it out. And that was He was good at it. He was fucking good at it. But he probably like was able to take time off in other ways. But my instinct was you're kind of always aware and ready to go at any given moment on call, like you're a doctor. Like

I've seen it with like when when Fletter started a game Informer. He was in town because he lived in New York and we went to watch Monday Night Raw at my buddy Brian's place, and in the middle of Raw, like John Ricotello like said something stupid and he's like he's like, oh shit, I got to write this up. I've been literally message yeah writing it up.

Yeah. I've been at poker games at Jason Schreyer's place, and in the middle of the poker game I can't remember, there was some like bombshell fucking news story just hit in the middle of this poker game, and Jason Schreyer's like, well, I should probably do something about always see Shryer's tweets. He's like one of the number one like always on. Like it's really cool to see someone who's good, like just an ace at what they do.

And a part of that I think and like grub correct me, but it's like a part of that to me is like you're gonna be first, second, or third. Like at some point if it's like six hours later. I've seen news people apologize, like they'll tweet, they'll be like, sorry, this is five hours late. My dog just died, you know. It's just like you're like an embarrassment to have a news story that's five hours delayed. Yeah, And it's that just the stuff doesn't always come down

from like an external pressure. It's like an internal thing I think we do to ourselves where it's uh, like we value being there and to explain what's happening to people because it's like, oh, that's important, someone should be doing that, And I think we just talk ourselves into that position somehow. So yeah, I've definitely felt that, But I never really had too many people be like you got to be first, you got to be out there.

If anything. It was always like we want to be take our time, make sure we get things right, and like that's always a huge part of it too. But yeah, it was just this sense of responsibility of like, hey, people are coming to these stories looking for information or they are going to base ideas about the industry on this stuff. We want to

make sure that they have the full pitcher right away. And yeah, I don't know, it's like a sense of not justice, but there's a sense of like a responsibility to what is happening and the people coming to this industry and trying to figure out what's going on. Well, Greb, let's break this down because first of all, let's plug your stuff here, because I want to go into all the stuff you do in a given week, So go ahead and plug where the folks can find you. Well, yeah,

I'm with the shoot job with you over a giant bomb. Of course, there was a great Blake Club today everyone should watch, of course. But I also have a game Mess, which is the podcasts I Guess Company, me and Mike do where we do Less than the Ten Dogs on Tuesday, our Nintendo podcast in our general podcast on Thursday, game Mess decides which used to be games Beat besides back when when I work there, but I always

like did everything with that, so I owned it the entire time. So when I left there, I'm like, it's gonna take this with me. And then we do some special stuff for a like Patreon members. I got a Jeopardy game I'm gonna be doing this weekend with John Lenneman from Digital found Read things like that, so yeah, we're doing something. I'll do the occasional like YouTube video on the side or whatever that I still enjoy doing. What's the bread and butter. I really do like doing game as Mornings every

weekday that it's really nice. It's like I wake up and I get to talk about video games with people who want to talk about video games with me, and it feels like when I'm done with that each day, I'm like, if I did nothing else, I would feel okay because we got that get a job. I did job and we had a conversation. It was and it's like I accomplished the thing I set out to do, which is

let's get out there and have the conversation about what's actually happening. So do you get up, like, because you do the show in the morning every day, when do you get up? Are you getting are you seeing the news before you go to bed and getting it prep for the next day. Are you wake up the morning seeing what's happening and getting everything together? Like how does that break down? The always on this is like you know, I am on like social media and things like that's all I see when things

are happening. But I'm not like these days, I'm not immediately like okay, I gotta do something with this. I'm like just kind of fining that away, like okay, I am going to probably talk about that. What is the angle? Like what's the take? That was something that was you know, Shoe like talked about and that's something that my other editors will talk

about, like let's have an angle for whatever story we talk about. So it's not just regurgitating what's happening for game this morning, is I am like reading other people's news stories. Do that in part to remind people there's a lot of great reporting happening out there. But it's also like, okay, let's jump off from there so and have the real conversation about what this means. And I'm thinking about, like what I'm going to be talking about when

I first hear the story many times. But really what happens is I get up, get the kids ready for school, taking the school, I go for a walk in the woods two boy five miles, and then I listened to usually some podcast or whatever while I'm doing that most of the time, or I read the news, and then I come home and I put the show together at about like nine am, and then the show happens at eleven

AM. Like I feel like I'm always in awe of this because, like Mary, Mike and I talk a lot about, you know, just because we all have day jobs, we all have this, we all have side things that we're doing and try to keep up with the social life and you know, other interests that aren't just video games and everything, and that can be overwhelming. Like I constantly feel overwhelmed of like god, damn, I just there's not just a couple hours where I can just sit on a couch

and do nothing. But we don't even have kids. You have two kids, and you're doing more than any of us. I feel between all these different shows, I think you've got the craziest schedule on Giant Bomb, I think you've got You've got the stuff at night too with Manati, Like I just I it's like a Maharty thing where it's like I don't know how we can be this like smaller and super literature bowl at and travels the world and learns and sales across the ocean, Like I don't know, Like where are

you finding these reserves of time? I mean, yeah, I'm not finding it in most of the time. It's like it's coming away from other things. Part of it is like I like doing it. That's a big part of it. And I'm not doing anything I don't want to be doing. But I do feel overwhelmed all the time. And I think the reality is even if I wasn't doing a lot of this stuff, I would still feel

overwhelmed because I would just be you know the ADHD. I would be procrastinating or I would be, you know, one of the things with ADHD is you no matter what you're doing, you always feel like you're doing the wrong thing. I should be doing this instead, and that is that's really frustrating. And one of the ways to fight that is kind of like just always be doing something. So uh, it does feel like burning the candle at both ends a lot of the time, and sometimes that gets to me.

But I'm like, uh, taking a queue from you, Dan, I started meditating recently and that has helped a ton. I haven't heard you mentioned that. Let's Seeah, it's only it's been a recent thing. I've been having really bad brain fog for like the last like three months, sure, and I was like, this is a health thing. I'm not sleeping. I went to go see a doctor who just did nothing to help whatsoever. It was a really frustrating experience. Yeah, right, for real. The

fucking always like super anti vaccines. I don't get her say I know that. I don't want to touchy subject here. I know you guys always argue about that. Where was she on January sixth, is what I'm wondering. So I so I was like, I have this bad brain fog and I was feeling discombobulated all the time, and I'm like, part of this is probably, you know, the kid's always giving me a cold or whatever. I think I probably have an ear infection. I've had had time to go

do something about that, but I was like, it's something else. I feel like I'm probably stressed and not dealing with it. So I'm like I am during my morning walks. Now, I will do the breathing exercises. I will try to let the thoughts go for at least like half of the walk and feel that, you know, the foot hit the ground and stuff like that, and focus on that instead and being a little bit more mindful.

It was almost an immediate difference. It was almost coming out of it being like, man, any who cares if it's placebo effect, I don't care whatever it is. I felt immediately better, and it's like, Okay, this is something that is working. So yeah, that has made a huge difference with Mike dealing with all these things happening all the time. It's

been made it a lot easier. I'm so glad to hear that because I feel like, you know, I'm always talking about how great meditation has been for me, but I feel like a lot of people, you know,

think like, oh, that sounds great, I should try it. And I do get the sense a lot of people try it, and I'm not saying they're doing it wrong or anything, but some people will sit and they'll sit for ten minutes, and you know, I don't get this sense when I talk to them later that they're trying that they're just kind of like sitting and waiting for it to be over and just going through their normal thought process. But like, meditation isn't about just like clearing your mind out and not

thinking or just waiting for ten minutes while not doing something. It is a very active thing, like or you were talking about when you're doing a walking meditation, it is about as you're walking, you're not up in your head thinking about other step. You were thinking about your foot hitting the ground, you're smelling the leaves, you are focusing on the bread. You sound as far away as possible. Yeah, yeah, yeah, It's not about just

like nothing happening in your brain. No, you're giving like intense focus too specific things basically, So like I feel like it's I was like you are doing it, you were properly meditating and seeing the results, which is awesome to hear. Well, you know, it was cool. It was you know, having a real job. I like looked in our thing or whatever, our sequoia and it's like, I bet we have like one of those apps of pre meditation, and we had we had called we now have Headspace.

So I was like, I was, oh, I'll just download Headspace and I signed up. Like on my walk, I'm like doing this. I'm like okay, and I've been listening to a few of those. But even when I'm like just doing it on my own, it is good. It feels like good practice to be listening and actively doing these things with like with what my body is doing with breathing or with sounds or with feel and then when the thoughts occur, like giving myself permission to let them go.

That's like that is just not something we do naturally, Like you have to practice that and like be like and then that makes you more aware of like, oh, I am having a thought and that is a thought, not something that is actively coming for me, and that is that's huge. It's been huge for me. Well. And something people don't get I think is that like they will get those thoughts coming in their head while they're trying to meet Tate and they'll think, Oh, I'm doing it wrong. Oh I'm

failing, I'm bad at this. No, that is the practice I've meditated for over twenty years, and that happens to NonStop with me. The practice is acknowledging when the thought comes in, acknowledging it and letting it move.

That's the hard thing. That's the part that you're supposed to just be like, it's okay to let it go. That's what you're practicing here actually, So yeah, identify with it. Yeah I did that today because, like, you know, there was a lot of like tech stuff going into Blake Club where it's like, you know, like we're Jan's Internet was out and so this video came in like while we were on the air, and you know, I don't do a lot of streaming gameplay specifically, and like sometimes

like my stuff wasn't fucking up. We were gonna basically, there's a lot of pre show stuff that was like coming in super hot, and I was stressing about it, and then we did the show. It's two hours or whatever of me playing fucking Superman sixty four, which is the least relaxing thing you could imagine, and then doing all this work to play Superman sixty four. Yeah. Yeah, and then it's like I was really hungry afterwards, and it's like, ah, I got like ten minutes before the next meeting,

and I got to do all my invisiitline ships. I'm trying to shove a peanut butter sandwich in my face and clean my fucking bisiline I get in the meeting. I'm sitting in the meeting for like forty minutes. I know my brain is just fried. Too many foods that would have worked better. I like peanut butter sandwiches, so I'm going straight for my delicious peanut butter sandwich so I can clean and everything. Get in the meeting. My brain's

just fried. During the meeting, it's you know, thirty minutes or whatever it was. And then it's over and I'm like, Okay, there's still like like an hour and a half sunlight. Now we'll go to do fire skip later. I'll go on a walk. It's nice outside, I'll you know, So I go outside going the walk. I brought my headphones and my first thought was like, oh, I'm going to listen to the new

Deadlock podcast. That I like, and then I was like, wait, hang on, no, there have been things I have I have had to be on for several hours being whether in meetings or on the show or hearing things, and might like I want to just listen to some fucking birds as I walk down the neighborhood or maybe it's twenty five minutes, but I'm just going to focus on these birds, and it gives me so much. Like when I come back and eat dinner and do this show, I'm like,

I'm just kind of recentered there. Yeah. Actually, like being able to hear a tree rustling that is like one hundred feet away and recognizing that is somehow restorative. I don't know what's happening there. I don't care. Again, whatever it is, it makes me feel way better. I I don't think that you have to be You don't need like a doctor to explain that

finding yourself in the present time is good for you. And you're always lost in your thoughts that you don't realize what time it is, what day it is, where you're at in your life right now, how old you are in the span of how old you ever will be, the things that bring you joy and not like those are just like there's so many conflicting ping pong

balls that are bouncing around in our brains. Being able to acknowledge that it's slightly cool outside and that that feels good on your skin is important for us, like we are existing in this space, and I also think like it kind of takes us back to just a bit of our animalistic instincts. We're

so high and mighty with all of our important documents and job stuff. Sometimes it's important to just realize that you're a breathing being on this rock, and it's very cool and humbling to say like, hey, it's just a regular day and I'm alive, and that's that's not too shabby, and that I

think lets everything else fall by the wayside a bit. Yeah, it's good to get in the habit of, you know, noticing when you're kind of getting up in your head with that stuff and you're not paying attention to what's

going on moment to moment. Like I can't tell you how many times I've been like running between like Okay, I got five minutes in this meeting, I'm gonna go up do this thing or whatever, and then I'll like I'll see like gizmo sitting on the couch, and I'll I'll run upstairs and he'll look at me and he'll start wagging his tail because he's excited to see me. And my you know, when I'm in that mode of like I got

to hurry, I do this thing. Sometimes I'll pass him right by and I'll go grab a water from the bridge or whatever and go to run downstairs. Got on the computer, but I realized, like, wait a minute, no, hang on that that dog just looked at me and he was a happy damn dog. Yeah, he was happy to see me. And I can't just go downstairs. And so even if it's just for twenty seconds, just going to get oh hey buddy, Oh you're such a good boy.

You know, it's just grounding yourself, just coming to the present moment. I think all of our jobs, I think all of us are so uh, those moments aren't built in, and I think we have to find those or you could do what some people do and self medicate with just too much wine. I know I'm not naming names or anything, but yeah, just get on your favorite sailboat and your sailboat dock and yeah, yeah,

why do people just get on their sailboat. Just get it, go hunt a whale with the bottle of s And they always have like that novelty glass that's really big and they're just like, you know, one glass for me, go go Dan No. No. I was just gonna ask on the meditation thing if Mary ber I don't know, we've talked about this before, like if you tried meditation for or what your thoughts are? Yeah, I

learned. Uh. I took a class with a certified she was a peer of mine in work, and was like, oh, yeah, I meditate. I have to. It's like the most important thing. And I did a class with her just for fun, and I did find that it was important. I don't similarly, like to Grub, I was like, I don't care about the science. I don't care about the art. I don't care about the rules. I don't want to know nothing. To me,

what grabbed me was the art of nothing. And because I have so much stuff going on, it is of value to me at some point in my day to have no audio and no video and for me to just exist. And so I do. I do practice that now where it's funny. I don't even I don't know if I use the word practice right like I'm not. I never really labeled it meditation. What I do is I have quiet time where I'm not supposed to be looking at four dozen open screens, and

I look at something that exists in the world, the sky. I love looking at like water, if possible, something that feels organic and living, and I will just enjoy that for like ten to fifteen minutes. I make

myself do it. I think it's it has made me better at my job, quite frankly, because there are things where I'll read email and I'll be like, that person's dumb is shit, and I kind of want to say it, like I'll like start to reply, and the I'll be like, I'm gonna look at the sky and I realize a lot of the things that I get upset about don't fucking matter. A lot of the things that we get upset about and like feel so important at the time are so fleeting,

and they're just emotions that we can totally control and let go of. So me doing nothing looking at sky, all that stuff is very valuable. I never really called it meditation, but I would consider it completely on par with what you're talking about. What I was going to say, is I think,

yeah, you you were really good. It seems at doing things that like are maybe not meditation in the traditional sense, but like you know, also you're always posting, like you know, stuff on Instagram like you and Simon, like hiking and being by a lake or hiking up a mountain or something that's like that is not you know, meditation by definition, but you are walking around. You're not just get a bunch of tabs open and text and stuff. You're just like with a dog in nature, like that's that's

kind of the same effect. If I'm not working, I am probably at a park with my dog. That is the place where I feel the most sane and functional, and it's very important to me and even if I can't have that. I recently uh very similar to Mike. We were very close in proximity. Last week. I was also in the Netherlands, so I had to fly like thirteen hours. I put on my big full ear coverage headphones. But instead of watching something on the TV, I had nothing in

my headphones. And I looked out the window and I was like, now I will just look at clouds for ten minutes with no Internet activities or anything. Like that. No games, Oh my god, I could play games, but I just like you look outside and you just process for ten minutes. It's good for you, and tell you touch grass like that. Kind Yeah it's a joke and stuff, but it's just serious, Like god, dude, it I mean like you just need to be reminded sometimes that that,

like everything that's happening, our just organ's working. Like you got your brain is an organ and it's and I think anytime you're getting in touch with nature and stuff like that or being mindful, it is a really quicker reminder of that, and then it helps you control or helps you be in peace at peace with those things. I think a little bit more. I'm I'm super tempted now because I've always loved the idea of doing the like long meditation

retreat. Like I've read enough books about meditation stuff, and a lot of people are like, that's where you're really going to find out, like how you're wired and you know what you need to work on is you do one of these you know, three five ten day meditation retreats or whatever. Now I've done it one day and it was very interesting and I liked it a lot. It felt good. But I was looking for like a weekend meditation retreat I could do around here, and there are ones. Apparently it's called

Vipinasa hypnosa. I'm sure I'm doing a great job pronouncing. But it's a ten day and it's only ten day, and it's not far for me. It's like an hour and a half and you are there for ten days. They take your phone, they take your wallet, they lock it up, they give you your meals, they give you a place to sleep, you know, they got a big like kind of like place where you can walk around and everything, and it's just you're meditating all fucking day for ten days.

And it's it's donation only too, so it's like it's not something where it's like it's some ten thousand dollars thing. You know. You go there and you donate what you want to donate, and I'm so fucking tempted by it. But like, I don't take a ton of time off work, and the idea of like ten days or days, I guess ten days, it'd probably be like, what's seven days of work whatever? Use weekends yeah around there, Yeah, And it's like, man, it's tough to justify

like, I feel like it would be. It's something I've wanted to do for many, many years. But this hard to justify. Like I could go to fucking Aruba for a week and a half, you know, Or I can go meditate in a Aruba. Yeah, if you give me the option, I'm not gonna meditate, you live, I'm meditate in Hawaii, or I'm driving an hour and a half to Wisconsin and sitting on a phone. I kind of want to, though, I kind of want to.

It's just why ten days? Why not seven? Is there? I wonder if there's like some science and maybe you'd learn this if you went you actually like took took the bait and went. But like there must be a science behind the idea that it probably takes three days to actually let the fuck go. I've always been told that about vacation, right, Like, if you take a vacation, it could take a week to actually get into vacation mode and be like, oh, right, I can relax, and then the

other week is like the one you actually relax at. Not that I've ever done a two week vacation in my fucking life, but I've heard from healthy people that that's the right way to go. I make the mistake with vacations of like I find out where I'm going and then it's like a ton of research and like, all right, day one is going to be dinner here and lunch here, and then in between that we're gonna go ride horses here. Then we're gonna go We're gonna parasital here. I don't think I've done

a good job ever. Never, I'd never agree to this. No, I'm never vacation with that. So what do you do. Let's say you're going to Aruba for four days? What's your plan going in? Nothing? I know, I'm saying here and then for breakfast, I will leave my hotel and look around and find something to eat, and then it will look around and find something to do, and then I will have a nap.

Do you do any googling of like, oh, they've got this cool they've got this amusing park, they got this horse riding thing, like any pre vacation, Yeah, one activity. Okay, that's that's a good that's a good rule of thumb. I'm like very in vain, like the van of Mary where I'm where, It's like the planning ahead would just add to the stress for me and being there and then having to stick to that plan, it would add to the stress. For me. It's not like, oh,

we have a plan, what a relief. It's like, no, now we got somewhere to be shit that I have to deal with on my match. That's what I'm trying to get away from. Yeah, now I get that for a lot of people that is beneficial, And the reality is I'll go on vacation with Steph and she has done a lot of googling and she has fun. Oh, the hotel is going to have breakfast every day and we could just go downstairs and eat breakfast and say, okay, you

know what that owns. That's great. I'm glad you did this work to make sure we have that. So there are some benefits to it, clearly, but for me personally it is, Yeah, I would maybe make sure I have one thing so I don't get there and you're like, oh man,

everything's sold out. Like all these fun things I did. I discovered, well it's a tickety thing like you would to the Fargo Dan, And it's like when I was watching that video, I'm like, it would have been cool if we could have had like those things ready for him, so he didn't have to like just do it, spread the moment and miss out on a bunch of stuff. Yeah, I think there is value. Like when I did Japan, I was like, I know, I want to see the Ghibli Museum. I know it right, Yeah, you need those

in advance, so I booked that in advance. But a lot of the days it was like, I'm in Kyoto today, what are we doing? Well, let's yeah, figure it out. I think there's I heard there was shrines from a guy on the subway, and you like, solve it. You know, it's a mystery. It's like, now I'm this ding dong in this amazing world and I get to figure out what is that makes that play so cool? Any How, I play games where I'm like, I don't I kind of want just wander on my own and find stuff.

It's why Breadth to the Wild Click movie so much. I was like, just go, just go do it. I will say I do like having a friend in the group that's like I'm the planner and I that is beneficial. Find a five start and it's like, fine, you can do that. But I like stumbling into things and figuring it out. And sometimes it fails. That is true. I've had like vacations where I was like, that was a why it's a really bad restaurant and that didn't work out.

But that's a part of my memory of that place, which was like that I fucked up, Like I embraced that kind of chaos, right. But the things I do remember, I think I have more ownership when I stumble

into things like the we went. Uh. Steph was living in Europe for a couple of years early on when we were dating, and I would go out there visitor and we did this like Eastern European trip or like you know, Central European trip, and we were in I think brought a slava for New Years and that was one of the places where she didn't do as much planning, so it's like we didn't have dinner planned out or anything like that.

So I just went out and I found like a tiny little schwarma place and we ate there a bunch of times because it was really good, and I'm like, I stumbled in there, and I have memories so that because like I like, oh, I did that process there, and I remember like where it is and what it looked like and what it smelled like and all that stuff. So yeah, I think it just builds stronger memories for

me. Yeah, you know what I feel like, next time I do a like vacation vacation like not a work trip, I want to do just the you are, Like, yeah, I feel like every vacation I do there's a Google sheet involved, and like, I think that does help in a way that like, you know, you do have to make some reservations, you do, and like, yeah, and to be fair, I

think we do a good job. Like when we and Bonco somewhere, Like you know, we went to New Orleans last spring and it's like, Okay, we know we're doing lunch here, we know we're doing dinner here, but we've got like a five hour block in between where we're just gonna walk around the French Quarter, you know, and like that that helps to have that, But like I kind of like the idea of going in and it's been like the whole thing is going to be those blocks of time. Maybe

with like one reservation somewhere. With that kind of planning, you'd be good at planning a Disney trip, ironically, because you do have to plan everything ahead for those I think no second, are you Disney too, No, No, he's a Minati sleep agent. I enjoyed it. He did not have this conference. I like Disney as much as as the next person, which is to say I like some of their movies every once in a while.

But I do really want to take my little children to Disney World, Like, yeah, I want to do that, Like that's what the whole idea is. I love the idea of like you taking your kids at Disney World and being like, I didn't do any research, I don't know where we're going kids, and they're like, oh what kids. You're fitting for yourself tonight. You know, you talk about having a friend that knows their

ship. I met Mike Manatty at fucking Disneyland. You did talk about having the best possible person just walking around be like here's this thing, here's this thing. He got to start the fast pass to get on a bunch of Star Wars stuff, like he was hand order. Exactly brilliant to go to Disney with a Disney adult. I love that you min max the entire experience and you're not in charge. And I actually think that that's very similar to

the idea of me of not planning things. If I'm around manners and it's like cool, take the wheel, Jesus, you tell me where to go, you tell me what to order, I'll do it and I can turn off my brain. That's very relaxing for me. That's what That's what I'm here for, to turn off the brain. Well, Mary, you can do that in about a month if you with me. If you want to go to Philadelphia for WrestleMania, I could. I could show you exactly where

all this stuff is. When did you start thinking that you could ever sell me on wrestle bing Dan, I don't think it's WrestleMania. I don't think I'll get tickets, but I might come out to uh do the what is the grilling? The tailgating a good time? Yeah, because Jason Finelli's like he's gonna be out there all day, and I'm like I could. It's not like the worst drive in the world. I keep like, take the

train. That would be the worst thing in the world, and I'm got there, eat with all y'all and then go watch it somewhere and have like a really good experience. I don't know. I think I might do that. I haven't tailgated since wrestlming at thirty two in Dallas. I would love to tailgate with you. I love tailgate, it just has never really come up with the wrestlemanas I've gone to. I would love to do that with you. Yeah, And I'm like, I was like, I keep thinking

about him. Might do Jase. It sounds like he's and make some real good food. So yeah, Philadelphia tailgates. Right, that's like we're like, you jump in the fire and stuff. So I'm like, I'll let them do that, but I want to watch that. I think we're shooting video there, so I feel like we should probably be in that parking lot. Yeah all right, awesome, Yeah, I think I might trying to make that happen. Oh that sounds good to talk about. Let's talk about

some I did it you still, Mike Skimmick, Yeah all right. Video game time is what Mike Maherty says, and I'm going to take his cat phrase there. We've all been playing video games. Mary, I need to ask you something. Yes, Look, this is a once a year thing. I know my audience, I know who I'm on a podcast with. I tend to have rules with not talking. There's a reason I don't talk about wrestling much on this podcast. It's because I'm the only wrestling person on

the podcast. Typically, Mary, we have someone here that also watches wrestling, and a wrestling game is out, and this is when the embargoes up. Mary, should we just do you want to peel the band aid off? Now? Yeah, you guys are probably going to talk about wrestling stuff, so let's let's have at it. You've correctly diagnosed what's about to happen. Mary, let me ask the questions. Yes, what was the game WWE two K twenty four for what platform? I played it on the PlayStation

five, but it's also on the Xbox and the personal computer. How many levels? Well, there's three new power ups, so let's talk about that is the value add Yeah, Dene actually kind of works that way. You can be like there's two new you got ambulance matches and you got oh cobbin matches, you know, right, it's the big game made still from that line of thinking where it's like we need to have new bullet points on the back of the box, all kind of like sports simps are like that.

It's like, you know, yeah, it's everd the truth. Yeah, it is, well, there's three covers. You've got You've got Cody Rhoads on the main cover, you got Bianca Beell, Aaron Ray Ripley on the Delexe edition, and you've got a bunch of guys that aren't Brock Lesner on the forty Years which mary. One thing I was doing while I was playing this game, the Showcase mode, which is the like forty years of WrestleMania

thing is uh I wo'king for criminals? Yeah? Yeah, I kept a keen eye out on a couple fellas in particular that I was curious how much they would be a part of this game. Are you familiar with the current goings on with Vince McMahon and Brock Lesner. They are both men, this is true? Yes, uh charge what else is going on? Here's the very short version of a very long, very awful story. They're angry with

each other. No, they they were very close with each other. They were arranging play dates with each other and n no, not for each other. Yeah, Brock didn't show up for the play date and Vince role played ass Brock. Look, it's there's a sixty eight or seventy two or something paid lawsuit. I've read every word of it. They're suing each other for not play No, no, let's be clear. It's very dark. They sexual trafficking, human trafficking. It is not funny. It is funny,

fucking terrible. They are legit the worst kind of people. Yes, yeah, right, okay, so criminals, criminals, sex traffickers, criminals. It's a Vince McMahon is not a good person. I don't know about the other guy, Lesnar. Incredibly talented wrestler, not a lot of evidence of I don't know. Moral Uh, I don't. I don't think he's a great guy. Right, Like what like vincemcman is part of like their contract negotiaans setting up these play dates and setting up this this sexual trafficking for book

listen. Well, the short version again, basically, the lawsuit was from a woman, Janelle Grant, who long story short, she lived in the same building as him. She needed the job, her parents had passed away. She was in a very very bad situation in her life financially. Again, this is all allegedly. This is all in the lawsuit. He basically took her in, groomed her, took her in a very vulnerable position,

and trafficked her out to different executives and exploited her. Lesner is the one who is not mentioned by name in the lawsuit, but given the context, it's the only guy it could have been. And so Vince is basically trying to get Lesnard to sign a new deal and was like, hey, I'll let you have sex with my girl here, and they arranged play dates and stuff, and it's just it's a fucking awful story. I don't mean to you know, it is. It's insane, but I don't want to make

light of it. But it's all to say. It is put Devide in a very interesting situation as of late, because they are pretty like, like, for instance, two K. The position they've been in here is they were long in the works with his forty years of WrestleMania mode being the big showcase mode, which is like, we're going to show all these matches from you know, handly involved Brock Listener, who's been the major part of WrestleMania for the last twenty years. Right, he's like their poster child and now

he's a big pervert and you can't possibly put him on the cover. Well, they did take him off the cover. They took him off the cover fucking hope So well is he still on the back? What's there? This came in hot video game, This came in hard to take him out of other things the law superspial just change the code, just wipe him out. Well, I'll tell you what they did. The lawsuit happened in early January. The game is probably it came out recently as of this posting of the

podcast. And as much as Brock has been a part of WrestleMania, WrestleMania is Vince McMahon's thing. It is the thing that saved wree. We would not have a w do Now without it. It was Vince's brainchild. And like anytime the history of WrestleMania is brought up, it is inextricable with Vince McMahon. And so that's very interesting to see how they manage this. And

I was surprised there's more of them than I expected. They made Brock lessener where you can't pick him from the main roster, like you can't go play online and b Brock Lesner and you can't be Vince McMahon. But when you play the showcase mode, there are several several things where this Wrestmania x seven main event where its Stone Cold versus The Rock, and Vince was heavily involved

with the finish, the storyline all that stuff. So like you're in the middle of the match and Vince that like they have the Vin's character model come down and he gets involved the way he did and and you know, like it's they're recreating these classic moments and stuff. So he's like fully fully there,

character model and all during that match. But then later on they do a quick like two second clip of him introducing Charlotte Flair and they blur his face, so such a weird thing that like you were seeing put it to him earlier, you were seeing his character model as part of the match and everything. I mean, there are people speculating like, oh, did they blur him in this one because he's standing next to a woman? Is it?

You know, he's integral to the match with the restaurant lured him like he's like like he's a tit, Like he's like yes, like he's like trying to erase him from history the way they've done in the past, notably a murderer. He's he's there, but he's his face has a censor blur on it. Yes, I don't know if I heard his voice in the game, but he is all over that Wrestling X seven match and they blur his face briefly later on, so he is present in the game. They've

clearly so weird. It's very, very weird. And then they have a history and ww has a history of having to do this with several other criminal wrestlers who have done terrible things of like minimizing their presence or if they if it's impossible not to show their stuff, to blur them and you know, they had the WWE network and you couldn't search for these wrestlers by name and

stuff like that. It's it's weird. I think going forward it's gonna get even weirder because we've seen their advertisements of them them using like deep fakes for like Haul Cogan and Steve Steve Austin and these commercials. I think they're going to start doing that with these things and like putting a generic face over and McMahon in the future and make them look like something else. Yeah, it's

gonna be fucking weird. Ghost faces nobody. But it's like his body very y, yeah, and Mary. The added wrinkle to this is the company just sold, So it's an Endeavor is this company that owns UFC as well, So you have C and Debitory wrote owned by Endeavor now and so now you've got these people that just spent billions of dollars to get debitor E and all this shit comes out about Vents like the same week they announced the sale,

and like the rock is at the stock exchange with Vince McMahon ringing the bell and stuff, and then like two days later the lawsuit hits. So you got TKO. Now that is like, fuck this, get this guy out of here. We don't want anything to do with this guy, even though they, you know, were pretty fond of it earlier it been in front of them, but it's like this is that this is like the fourth round with Vents in this stuff. This is like the worst of it.

But he's definitely been through the ringer on sexually harassing people for years now and he's left the company previously. Yeah, why can't he just be wiped from existence? Like so what so what he made? What? It seems like they're in the process of maybe trying to do exactly that. But it's a video game and it's it was kind of hard to get the stuff done,

I think. And it's to the extent they can because and the thing is to the the industry or that company specifically, has always leaned so heavily on nostalgia. You know. They own these ips for you know, Hogan to match a man in Austin and rock and all these big stars from the past. And they're very big on doing that. They're not fucking like right right' shit. But because Vince was also oh yeah I drink this shit. Yeah, Vince wasn't just the guy in charge. Got the bar is so unbelievably

low. You name damn near anyone. How about that? Vince is Vince is uh the worst you get in wrestling outside of the several actually actual murderers. Yes, so, because he was such an on screen character throughout all of it, you know, from the time he was an announcer and everything from the eighties to being a big antagonist during the nineties to being just omnipresent

throughout the two thousands. It is not that easy if you want to show anything from the past and act like de Wite wasn't just like born from the womb. In February twenty twenty four, it's hard to get around Vince. He is all over everything, so everything. That is why I was so interested to see how this is handled here. And so yeah, that's all

you see Evince. He's not playable or anything. Brock is playable. You play as Brock listener in the Wrestlmingia thirty match against the Undertaker, and in the Triple Threat match at thirty one erecepth Rollins Cash is in, So yeah, you're playing as Brock. He's in the game. You see him in video packages with Eddie Guerrero and Curd Angle and stuff. So Brock is less nuked from the game. But I guess you could also say he's not actually

named in the lawsuit and it's way more about Vince and the executives. But like, does that look good for Brock. I don't think you will see him back in debit you. So it's just it's a very weird mode, weirdly timed that they could not have done anything about this is not like I

think they did what they could, but it's still curio like. And the reason we know that is because there's been several times over the last decame where the roster will change with like eight months before the game comes out, and then we get to the game and those characters are still in the game because they they it would just take it be too much work to get rid of them. Yeah, decide your characters. You can't change it up three months

before the game, Yes, exactly. And that's that's the situation they were in here and more frequently known that Vince McMahon was a piece of shit for years, Right, everyone's known it forever pretty much. It's just becoming extremely evident how bad it was. And but he'd be owned the company until a couple months ago, so it's like, he's not going to do that to himself. And then that changed. Right, I've taken this issue up with

my boss and I've decided not to fire myself. Mean exactly. I was working there while Vince smcmahon was the boss, and I heard people say several times a phrase that was we have to protect the chairman, like cool, but you never like it was never said in the context of like how horrendous all this shit was. It was all in like, oh, somebody said something on a podcast that they said, oh, fuck vincacman. You know, he used the wrestlers and chew him up and spit him out, and

you would. Here we have to protect the chairman outside of a very close inner circle of his dudes. I can't imagine many people knew how fucking bad it was, because I was fucking shocked when I read the lawsuit. Yeah, so that's where that's at. I mean, that's you know, that's a small part of the game. It's just oh, that's yeah, it's this is a nightmare. You should burn this this game. This sounds awful. I think this is like one of the better versions of this game in

a long time. Huh. It's honestly, it's probably the best I've played since at least uh w E fourteen. It's a good it's a good wrestling game. It's not perfect. Yeah, sorry, I don't mean to go to like super super serious stuff into like, yeah, what are the controls like? But that's that's where wrestling is going to be for the next several years. Every time this conversation comes up, especially when you're doing the whole

thing, but hey, we're gonna talk about wrestling. You don't like it, it's like, well, okay, we got to tell you all this ship first. Morally, it's dog shit. So the only thing you have

left is like whether or not you like the button practice I had. I had my friend John over and we did a ECW hardcore rules match at the Hammer Sign bar room between Rob Van Dam and Muhammad Ali and Muhammad Ali put RBD through a table and he a flaming table and he kipt up right away, and yeah, we fought backstage and then I, uh Mahmad Ali there's a sleeper hole and put him to sleep and I won. So it's a real fun time that sounds fantastic. It's it's good. The showcase mode.

It is annoying to me because they will it's this historical stuff, but it's like you would assume they would want you to like play the fun parts of these classic matches, but then they also entersperse all this real footage and so then it's like a lot of times the real footage since you played the big move is like literally like two minutes of like Hogan and the Ultimate Warrior, like laying on the ground or like a bear hug or something like that.

It's no. The pacing is is really really weird in it, and it's all these like you know you'll get like fifteens, hyper specific historical things you have to do, like here is where you put them in. You know, three different of these. You blocked three things in a row, and then you whiped them against the ropes from the left side, and it just really kills the pacing of the match. Like the game is at its best when it's like you and a friend, or you just playing a mode,

or you're just doing a wrestling match. There's way too much start stop, weird, shitty pacing stuff going on in the Showcase mode. I appreciate the history, but also I've seen all those bajillion times. I could see how would be a little more fun if you're like, oh, I never saw Matchaman versus Randy Tavage and you get to play it but then see some footage, but like, I don't know, to me, it just feels like

weirdly paced wrestling matches. The gameplay itself, I think is the best it has been in a long time in terms of like all these different systems that we're always just kind of confusing before. There's just too many bars on the screen, There's too many what is this doing? What is this boosting? What is this? Why can't I do this now, it feels a little

whittled down. Now two things you can understand a little easier, just between the finishers and the signatures and your stamina, like you know, it's the ballpoints on the back of the box. Now you can do super finishers if you have stuck up three finishers, you can do Randy Orton's punt kick, or you can do you know, Undertaker's Hell's Gate thing or whatever. So it doesn't come up that often naturally, but that's one of the bullet points.

Ambulance matches, casket matches, they're fine. They're normal, like hardcore matches where you go to a specific spot and then do a little mini game to try to throw someone into a thing, right, Yeah, yeah, I mean that's the kind of thing that these games are where it's like they have to make a big deal out of things that are relatively minor because they have to be the same thing every year. It is the reality. So yeah, and people as hard as people go in the creation stuff, they

want to be able to recreate everything. They want every match type that's ever been in any wrestling event ever has to be in the game. So yeah, they're very very particular about that stuff and they've got it, So I think I still have issues with the core gameplay, as improved as it is now, I do feel like a lot of times I'm pressing a button and then waiting for an animation to finish, like sometimes kind of a long one.

It kind of brings me back to like a thing that annoys me about even like really great fighting games now like teen an eight or three pi er six, where I feel like, in the last five ten years, the super move type thing where it's like, all right, this looks cool the first two or three times you see it, and now it's just like, h just watching this, you know, like it's a smaller scale version of that where it's like, Okay, I did this biancabell air move where now

I got to watch her knock the person back and then she does the flip and she does but like at the same time, fans want her to have that move, so like, how else you going to do that other than a can And then they want it to look right and they don't want it to be like they don't want that to be a skill check right. There is a world where I think of like ten eighty snowboarding where it's like very

difficult to do a ten eighty. And then people are like, yeah, but I like in SSX, where I could do like a twelve sixty, like in my sleep, and that's the game I actually like, and most people do prefer that, So I think when they come to this game, they don't want to be like, Okay, I have all control over every motion here so that I can screw up doing but Bianca bell Air is awesome. Move No, I want to hit a button and it happens, and it's like, yep, I get that, but that is a little bit

less interesting to me. Yeah, yeah, And they're still trying to ride that line between like is this a simular or do we want people to be able to kind of pick up and play at arcade style? And I still don't think we're really at a like pick up and play level with this. I think you really got to spend the time to go through the tutorial. And they're not in a world where it's like did this game for as frequently as they put it out? And what it feels like, you know,

it's these annual sports titles like how much can that really cost? They still don't have the money or opportunity to go make a separate arcade game to stand alongside this, and that stinks. It sticks can't have both two key cattle grounds, and it was not good. They tried to write All Stars and it didn't sell. So, like somebody there has listened at certain points,

they just haven't gotten the right people on the game basically. Yeah, and I still feel like a lot of times the game boils down to watching your character's head to see a triangle pop up ahead of it. On top of it, it's a No Winter reverse and I don't really know how you get around that. I just think wrestling is kind of a tough thing to translate to video games, and I think the time it worked best is universally pretty much the sixty four is what people say, and I agree with It was

simpler, it was arcadier. I think the more you go into simulation more it's just not it's it doesn't translate that well. I mean, that's why these games work best as creative sandboxes where people are making their own stuff and telling their own stories, and it's like they have all these tools to do that. That's where this game actually shines. Yep. And yeah, I don't mean to be too negative on it, because I really do think the

actual gameplay is the best it's been in a long time. But I still just have my normal like, hmm, I feel like I should like this more. It's like my two favorite things. I feel like, you put them together, I should like it more than I like them. But like, you know, the Metacritic on this is like a low eighties, and I feel like, yeah, that's that's about right, and I do think that's that's actually that's surprisingly high. Well, I did not think it was

that high. It's pretty good, and I heard I was streaming it once and somebody described it really well as like it's a great toy. It's not a great video game. It's like, you know, if you want to download six different versions of Shadow the Hedgehog and make them fight in the ladder match, you know that's funny. But yeah, as an actual like fighting game or sports game or however you want to categorize it, it still of them feel quite right. But it feels pretty fun honestly. So yeah,

I'd say overall positive. Got my usual misgivings though, so that you know, sex trafficking is a bit of a downer, But yeah, we didn't even tell Mary that he shipped on her. I was wondering if we were going to mention that, yeah, that's in a lawsuit. He pooped. Definite thought about saying it, and then I didn't. He pooped on her and then made her keep servicing his friend and honestly, not even the weirdest thing, not even the weirdest thing. Yeah, you shouldn't even be This

shouldn't even be allowed on the shelves. Like as punishment, all of these men should have to eat liquid dog shit and not have their video game come out. You're not wrong, ripped from their stupid fingers. We're moving on, involved with terrible people money. I wish nothing but ill of them. And that's why I'm glad that Kasaga Cure You exists us, because he's like the best person in the world. Do you know about in the hardy at this? I think I heard vaguely that he doesn't like Cosaga, which is

the red flag. I'm sorry, Mike Mahardy, this is the Yeah, this is the best you replacing Maharty. The best possible outcome here is on Atchiban. Yeah. Yes, it's an insane take because bon rules. I cried at the end because he just was like he just he's like it literally

is like Jesus, he takes it all on. He carries the world on his shoulder, and he he turns the other cheek and when he turns back around, he's still smiling at you, even though you just betrayed him, even though you just did everything terrible to him and you left him to fucking die in a taxi and he and it's like there's characters that do worse things to him later, and he's not friends with him throughout the whole thing. And at the end of the game, he's like, no, of course

we're friends, So what are you talking about. And the guy's like, don't say that, you're making me feel terrible, and it's just like, no, that's who Kaska is and it rules. It is so awesome to play a game with a character that is that nice, and especially like in a world that's so cold so much of the time, to feel like this like cozy little home with this character. And they nail it. They go through that story, and you know, I think it dragged a little bit

at the end. I was frustrated the last boss fight when I was under leveled and there was no easy way to go out in the world and level up again. But if you, you know, do all the things they give to you to a grind, if you go do like the dungeons, so the dungeon crawler thing, and you do every level on there, you'll be fine. That is a little bit of a grind though, and it

does take a few hours, and so it's like addings this padding. But outside of that frustration, once I got past that final boss and got to the end of these stories with these characters. First it's like I don't have a lot of history with Kiriu. I thought that was really well done. And then just having ichibond be Ichiban and charm everybody and just be this beloved dumbass. I cannot feel more of a connection with a character than I feel

with him. He is incredible. Yeah, and you mentioned the Curu stuff too, like I think grub you and I both have respected Yeah, because I'm from Afar and dabs from here and there. I think the way, like I know enough of that character and his general arc and everything to the

way they present it in this game. When you're doing the cure U stuff in Japan, where you're kind of there's a big focus on like reminiscing, like, oh, I remember this place, that's where I met with this guy and I had this meal and we talked about this thing, or that's

where I got in a fight with this guy. Like it's not it doesn't lean into like you have to Like I guess the opposite would be like a Medal Year Solid four, where it's like, imagine going into that and not knowing a bunch of shit about Metal Year and right, what are they trying? What is fucking happening? I feel like you don't need that level of knowledge for this game to appreciate what they're doing with Crry. You right, you're gonna get a lot. You'll get enough through osmosis if you will hang

out with any other people who do talk about these games. But even if you don't, it's like they are just giving you these little vignettes that are memories, and they tell you the story of what happened there, so you get the beginning in the middle of the end very quickly and it's a nice little moment. And a lot of that stuff's optional too, but I found myself doing a ton of it because it's like, no This is nice. This is well done, and I have a funness for Cure You, even

though I have not played a lot of those games and only dabbled. So yeah, they just really handle that stuff very well. And I'm like really glad that this is now a franchise that I am fully on board with. Not so much that I'm like I'm feeling an obligation to go back and play all the previous games or something like that, but I might give Yakuza zero another chance. That's the one I played the most. I'm like, I should go back and beat that game. That would be fun, and I'm

very happy that that's the case. Nice. Yes, I definitely want to go back to that. I was about forty hours. I think it was like halfway through when I bounced off for Final Fantasy. Yes, very based on the converse, because you were like doing some of the early stuff in Japan with Cure You. Right, Yeah, you're a little bit more than halfway through. Okay, speaking of that, real quick, I bounced off for Final Fantasy. Uh, Mary, have you played it at this point?

Final Fantasy? No, I'm not a Final Fantasy person. Okay, so you you probably won't care about spoilers I have. I have more history than I do for WWE, but I understand, I understand the concept. Wow, also a huge piece of shit Cloud the Cloud lawsuits bad. Yeah. Yeah, I don't want to know about what he does with his poop, but can tell me about we learned a lot of stuff against our well shared it with the rest of the class. So okay, grub you do

you care about Final Fantasy spoilers? Not even a little bit ahead? And Mary good? Okay, And so listeners, I do want to spoil a thing about Final Fantasy or so if you're worried about story spoilers for Rebirth, pass forward a little bit here, but not too long. Uh the show this is seven parts bright. Yes, yeah, this is important because this did happen. So if people are worried about spoilers, that means that maybe something's different about seven right. So well, okay, so well, So

that's where it's confusing. I everyone knows about Aris dying in the last one. I never even got to that point in the last one. I you know, I talked last week a lot, or the last episode a lot about how like I'm loving this game a ton despite not really being a big

Final Fantasy guy not playing a lot of seven that holds true love. I think this is a great video game, but I kind of had the exact same thing happen that happened with remake for me, where I played a fucking lot of it the large majority of the game, and I, you know, the game came out, I started hearing kind of reactions of it and everything, and people talking about like, oh, yeah, the last while of this game, like hours and hours, goes on and on and on

with story stuff that makes no fucking sense even to like hardcore Final Fantasy people, right, And that's the point I've heard most. Yeah, And so I was like, you know what, I got forty five hours of a lot of enjoyment out of this game. I really really liked my time with it. And if you know, I've heard it can be a seventy eighty

hour game. And it's like, man, do I want to spend another twenty five thirty thirty five hours with this game where a lot of it is gonna be nonsense story stuff that I don't really know anything about it, or do I want to move on to something else? So I decided, all right, I had my time. I have positive thoughts on this game. I think it's a great game, but I'm gonna throw in the towel when

we move on to something else. And so I just googled. I was, like, the one thing I was curious about was I was, you know, famously aris Airis back then died and uh sep roth Kilder, And so I just googled does Erith die? Final Fantasy seven Rebirth and like the shortest explanation I could find was like a fifteen minute video that's like, Okay, that seems like a simple question, but it's actually very confusing, and yeah, I'm here right choice, it's gonna be a bunch of anime shit

that I would not have understood. I would have hated it. It would have soured me on this game. I fucking backed away from the table while I was having a good time, and I have good memories of it, and I saw some videos of it, and the fact that it's like not even like it said, well, yes, she does die, but also she does exist in Cloud's head, and inside Cloud's head is one of the

worlds where you see Zach is still alive. And so in that timeline where the white materia faded, so Ereth is alive there, but and the timeline that you're playing, Erith is dead, so she is that doesn't we don't know if she'll be dead. And the next one it's like, oh my god. If that is not a yes or no question, then something is getting more confusing than it needs to be. I mean, the thing that happened is I mean, I know this is an answer that people don't like,

but it's Namurah. It's the Kingdom Hearts guy who was also a Final Fantasy seven guy, so he's like always been involved in this stuff. But that just sounds like some Kingdom Hearts convoluted bullshit from the bottom of the ocean. It is like they just unearthed it. It's an ancient evil and they just put it in their new Final Fantasy game. I don't know, man, Jim Cloud will wake up and it was a dream. I don't sounds like that's what you're playing. Basically, she'd google it and be like is

it a dream? And it would be a video essay of like, well, let's talk about the different ways we can answer that question, and there'd be no satisfying answer, and I don't know, No more. I don't know Kingdom Heart stories or anything. I just know anytime somebody describes them, it sounds nonsensical. But not like a fun metal year way. No, it's like an eight year old on a sugar rush telling you like the latest movie they saw in the you know, the Puppy Pals movie series. It's

like, okay, what, Yeah, you're talking too fast. I don't understand. Yeah. So so I feel I feel very very happy with my decision because I had my good time. I didn't because I could picture myself sitting there if I had gone for another thirty plus hours and then I'm just sitting through this shit and I'm like, oh my god, fucking let me play the game. None of this makes sense. I hate this. I hate this, but I didn't have that experience. I just had the fun

experience and I got out. Mike says he likes some of the bosses at the end, and he would be clear he did. He had no real complaints about about the convoluted ending, but he had been hearned. I guess he is a Kingdom Hearts guy. Yeah. Yeah, I think you would have been very frustrated by the ending, and you might have liked some of those bosses, and that would have been the best case scenario. I believe that the play was great. I love the game, playing the game,

and the boss fights for fun. Yeah that's so. Then that's my other question. So the main complaint I hear is the ending is you know, WA could do or whatever. The other complaint is some people are frustrated by what they call padding and side quests that you're forced to do. I've not gotten to a lot of that. I still have only done the four hours I played on stream on UPF last week, and I enjoyed what I played a bit, But people keep like people are having this conversation back and forth.

We talked to Russ on BombCast and he's like, I was not enjoying most of these things I was forced to do by the game. And then I hear you, You're like, no, I love it. Enjoyed the Yeah, Pirate Shooting Gallery. I'll do every level of that and I'll a sit at the best level. Like all the minigame shit, I returned every scooter, I did every fucking thing like. I really like those mini games

were a lot of fun. I did all the Chadley shit. I was one hundred percent of areas before I moved on to the next open area. I thought that stuff was a lot of fun. Okay, I'm very curious to see how'm gonna fall on this. Yeah, so done with that? Cool? Mm hm, let's got to free up for some other stuff that you know, Like, are you gonna go back to like a dragon that's I do? I do intend to do that, yes, okay, all right, so maybe you could do that before we get to like some other

stuff. I think Dragon's Dog but two is gonna pop off and everyone's gonna be playing that. I'm gonna play it for sure. Yeah, me too, absolutely. M M Mary, what else are you playing? I regret to inform you all that since our last podcast, I still have only played Billatro and hell Divers Hell. Yeah. Look, that's why I quit Vile Pantacies because it's like, man, I could be playing this. Yeah,

I'm fucking addicted. Hell Divers is so much fun. When I'm like, I'm sitting there and I actually do have like a good backlog of games where I'm like, oh, I really should play this. There was some good like indie games I was really interested in, like checking out in this last week But every time I'm at my computer, someone will ping me and be like, Oh, the boys are playing Hell Divers. That's where that That's where I want to be. I don't want to be anywhere else. I

want to kill fucking bugs. And it's just so repetitive. It's so good. Every time I play it, it's amazing. I love the repetitive nature of this game. You go down, you kill bugs, you solve whatever it is the fuck they want you to do, shoot eggs whatever, Who carest whistles. So much fun with my buds playing this game. I like, don't want to play anything. Hell Divers is fucking genius. They've done everything that I've ever asked of this sequel, and I just think it's brilliant

and it just it brings me so much joy. Marry your performance when me, you and Boniello played a couple of weekends ago was pretty incredible. What happened my dad? I forgot about this. We were playing in the middle of it. I don't remember. We're in the middle of a game, and I was like, ah, shit, you guys, my dad's calling. And my dad would never call because it's it was like seven pm my time, which means it was like ten pm your guys this time. Yeah,

And it was like it was like late on a weekend. And it's like we're also we played a bunch and we're like, let's try like a harder robot level, and so we do like a hard robot level. And then the way Mary said that, it's like, oh god, yeah, it sounds like I never calls my dad shouldn't call me. I gotta take it. But I'll still play, but I gotta take it. And so I take one year off the head and I answer the call, and I mute Mike obviously, and I start talking to my dad. It's it's honestly

nothing. My dad was just like, I, you know, I just wanted to hear your voice and talk to you. So I start talking to my dad. But then well then it's like I don't There wasn't even one thing. It's just like we had to extract and we're all trying to get back and we had like very very few reinforcements, and just hell is raining down upon us the entire landing area. We're screaming. Me and Bone Yellow are on like just like screaming at each other, freaking out. Bon yellows

into hysterics, and like we just keep wondering, it's Mary. It's very odd. Is she playing? And we would see you moving around, like we would turn to you and you're just like blasting a bunch of buns. Yeah, she's odd. She's what We just kind of we're like both died once at the same time sometime my dad. I was like, yeah, I agree, Dad, Like I just don't understand why everybody even tries the Rosea's pizza, not even more, and I'm like trying to hit the box

to so that I can call back my friends. Everyone's dying, I'm prone shooting backwards. Like a casual conversation with my father. It was so funny. So we're me and Boniella are like simultaneously like freaking out about like this incredibly intense mission going on as we're trying to extract and also like worrying about like, God, okay, is she is she okay? And like we would literally turn and like she's throwing down an orbital strike. And at no

point was she just like standing there or idle. She wasn't dying. Me and Boniella were constantly dying, and they like, was there or strikes, even like grazing you guys, was like everything. She was reviving us. She was not killing any of us. She was just like pro she was completely on. She was incredible while on this like meandering call with her dad and we're like, yeah, she must be fine. She's kicking ass. This is great at rules. You were the first one on the ship.

I then Boniello got on, and I'm just like sprinting through all these explosions I get. I was like the most intense ending to a hell Diver's match I've had while you're just having a casual conversation with you. It's awesome. Video games are cool. Yeah, Boniello texted me the next day, He's like, I'm just walking around New Orleans right now, just thinking, like laughing out loud, thinking about Mary and that mat Helltiggers very talking to her

dad. It was a great moment and I and it's so funny that like I was able to do that and have that incredible experience with you while I was like also like, shoot, I should talk to my father. It's been like a week. Uh. It's just like so funny that you can have these incredible epic moments. How many times have you ever played Helldivers. You're like shooting at something in front of you and it's taking all your focus, and you turn around and there's vast rugs behind you. Stuff up.

Shit, everybody's gonna fucking die. It's it's amazing the way that they have brought this together to have this incredible health fire. As you're waiting for your ship to come down and it says it, you know, like all everything that's just so perfectly tuned to to make you feel good when it's just like ship arriving in thirty seconds and you're like, I don't have thirty seconds. I living. Oh god, it's genius. I was just playing again last

night, and every night it is a absolute joy. When I get a text or when I get like a DM and someone's like we're all on it in it's just I can't wait. It's just it's like, I don't know. It's like being in high school and like having like a person you like be like, hey, you want to like call me on the phone or something like that, or being invited to a really cool party with your best friends. I'm telling you this makes you feel like a million dollars when you

guys were dying, and I was like, I can revive you. I fucking handle this. Im down left, left, left, right, I can do this. It's just like it makes me so happy, and I don't think I've been happier playing a game in a really long time. Like obviously Hell Divers is good. I could talk about it forever, but I think what I'm saying is like this isn't just like for me, like the game of the year so far. This is like the best game I've played

in several years. It's the way you're describing it reminds me of how you describe playing like a Rocket League with coworkers back in the day. You know that type of vibe, doesn't it, You know, where you like can't wait until the until the buds get on, you know. It's just like hey, like I don't know we're all gonna be available, but usually like Peter can come on around like eight pm, so like that's when I like, I gotta eat dinner before then because he's gonna he's gonna come on.

Like it's so good to like know that this four the four person is like really clutch as well. It's yeah, it's so nice to have a group of four to to rally and to go on these missions with, and everybody succeeds. It's and absolute joy to like get your friends together. And yes, I have connections to Rocket League with this game that I don't know if I've felt this like we all have to play tonight since Rocket League. You know, like when one of your friends can't come on because they have like

life and you're like, I'm gonna bully this person. Get on. We're all here. This game will do that to you. It will make you yell at your friends to get on. I've I feel like I'm in high school, you guys. I feel like I am a kid again. I feel like I'm in college and I am absolutely ignoring my finals because the bulls are coming and we got it. We gotta. We have to solve this.

It brings out all the feels of your childhood gaming days. And it's not a chore, you guys, Like, this is not something that you gotta finish before you go to bed. This is like one more game. I am sick. I think it's probably very obvious to you that I am sick. I sound like a little congested. I was up until two in the morning. I couldn't fucking stop. I can't fucking stop, and you need to say too, Yeah, I need to get my sleep right now,

and I couldn't because this game's so fucking fun. Are you finding I haven't played in about a week. It has it gotten better as far as the you know, the issues that we're plaguing it early. You can still get kicked out. You definitely still have problems. I would like to think that it's less than it was, but absolutely, yesterday we were having problems for like the first thirty minutes and then we were good for glorious hours. And it's worth it to me, Like, yes, it's it's it's a

pain, it's worth it. It's worth every like problem that I've had with it. Like my god, like everybody get this game, Like go find your best friends and go play. Jesus gee, I cannot talk about this game good enough. It's so funny with like covering all these games we were talking about like WWE and like Final Fantasy, and we're like, well, there's like actual crimes, like war crimes, like you know, this game's whole arts associations, but you know you can probably finish it, you know,

in like forty hours. It's like, what the fuck are you doing? Where are you not playing Hell Divers? Like this game is so much better boy, nobody was. No, there's no monsters. As far as I'm aware, that made it Mary. I feel like this is going to come up a lot during our game of year stuff. I think he's I'm going tooth and nail and it's in its fucking march. It's so early, and I'm I could write a book about how much I love this game.

I think the bar for best game with buds is going to be pretty high. I mean, it's just there's no question. I don't know what else to say about it. It makes my heart light up when I know that it's there's no more work time, and it's like, someone better text me and tell me that they're they're playing. I loved it when you when you messaged me, you were like, hey, I got like and you know what I got time? I got time for Hell Divers. I could have

been reading. I could have been like, you know, thinking about what I was gonna wear tomorrow. There's all sorts of ship I could have done. The second you text me and say, hey, you want to get into Hell Divers. I'm like a fuck yes, like, let's go. It's such a joy. Okay, you describing that makes me want to play this really bad again, and I will be texting you. You can do

what we do the podcast. I can. I can do it. I just said like we were that the meeting earlier, and chance like, well, we can't do w W because you know, things happen tomorrow, so which we stream on. Like now it's decided. I'm doing Hell Divers to tomorrow. Dry workshow it's so perfect. It brings people joy, brings me joy, Invite me. I'm still invite you, and I'm gonna see what

happens. I'm gonna see how how bad the addiction really is. Quit your job for Hell Divers, yeah, you know, because like, join the forces, you know, do something better in the world of bugs. Salute you're gonna join the real military. It's gonna go to that. Sorry guys, And then they're like, well I was kind of toxic. Actually yeah, it's recruitment tool. Yeah. Man, three hundred and thirty four thousand people playing this right now. Oh man, it's just good for them.

That is an absolutely fucking ahead. That's awesome. It's the right game for the right time. It's it's the newest Animal crossing where it's like it just hit when we needed it. Sure, Yeah, they're like early Pandemic.

Yeah, New Horizons. Yeah it did scratch an itch for sure. And it is interesting to think like what would have happened if this released at the same time as like, uh, like a Bloodborne style game right where it's like everyone's divided, but there wasn't anything giving worktime and we're coming off like years of people being like, Okay, yeah, we played a lot of

Fortnite. We've played a lot of these games, and you know, Apex Legends, like we had a time, We're not really going to go back to that, like you know, Halo's down, Battlefields down, And so a new multiplayer came coming along and filling in and filling that gap for people and being like the new hobby game is welcome. Speaking of new multiplayer games that I was not aware of until a few days ago, but this is very much a local multiplayer game versus online. I don't don't quote me.

I don't know PAS online, but I played locally because Ben Hansen, who has introduced me to many many great things over the years. I had him and a bunch of people over for Sting's last match on Sunday, grabbing. I an't watch that, yep, and Hanson not a wrestling person, but I think I saw his opportunity to be like, hey, afterwards, can we play there's this local multiplayer game that I really want to play with a group locally. Do you think people would stick around for that and know?

Yeah, yeah, bring it over. I don't you know what they said? It's Astro Duel too, and I had never heard of it, never heard of the first one. I can tell by your faces you probably have not heard of it either. Yeah, it's I would describe it, or he described it to me actually as Asteroids meets TowerFall. Okay, so this game, this game doesn't come out till tomorrow, right right, Yeah,

the embargoes up as you know, as today as we're recording it. But basically, so it's got the tower Fall type stuff where you are like Samurai Gun, where you are little character with a sword and melee weapons and you can pick up guns and get quick kills on people. But then once you leave the confines of like these like it'll be like it'll look like a like an asteroid with like rooms inside of it, and once you go outside that you turn into a ship. So you turn into like an asteroid ship and

you're flying around and it's very deliberate. You can't just like mash on fire. You'll have like three shots you can do and then it has to kind of reload each one, and you can pick up homing missiles, you can pick up lasers, and there's cool things too where it's like that breach that barrier, Like you can't shoot from inside to outside, so you can't be a person shooting something at a ship outside and vice versa. But some can.

So if you get a laser as your ship form, that laser can burst through the barrier and kill the human forms or just the you know whatever, the non ship forms running around inside. So there's a lot of kind of push and pull and weird strategy you can do. But there's also the moments where it's like, oh, this map is just inside, so it's just straight up Samurai gun TowerFall style where we're just scrambling to get the power

ups kill each other. And I want to say it was like you could do at least I think six players locally on the switch, and it's a very easy game to play with like the joy Con attachments, so you know, it's easy to get a bunch of controllers together and play with a good sized group. But super fun. We played on a ton of the different maps. There's a good variety there. It is definitely one of those things where you want to see the replay and do the slowmoversion and see like,

oh what happened there? It's like, oh shit, you dodged that and then you reflected that shot. And it's really really fun. It doesn't take long to learn. Great with the group. Great locally. It really does look like Samurai Gun, like it has that quick slice action if you get too close to somebody. I'm always ready for one of those two, Like I'm always like in the mood like I'm glad there's always like one of those around and this is going to be the new one of those, Like yeah,

absolutely, I welcome that. And it winds me up, like packs, isn't it like just going to seeing a bunch of people and being like, well, we're going to play something and kill each other or a game. You know, one's heard up at the Endie Megabooth and all of a sudden, everyone's crowding around it and yelling like, Yeah, it's got that vibe to it for sure, so definitely check it out. I played it on Switch and that seems to be a good system to have it for because

it's you know, bring it with you, bring a much joy. Cons seems like probably the easiest way to play it with a group of people, especially on the go. But yeah, yeah, really really solid. So thanks the answer for the recommendation. Yeah it looks really it looks really cool. Yeah yeah, same. It says here it's got a Steam remote play together, so it doesn't seem like it has online multiplayer, but I bet it would work fine with steamrote remote plays. So crub does seems to began

for like a UPF segment. Yeah, well we'll see if we can get it up and running and very you know, if we have to, we'll do PARSEC, but I bet we can get this work in. Yeah. Yeah, but a big recommendation from what I played. I spent some time this week after I beat Like a Dragon playing Expeditions, a mud Runner game mud Runners and snow Runners of franchise. I'm a huge fan of snow Runner.

Was my game of the Year the year it came out, and it's just about you know, trucks moving big stuff from one place to another, and there is mud and you're going to get stuck in it, or there's snow and your tires are going to spin, and using a combination of other big trucks and a winch on a tree and lowering the air pressure in your tires and turning on all wheel drive and then turning on a differential luck all these like tools that you have at your disposal to get the most traction while

also reserving as much fuel in your tank as possible so you don't run out a fuel before you accomplish your goal. And if you do, then you can drive another truck there that has some backup fuel and fill it up. All these things of like you have a goal and you make decisions on your way to accomplishing that goal, and then you have to live with those consequences.

And I really really enjoy games like that. And then I just like big machinery moving around in spaces, in a physical space and feeling like, you know, you go around a corner and you if you're going too fast, you're going to damage your engine, and it's not like the game deciding like this is where people have their engine damage. It's like, no, it's all physics simulation thing that's happening, and it's all because of the decisions

you made. This version of this franchise is new. It's expeditions, and what it does is in snow Runner, you would be kind of in like an open zone and it'd be like you need to like rebuild the world by taking things from one place to the other, and you're going back and forth, and this is kind of similar to that, but you are doing much like smaller bite sized goals, and once you do that, you're like moving

on to the next one, and it's not like rebuilding the world. You're like, oh, you got to go take a radio tower from one place

to another, and once that set up, you're good. You could just you know, click to the next thing on the menu and start doing that, and it's and so the result there is instead of always being like, Okay, I need to have the big truck because I'm gonna have to carry like six logs and I'm going to need the little crane thing that can like get the logs off the ground and put it on the truck and stuff like that, and so I'm gonna have to like get this thing across here no

matter what. You could spend more time in some of the smaller and more exploratory vehicles, which is kind of a relief because so those are very fun to drive, and you still have all the same physical reactions from the world that you have to deal with, but it's like I have a little bit more freedom and I can actually feel like, Okay, there's a tree up there that's going to be able to pull me if I winch this truck up there, I have the right tires on, I'm actually gonna be able to

get up that hill, as opposed to having like this you know, forty ton truck that was like, no, no matter what I do there, that's going to be impossible. And so far I've really, I really really liking it. It's you know, snow Runners my game of the year that year. It's maybe not quite exactly what I want from one of these games, but it is a cool sort of sideways position for this for this franchise to go in, and I think they did a pretty good job with like

keeping the missions interesting. The thing is, it feels a little underbaked. I did an early mission where I'm like, Okay, you have your vehicle and you could have like so many inventory slots, and for an early mission, I'm like, Oh'm gona fill up all these inventory slots with like extra

fuel and all this stuff. And I got to where i was supposed to be going, and at that point, I'm supposed to take something and put it in my inventory, but all my inventory thoughts were full and there was no way for me to get rid of it, and it did not give me the option to like go back to the main menu or to restart the mission. It was like, no, we're in the tutorial and it didn't realize that I messed up and didn't give me a way to solve that.

So I just had to start the mission over by like fully quitting and coming back in. So there's like some like rough edges here and there. But as I've gotten past the tutorial and I'm now I'm just actually doing the game, most of that stuff has sort of resolved itself, so I'm really happy with it, and I'm kind I'm kind of hoping that it kind of maintains

this momentum all the way through are you playing with the wheel sometimes? But I'm mostly playing on the steam deck where it runs great because it looks and it looks and runs really great on there. I'm like fully at sixty frames per second and that's really nice and and you know, being able to play it anywhere it's great. But you know, we played some snow Runners and playing that with the wheel and having the full force feedback and feeling like you're

fighting with it, that stuff is great as well. That's what I was thinking, is like, since I moved here, it's like I do have space in this room for like a permanent like like keep the wheel, like like it was a pain in the ass at the last place because the room was kind of crowded and like I had to like move the wheel and kind of try to pull it up, and it's just it was very cumbersome. Here I could kind of just leave it back there and pull it out whenever

I want to play something. I liked playing that with you. We did a two or three episodes on Giant Bomb of it. So this game is going to have co op. It's on the menu. It's just coming soon. Interesting, I think as soon as soon as that drops, let me know, you give me an excuse and all of a sudden back up in air. For sure, it sounds great, All right, perfect, I'll

get wheel going and we'll do something with that. I mean, I think this game is much better set up to be a multiplayer game than the previous games. Yeah, so I think it'll work really well. I'm in now. Some of the ratings on Steam are a bit mixed, and it sounds like some of it is because of it. Is it in game like pricing and things like that. What do you think is causing that. I've not looked too too closely at those so far. I was like trying to like,

like craft my own opinion. Don't want to be influenced by other people. Yeah, most of them. I saw anything that would get me right. Most of the time, I don't care about that stuff, but here I was like, yeah, it was definitely like this is one of my

favorite things. I want to see how I feel. But if I were to guess, I would say that this is a franchise that has had a lot of success selling packs of new vehicles and stuff like that, and I think probably out of the gate having many of the cooler vehicles is locked behind that is probably rubbing some people the wrong way. But I'm mostly playing with the base vehicles. I think I have a couple of special edition versions of

the basic vehicles and I'm having a good time. It's you know, I'm playing the mostly the basic version of the game, and I've gone to look at the DLC all that much. I find that actually the best way to play these games is with the vehicles they just give you, because then it's more challenging and it's not like, oh, well, I have an awesome truck that can just basically go over anything. That removes some of the fund

from the game for me. So from these of like your vehicle to other people or is it just what you have, Like it's not like nobody else is seeing what you drive. Yeah, I mean if if you're doing the multiplayer mode a little bit, But I can't imagine because like you could also like let people use your cool vehicle. Maybe that would be fun when you're playing the four player mode, but it's not like some big online experience where

you're going to be showing stuff off. No, but yeah, I'm not rolling Coal, But you know they have all us, they have all real like vehicle brands, and you know there are people who are like like, no, I'm I'm a Ford person, Like give me my Ford vehicle, and it's like, well, no, all the Ford vehicles cost extra. If it's something like that, I could see people being frustrated by that. Nice I yes, let me know when that has co op. I'm in

yes right away. I was like, I was going to get it set up, and I'm like, Okay, the co op's not turned on yet, so as soon as it is, we'll make a big deal out of that, and that'll be fun before we finish with I am curious where everyone's at with their blato addictions. I'll just say very quickly, uh. I played a little a penny big breakaway. I played the like first world of it, and and I like it. That's where I'm a big mark for

three D platformers. This is a good one for sure. The thing I immediately appreciated was the amount of mobility you have, Like that's that's my test for the three D platformers, Like immediately upon moving the character and pressing buttons, if you're instantly having fun and doing cool stuff and flips like Mario six Sport is kind of like the benchmark for that. Well, I mean Mars Sunshine's better, but you know that type of stuff. And I tried it,

and this passed the bar very quickly. There's a lot of air mobility. There's a lot of that, Like Mario Odyssey, I jumped up here, I threw my cap in a different direction, and then I moved the mid air and dove on to the cap, and then that sprung me into a different direction. And so like seeing like a thing that's really far away or really high up or both, and being like, I bet I can pull some bullshit and I can make that happen. You can usually do that

with this. You can you got like a yo yo that you can use as kind of like a bionic Commandos swing. You can do you know, spins and all sorts of different ways grapple type situations and everything. But it's a lot of fun to play. The thing I don't like is they it does this thing that I hope they stop doing where a bunch of fucking penguins show up and they just mob you and like they chase you, and so

all of a sudden, it's very deliberate with that. Yeah, it's very satisfying thing where it's like I feel like I'm in so much control over you know, Penny's movements and jumps and platforming. All of a sudden, it's like a like these fucking penguins and I'm jamming buttons and I just jump off a clip or something. It's like, ah, man, Like I know that they're trying to like kind of keep you moving through the level in a way that's maybe not as on rails as like that kind of like Sonic Dreamcast,

that Sonic Adventure type of stuff, you know. But every time the penguins show up in this game, I was like, I fuck this, But the other stuff feels very good. I would like to keep playing it. That's one of the games where I'm like, Okay, if I stop Final Fantasy, now I can get more time to these games. So yeah, that's where I'm with this at, with this series as well, or

this game as well. Like I started it, I want to get back to spend more time with it. Sean mentioned that he there's a lot of like Tony Hawk correlation where he's like, I played a level and basically never stopped my combo. I'm like, what what are you talk about? So I'm like, Okay, I need to get back in there and like really explore the bounds of the of the mobility system, because apparently it's like, yeah, you can really like just stitch everything together from beginning to end.

And I'm like, okay, I'm gonna check that out a whole level without like stopping moves and como basically yes, yeah, you know, riding on the yo yo and then I maybe grinding. I don't know, I don't know what's possible later on in the game. Yeah. And also it's got that like style of the Saturn game with like kind of the visual fidelity of a Dreamcast game, which is pretty nice. Yeah, that's a nice combo. So it's got a lot going forward. For sure. I do want

to play more of it. I definitely. I was like, yeah, it's it's it's cute. I think it looks like a nineteen nineties, like late nineteen nineties video game magazine to me, Like that color scheme, it's just like something you would see in like ultra game players like and yeah, that's awesome. Too many penguins. All right, where are we at? When when was that? Okay, here, let's start with this. When let's go around the room. When was the last time you played Bilatro All

Start? Probably last night for me Mary Monday, I streamed it, okay, Jeff over the weekend, I'm sorry, peas me Breakway keeps shouting at me from this window and steem, I gotta close that. Yeah. Over the weekend on Sunday, I played way more than I intended to. Like, that's where I'm at with that game, where it's like I need to put it away so I can play some other stuff, and then suddenly I

find myself playing it again. Yeah. Yeah, it's it is like, I know people say this about a ton of different games, where it's like, oh I just picked it up for one thing and I fell down on whatever hole. This is about the worst I've seen that because it's like, okay, let me get at least like I'm doing one run and he sit down, say you don't get a bunch of jokers that work together. You get to like Annie three and it's like, okay, this isn't like these

jokers suck. I'm not gonna I'm barely getting past the required chips here. Let me okay, I'll get it. Let me get a real run. Yeah, one more real run. Yeah, then you and then it's five hours later like it's addictive. Yeah, yep, it really is. I mean it's just it's a pure design of just like you understand it. You have good ideas in your head and you just want to like express that idea and you're going to kee playing until you get a chance to do that.

And then once you do, it's like that felt so good and I didn't win, Let's see if I can try again. So it's like everything is pointing you back to play that one more turn. Yeah. I've been trying to keep my mondays open because it's like, well it's wrestle my any of season RAW, it's been pretty good. So it's like that's three hours long, but I don't have to be paying attention every second of it, so it's the perfect time. I'll get three hours of platro in on the couch

while I'm watching RAW, and then three hours is a long time. Raw usually feels like three hours, and all of a sudden, it'll be ten o'clock and I'm like, what the fuck am I feel like I just started this. So I've had like a couple of runs here and then I'm up till you know hours later, still playing I play it. I never play games in bed. I'm very much in no screens in the bedroom person. And this is the one game maybe ever that I've like bring the switch in

the bed and finish this run. You know. Yep. It's uh, it really is that addictive. And it's I don't even use that word lightly. It's just I did find myself, like like the weekend before last, like, oh, this this is a problem, Like I am ignoring responsibilities in life to play this game. And that was like I really had to

like actually actively force myself to put it down. It's one that like you don't you don't start a run unless you really have you've done your ship for the day, because it's like if I start this, I'm not gonna work out, I'm not gonna meditate, I'm not going to do this thing or that thing. Like let me get all that shit done and I can reward myself by just like going into a blattro hole. It's also like really casual.

So like let's say we have a rule, which is we have something called family fun time, which is like, hey, you're supposed to watch TV hang out for least an hour spend time together. Right, Well, I can play Blattro while I do that. I can, that's fun. I can play Vlatro while I sit with somebody or watch TV or be on a call with my dad. Like Blatro is like this perfect catch all where like you can because there's there's no time limit, I can think about what

I want to do. I can casually just and it works perfectly on the steam deck, Like this is such a great game. I was on that thirteen hour flight to the Netherlands. What the fuck else do you think I did? I played Blatra almost the entire time. I read like two chapters of a book, and then I was like, I think I'll treat myself to a little Blatra, and I played it the entire time. It's just super fun and getting you're right to like the game can be quite punishing.

Sometimes your jokers are just ass and they're almost like toy with you a little bit, where they're just like, we know this joker isn't any good, but you need something a little bit, and you keep unlocking more and so it's like you get ideas in your head and like, all right, I'm gonna try to have that build and it's like, yeah, now that's like even harder to get because there's like I have forty more jokers than I had before and say, oh man, okay, our tolerance for good stuff has

gone up so much in this word. It's like in the beginning, it's like you get like, ooh, this one for every spade I have, but it'll give me thirty chips. It's like, oh, this killer and polychrome my multifier with every fucking card under two I have, and every tarot card I get like that horseshit, like no joker can eat my ass. I'm not dealing with some stupid, weak ass joker. And you have like

really miserable jokers. Will be like this joker gives you zero point five multiplayer for every joker you delete, and it's just like all right, I'm just gonna nuke my entire force and then I'm towing it all the way for this sweet ass joker. Like I have done that. I have, I've burned my entire build halfway through to be like this is worth it. And you know what it is. It's all fucking gambling. It's all like the gambling mentality, which is just like I'm this far in the blind is going up.

You can't you can't stay on these piss ass jokers forever. Mary. You know, you have to find a better joker. And so I'm just I'm throwing it all away. I have like four dollars to my name, and I'm like, someone give me a fucking good joker. It's it's amazing what takes me do. Once I know I'm at like death's door, That's when I'm like, Okay, this isn't gonna work. Now I need to

just unlock step with the collection. So I'm gonna buy that horse shit thing to not discovered joker because I never wanted to buy it, but I'll get it just the market ops. Now I've got like one hundred and thirty nine of one hundred and fifty jokers. The thing I'm trying to do now is beat it a green Steaks one, because you start with the white steaks and the red steaks and the green steaks. I don't know if you've how far you guys are with that stuff. I've I've only beaten it once actually,

so yeah, and that was It's been pretty frustrating. So I'm now I'm like, Okay, well I beat it with that. I think I beat it with the Red deck, the standard one, and so now I'm going through and I'm going to try to beat with the other decks. But I did. I did put it way way so I could beat like a dragon, and I'm like proud of myself for actually being able to do that. Good. I think I've beaten it seventy eight times now. Red deck is the easiest for me to beat it on. I have the four other Well

done, Mary, Sorry say that again? Did you say you do? Oh? I like Green, the one that's like you get a dollar for every discard as well, because like then with Green, I build all my decks around like give me shit. They're like, okay, I'll do the egg that gives me three dollars cell value every round and one that adds up the cell value of everything and adds up to molt and like that those are my like money runs is the Green deck ones. I'm sorry, I got

to interrupt. Damn would you mind going to twitch dot tv slash Tolkoto right now and see what he's doing. Oh, don't do this to me. Don't do this to me. Okay, I'm just gonna I'm gonna guess it involves me, it involved Disney, right, it does not. It might be the last thing you would guess that a person like him would do. All right, super ad. Oh I just saw the title of the stream. It says Mortal Kombat Mythologies Again. What's wrong with him? I don't

know. He's hang on, Let's get in this chat right now. Hang on, okay, hang on all right, Mike. It's so distracted. I am currently recording fire Escape with Mary and Grub. What the fuck are you doing? Okay, Mary's yeah, I'm never not on Twitch. He's gonna speed he says, yeah, he's like you got in. He said he's gonna speed rund because he you know, he does play through in one city and he's gonna be on the board. Look, I hate to say this, but I do respect this When I play this a little bit.

It's kind of fun in a really weird way. Oh he just noticed. Yeah, oh what a nightmare. Well he's saying this is great audio. Yep. Oh no, yes, you might have messed up here. So okay, So he's saying, my why, Dan replies, I just said I have to leave it and I closed the window, right Okay, So Dan is playing Superman sixty four for Blake Club. Yeah, yes, uh. And in Superman sixty four on the normal difficulty, you actually don't really beat the game. Why not? I didn't. It's it's a it is

a little bit different, but I understand what you're getting at there. Uh, So you to beat on Superman difficulty, but the rules of Blake Club is you play on the normal difficulty. So I think where we were about ready to like let this one go. But Dan did say that if Mike beats Shinnock, which is an optional thing in Mortal Koma mythologies, and it's like very difficult. You have to have like five healing urns or else it's

impossible. But if he does that, then Dan says he will play Superman sixty four again on Superman difficulty to get to the end and actually see credits. Mike cheat, though, I don't think. I don't think. So are you gonna watch this fucking archive of him playing this goddamn game again? I need No, he's not doing some horse shit, because he's not gonna do horseshit. But after today it was Superman to watch the vod I don't

do that. I here's I don't think he's actually gonna do this and beat shanockcause it's like other games are gonna come out here pretty soon and he's gonna have to do his real job and he's not gonna have time to do this because it's not like some trivial thing to get to Shock and do that. But he's right. I heard him there say that, like, oh, Dan, I know you're a man of your word, and like I did say that, Oh you would do it. Yes, I do whatever cowardly

heel should. I can do like get out of stuff and do a little finger stuff. But like if he beats Shanak, legit, I'm gonna have to fucking do that, and I will do that all right. That Jesus okay, did not expect that. Yep, we have the people people in chatter Root and for him to beat Shanock now they want this, are you

damn fucking maniac? I mean for him, I mean I have so much respect for Like, look it says like when Grub and I were like speed running astros playroom and stuff, there was a simultaneous dread and excitement when he would tweet at me and be like, hey, check it out. Did this thing, It's like I'd be a fuck and then all right, load it up, let's do it like. It's like I got work to do.

And I like that feeling because then you get the like once you're done, then the balls back in his court and you get that fun sit back watch them struggle thing. So no, I got nothing more respect for what he's doing. He's he's right to do it. Very thank you. I'm a big boy who dressed up like Superman today and played my Nintendo games. We're both big boys. Just Adulton, I'm going to read you some emails now, okay, all right, all right, I don't know how to

read yet. All right, Oh that was good. Jesus, What a fucking maniac. Yeah, he's got the thing in his uh his channel points where if you spend so many points, he will text me and you can tell him what to text me. And that's where he's like, Adam Asleep wants you to know that I'm streaming Mortal Combat mythologies, and I will thank you, Adam Asleep. I did need to know that. Okay. Usually this is where Mike tells you to write to us and tell us everything you

want to tell us. About the podcast, and it is my pleasure to take that over and to tell you that you can email us at any time at fire Escape Cast at gmail dot com and tell Mike all the things that he's doing wrong. Specifically, Mike, he actually really does enjoy hearing your feedback about him, specifically the way he talks, yes, you know, his breathing patterns, the way he thinks about things, his opinions, and

the characters he does. And also don't feel confined to email. You can also like he especially likes it, like dedicated to Reddit posts that he really likes it. Shaman for his body Yeah, yeahs back bullying, that's Mike mahrty. Uh. So you can message him directly or publicly. He will love that. Now for this one. Uh, we got a couple of emails and uh, if it's cool, I'm happy to read the first one. Dan, Sure, it's really for you, Okay, but I think

you should listen. I will love you guys, love the podcast. Longtime listener, longtime birder. I just wanted to say the large bird Dan described was very likely a pollated woodpecker, which, while nowhere near the size of a bald eagle, is a pretty big and insane looking especially up close. I just google it. It's it looks like that. Yes, two cool woodpecker things Dan might think are interesting. I love this interesting builder theory.

Woodpeckerffect one. They have extremely long tongues that wrap around their skulls. They use them to get bugs out of holes they peck in the wood. So not only are they pecking his house, they're also French kissing the shit out of it. Yes, let's go, here, we go. That's a good woodpecker fact. That's good, it is. It's good. Good is the word I would use outside your house right now. I had to bang on this wall today because yeah, anyway, good. So they're still there.

Well, i'll follow up after the email, all right. Woodpecker fact two. There is an extremely rare woodpecker called the ivory build woodpecker that orthonologists are mostly positive is extinct. It's kind of the Bigfoot of the birding world, because every few years some one posts a shitty, blurry picture and tries to say it's the real thing. It's a never ending discourse in birding. The last confirmed sighting of the bird was nineteen forty four. I've heard of

those weird eye things. Mary talked about the work better than most other deterrens. Oh cool. Brandon Z from New Jersey, Thank you Brandon for the bird facts. Oh. Also, there's a ps here ps. Woodpeckers are responsible for more than one hundred and sixty million violent home invasions every second in the United States. Watch out, Dan, you say lots birds and might hate woodpeckers. I love knowledge dropping some hot woodpecker facts, Dan, what's

going on with your house? Okay, few things here. First of all, I dig at the balloons and during this whole process of saga since the last episode, I was walking on the side of the house and I noticed the neighbor's house. They've straight up broken through. They breached. There is like large holes that a bird could get in. And this is my nightmare. I'm going to fucking wake up and there's gonna be a nineteen inch tall polated woodpecker poking my eyes out. Yeah, just fucking licking my ear,

just like yeah, we'll give you a wet willie. Yeah. So, but no, they have not breached the wall yet on ours. At some point I've heard we can get like Stuco sighting or something once it gets bad and then they won't peck at that or whatever. But it seems like our neighbors get one of these things, the gell shooter things and just go to the I don't really know what I heard them like they suck ass. Yeah,

I think it was. It was just annoying them, like I'll do this point like like, well, I also don't have like a direct line of sight. Our house is like in a weird it's like on a hill and I can't really like it's very steep where I can't get on that side of the house very easily, and so I can't really see them that easily unless they fly away. So it's like we bang on the wall or I yell at him from the deck. I can see it fly away, so I can't really see him for the most part. Pecking you get at it,

goddamn becker. I've shaken my fist at many woodpeckers, yes, hell yeah, and so the balloons yes uh. And I've tried, you know, the milar strips, I've tried the fake woodpecker. I've tried. And then we also noticed the previous owners had a problem too, because there's a big ass fake owl attached to the side of the house, and I didn't realize they stuck a bunch of sticky eyes like eyeballs on the walls, because like that's supposed to freak out the woodpeckers. But the balloons are are the

bigger version of that Mary you told me about. I bought them while we were talking last time, and I got three big balloons and they come with like tails, like milar tails, And so it's hard because again I can't get back there. It's very high up. I couldn't get a ladder there, so like I'm dangling out a window. Was half convinced I was going

to pull my death putting up fake eyes to scare woodpeckers. But I was able to reach out, and there were some nails in the side of the house that I was able to just kind of like wrap them around and make happen. But then we had like a really And for the record, there not been many woodpeckers. There have not been many. There's one today. But the balloons. You're saying, since I put those, since the balloons, yeah, so I mean it was like a pretty much daily, several

times a day occurrence. Since the balloons which was almost two weeks ago. I'da a week and a half ago. I had one today that I had to bang on this wall in the studio. But this is significantly lower than where the balloons are. So the area, and that was the balloon area, is where it was the worst. There have not been many. We hear them on the neighbor's house, but we are not hearing it on ours nearly as much. So I do your neighbors are doing nothing. They're just

like cool with these giant holes. I think she's extremely old, and I've never seen her and maybe she could be a woodpecker herself. She could be a woodpecker, or the woodpeckers could have gotten to her. So he has swen her and the woodpecker in the same room. I've met all my other neighbors, I have not met the woman right next to me that I've just heard. It's extremely old, and her younger relatives come by, see them coming to go, but I never see her, so I don't know if

she's in a position to scare off the birds. But so that was Mary. The short version is, yes, I think I think we're good. I think maybe it might still happen. But it's happening way less. The other thing, though, is I'm starting to notice a concerning recurring thing tied to you, Mary, which I think. I think this is you know we call kishing. It is, you know, buying a game that you

don't have to buy. This is I had this thought in my head the other day of the Mary Kish effect, which I think is I hope this doesn't continue. But it's when you do something or suggest something that there is no possible world where you could predict a negative outcome. The first one being you filled my tap with macaroni and cheese. I broke my finger. There's no I feel I feel like I could have predicted some bad outcomes from that. Mary did nothing wrong. Yeah, I just filled it with cheese.

I man, I would offend you in court. Mary, you did the right thing. You filled my tub in that. I want to make it very clear you only had the best of intentions of everything. The fact remains that there have now been a couple of times where you've done something and a weird butterfly effects has happened, and I've gotten injured. It broke my finger, which is growing back. Really fuck, I can't bend it. Straighter than that. So I got to go to the doctor tomorrow. So not

like a lizard who lost his tail crooked. I guess that's probably better way. I said, what's on it? Well, no, I did, but it's that's a long story. It's going in tomorrow. I'm going in tomorrow and I'm gonna see they might have to like rebreak it. So it fucking healed straight. But this one, this is not nearly as bad, but it definitely made me think of you. So we had a windy day

and one of the balloons flew off. One of the Woodpecker balloons flew off, and I just saw it down there and I was like, I'm just sitting out in the woods, and I was like, I'll go get it. And it's the woods are it's very natural back there, like there's just it's just woods and leaves, and you know, it's just crazy out there. So no one ever goes back there. And so like I'm like navigating this for the first time, trying to like go down these hills and step

over these rocks and all this shit to get to the Woodpecker balloon. And I grab it. I was like, all right, got to grab a couple of my large strips that I have come off to and I'm walking back and then one of my feet gets caught in like a big stump or tree, like a giant branch that had fallen, and like trying to like right myself, my other foot got stuck in another thing or a longer part of the same one, and so my feet are just completely tied up and I

eat shit hard. I fall face forward, wind knocked out of me and left shoulder immediately as a form, and it's just like it felt. I stood up and it was all tingly and weird and asleep, and I was like, oh God, I hope I didn't fucking tear a rotator cup or something like Jesus Christ. It felt a little funky for a few days. I think I'm fine, full ran into motion. No pain right now or

anything. No need to go to the doctor, I don't think. But I did definitely have that thought of like, I think there's I think Mary has some magical ability to wear Mary what to do next? Yeah? Yeah, what should I do? And I just yeah, give you advice and my final destination. Yeah, I know, I think that Mary is strong. I'm afraid because it it's so this Now, I'm afraid anything I say

will have that effect. But like I was always the one where you were like, I don't like driving because I don't like the arm ramp, and I'm like, you're gonna be fine, just keep practicing it. I'm just like coaxing you into your darkest fears, just getting you ready for the worst thing that will ever happen. But nine, if you filled the time with macaroni cheese and told me to put up woodpecker, it's not the definition of

but nine. But you're dying. You could not have possibly predicted these things keep falling and getting hurt because of things kind of associated with you. That's a terrible superpower. Yeah, so we'll just say that's that's two. That's two now. So well, I'm just gonna keep an eye on it. Next time you give me advice. Yeah, let me know if you get severely injured, and well yeah, no, let me know when you get severely in Okay, next time, next time? Yes, yes, okay.

So if you if a doctor breaks your finger to fix it, Dan, that doesn't invalidate your blake club. That's not my fault. That's just a bad doctor. Yeah, also that it breaks again. But if you if you consent to it even broken, that doesn't count. You still have to play your game. That's what's needed for this thing to heal. And look, it was hurting a little bit during Blake Love Today, Jesus Christ a baby, it was hurt. I did have the thought. I didn't even say it. I was being a big boy. I was like,

did you have tingles in your ease? No, it was just I can't believe you almost died. I didn't. I fell in some leaves. That sounds rough. They'll have a both feet caught. That sounds like I'm holding batons in my lar strips. H ship, Why didn't you fly on the balloon a clown's death. I probably should have fallen on the balloon, But it turns out when you're falling, your brain isn't really working that well.

That's true, So thanks Brandy and die balloons in my lar and falling down trying to fight with a woodpen, saying you can eat macaroni in aube. You're like in the trees, like need to lick that guy as soon as he dies. We're gonna get that tongue way up in there. I scared that one way today and they just they just perch in the tree right the cat corner from from where my house is, and I saw him and I'm just looking at him. I just kind of want to be like, man,

come on, yeah, black at you. No, they just look there and they wait for me to go inside, and then they start knocking again. They want my eyes. Yeah, little juju bees right is probably pretty tasty for woodpeckers. Yeah, that's where all the real good juices are, the dam juices. Yeah. I just saw dune too. That's my sandworm juice is in my eyes. We don't have too many animals we got to fight off here at our place. We just like occasional mouse that I

have gotten rid of. We haven't seen once since, So we're doing good over here. Who was under your deck that one time? A bunch of bees that he tried to vacuum or something wasps And I did fight with him all last summer and then we found a like basically an industrial grade toxin dust that I put under there, and I haven't seen any ever since. It

worked really well night to day. It was night and day and it was like immediate, Yeah it will I tried a whole bunch of shit Before that, I spent about a whole weekend with a shop back duct taped to where they would come out, and they would fly out and just go right in the shop back. And I opened the thing up and there was probably about fifteen hundred wasps in there. Oh and I would have waited two and a half years before I throw that out because I want to make sure they're dead.

Oh yeah, yeah, I waited a very long time. I did, yes, and I was like it was like nothing happened. It was like then, like two days later, there was just as many wasps outside as there ever was. It's like, man, there must be so many down there. Yeah, so I think they're dead now though, So that's something good for you. Yeah, I'm happy about it. It's like fine when it's like they build like the nest that you could see and you can

get rid of. But when it's underground, which apparently is where most of them are, yeah, it's like tremors. That's what I was thinking. I like all the little creatures by my house. I have a thoroughway like right by my window where all the squirrels run back and forth to different fonses. I find it really cute, Like they don't bother me at all.

Today it was like sunny for the first time in days, and as I walked past my window, one of the squirrels was like on its back, belly up and I was like, hell, yeah, it's either dead or it's sunbathing and it's cuter really bad. Ye see they're dead, or it's having a really good time. Yeah, just delicately tap on the glass and it was like the best day of his life. I love the little creatures

around my house. It's really fun. The tree next to where I keep my trash can, the outdoor trash can, is completely destroying because that's where the raccoons sit to get in my trash can. I'm like, I like these guys. They're great. And I did see them in there once and I just saw the eyes looking at me and they're like, please leave me alone. I'm like, yeah, no problem. And then the other time

I saw him just like running on my fence. And that's the only two times I've actually seen them in person, but there's lots of evidence of them otherwise. My wife loves raccoons and she's mad because I've seen them, and she's never seen them once. So I don't see raccoons around here, right, I'm surprised, I don't. Yeah, you think and stuff with those woods, yeah, and peanut butter outside. Woodpickers are going to look the hell out of it. But I do enjoy. You got to stop making

those sounds. The dog doesn't eat a lot of bread, so all the bread is just me whenever we get a loaf. But a loaf is like a lot for one person to eat before it expires, and so I frequently, like you know, we'll get to like half a loaf before I need to, like you know's i'd expired a couple days ago, and I just stand on the deck and I'll have like twelve pieces of bread and I'll just throw them all out like frisbees, and I know all the like woodland creatures

and stuffal instance. I just it's a thing that's a stupid joy I have every time, like enjoy enjoy half the bread a terror. It's like it's a feast, yep, like Mike Tyson feeding the pigeons. Yes, that's what I think of you. Yes, yep, it's a feast. Dan. Do you want to read this next? Question. Sure, yes, hi. What is the definition of pooping one's pants? Is it inherently different than a shirt or trusting a fart as it were? Does it involve a

full log or an emptying of bowels? Or does the smallest butt clenching whoopsie count. That's Jeff from Nashville. I always, as someone who has not shipped his pants past the age of diapers, I have always assumed, and that's a bragging point. I assumed it's a full evacuation. You are crazy. You are absolutely out of your own. It's some ship came out of you and is in your pants. And you're like, it's I didn't poop my pants, Guys, I have so much more poop to go your pans.

It doesn't count, you, see your honor. I have not fully evacuated all of my bow It tis but a teaspoonful. I rest my case. So, Mary, are you saying if you like farted and I felt weird and you check and it's just like the tiniest just the size of a pee and just a little like brown, like no matter, no matter. Is there nothing you could pick out and throw away. But it's just there's a little bit of brown on there is that pooping your pants does matter?

Is of color? How many? How many grams is brown? Oh man? I decided to still haven't figured that one out. Okay, listen, there probably is a difference between skid marks and pooping your pants, but I think that's like a cleanliness issue, that's a Paul Record issue. But I've I've been sick enough where I'm like, it's like, you know, diarrhea time, and I will be like in bed and I'll be like, I must have like sneezed or something, and then I'm like, oh wait,

what happened? Oh I I have released enough that it now feels awful and I need to go do something with that. And I count that as pooping my pants. But it's definitely not anywhere close to a log or evacuating my bowels. It's like, no, it's basically like an extreme shark and that definitely count me to if you need a floor Listen, I don't know because I don't shit my pants, so for I don't know how many works you do shit your pants. You just have been like I still have some in

there, so I really haven't since I was a baby. You're just you've just increased the bar. Probably shit your pants all the time. With that definition, DM, we need to figure out the line. Is the line enough to like change your underpants? But I would think even the smell at dot would be changing your pants. I actually I would say a teaspoon. If you have a teaspoon of ship in your pants, you've shipped your pants. I think it's I think it's probably right, not tablespoon. Damn teaspoon

shit a lot, like a tiny little bit. Yeah, I'm okay, even it was like half a teaspoon. I'm like, of course you're like changing. But it's like, I think we're going for the definition of I just ship my pants. I think a teaspoon is fair. I agree. Otherwise, otherwise, I think you can't say no, it was just a shark. Now I'm still gonna have to there's things to be done about that.

You still can deal with it. Yes, it is changing, yes exactly, But I think you get away with saying I didn't shit my pants, it was just a shark. I would, I guess I would. I've always pictured when someone says I ship my pants. I've always pictured a full evacuation. But if I shipped out half a teaspoon in my drawers. I would say I shipped my pants, but I don't do this. I full log in your pants and being like I have not shipped my pants, there's like a little bit left to go. I get it together if I

don't think so this is just a shark. There is a There was a movie I saw when I was a kid. I think it's called Hobgoblins two or something whatever, whatever it was. Somebody came out to say it too in the morning, right, yeah, and the monsters came out of the toilet and it scared me so dad that I was what it was, goonies, no gooes, it's a poster. Is a gooley coming out of the toilet? Yes, yeah, yes, And so I saw this as a kid, and it scared me enough that I was afraid to go to the

toilet. So I would like, I would like hover when I was going pooh, And then I uh like, I got scared enough that I just put I pulled my pants instead of going to the bathroom and stating I was probably like nine eight or nine or something like that. Because yeah, because the goolies, yeah for real, and killer clowns matter space the clown comes out of the toilet and that scared me. You know, Yeah, it's over it, but yeah, I ship my pants over lady freaks. The

spider comes out of the toilet and that freaks me out. You know. Now I'm just like, I have something's coming out of toilet. All right, fuck it, whatever, I gotta do my business. I'm getting on there to fight this ship if you want, Yeah, exactly, yeah, I just had Chipotlet deal with this. You're gonna turn off the water supply now we're homeowners. All the woodpeckers in your toilet, Oh god, it's like a nest of birds waiting to be fed. That's awful. That was

disgusting. Thank you. Jeff from Nashville. M h, Actually, real quick before we move on past poping our pants. Huh. When you know, it's like a recurry thing. It's a recurring thing where people talk about, oh, they got really scared away, shit my pants, I pissed my pants or whatever. Is that just the saying or is there a physiological thing where people do actually shit or pisce their pants when they're scared pissed. Definitely, it's that's because that's all part of fight or flight Like yes,

like it's all interrelated, intermingling. So yeah, wait a minute, is this something? Because I have inappropriate uh triggerings a fighter flight all the time as someone with panic disorder, and so I get every fighter flight symptom, but I've never pissed my pants like that. I wonder could that be tied to like before I go and save you, like a pax or something, and I'm super nervous, whatever I will need to pee like seven times? Is that the fighter flight? And like, yes, telling me to a

bunch. The fighter flight response is a reaction that can cause people to urinate more frequently. So even if it's not in my pants, if I just had like I will literally pee and then go back till like getting ready to go on stage again. Right, So the body is stressed, it releases hormones that disrupt the hormones that keep the bladder relaxed. That would explain it, because I've gone to doctors. I have big It's like I feel like

I have way over active platter. I've gotten checked and all that stuff, and like that would kind of make su wouldn't it. Yep, Absolutely, I think that's exactly what's happening. There. We just diagnosed something. Yeah, oh man, I guess seems a better pissed doctor Dan. I think I wonder I get a doctor Steff for that. For Superman, I'm gonna piss my pants. He pee peace too much? What? No seeing some Superman themed diapers basically wearing that anyway, I didn't. I didn't tend to

ask Dan talking about this suit. I don't have Superman. I don't know about all your weird fetishes. I have no Actually, probably look you, is the suit comfortable like I was? Like? I wanted it to be a little uncomfortable, but not so much that like you're like, actually, legit upset during the thing has to feel it's a little bit hotter than I

would like. Wow, it's hard to pee and I get uh. The worst part is, honestly probably the wig with the headphones, because if I try to tuck it all behind the headphones and just have bear headphones on barriers, it looks all weird. And but if I put it over the hair like I did today. I was telling Marry right before you hopped on the

call. If I'm wearing my cardigan and I have headphones on, and I take it off and throw it on the thing like I just did before you came in a bunch of fucking electric static, like Christy goes into my fucking ears from my headphones. So I kind of had that with the hair, like the hair and the headphones and stuff. I kind of feel like I'm feeling a little shocked and just like an electricity that. I think it just adds to the you know, it's the method acting part of it. Sure,

absolutely, Okay, Well, I'm glad. I was like trying to figure out the size and said, you want to one with abs, so I'm like, no way, you got to wear like the old style one. And you did good. That's mostly okay, you did good, you did good. Okay, I'm ahad. I'm glad it worked out great. And again I was like a little uncomfortable, but not so uncomfortable, So I'm glad we've struck balance. Yeah, yeah, good, good, good good. We got one more email today from Mike and is this not just

any mic? Is this I think is just any Mike talking about our mic? Okay, understood, all right? Cool. The thing Maharty has, oh okay, the thing Maharty has that is like a Disney adult is that he's short. Old World is like a theme park to the little guy. Oh my god. He doesn't need to seek out anything to make him feel like a child, because being a normal size adult is enough. I can't wait to see how tall his hair is next to next time, Short Kings,

Long May they reign nothing but love Mike. That is dastardly. Okay, is there like something he's not that he's short? Two three? Okay? Well, okay, so pretty much average? Yeah? Yeah, I don't think he's self conscious about his height, like I've never like, he's always been very open with us, and I don't feel like I've ever heard him concerned about his height or self conscious. But how dare you choose this

email when he's not here to defend himself? Literally, it was two minutes before we started a thing, and I'm just looking for any I'm just copying pastings. So that was the third one I saw. We should hold this for Mike's return, and Mike deserves to retort to this. Okay, but there is something different when like, you know, the fancy sailboat boy's short though, right, that's like something yeah, yeah, horse shot, Yeah exactly. It's like, let's just fits. Yeah, my tininess is a

value in that situation. You can't have, like, you know, a big bulky guy on a horse, like he might be strong with the horses, Like what the fuck? Like I can't run under these conditions. This guy's two hundred and sixty pounds. I'm trying to I only met him once and he was in a Donkey Kong costume, so I'm not sure if I'm gonna be able to realize how tall he is. Great, and that's excellent,

that's her. Yep, that's what I re memory of them. Yep, all right, hate him Me and a wolf packsting makeup in him right next to me in a Donkey Kong costume. Beautiful, perfect yep. Okay, then here we'll save that for Mike, and I'm gonna sub in. I just looked here. We got a quick one from Wes. It is hello, what is the first CD or album you purchase for yourself with your own money? That's West from Baltimore. I do remember mine. It was

a garage inc by Metallica, which I really still enjoy actually Discovery. Yeah, they turned the page and Tuesday's gone and good stuff whiskey and a jar like actually one of my favorite versions, Whiskey in a Jar, Like they did a really good job of those covers. It is it is yeah, with your own ones. So you bought that with your own money, But that was my own money. I was my not girlfriend, but a lady

who was a friend. We were in like middle score, high school or something, that her mom took us to the mall and I had some money and I bought that CD. I don't know, and I made him play it on the way home that he truly has their own money at that age, right, Like I think I got five dollars from my parents that I could choose to do anything I wanted, and I still chose to buy Spice Girls. Hell Yeahla World. Oh oh yeah? The single? Was it

like because you could buy the singles? Like, oh, singles were all the rage back then. My friend, was it a single CD? Or were you old not for cassettes? It was a single CD? Okay, I was a CD. I had. The first ones I owned were cassettes. I remember having Get a Grip the Aerosmith, which is like living on the edge and crying and all that, And then I had a BC Boys Intergalactic on cassette. Uh first CD. I remember buying. I got a Segacy D and I remember being so excited about like, oh my god,

new CD technology. And I think I bought Jagged Little Pill by Alanis Morissett. Oh wow, yeah that would have been the time. Jesus man, that's the one. Yeah, most nineteen ninety three thing you could have done. Yeah, I'm gonna come home with a Segacy D. W do you have Rage in the Cage and Jagged Little Pill? Jesus time stamp? What an era? What an era? That was? It was better? Oh man, Yeah, that's a good one. All sweet nostalgia. Yes,

how are you all feeling about nostalgia these days? Because I'm like more and more willing to be like the things that I liked this kid that I got over for a very long time. I'm like listening to some of that music again. I'm trying to think of a good example. But it's just like in general, I'm being much easier on those things and not being like so self critical anymore. I I saw, you know, I'm pretty good about not comments or chat stuff, you know, getting to me or anything.

These days. I saw something and this was it got to me in an interesting way. Nobody was trying to be shitty or anything. It was just like a laser beam into like, oh, you nailed me with us. It was piston hunta you may have seen in Giant Bomb chats persons in my chats a lot. And I think I was just doing one of my late night just you know, you know, talking playing games, and I was talking about my dad and like, oh man, it's just been the same

thing for so long. The guy's such a routine, doesn't change, just like it's just the exact same guy he was thirty years ago and refuses to try anything new. But you know, it was just kind of like, you know, going off that stuff. I just just said, like, ah, yes, I can't believe my dad just keeps doing the same stuff

over and over again. Now let me stream this old Mario game for the eight one hundred time and talk about wrestling from nineteen ninety six, Like, oh, no, you're right, it's just it takes a different form,

but it's like, I am, we are the same. It is very horrifying when when it manifests as I am having the exact same mannerisms as my parents with my kids that's frustrating because that's like, oh man, that this half the reason I remember this stuff is because it either was like bad or I didn't like love it, or or it was like scary at the time or something like that. I find myself doing I'm like, okay, okay,

take a breath. I got to stop doing that. So yeah, that it's it really is true, like we are just those people again and slightly different variations. I feel like there are certain things, like certain behaviors and stuff that you would like, like like, you know, friends, I've talked about my dad, like you know, any music past nineteen seventy eight of Hey Dad, tell me does Rage against the Machine and smashing puplicing seems great. It's like, well, it's technically music, but it's not

technically music but only played because they play guitars. They're not like real songs. They're not musicians, they're not you know, like it's not real Mario, Yeah, exactly. Oh fuck, you're right, Dan, No, oh you're talking about a soldier. Yeah ever Electronic gaming Way, that was a good magazine. I'm not trying to do you like that, Dan, but yeah, but I'm working right, Yes, listen, I will say

that is Hey, no, this is true. The thing I like doing stuff with you and I like doing something with Mike Madottie because you guys are both guys that always seem like you're working on yourselves and try to make yourselves better. And that's like I can these days. I can only be around people who are like that. So yeah, no, for real, you're working. It's good. I've meant working in the wrestling sense. Hey, okay, well that's too. Yes, yeah, he's a really sweet thing.

And I was like, oh no, he didn't realize I was doing should that should have been? It was wrestling, of course, it's always wrestling. You are right, you are right. I am alway started to work on myself and I feel like we all are. I feel yeah yeah, yeah definitely. But nostalgia right, oh yeah that good stuff. Yeah, cut it up and give it to me. Is there is there anything bad? Bad's too strong of a word. But it's like I played Super

Mario World so many fucking times. I played all these old Superintendent in any of its games a billion times on stream, offstream. You know, Oh I get a new thing, I get a mister, I get whatever. Oh I'll play Mario World on this, you know, and then it's like like, now I did retro achievements for the first time. I made an account and I tied it to my retro arc and it's just like, oh man, now I can play Mario World with achievements, and now I just

have another excuse to play Mario World or Linked the Past or whatever. Is this just forever? Is this just like whatevery excuse to just like play through these things you played when you were nine years old? Forever? I mean, what's what's the alternative that the things that once brought you joy no longer bring you joy? That's great, so much worse. That is great, so much worse. That's like the definition of depression, like for real it

is. It's like, it's so much better to be like, no, I listen, if once brought me joy, I can find new ways for it to bring me joy. That is me like having engaging with myself and stuff. And obviously there is a line on each side where it's like it becomes unhealthy, But I don't think in general this stuff is completely harmless.

It's interesting how how much that varies with people, though, because like you know, I talked to Bianca about like, you know, she has such funness for you know, you get her going on in Sky's Arcadia or Morowind or any of these games she grew up playing, and she'll you know, she clearly has a lot of nostalgia and love for it, but with few

exceptions, she doesn't really like go back and play them a bunch. She is just always playing the next thing, you know, she is always like she is all over every new game that comes out for the most part, and I play the new stuff. But like I think nowadays, I'm more prone to, like, if something doesn't seem like it's for me or something, I'm not going to play it. And I will go back and I'll play a link in the past again and I'll find the occasional hell divers or

something that grabs me and I will spend some time with that. But like I do play the old stuff a ton still, So like I guess it's just a matter of personal preference, right, Like definitely, yeah, yes, And it's uh uh, you know, everybody need to you know,

takes different things that they need from these things in different ways. So yeah, I think if again, as long as you're mostly doing it in a healthy way, and it sounds like, you know, adding retro achievements to it, like having a fun new way to experience these games sounds like only a good thing, genuine fun. It's just like those games. I still every time I load at Mario World, I'm like, fuck, yes,

Mario World, you know, yep. A load of the Arcy pro Am yesterday and I was like, yes, Arci pro Am, like Arci pro Am, yep. It's a lot of times it's like games I would like think about more than that would play even back then, and then like to go back with like new eyes and be like, oh, there's so much cool stuff here, Like Arcy prom has a ton of cool stuff happening in it. So yeah, yeah, I definitely enjoy that. So thumbs up

on nostalgia. Yes, we are pro nostalgia. Like give us a like it, like a yeah, it's okay that you're like addicted to the same games. It's all right. I still just find them all very fun. That's fine. We're not your therapist. I feel really good about you enjoying those childhood games and finding new ways to enjoy them. Oh, we did a fucking punch out series recently, that's really fun. Yeah, punch out

real good. Yes. Yeah. I adored playing through any of my old like Childhood, Lion King, Aladdin, Sega, Genesis games, and I still do it from time to time as like a charity bonus or benefit. Right, it's like, oh, these games, they are my joy as a child. I will always play them. But what I've also find interesting is like when I play games that is somebody else's joy when they played it as a child, and then I get to watch it vicariously through their eyes.

Because I was not like super into Resident Evil growing up, but watching Mike's reaction when I was playing them was like, oh, this is like a really special moment. It's just like that's cool, Like it's different to him than it is to me, but it's special to both of us. Now there's something to that when when it clicks to where it's like, you know, all these years later, when there's still something to that game.

I definitely had that with Rough Scanlan with Metal Year Solid and just like seeing him like these revelations from Sons of Liberty that was twenty years old at the time or whatever, you know, it's it's, uh, that is cool to see old game pretty cool. Yeah, it's uh. And then having the kids, it's a you know, I'm not not forcing anything on them. Like the one kid like was into games no longer into games. Sometimes she's like, oh, i'll play this here and there. That's fine.

But like, you know, when when one of them does like something I like, it does feel good, and that have them have like similar revelations, which is like, oh man, I'm figuring out how to get through this boss and actually completing it, and it's it's really fantastic to watch. Absolutely, it's it's I like it a lot. Yeah, you can tell it's a good idea that I didn't have kids young. I mean I probably

don't. I shouldn't have kids at any age, but specifically when I was young, because I bet if you would I know, if you asked me when I was in college like early twenties, I probably told many friends this that like whack, I thought I was gonna have kids, Like all right, it's gonna be awesome my kids into video games. But like, I'm gonna make sure once they're old enough to play, I'm gonna get them an

neys. You know, I'm gonna start out and once they beat the three Marios and the Mega Man's and they beat this and that and Zelda and everything. Then they get a Sega and then once they beat the Sonics and they'd be this, then they get a super then they gotta beat this and they

gotta go to the PlayStation like they're gonna have an appreciation of all. And then like I realized, as I always say, oh, that's my dad, that's just like you know, yes, yeah, And the truth is is like you know, the the kids are either gonna cary about that stuff or not. And like Addie, she make them, Yeah, they might be like super into outdoor stuff and not give a shit about you know, games. Yeah, Adie likes games, and she'll she'll open up Nintendo Switch

online and look and play those old games all the time. That's awesome. So I never prompt her. I never show it to her. She's just like finding it on her own. She's like, when I'm working, that's what she's doing over here, and she'll go through that stuff and then play those old games and she kind of doesn't really see a difference between any of

them. Now she's she's five, but it's like, you know, that's I think that's probably just because for her, it's like it is all video games and I and then there are typically gonna be other kids like no, that looks old. I hate it, and that's you can't change that. Today I was streaming Superman and Backlar put his son on and the first thing

his son says, why does it look all pixel y? Yeah, granted it's like Superman six forere I'm not going to depend it, but like you know, wutch of shit as I give his kid deserve and shit, like he has a right to be like to look, if you're a kid and you see that, it's like, why is this called PIXELI I feel like it's a totally normal reaction to have if you're a fucking nine year old seeing

an old ass game for the first time. Yeah, but if a grown band says that about a game that just came out because it's like an indie game, I do want to fight them now, to be fair. So that's the stupid thing. Yeah, yeah, all right, that's an email section. Yeah, well done. Yes, we've learned a lot here, mostly that Dan doesn't know how much poop is pooping. Your pain Man set full evacuation is insane. No, just go back real quick again, I

pictured full evacuation. But if you asked me if a teaspoon poop in your pants is poop in your pants, I would agree. Okay, so we're all in agreement. I think we're in agreement. A teaspoon is shipping your pants. Yes, okay, there you go. Put it on the back of the box. Next time I see a teaspoon, I'm going to be thinking about this and that's not great, exactly the right amount making a grenadine into something pants full of grie. Change my app to say that, what

does Mike do now? After the after the emails, we tells everybody to buy our merch. You can go to fire Escape cast dot com and you can also check out our socials and fire Escape Merch dot com. You can go to our patreon. If you go to the patreon and you'll see lots of really awesome tiers. One of the really good tiers is a video tier, and it includes all of the bonus videos that we've made, including a hell Diverse two bonus video that was pretty recent, so you can enjoy.

But there's a lot of content, including the Macaroni and Cheese bathtub, lots of stuff on there, so it's worth it's worth it just to get all that sick sick content. We also plug what everybody's up to. I got to start with our incredible guest Grub. Thank you so much for taking the time to be here. Please tell everybody where everyone can find you. Yeah. First of we'll say, you guys did a great job, so you don't need Daddy here to get you through it. You guys can handle this

podcast on your own. Okay, absolutely, yeah, John Bomb obviously, game Mess if you want to hang out with us, we got Discord, Discord dot gg slash. Game Mess will get you in there. Lots of cool people hang out there all the time. It's free to join, Feel free to hop in there. And then yeah, just to check out the podcast thro wherever you listen to the podcast last and than the ten Dogs in game mes aside, Hell yes, and yeah, check out that uh that

hell Divers video we put up on the Patreon. We got Mike Manatti on that. He joined. Uh, Mary, I think you were out that week. So it's me Manati Mahardi. Oh yeah, that was the one who Manati Mahardi became like best friends and uh and Jake Decker so fun video. Check it out on the Patreon Very funny the minds. Yes, yes, that's my move. All right, Well that's it. That's our podcast.

I don't know how to end this without Mike. Without Mike here, there's some kind of usual ending that he likes to do where he's always like thanks for watching everybody, and you know, like we'll always love you. I'm usually a bunch of drinks deep by that point, I don't and then I can just like I said, my things, Yeah, yeah, yeah. He always carries it. He just bottoms up or something. Cheers quote headline, isn't it Qualt Walt Whitman. Let me look up Walt Whitman.

Quote. Okay, flowers and I always say me, Mike Maharty, thank you for watching the fire Escape Cast. And keep your face always toward the sunshine and the shadows will fall behind you. That's what we say. You're on the fire Escape Cast. Thanks for listening to us. Bottoms up,