Fire Escape Cast #95

Hey, everybody, welcome to that's that's Terence and Philip. That's everybody. Yeah, hey guy, he's flappy ahead.

Mike Maharty, Oh yes, you made him Canadian?

Hey guy, Hello everyone. My name is Dan Record. I am not Mike Mahardy.

Uh.

Joining me is Mary kish Hi. And you may have heard a third voice there that Uh he's new to podcasting. I don't know if he's new to podcasting, but I've never podcasted with him before. Certainly one Jeffrey Grub, Hello, howdy Audy.

I don't wait to be introduced. I just talk on podcasts. I think that's a dumb rule. Everyone's going to hear you eventually. Who cares just talk?

Do you think in an average day, Jeff Grub, most of the if you took all the words that come out of your mouth, are more of them into a microphone or not?

Yeah, more of them are into a microphone. I don't like talking, actually prefer not to in life. I'd just rather not use this. The whole thing I have here, my throat and voice and stuff that could just go quiet for hours at a time, and then I podcast.

I never shut up.

So yeah, maybe you save all your juice. Yeah, you're like, you're holding it all in.

I save my essence for the people they demanded. Of course.

Yes, Grub came in on very short notice here today because our colleague Mike Maharty had a wine emergency.

Look, don't listen.

I know he's a big wine guy and you like to make jokes and stuff like that, but you don't have to like, of course he's not having a wine emergency.

No, his his sabon blanc was not the right degree of chilled. So he has been berating a somalier for going on two hours now.

So we reached out, not a smallier's fault.

Well, talk to Mike about it. He had some very specific and confusing things to say about it, but he's the expert. So we called upon Jeff Grubb to fill in. Uh, why did you talk about wine, Jeff Grub?

Oh?

Yeah, sure, I had some wine at Disney World. At God was that at the Toy Story restaurant. I think Mike Maharty would have been very impressed by that. I don't remember which restaurant was, which restaurant it was, but it was good. I had a cab. It was the first one I had in quite some time. My opinion on wine is probably the exact opposite of Mike Maharty's,

It's all a trick.

And I love and respect that about like the wine industry, that they're able to do all those tricks.

I think that's fun tricks.

If Mike were dead, he'd be rolling in his grade ideas like I can't believe they've tricked people that they'll higher the price of wine nicer it is.

I'm shoot, I'm shooting there. But there's lots of research about like that. There is no difference. If you do a blind taste test with people who claim to be experts and you and you have them taste it, they don't know which one is better, which one's more expensive.

They always get it wrong. And then if you.

Tell them what's more expensive, they're like, oh, of course, no, that's the one I actually liked, so and again I like that.

I like that there's a whole industry. That's just like all about the bullshit that is awesome to me.

So you're just belittling, You're basically like, I love it that there's a bunch of idiots out clear two hundred dollars on a wine and can't tell the difference, Like.

I am belittally for that. Good for them.

Yeah, I mean, we were out at a team dinner when everybody was here in Minneapolis a couple of weeks ago for a game of.

There or that. That was last week as of this recording, I think.

And yeah, we went to this restaurant downtown and Mike's looking at the menu and talking to the waitress about the different wine pores and having her bring it out and do all of his sniffering or whatever you do. And he was telling us like, oh, this is usually two five on the East Coast, but this is ninety two here, this is sex one, this is a great year. He was talking about the year and the vintage or whatever.

It's like listening to a kid talk about Pokemon, where it's like they're like so into all the little details and they could tell you everything about all the power levels and stuff. But it's like, yeah, I'm glad that you have this, and I'm glad you're happy, and.

About all liquor or like what about like cheap vodka versus expensive vodka.

Well, vodka is a tough one, becuz. Okay, that's another one where there's not much of a difference. So vodkas vodka, but you like, if you get really bottom of the shelf vodka, of course there's gonna be bullshit in it.

But if you do vodka right, it's just vodka. But you know.

Like whiskeys and and that kind of thing, those there's a lot of difference there for sure.

Yeah. I drink a lot of Scotch and so I got right here.

I got to Johnny Walker gold and so like I could now gold versus red versus versus blue.

I could tell that.

You would if if you did a blind taste.

Yeah, yeah, bonk has.

Like when I was first starting to get these like nice bottles and stuff, I was like, all right, I want to make sure this is worth it.

Here's the you know this one.

Like we had just moved into our house and I got my first bottle of Johnny Walker Blue, which is supposed to be like the super nice one, and I was like, all right, I just want to double check here. And we tested it three times with like Johnny Walker red, Johnny Walker Black, and then the blue, and all three times I was like, Oh, definitely that one. That one's way smoother that one's got.

But you can't tell the difference between coke and diet coke.

That's correct, Hey you Dan.

Wait, so you know how you save all of your podcasting vocals he tastes, He saves all of his taste buds everything else. I'm actually not sure if this is an egg or a salad.

I couldn't tell you.

It's a bit resource. You have to it's like an RTS. Yeah in my mouth.

Mary.

You know, Mike does talk a lot about wine, and we're both good friends with him.

Do you let's talk shit about him?

He's gonna hear it.

Like, do you just do the like not blightly and because it means a lot to him, or are you like, are you like taking it in and thinking about it.

I don't think I'm going to retain vintages and years of fancy wine. So usually when he's getting into the details of like this is a good year, I don't really know that, I will say, like, I've retained some knowledge, generally of wine. I remember someone telling me that twenty sixteen.

Was a good year.

I don't know, but like, if it's a broad piece of knowledge like that, I can retain that. But if someone's like, oh, this is a twenty bardo, I'll be like, I don't know what the fuck that means, but I appreciate that he has that knowledge. I think I give it a bit more credibility than grub, Like I have recognized a cheap red from a nice red.

But there is a limit to me.

If I have a fifty dollars bottle of wine, which I consider an expensive bottle of wine, for sure, for sure, I could not tell the difference between that and a two hundred dollars bottle of wine. But I absolutely can tell, usually not always. I'm not even gonna say absolutely, I am I'm pushing it here. I believe that I could tell the difference between like Boda box wine and like a nicer bottle of wine.

Right, there's definitely that is true for sure.

I'm talking about like if you go to Kroger and you get like the eight dollar bottle of wine from Australia, that's probably you would have a hard time telling difference between that and a fifty dollars bottle wine.

I think most people would. I think that's fair.

If we we've always talked about the idea of like where did a PAX panel or something like that, I think we have our PAX panel if we.

I think it would be really fun to do a blind wine tasting and actually put your money where your mouth is. You think you're so fucking good, Like, let's see it, Let's see if you can. And you know what else I'll do. I'll do a blind cheese test for Dan, and I'll have like six different types of cheeses and you'll have to tell me what vintage.

This Jed.

Be really impressed, pull out the skittles and have me identify the flavor.

Yeah, I could do that.

We could do a whole tasting board. I wonder what I could taste the difference of if if you're doing if Mike is doing wine and you're doing cheese and skittle. I'm trying to think of like where I would feel confident that I could taste the difference between certain things. I'm not maybe Lacroix, Like I bet you I could taste the difference between all the la Croix.

Would you be able if we do like the different kinds of of like the canned waters with flavored waters, would you be able to know like which brand?

Do you think? I'm a Lacroix person?

Ok, I think that I've done the Kroger brand soda water and I didn't like it, which is shocking. You'd think you would it would be the same, but the carbonation style is totally different than Lacroix.

So I think I.

Would be at least be able to be like, this is not Lacroix standard and I don't like it, So yeah, I would do that grub What would you do? What would you taste tests? Will you feel like confidence?

I don't know, Like I'm not like a like a super taster or anything like that. So when I'm uh, I'm eating something, I think I maybe it's the memory thing where it's like I eat it, I'm like, this is good, and that's as much as I need to think about it, because in five minutes, I'm not gonna remember what it tasted like.

So yeah, like, can you have memories of taste?

Like if I was like, Okay, what's your memory of the taste of a grape jolly rancher?

Can you taste it?

I'm very much just in the moment with that stuff where it's like I don't I'm eating it right now. I don't need to think about what it tastes like.

It's very Buddhist.

I mean, good for you for like living in the moment, you know.

I think it's it's more like a mental defect where it's the ADHD, where I just.

Like, yeah, ahead, I'm not gonna remember it anyhow, yes, exactly. Then it's finally so much said it.

Finally of course, yeah, I know, remember good exactly.

That's what I'm saying. I got bad brain, and I saw I'm just gonna be like, fucket whatever.

He's so ahead of his time.

We're just talking about food.

And it made me just realize that, uh, I am in a like Domino's death spiral right now where I can't you know, I'm now going.

To buffaloed me entirely.

Okay, I'll explain, and I don't know how to get out of this Dominoes. I get enough to where I got two enough things to redeem a free pizza, right, I got my Domino's points, and so I was like, oh sweet, I'll just you know, the Wrestling Paper view is coming up. I'll I'll just order a pizza for myself. I can get one of those little thin crust ones

Pizza sticks and then well, I don't know the mac and cheese. Well they got the new mac.

And cheese stuff, the five cheese mac and cheese would just do it, but that's like seven dollars. So I wound up getting to redeem my free pizza. I got two pizzas and a macaroni and cheese and the only thing I got free was the one pizza, So I get it. You have three pizzas well. This started like a couple of weeks ago, is when that first happened. And then they had the emergency pizza gimmick where if you buy a pizza.

There's a fun thing on the app.

They've gamified it where they have like an in case of emergency break glass thing on the app and it's super fun. And this is not a paid gig. I mean, this is a bad situation. This is not an endorsement for Dominoes. You get to press the thing and it says in case of emergency break for pizza, and you break it them like yay, pizza but ordered delivery minimum, so have to do it again and get extra pizzas against you.

On Saturday.

I did that Saturday, I only had McDonald's and Dominoes, and now I have another emergency pizza ready to redeem.

But I need to buy more pizzas to redeem that. I mean, yeah, this is how it works, right, This is just plausing you.

Yeah, Like it always reminds me of like one of my favorite marketing things, well not even market was like a legal thing. When Nintendo lost a lawsuit, they made a deal with the court and be like, what if we pay back the customers that we basically screwed over by doing out that we scammed, Right, what if we gave them all a five dollar coupon that will just put in the like we'll print it in a newspaper and they can go use it at any store to buy any Nintendo product they want with a five dollars

That's so smart actually for an advertising I'm amazed though that the judge was like I'll allow it, you know, like they should have put their foot down on there, like when it's a class action lossuit, Like the next time someone slips and falls, the doctor's like, good news, you get two thousand dollars off your next forty thousand dollars back surgery.

Exactly, I can't afford not to.

It's like you'll get those emails from time to time from I always get it from best Buy, and I rarely ever go to best Buy and it's be like, hey, so here's your five dollars reward thing for this month. And I'm like, oh, I guess I gotta go to best Buy. I gotta buy something now otherwise just throwing

Or maybe I'm just stupid. No, you're just a mark.

Yeah, but I don't think they would do it if it wasn't effective, right, So I thank you. You are getting bamboozled, but you are one of many people who get bamboozled, and we are in the bamboozle season. It's it's uh Thanksgiving, it's Black Friday. This is the time where people are doing Christmas shopping. And it's kind of notorious. Like there's a lot of like YouTube videos that will

And people really really love that shit.

Because I remember when jcpenny, the Apple store guy took over jcpenny for a while, and his first thing was, we're going to simplify the stores you're going to, Like, there's gonna be colored sections, and when you go in that section, when you see a color, you just know that thing's going to be that price. And it's not going to be eighteen ninety nine, it's going to be nineteen dollars nineteen zero zero. It's going to be so simple. And we're not gonna have cupe ons. We're gonna have gals.

And people hated it, hate where are my sales?

Yeah, they're They love sales because they think that the people want to think they're getting one over on the companies. If they think that they are taking advantage of the company, they'll spend so much more money and people and people like you could tell them that and they don't care. Like, no, I still want that feeling.

I'm with the people on this. Yeah sure, yeah, feeling like I'm getting one over. I mean, I miss I think I think we've lost something in recent years with Black Friday not being what it once was.

I remember I would always go back like Black Friday, yeah too.

My sisters and I would always have a dumb ass like gaming thing where it's like, all right, Mario three D World just came out, So we're just gonna like huddle around the WIU all night. And my mom made a bunch of this pineapple vodka shit, and uh, the last one on the flagpole at the end of every level has to take a shot.

And we would do this for like eight hours and just be tanked.

And then early in the morning, just like you know, wake mom up or whatever ever, take us the best Buy and she sleeps from the car and me, Katie and Kayla like running there and we try to get our savings and stuff like that.

I got Daniel Dwyer mixed up with this one year we played a fun time we played.

Yeah, I guess they don't have Thanksgiving in Ireland, and yes.

That's correct. It tends to be more of an American holiday.

They're just not very thankful people over there.

What it is, Yeah, they have no thanks at all. The Dictionary thank people over there.

It's all gray and rainy. They're just Yeah, So we had a cultural exchange. I guess it's not an exchange. I guess it's just me showing him stuff. But yeah, cultural cultural imperialism.

You just.

Yea.

I took Daniel Dowar to Kansas Is one Thanksgiving. He slept on Paul Rekerd's floor, which at the time I think had to treat dead wasps all over it, and then we'd get up in the morning and go. I took him to Walmart Black Friday morning. I've got a picture of Daniel Dwyer give him the double thumbs up in front of a Walmart while it's still dark outside, and I was like, this is here, Danny, this is America.

This is the most American thing you can do.

What did it die?

I think he bought like a novelty T shirt and like, I think we got something stupid on DVD or Blu ray that was on sale.

That was a real shopper. No, get a TV. Come on, I've done the TV thing. I'm sure get a TV. What a bitch.

Yeah, you had to fight someone and just bring out a trolley of crap you don't need.

That's the way. Uh Yeah.

So so he got to see that and like that was just like the thing. Me and my sisters it all the time. Now it's like all they start doing it two weeks early and I see all these things, like seeingn dot com being like, we checked all eight hundred deals on Amazon and here's the sixty that matter. And she's like, it's just a bunch of fucking robo vacuums and like Dyson's and it's like, We're good.

I'm exciting anymore. Yeah, it was.

I definitely like we would find the right store and we, like me and Steph early when we were dating, we'd be like the Target on Ohio State campus. No one everyone goes home for Thanksgiving, no one's gonna be there. We went there and it was basically dead, and we got all these great deals and we felt like, oh, we got one over on them. We figured something out. So just like feeling like you cracked the code a little.

Bit was always exciting.

And you know, you always see the horror stories of like, oh, people getting trampled and stuff like that.

It was never like that.

There was always like orderly lines for me and I would just like sort of a calmly, serenely walk through store and like look for stuff while you know, Steph went to go get the one specific thing she was at the store for. I have fond memories of Black Friday.

I worked at a game stop for a couple of Black Fridays, And I did work at the best Buy for one Black Friday. And I will say, on the working side of things, it is a I believe that, Yes, game Stop was never as bad. They didn't go as wild with it like best Buy. I feel like was ground zero for that type of stuff. So like if you were working register, which I wasn't Best Buy, it's like you're gonna I think they would do time and a half at least. But those were long fucking days for sure.

Yeah, what like like before these jobs, like an every man person kind of job, Like, what was the worst day or worst kind of event that would happen at your jobs?

My dad was Subway five dollars foot long.

Yeah, No, it wasn't did It used to be not when I was sixteen.

Really it was a specialty.

It wasn't five dollars. This was like Subway has been on a long trajectory of like, crap, we need to do some kind of gimmick, right, Yes, the foot long cookie.

Cookie is the number one gimmick in my heart.

One of them was five dollars foot longs all the time. But back in the day it was a specialty.

Promo.

Right, Oh, you don't remember those commercials five dollars, but I thought it was.

I used to go with the dollar five.

Dollars Marin arrows for five bucks, Like yeah, they did it all the time eventually, And that's actually one of the reasons they're in such a shitty position right now, because everyone got that song stuck in their head and they go there like you are, like fifteen dollars, what are you talking about? Until like everyone's like these things

People just it was just busier than you had want. I mean, I also have to express like I am a that was my first job. I was fifteen when I worked at Subway. An ideal day at Subway was no one coming in on five dollars foot long week or whatever. It's not like we had a line out the door. It was just busier. And it's just like, well, I don't want to serve any of these people because I want to be high.

I didn't want to.

I was a bad person and I didn't want to do.

All those feelings sound very familiar of working at Subway.

I don't want to get you your seafood sub like I don't want to. So yeah, any person that went in would piss me off, and it was a very popular time. Plus I just feel like sale people. I'm gonna try to say this nicely, because I think there's obviously nice sale people, but there's something about sales that

And so I was like, Jesus, chut chut chut chut chut.

Chut against the whole thing, and he said it again, I really mean it when I say I want extra And so I said, can you hit the extra cheese button? And he was like, you can't make me pay for extra cheese. It's parmesan cheese.

That's cheese.

That's that one's free. It's extra cheese if it's like one the squares. And I said, it's cheese, parmesan cheese, and you ask for extra cheese, so you're getting the extra cheese button. And he was just like, you could take that sub and shove it up your ass and I was like, and then manager pulled me in the back and said I wasn't allowed to do that.

I would kill for the CCTV footage of security footage of the Ohio subway, Mary screaming and some just roundhouse kicking a middle aged man asking for parmesan cheese.

Yeah, three times, Mary? How pist would you be if?

Have you seen the like the the Chipotle hack people were doing sometimes this year where it's like they're filming grab Have you heard of this?

Yeah? Yeah, they're filming so they would get extra. Yeah, wouldn't you be furious?

I'm just oh, fuck, you just order your food like absolutely, yeah, it would be you don't.

Make enough money. Uh, That's how I feel every time these places.

Industry job to deal with money? No, absolutely not. And I think a service industry job is very valuable. I think every person, of course, should work a service industry job. There's lots of different you can have as your first job that our shit, that would give you character. But there's nothing like doing a service industry job, and I've done a lot of them. I also worked at Texas Roadhouse and I'm at a lot of dickheads there as well.

That's how it's made.

There are plastic baggies filled with broccoli and we put them in a microwave for forty five seconds. That's how your vegetables are made. At Texas Roadhouse, I will give away that industry secret.

And I think it's.

Ridiculous that, like I was getting the brunt of that you're at a Texas Roadhouse. That's what you're getting. You're getting bagged broccoli.

Don't be a dick to me.

And I just I that forward for everyone, not just the stupid Chipotle people with their phone, but also someone who goes to a Starbucks and orders a very specifically unique drink that probably takes five to ten minutes when there's a long line, Like, be reasonable with these poor people.

They're doing their best.

They like there's drinks that have like twenty.

Steps that would kill me because like there were, Because I have so much empathy for anyone in like the service industry, because like my mom was a waitress. Grown up, I worked at call centers and retail jobs. My whole dad's side was all grocery store employees and stuff. So like, I'm very, very empathetic with all that. But I found out like the early twenty tens that if you go to Chipotle there's a secret menu thing you can order. And it was before Taco Bell called the thing a

Is?

Do they seem stressed? There's a seam are they trying to clean out? Conditions would have to be perfect to be like, everyone's smiling, there's nobody else in this place. I would like this case a rito, please, and I'd be like apologetic order like, Hey, no big deal.

If you can't, I'll pay extra if you need to or whatever. But he ordered the case, so rita out of them.

You do want to do it right. I will remember like vividly, when I was in school and we went to Chipotle, one of the coolest It wasn't really a hack, but just ordering double protein.

Back in the day.

I don't know if it's changed that much, but back in the day, there was like three people. Right there was the person who put the meat and yeah beans on it, and then it went to the vegetable person, and then it went to the cashier person. And sometimes in that transfer they didn't know you got double meat.

Yes.

To me, that's a victimless crime. I am not hurting anyone. Nobody has been impacted or offended, and the company lost a little bit of double meat, Like fuck you that. I think that's a great one.

So fantastic.

Double cheese at Subway is the same way I would always get double cheese like ge pepper Jack and Monzirella.

I know you would never get by me.

It's a real sandwich artists you're dealing with here. No way I took it.

I didn't tate it seriously at all. I was such a bad employee in every every conceivable way. But it wasn't because like it wasn't because of anything outside of just general teenage apathy, like I just didn't want to be good at a job.

See, I was like aggressively shitty, So I think I might have been worse than you. I used to do this thing when I worked at the concession stand at AMC where I would like to.

Entertain myself. I guess I would do this little test.

With my friends where it's like there's the nuclear like orange like dust that you put in the popcorn. Right, so for every like load of hoopcorn in the popper, you put one level scoop in there, and that's already very salty seasony.

You know it, you taste, it burns your tongue. You know when you say nuclear dust, it's just salt.

It's just like that orange magic popworn dust or whatever it is called. Yeah, hang on, I'll look it up here. I'm sure it's like largely salt.

But it was like, yeah, there's a kind of just a special kind of on the It was yeah, bright orange, and so I would like, you know, okay, so this one showing this movie, we got a rush here, Let's try it with one and a half scoops and see if anyone comes back.

No one came back all right next, rush do two scoops. By the time I'm getting to like four scoops of this ship, that like one is overkill. Then it's like all right. That always like try to find the line where people would come back and be like, my mouth is on fire.

This is awful. What do you do? What do you do?

So flavor It's called flavor call and it's this, Yeah, the extra extra extra salty salt. It's crazy. You should actually order some right on your popcorn at home. It really does make it different.

I have not thought of that word in yeah, twenty five years. Yep, he's.

We have we have Australian household. So we have a lot of chicken salt in this house, which is basically salt, but it's flavored like chicken bouyon.

Okay, and it's pretty good on popcorn, soaked in like chicken bouyon before they put it in a bottle or whatever.

I don't know how they make it over there. It's a bunch of crazy people on that side of the.

Art, mostly spiders.

I don't ask how they make it. I'm just saying it's got a chicken on the content.

Understanding when they're talking anyhow, who knows what they're up to.

A whole chicken in every can.

Have you guys ever walked out on a job? Uh?

Yeah, we walked out of I think I might have walked out of one of the subways I worked at. I walked out of Burger King. I walked out of Papa John's after two days. I'm trying to think that might that might be it. There's probably another in there somewhere.

I got two, although I don't know if accounts about walking off.

If you didn't show up for your first day, that counts. It was supposed to be the bigs Barbecue Chicken walked on.

Yeah.

In Lawrence, Kansas, there was a big barbecue and they had a chicken mascot that would dance on the side of it was either iOS three or twenty three, one of the main drags of town. You just dance and have a sign that says big Barbecue. And I thought that'd be a funny job to have. And the first day I was supposed to work, yeah, yeah, but I

I'm not chick.

And I'd already gotten the job filled out all my paperwork and everything and just didn't show up. The other one was also college. I got hired as a painter with all of my painting experience to paint. There was a girl's dorm that was getting renovated and they were just hiring college kids to paint it. And so I'd never used a roller before, I'd never painted a room.

Yeah.

The other the burg king there was, It's always it was never a customer issue. Was always like if a manager was kind of like just a little shitty and I'd be like I don't want you don't pay me.

Enough to deal with this so people don't quit jobs.

I quit managers for sure. Yeah.

Yeah, So I walked out on the burger king the Papa John's was like, I think there was like Red Wings playoff game on. I just wanted to go home and watch that, so I just didn't. I just think I just left. I was like I was trying to like remind myself of like the power I have in situations of like I still have a choice. I could

Yeah, that's when I would skip school and like high school, I would do that because I would just be's sitting there and I'd have my bag all packed up and stuff and be like wrestlingy A two thousand. My pre order just came in at Funkle Land. I gotta go play it right now. And I'm in math class and fifth hour or whatever, and it's like, Oh, he's gonna see me, He's gonna see me.

Get up.

I'm like, there's no way to escape his line of sight, and then I would just have to tell my brain, like hey, brain, shut up, stop thinking, your legs work, get up, and I just get up.

And like sometimes I would hear like, hey Dan, where you go?

Nope, just keep walking, Just keep walking funkle land are good. Hell yeah, that's empowering.

Don't do that with a police. I just like, I feel like you've learned a weird lesson. Yeah where your bought your Your legs are apparently allowed to overpower your brain, but that can probably put you in danger.

I really like it got you, but it also gets you cool things. That's like I did, like jump over the fence. Well it was a three eleven concerts and not that cool, but I jumped over the fence to get back into a three eleven concert after getting kicked out for underage drinking.

You ran from the cops to get into a three eleven concert.

Well, security guards like mostly.

That was also I was also as high as a human could be because I like they like they left all the weed out in the van, my mini van, and so I got kicked out went the van. I smoked all that and then the funniest part about this is I thought I was being so sneaky up by the train tracks, I was gonna sneak back in and from like so far away, so far away. My brother and my friend who had just gotten kicked out as well, was like.

Jeff, what are you doing. I was like, oh, you guys can see me.

Interesting, And so then I will all three of us decide all right, we'll just go see what we can get back in.

We y out of the guys like.

Like a you know, a roady or whatever, and he says, just jump the fence, guys, just go, and I'm like, all right, And we jumped the fence and then security guards did seeus, and then we just jumped another and these are like twelve feet fences, and jumped that, got back in and we mixed in with the crowd. And then when I left, we saw the security guards and kind of waved at him, and they didn't care. At that point it was already over.

So yeah, I get the sense of, despite knowing you for years now and podcasting with you a lot, that I feel like there's a treasure trove of like teenage slash college dirtbag age, the.

Bad boy years.

Yeah.

Yeah, have long hair too, just stoned and long hair and.

Yeah, yeah, for sure, yeah, all through the twenties especially, Yeah, I grew I started growing my hair in like late high school and then yeah, that was definitely when the dirt bagnets started for sure.

What's some like, uh, you know Mountain Rushmore dirt bag moments for you in the TV steal on the TV of course, that's number one. That's George Washington of dirtbag things.

I don't know.

It was like, I did I tell you about getting tased?

About getting tasered?

I think I know that you got tased, but I don't know the context.

I was like again like reminding myself of the power I have in situations. So when like cops come to the door to party and it's not my house, I'm like, listen, I can't tell you to come in, So so I'm gonna go get the person that lives here and they could tell you whether or not you come in, but it's not my place. This is I'm so I'll go do that. And they're like, fuck, you were not waiting and they just tasered me. And I'm like, as they're tasering me, I'm like, can't believe you guys are taste

So we did. I got to court because I was obstructing official business.

I think, is what I got. And I was like, I want to fight this, uh twenty twoish because I was I was of legal age. That's one I answered the door. So I yeah, twenty two ish, twenty one or twenty two uh. And I went to court and I was gonna be like, hey, public defender, let's fight this right because this is bullshit.

And then and then.

She's like, yeah, but you have like a previous noise complaint warrant that you never answered, And I'm like, what the fuck is that noise complaint? It was my again, I was of age, so I answered the door. My friend was playing the guitar too loud and we got a noise complaint. I went to go talk to the cops. So my name was on the ticket. I gave it to him to pay. He never paid it, and so there was a warm for my arres. So she's like, listen,

It must have been really tough.

It ruled the pitbulls, and it was it was yes, exactly, yes.

So the moral of the story is get yourself tased by cops.

It was like I even at the time. At the time, I'm like I don't think I feel anything. I mean, this is weird. This is really weird because I think it really works way better if you are resisting because your body's all tensed up. And I was like pretty relaxed and they just taste This is very weird.

You didn't like you're super high.

And they taste you, and you're just like, yeah, that's what you want to do.

Come on.

I shoot, did not do a single thing I just had I gonna get the person who lives here. The thing is that there were people who were outside breaking wind shields of cars coming down the street. They knew they were getting chased by cops. They came into this party with us, so we didn't know them. They came in the party, went out the back door. So I answered the door and like, this is a fucker that's been breaking windshields And I'm like no, I've been in

Let's just taste the guy. Yeah, wow, okay, so not uh, it's not too bad.

I don't know if I would like do it again, I think, but actually the anticipation of like knowing it was coming would probably be way worse.

Actually, because I.

I is it the thing that shot out like little things they shot out though there was like the little clips in my body. O.

Mine was for the one I did on myself. A lot was probably a stunt stunt gun. Yeah, yeah, I've always said taser, but I guess it's probably more accurate.

It tastes like a brand name. I guess, Yeah, I don't. I don't.

I didn't like look into it and see it. I didn't like read the side of the gun or anything.

Yeah, did you ask like, oh, yeah.

What voltage? You said too? Yeah, no, it's not.

Very strong at all. Can you turn it up a little bit?

I was just like on the ground at a cert point. I can't believe guys taste me. All my friends like Jeff, just shut the fuck up.

Please stop stop talking.

How you got yourself into that situation.

Yeah, you just just shut the fuck up when you're doing with cops. Yeah, yeah, to your legs.

I think I did get put in the back of the cop car. Whether they're like they'd like bring a sergeant app to be like, we got to figure out what happened because we totally violated this person's like rights here and this is not like we got to like bring someone here. News news actually what they're doing. And so they brought out some uh, I don't know, some big guest, hotshot cop or whatever, and I'm like telling the story and I'm.

Still like some mustache motherfucker tastes me or whatever, and he's like, okay, okay, just cool it. I'm like, I can't help it.

I always did the same thing with cops that I do with like call center people.

Is just like super duper nice.

And I was bigger like if you're angry, if them are combative, that's when they like come after you.

Yeah, right when I get pulled over. When I get pulled over, I'm like, I'm super nice. I'm like, you're just doing your job. I'm just trying to get somewhere. Let's figure this out. That's completely fine. Yeah, I thought I was fucked once. Where was July fourth?

And me and my buddy all all withhold his name here, But my buddy gets a thing of satellite missiles and we're all just like we went drove out to a dark road in Lawrence, Kansas, and we just wanted to shoot off fireworks. But we were doing it like right by the road, super not busy road. But also my friend was a guy that caused trouble and you know,

The little one.

Boer beer like shoot out, and he fucking aimed it at the car and I have I have a fucking picture of like as I don't know how I had time to As the car is passing, the window is down on the passenger side and it goes in and you hear the pop car pulls over. Guy comes out off duty cop. The funny thing exploded in front of his fiance's face.

Oh fuck, this guy was how are you alive? It wasn't me. I wouldn't.

I got the picture of my buddy holding it. I took I was talking about journalist.

You fucking were the witness and put him in jail.

They had him get on the ground because I saw him holding the things. It's like, get the fuck down. You almost fucking blinded my fiance and flew in there, you fucking like, and he showed his badge and stuff, and he starts talking to me, and I don't know how. I was drunk as ship and I just did the I I, oh my god, I feel terrible, Like, yeah, we're just we had a little too much to drink. We didn't drive, We like you know, we got dropped off out here and he just like I I watched him.

He didn't mean to do it.

I just I just was very just apologetic and nice, and he was like, all right, just fucking go home or something, okay, jeep.

Thank God Like.

That that that definitely had worked for me, Like when I was like on the I haven't like tripped a lot, but I did ask it a couple of times. And one of the times, I was just like, I'm gonna go for a walk and I was to play like walk in someplace where I shouldn't be, and I just basically told the cops, hey, I'm on ASCID right now and just walk home.

I'm not trying to cause any trouble.

I'm just trying to get to where I'm going and I don't want to be a hassle and cause you guys need any problems to like, I want to avoid problems if I can. It was very nice and it worked that time, and it was fine. So I tried that again of like being nice in a situation where we were at like a house party and I don't know, maybe I have a thing for talking to the cops.

I'm like, oh no, I will go be nice to them. It'll work.

So I went to go talk to them, and they're like, look, we're just looking for for like, we just want to make sure everyone's okay, make sure everything's all right, So can we come in? And I'm like yeah, we'll everyone. Hey, listen everyone. They just want to make sure everything's cool. They want to come in. And what they were really trying to do is they saw someone with a bong in the garage and they were trying to get legal permission to come inside.

So they came in.

As soon as I gave them permission, they came right inside, went right for that, like all right, now everyone's under arrest, and I'm like, fucking cops.

It's like Dracula, Like as soon as you invite them in, they can just do whatever.

Well, if you invite them in, then they don't need a warrant. They don't need a warrant.

They can just come in and they look like Dracula, Like Dracula just like yeah, yeah, want to drink your blood.

Yeah, it's true, you have to let them in.

I think I have a dual system of opposing brain thought, where at first I am a great negotiator, and then when I have lost the battle, I.

Freak out.

And I don't think that's when it just I've crashed and burned and this kind of comes out in all sorts of parts of my life. Right We're like all negotiate for our game of the year, and if I lose, or if I feel like I'm losing, I'll be like, well, I'll ruin all of your games.

I will.

You know, like you don't want to play board games? Sounds like yeah, I remember, like, uh, one time, me and a bunch of girls wanted to get really drunk and do a haunted house and we wanted to do like do it in style, and we got this big event planned even with like a limo or like getting really drunk and the limo on the way to the

She fucked up.

She's like look at her.

Look at her.

And she's sitting in the back like half like not even standing. We're like, look at her, she's an idiot. Like let's just go. And the guy is like just so uncool about the whole thing, and it's just like, you broke the rules. You're fucking out. And I just snapped and was like, oh eat a dick man, like stupid, who is this? It's not even scary?

And he called the police all the police to come in, and I stepped back in and was like, officer, these girls have traveled a really long way to see this place.

And the officer looked at me and was like, you have two options. You can get back in your limo and you can fuck off, or you guys can get arrested right now. And I went, oh, is that my only option? I can't even go see the stupid an app and my girlfriend's just dragged me back into the limo. You can like see me in the limo being like fuck both of you, honestly assuming me away before I I arrested, got arrested, or got all those girls into trouble.

And I do like that when they were like the cops came here like all right, round.

Two, and I immediately like an officer, there has to be away. You must understand, and he's like, well, I did hear that you called all of these people motherfuckers?

Does not sound like please.

Where I come from, we can all agree to disagree here. As soon as he told me that it was over, I snapped again and that.

Was that you've had these two modes.

But is it like like the crusty doll with the good and evil switch or is there like a.

Negotiator and burn it down. I think it is a switch in my brain. I've had that happen multiple times with police officers. I've also been pulled over the standard thing, like Greb was saying like, You're like, officer, how can we work this out? Like you're trying to give tickets to bad people. I'm a good girl trying to go to college. How do we work this out? And he was like, yeah, what I said, I'm just a good girl trying to go to school. Can't we figure this out?

Yeah, talk about that. I don't.

I don't usually go to that place, so I'm always like all right, Like if I get resigned, it's very much still.

All right. Like okay.

So I was working as a delivery driver at GYM Johnson, Ohio State Campus, and you know, you got to get these sandwiches to these assholes in these buildings, and there's no place to park. It's a college campus and everywhere it's a toezone. So I'm like always trying to find like, okay, this is a little corner where I can if I were to park it here and I were to get up there in like thirty seconds and get back, the car should still be okay. Not always there were like

One where I'm like, this is a game night. It's game night.

The cops are gonna be busy that you know, so there or not, the tow truck driver's gonna be busy, I mean, and that's all. I'm like, I'm gonna go in here and I'm gonna park this place. I know I can't park here, but they'll see the Jimmy Johns logo on top.

They'll know I'm just delivering a sandwich. I'll just come right back down.

Thirty seconds I come back down, the truck is already getting ready to pull me away. So I hop in the car real quick because he can't. He can't toe the truck if I'm in there, toe of the car if I'm in there. So I'm I'm sitting in there, and he's like, I'm gonna have to call the cops on you. And I'm like, all right, fine, call the cops, man, I just want to drive my you know, Jimmy Johns is right there.

They called it.

First of all, these people should just fucking walk to get their stand, which was literally across the street from like it's right there.

Just let me go and we're fine.

They called the cops, and I'm like talking the cops, and they're like kind of like building, it's gonna get worse and worse for you.

I'm like, okay, look what if I don't get out of the car. What happens? And and and.

They look at me like we're kind of this this motherfucker like they're just like like, what kind of asshole even asked to ask a cop like what are the consequences of my next action? But they were just like we're going to like force this door open and we're going to arrest you and you're gonna go to jail and and all this stuff. I'm like and I'm like, but but why, like what am I doing wrong? And

Give me. I'll pay this guy the eighty five.

Dollars he wanted, so that he was just like he wasn't gonna tell me at that point. He's like, I'll just just pay me eighty five dollars and I'll let you go, which of course is just extortion. But uh, I'm like, okay, cool. So that was just a night where I didn't make any money because it's about as much.

It really sucks the tips at Simmy Johnson and yeah, that sucks to pay money when you're working, and just know that that's right.

That's where like in my brand, like I got to do everything I can to avoid just paying eighty five dollars.

But like, again, that's how much you make it at night.

Yeah, at that time in your life, eighty five dollars was everything. Like I'll never forget my first waitressing job because that tips were cash, right, and you could walk out of there with Walking out with eighty dollars cash was god like, it was god tear. It was like, no one can touch me. I have eighty dollars, get out of my way. I can see any movie in the world.

Advanced game right now.

I could buy three DVDs right now, three DVDs.

Virgin megastore at Easton Mall. Watch out.

They only increase in value. They are investment pieces.

It's Criterion collection. It'll be worth billions.

I love every time you, uh you bring up like a real place. I know where it is because I am from there too.

Yes.

I also remember trying to park in the OSU area and how insane it is. I have like, uh, this isn't a parking story, but I have like a vivid memory of driving Saturday night, game night, and just it was crowded and kind of stressful, and the car in front of me was swerving, and I remember being like, I said to myself, that guy's drunk.

I'm going to pass him.

And so I passed him, and then I went to a stop flight and I stopped and then he hit me. Yeah, and I remember like, uh, he gets out and we're both like what do we do here? And he was like you could buff that out, just like you would in like a cartoon or something like, I'm not dealing with your stupid ass. Let's all go home immediately. But now when I see someone swerving, I don't pass them. That's a lesson that I learned. I keep them.

I want them where I couldn't see them.

Though, because then it's like, at any point, what if they just see I hit the brakes or swerve or something.

I'd rather just like real quick get pass them.

And the situation if there's a stop sign coming up or a light, yeah, I'm I'm with you now, Mary. But if it's on a freeway and I and I know I can put significant distance, I will pass.

Them and I'll get put them high way.

I passed them in a stopping situation, I'm like afraid of them. And that was where you can see him here, Yeah, I said, I think I said it out loud. I'm gonna pass this guy. I do not think he's a good driver.

Immediately hit me. I think.

I think later on that night, when I was tripping, I realized the next day was Easter, and I was say, all, I have to go have brunch with my parents, and then I so I drove to their house like very very much out of my mind and like just kind of like like like crawled into their family room and fell asleep on the floor, and they're like.

Oh, you're here already, let's go. None the Wiser never knew. Does it not occurred to you when you took the acid?

No?

No, No, that's the future, Jeff. That's come on.

Don't you have that with the like any of the stuff like ADHD where it's like a day from now might not exist at all.

Like that's like I think I have some of that.

But if I were to ever try something like acid, I think I would spend six months.

Researching and feel like I was about to raid.

Like ben Laden's compound, I would have those like planned out multiple different like AI scenarios showing what would happen.

Yeah, I can't this the first time I ever did.

It was my friend got it for my birthday and I was like, I'm you know, when am I going to do this? And he's like, if you don't take it now, and it was this is like a couple of weeks later, he's like, I have it.

You still haven't taken it. I'm like, okay, yeah, I have to go to work at j C. Penny.

Actually I worked at the overnight shift, and he's like, if you don't take it now, I'm going to take it.

I'm like, all right, whatever.

So I took it and I went over my overnight from eleven PM to eight am shift to j C Penny and it was that was. I think by the time I got there, I had kicked in and I knew because the lady that worked there with me, the nice lady, was like surprised that I was there early because my brother dropped me off because I was always like showing up right when the clock started. And she was like so happy that I was there early, like, oh, he's going to finally be a good employee.

It's a good employ She's smiling.

Yeah, she says, hi, Jeff, are you doing And I must have just gone trying to talk, and I had not tried to talk, and my tongue wasn't working anymore, and I could just see her face like, oh, no, you were I worked the whole yeah, but I hid, like for significant amounts of time in the bathroom and watched the bathroom like the stall wall like breathe at me and stuff like that.

Well, that's hell. I cannot I couldn't imagine.

I would never do my phone.

My phone broke and I think that was just like a coincidence. But it felt like the universe was not letting it work. Like it felt like it felt like I must be doing something wrong. And so I like couldn't call my brother to come pick me up. And the shift had ended, and like things were starting to like calm down in my brain, and so I had to like walk over to a like retail story that

If we ever invent a time machine, let's all summon our like twenty one year old Selve a podcast.

Together and see what she would demolish us like she would bully us so hard.

Football team couldn't pull her off of you if you put her.

You guys want to talk video games?

Sure, all right, Fire Escape listeners. It is almost winter in our part of the world, and during these cold winter months, there's no better combination for a cozy night in than good company and even better wine. That's why I am a member of First Leaf. First Leaf is great at picking out wines based on my preferences. If you're not already a member, you can go sign up by going through this little quiz that they do where you tell them yes I like the taste of toast, No,

All these have been amazing. They all came from First Leaf.

So if you want to get in on this, make every cozy night in special with wines from First Leaf that you know you'll love. Go to try first leaf dot com slash fire Escape to sign up and you will get your first six hand pick bottles for just forty four ninety five. That's t R Y F I R S T L e A F dot com slash fire Escape. Try first Leaf dot Com slash fire Escape.

All right, we are back with video games now, Greb. You alluded to being in Disney in the last week, right, I'm sure were gonna hear about that on Giant bomba The Air Future.

Here.

I was at Disney, had.

A real job.

You had a red wine. I did have a red wine. That's right. We were at the Disney dining plan.

Actually, so what me and stuff are like, we don't usually get alcoholic drinks at dinner, especially when we have the kids with us. But it was like we'd be wasting money if we didn't get an alcoholic drink.

So we got whiskey and all kinds stuff with every.

Wait, why would you be wasting money? Because all inclusive. It was all inclusive for this dining plan. And it's like you can get the entree and then you get a drink and get a diet coke, or you can

And I'm like, well, this nine.

Am there being like you want something like I better. Yeah, and then they're like, you want this hot towel. I'm like, do I, but you definitely want like meet.

And plates and you're like, I'm not even hungry.

But yes, the Delta is doing Shake Shack Burgers now in first class.

Jesus y yeah, yeah, that's awesome.

All right, So grab I bring up Disney because you said you had not heard our Game of the Year.

As a result of.

That, that is right, I have not heard your game Game of the Year, and I don't know anything about it.

Okay, perfect, Well you know all three of us. You know you've heard the podcast, you know our thoughts on games. I want to do a little test here. Okay, I've got a time in about three minutes on my phone and I'm looking at our final top ten list. I want to see if you have three strikes, meaning you can say three games that are not on our top ten before you're disqualified. Do you think you could hit our top ten?

Wait?

So okay, so okay, So I say three games that are not on your top ten.

That'll be three strike, three strikes.

You're done, but you have three minutes to just try to name the ten and I think passing grade is seven or above.

Okay, yes, let me can I look at a list of games that just came out this year so I can have the full from because otherwise I just will have a hard time remembering.

Yeah that bad brand.

Okay, well, if you're doing that, then you have to get eight. So just say what the passing grade is?

Now? Eight?

Okay, that's fair. Yeah, I'll take that. Yeah, okay, and it's still three strikes, all right, you righty?

Yeah, hang on.

I need to get this of us games of the year just in general. Okay, yeah, this this list will help me out here. Okay, all right, three minute timer starting now. Okay, let's go with some easy ones. Bilatro yep, astrobot yep. Let's see animal.

Well, no, that is one strike. Okay's counting on you for that moment.

I thought I fought for it, dude, But like, Dan is such a loser.

Yeah, I gotta. I devoted it more than mine. I gotta. I gotta keep that in mind, that Dan is such a loser.

Yeah, I keep that in mind with all of your picks, because there's a couple of real stinkers on there that Dans.

Uh God, would you guys have put shadowed the tree on there. I don't know. Let me hold onto that one for a second. Would you guys have done that early? I know you would not have played that Laura Lion the laser eyes that's on there. Yep, that's number seven okay, Oh okay, I'm thinking of Dan. I gotta think of you tube a metaphor refuntasio yep.

Okay, number ten, good job. Number that's irrelevant.

It is irrelevant what number it is.

Okay. I need a listen to this Prince of Persia, the Lost Crown. Huh.

Okay, I won't even tell you the numbers, just in case you want to listen to it and not spoil it for you.

Uh. The Rise of the Golden Idol.

No, that should have been above metaphor. Okay, anyway, go ahead. That's two to two yeah.

Okay, Uh, I'm kind of getting too guessing. Territory now a silent hill too.

No, you're out, sir, is a failing grade for sure. Yea. That leads us to games.

No, I don't think we need to do it, because if anyone who hasn't watched the podcast would want to listen to it, So I'm gonna stop you, right, there and just say good try. I believe genuinely that if I would have finished Silent Hill two, which I am currently playing, it would have been in that top ten. And that is on me.

Let's remember another games. Shit, Okay, it's phenomenal. It is so good.

It is an absolute, die hard perfect remake of the original Silent Hill two, which I must admit I did not play as a kid.

I actually played it for the.

First time with Nina Marie on a live stream and we played it. It was It's called Not So Silent Hills, and we played through every Silent Hill on the original console and I played through every of the Silent Hills with her, and I loved Silent Hill too. Like many people, I fell in love with this when the remake came out. I'd like to see how true of a remake it is, and it is. It is genuinely such a perfect remake.

That's why I fell off the original one. Back in the days. I remember renting with my friends, like we're going to play this all weekend until we beat it. And we see that with Resident and it was like we just fiddle parted around an apartment complex for hours and just locked doors and like, I don't know if it didn't have any version of that on the map where fill in x's or you know, red lines or whatever.

Like the rooms turned green or something like that when you're done with them or whatever.

You yeah, andy, thing like that, But there's no hints, right, And in this one he literally writes clock, you know, question interesting, and so it's being way more clear what it is you're looking for and why I think that they have found a way to connect the dots. It's still puzzly and you absolutely can still get lost.

But the game is giving you so many.

More hints to just ease your way into saying, right, I'm looking for the big hand of the clock, and if I put it on the right time, it should open up a door. Like it's it's giving you enough guidance that you will figure it out if you're reading the notes and like looking around, and so I just really appreciate the quality of life here. I also think that it is encouraging combat and interacting with the enemies

I think it's terrifying to.

Put me in a situation where you've given me what I need to kill an enemy and now I'm like, well, I got I have to find it and I'm just like throwing it, running around with a board with a nail in it, like praying that I can take out these legs. The enemies are just as vile and disgusting. The visual.

Changes that they've made.

I mean, you can really see the poop in the toilet.

A lot of gross holes in that game. I've I've been watching Kale and yeah, there's just holes everywhere you look.

And it they love holes.

Is it not quite like resid Evil four? Like, I know it's over the shoulder now, but it doesn't seem like it's suddenly like an action game the way like you know from.

The first three are you used to aready four? Right?

It's still very much survival horror from what it looks like, it's survival horror.

But I do think that it is increased the amount that it is encouraging you to combat. And I even think that there's small changes to the animation of the character that is encouraging you to engage in combat. And I'll give you an example. You get a radio and when an enemy is near, it makes like a cock noise. That's how you know you're fucked, right, because the radio

Like he automatically does it.

He pulls it out.

You don't.

You don't click a button if you're near an enemy and you can hear it like mouth breathing, he pulls out the board in preparation. And I think that that alone mentally makes me be like, oh, I'm a fucking swing this board. If anything comes near me, I'm like ready to go. And so I think it's it's mentally kind of encouraging the character to fight, but one hundred percent unlike a Resident Evil, which I think is you're

He dinitailia area, Crosby too to crouch crotch area, Yeah, in between the legs and both of them right.

Yeah, I don't know.

So I've just been shooting everywhere, just shooting them all over anywhere I can shoot.

Them now, I know, like super fans of Silent Hill have, I guess there's a lot of themes and metaphors and so forth, and is it to just I.

Have like do you do you?

I just saw it as a game about a spooky town. I didn't realize what it was about or the psychology or metaphors. Do you playing through to have a read on what it's trying to say?

It's very obtuse, and I think that I didn't fully understand it. Except for Nina, my friend who was playing the original with me, was explaining some of the characters okay, and they all have fairly sad story.

You come across characters and.

They'll be like, I'm looking for my mom, and then you'll be like, oh, that's a sad story. But I don't think they're ever really explicit about anything because they want you to feel like you're in this foggy dream town, so it's hard to really understand a lot of it. And also like, why are you like constantly descending into hell? And who is pyramid Head representing? I don't think they've thought all that throughout.

That's the thing.

I was watching Kayla stream and I've seen the chat and it's like, well, okay, well pyramid Head is obviously a penis, and this boss that is a door with arms and legs is actually about traumatic sexual memories because it's not a door, it's a bed, and I'm looking at it. I'm just like, I know, I don't pick up on stuff very often, but it's like, I don't know if these are actually intended messages or what that.

I don't know, but you say, you say it is pretty obtuse, I.

Think, so, I don't think it's literally telling you much of anything at all. And most of the notes, like I have a note in the game that's like, there's holes. I don't know what to do with all these holes. I guess I gotta keep digging. And it's like is that sex shit. I don't know, Like, I don't know.

What you want all holes are sex shit.

It doesn't like some of it is just very obtuse and obscure, and I think that that's scary in itself, and maybe much like a painting. To an expert, they would be like, you see, the flowers are all tiny vaginas, and you're.

Like, oh, they're always tiny vagina.

But for the people who aren't super understanding of descriptive art, we're just like, it looks good, spooky town.

It's a it's a scary town. It works, it works.

It works on both levels though, right Like, I think that's where like the best stuff it can be interpreted anyway, where it's like if someone wants to dive in deep and they want to connect the dots, if they want to dive into the holes deep, they can enjoy themselves. And if they want to just be like, this is a foggy, spooky town, if it's fun that way as well, that's a good game.

I'm trying to.

Think that there's ever been anything in art or otherwise that I've interpreted in two different ways.

Yeah, I mean, I think probably not.

If you look at it weirdos. There's got to be like a movie I love. That's like so clearly a metaphor fors like, is the Shining about something beyond me? Guy going crazy and wanting to kill his family?

Uh, I haven't seen the Shining, which I know you just see, but but I know I know I'm meant to fix that during the Halloween, but I got too busy.

The Matrix if you don't see that.

The matrix is a metaphor for like capitalism and people being in a system. It's a control. A matrix is about control. Yeah, yeah, but like the systems that control. It's like for like, like you are just a battery charging this other system that's above you. You're just a person working in the capitalist system making sure that that the system above you could continues to run. But you are just replaceable and you don't really matter to it.

It's yeah, like I did not think about it on that level.

I just thought, right, that's that's the most like in your face metaphor movie that you might like.

I've always seen twenty twenty five times. It's only one of my favorite mayvies. You've given it another twenty or twenty five, We'll see we thought.

About that about it with that as a battery.

I've thought a lot about how cool it was when he dodged those bullets, and I don't think deeply about it.

Yeah, but I think the Matrix is a good example of like that shiit just rules.

Yeah, that's just a good action movie. Who cares? But also then I do care and I can enjoy both ways. That's all is face off a metaphor for something.

Uh, I mean yeah, because like like what really makes a person a criminal versus a cop? And if you were to swap bodies, like, like do you do you take on some of the characteristics of the criminal that you've been chasing? Like what really separates these two men if you put him in his body? Like what remains that is good and what remained what becomes evil in him?

And stuff like that.

Yeah, that's a classic trope in a cop versus robber fiction sort of stuff.

Yeah, record, how about any zombie movie about how the real enemies are the people?

Yes, they're faster.

Yeah.

Maybe that's why I don't think I like metaphors most of the time, because I remember, like Walking Dead, I hated that game so much when everybody was given a game of the year and it's.

Like, oh, it's so deep though, because it's like Whe're the you know, wh're the Walking Dead. It's like I was shut up, like I think I just love that, you know, yeah shut up?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, huh okay, Well SHO got a certain thing about that with the matrix.

I bet there's like papers written about it or something.

Yeah, there definitely are. Yeah, the whole bocks in fact, Yeah.

Huh I already yeah, like that movie love maybe they'd be a fun when to look at you again.

The point is, if you don't find that stuff enjoyable, don't do it.

Don't force it interesting.

Like I'm not considered that there was that much more to it than cool action.

I find it very entertaining to like because it feels like I'm like almost playing a game with the movie or the book or whatever, where it's like, uh, I get to engage with their throwing out there. I could see how I feel about it and and try to think, are there deeper connections here?

And I'm like exploring the space.

But also if it's a good action movie on top of that or whatever, if it's doing good genre stuff, then I'll just enjoy that as well.

Do you think if I went to class in film school I would know this stuff? I don't know. I do have I did go to film school.

Yeah, you did go and you got it. Well, no, you didn't just go to film school. You have a film I agree you. Yeah, yeah, yeah, so I don't know. Again, I think a lot of stuff comes down to just how like when you hand something to somebody, Uh, they're going to.

React the way they react because of who they are. And I don't know if you're.

Meaning so nice about this fucking film degree and you don't know what a metaphor is.

I don't know them when I see them. I don't think you do.

Then I don't know if you've really.

Played another thing.

It is a thing, but it's representing another thing sneaky style.

But I believe I did read that in some of the theory that I read. Yeah, if that.

Was a paper, I would have given you a D minus.

I fleshed it out and pat it out and take line spacing to make it a paper.

You know, In this paper, I am going to show you how the thing and a thing disguised as another thing is what.

We should maybe try to do I think I have a folder in my drive of all my old papers that I did actually do, and I think I wrote a paper about fight Club and how deep it was.

I might be setting it almost as good as Ernest Klein's poetry.

I bet yeah, I might be setting myself up for a Mike Mahardy style embarrassing old.

Piece of writing here. But let me see.

Okay, sorry, let me tess, Well, I'm looking for this. I will be able to find it. Let's toss over to grub. You've been playing Rise of the Golden Idol.

Yeah. Yeah.

I started before my vacation, and I am any time for games. I'm a vacation. Came back and was like, okay, I gotta like. I was in the middle of this auction scene. Let me see if I get piece things.

Together that kind of had. It's really good. They gotta they do a cool thing with like, hey, the time is different.

And then I started realizing the whole chapter had some like time markers and dates, so that I had to start piecing that stuff together.

That was really fun.

The game is incredible still, I really like it, but it is maybe a little bit more difficult to play when I'm like I do have the kids around, and it's like, oh, they need something. I got to put this down and come back to it. And so I'm playing in like twenty minute chunks a lot of times, and I I'm not a note taker, and a lot

To have some insights I did not have before.

Yeah, I would find like I wouldn't start a new one unless it's like, all right, I have at least an hour here to really spend some time with this, because like if I leave for a couple days and come back, I'm gonna forget everything, and like I wish it would just organized a little bit better, where it's like you know, you saw something on one index card or piece of paper or something forever go and then you you lose track, and it's just like, how do

Right, Yeah, so it's like I have to like, I know, I saw that somewhere, so let's go see where I can find it. And that could be a little frustrating at times, but mostly I'm just like, no, I think it's here, and if it's not there, it's like, okay, then it's probably there and so I'll find it. But I just I mean, I really appreciate the way the game makes you feel like a detective because like there are this is like you know, just the oh, this neighbor lists next to this person, his house is white,

Have you played much on the steam deck or you mainly like on a computer? Almost all on the steam Deck?

Actually I play you know, I did play some of the computer today, but mostly all on the steam Deck. I just switched over to the touch Bad turned it into a mouse and it works.

Well.

Oh yeah, you're doing touch Bad Okay. Yeah, I was going back and forth and trying to get like the stick working well. And then also the track pad seem the track pad was the best bet with like R two as the clicking drag basically.

Yeah, yeah, if I want to just click quick, I'll just click in the track bab. But if I need to drag something, I'm using the R two. Yeah sure, And it's it's worth great. You know, It's not as intuitive as using a mouse, but for having it on the go and be able to keep it with me and treating it like a little novel or whatever, it's been good for that. But yeah, I just I hope

I never did the DLC for the last one, and like, I do feel like by the end of this one, it was so kind of difficult, and I kind of just looked up a couple of the like last ones that I would love to go back to the first game's DLC and just be like, Okay, let's I'd like to go back to like a simpler one, you know.

Yeah.

I also like, I'm like, I'm into the lore of the games in a way that I don't usually get into with these kinds of things. But I'm like, I recognize this guy from the last game, and I wonder, like what happened here? I wonder if some of that stuff is covered in the DLC. So I'm going to go back and play that too. I played something. I started it, but I didn't finish it.

Nice.

All right, Mary, you you're still working specifically on Mortal in UFO fifty.

Yeah, have you done one yet?

I do?

Let's do uh? I only have a couple. I got a couple.

I don't have a lot more to say about call of Duty other than what I've said before is that it's just absolutely fantastic.

Did I hear you or see you say that you got the shark skin? Maybe it was in chat this morning.

Skin.

I'm a big shark man with a suit now and I've got guns that have water on him. It's very stupid, and I love it very much. So my two guys are I'm Peter storm Mayer on the left faction and I'm a sharkman on the right, and it's the right level.

Of stupid for me. I think it's fantastic. I like that a lot.

And then we streamed a little bit of Zombies on Giant Bomb, and that seemed very fun in a way that like I didn't really ever gravitate towards zombies, but this felt really fleshed out and solid, so I kind of want to do more of it. But yeah, that's just update that like that is one of the main

It for it.

Yeah, what do you think the metaphor is of Vampire Survivors, Like, what's it saying.

I think the game is saying that video games are fun, huh, And I don't think there are any metaphors with vampire fiction.

No, never haspend.

No, that's the crazy thing about vampires. There's no metaphor.

They just are sarcasm. So I'm gonna guess it's a sex thing. mPire is a sex thing occasionally.

Look maybe just like one let me dial it back. I've read bram Stoker's Dracula. I love that book. Do you think bram Stoker in his mind when he was thinking about this Dracula ords like, I'm gonna it's about sex?

Really, I think that it doesn't matter in that case because because humans are so like saturated in sexual desire that almost anything they create, that stuff comes through. And when you deal with characters that are like taking fluids from another human being and that's like their main way of doing things, like there is a inherent sexual sexuality to that stuff, fluid.

From each other.

Dan, But not if bram Stoker didn't mean that, now that doesn't someone just being filthy?

No, that doesn't matter, especially in that case that do you want to hear if I could always come up I feel like with a bullshit metaphor for anything, right.

So it's like, tell me why the rock is about blow jobs?

Well, Okay, that's that's not exactly what I meant for.

I was pretty cocky. I could do anything with a metaphor.

I was saying, I could come up with a metaphor for Vampire Survivors right where it's like, it's not not about like the set dressing. It's about like, okay, a game where you you move around like like in the same way that jazz Can doesn't have like lyrics, right, but you it still makes you feel stuff and like it begin makes your brain feel things when you're playing this game. It's like, Okay, it's my relationship to moving through space and trying to manage the onslought of just

Uh.

And yeah, that's the kind of thing where I would beg I like to think about that sort of.

Thing with games like this. But did poncol plan On that guy mean that one? Actually yes, really, yeah, I.

Didn't feel that the creator didn't intend it. It's just people saying a bunch of words.

But that's the thing is we're talking about the art and the artist and then the interpretation of the art.

So then wrong if it wasn't intended.

It's not that's actually not accurate because once the art is in the world, the interpretation can take on a life of its own.

Like, yeah, all that matters to me is how I feel like. I don't care what he made it.

It doesn't matter what the art. It does matter what the artist intended. But at some point how you interpret the art wins because it's in.

A way that I interpret the matrix without understanding any of what it's trying to sell. Yes, I'm interpreting it in my own reality.

All writers are crying when they realized that they cannot get the message through to you.

Yeah, all writers, huh, I know what it's like to be a writer. I held up two of my books that.

I put out. Those are c minus.

Someone who's put out books and has maybe the authority on this podcast about this author, we'll.

See after we read that review on what the theme of fight Club was.

I got a point. I can't find them on this computer.

I think it's not a hard drive right here, But okay, maybe the break, I'll plug it in because I bet it's real bad.

During the break, I'll grab it real quick. All right, cool?

That was me talking about Castle Vania, and then real quick before we go to you up at fifty, I'll just mentioned like a post mortem here Astrobot, because you know, we talked since we found out this game existed, specifically like grab an Eye, Manati and then others that wanted to speed run it. What are your thoughts now that it's all said and done, grubcause I know you kind of fell off. I don't know if you intend I'm going back in.

I do.

Yeah, I just got super busy, yeah, because it was like when I was playing, it was like all my time was going towards that, and I couldn't like maintain. Next I went to your house, we did the fundraiser, and since then it's been hard to make it make sense because I'm like I knew I had the Disney trip coming up, and there were other stuff happening with work that we have, all these meetings and stuff like that. So it got to a point where it was like, Okay, I need to like wait until we get on the

Where are you at, like globally for that overarching leaderboard? Do you now last I played?

It was like a day or two after that last level came out and I did break into the top hundred of the overall and then I think pretty quickly, I think within a.

Few hours that first day I fell out.

So if I were to guess, I'm probably between like three hundred and five hundred right now TOTA. But yeah, I'm so glad that they added that cumulative thing, because that is something where it's like huge, Oh for now I can hang my hat on it. We're like, oh you might, you know, Betelly, you might have me beat on this one, but cumulatively, you know, like I'm the real winner here.

So yeah, exactly, Yeah, And it's true because I like that's a big part of It's like having the ability to like perform in all the levels is something that I think I treasure as well. So I'm gonna I'm going back into it. I want to play a lot of it. It might play a lot over Thanksgiving break here, we got some days off. I might try to, like, yeah, get something done there. That's one where it's like now and then it's all out. I could just stream that

It's like yeah, okay, fantastic elements in the environment. This whale will bop your head up, you know, yeah.

Yep, and having them like clearly like, oh they thought about all this stuff and they built a really cool speed running level. It's uh, you don't get that from a lot of big developers where they take their games.

They're made one way and like, let's think about it.

If you're trying to do this as fast as possible, like really as fast as possible, what could we do here? And they did and they do what they did with the entire game. They made an amazing experience that you just kind of can't get anywhere else.

Oh yeah, yeah, I think we're of the same mind about it, and I would love to if you get into those later levels, I'd love to get back.

Down there and go against you. Yeah, it's happened. I think let's let's start it back up again.

Yeah, it was one more speed challenges between the two of you, Like who who's who.

Has more number ones.

Now I'll break k fave a little bit here and say that I have bullshitted and acted like I've beaten grub at elements of the first Asterbot.

Nobody can be grub I brought this up just to hurt you.

Well, no, that was just a preference. I was going to give him that one because it is true. He was much better than me at the first level of this current game and kind of all the old ones at this point. But right now, as of this recording, I do believe I have the best cumulative time, probably because the other guys haven't played the other levels.

But yeah, and was he not on the leaderboard because that doesn't not true.

I think that you still have to beat on the third one, which I was having trouble with. So I'm like that. I think that's one of the things where it's like, this is going to take time to like really learn this, and I don't have that right now. And that was like, oh God, so I need to just put this aside because it's going to stress me out if I start thinking about it.

I love how Kayla approached that, where it's like she did that first level and recognize quickly like, oh, I'm good at this, but this is going to be so frustrating and takes so much fucking time that like she just bowed out after that first one.

Well, I mean to be let's be clear what happened there. I broke her all right, like you did.

Yeah.

Yeah, she's seeing like an eight hour stream trying to beat my time the last time I said on that and she couldn't do it and then she was done. True. I do, I feel bad, but I don't. Actually, so she didn't cut your hair, Yeah she did. She got her revenge, that's true. Yeah, cut my hair in a gingerbread man suit.

Yeah.

It's a good streak both place for long streams. Recently were the kids? Yes, all right, Mary, So UFO fifty, we talked about the bit of a game of the year, But have you just like fully honed in on one game.

I'm just playing a little bit more of it. This was like a thinner week for all of us. So it's like I'm bringing it up because I did put probably four more hours into Mortal, which is a very specific game. I think it's the best game in UFO fifty. There's a lot that I don't like. There's maybe less than ten that I'm like, hey, I could play these, and Mortal is like the one where I'm like they had something here.

This is a cool concept.

It's a fun gimmick where you like your men coming down from a plane, and you have to either you have to die to get through these levels, and you either have to explode turn into a rock, and there's lots of different ways you can die, and it's educating you each level. I don't know how far you both have gotten, but in the later levels it's getting psychotic. I'm I've made it to the final level and it

Because you're the number of men that the number of lives you have carries over it returns you. So if you play better, you'll have more men to move for the next round.

Correct, And to the game's credit, let's say I I've played it really well and I play level three again and I do worse. It takes my best score, Okay, so I don't ruin anything by.

Trying it again.

So if you like played through, like you know, level five, and you will and back to level two and replay that, would that get added on top or would you have to then go play three, four, five again?

Yeah?

I think it's cumulative, where at the end of a level it says whether you added men or lost men, okay, And so like every time you play, there's a certain amount of men you can gain, and then you have to get rid of some of them, of course, but towards the end at the if you go to the level on the right, it'll say plus seven plus eight minus twenty, and so you want those to all be in the plus and so the game knows if you go back and play two and now you're plus twelve,

Okay. I like that a lot. It's really nice.

So it's clean because you you do get a little tired playing the same goddamn level. But I've gotten really good at certain levels where I've uncovered the mechanic of what they wanted me to do. And that's really neat when you like see the level design and you're like why why is that there? And it's like, oh my god, if I clog this drain, it drains the lake, which kills the fish, and when you kill enemies you get

It's shooting men.

It's shooting enemies at you, so you can just constantly kill them. And at some point the game's like, oh, you've you've figured this out, and it stops sending enemies at you because you've accumulated three men out of it, instead of.

Oh, it's interesting.

It's got a lot of layers to it, and so there's some really interesting mechanics later on. So, like I said, they get this like really fun. I don't think you've gotten to the fish. Then the fissure no freaking crazy because they eat you and they digest you. There's no body, so you don't get to utilize your deadness, like you half have to avoid getting eaten or it's a waste

Oh you play the swaps floats. I don't think I played Swapper.

That was a thing where it's like very similar early twenty tens, but you you were basically it was a sci fi type thing where you would die, but then you could like use the stuff you did before and you know, jump on your corpse and stuff like that.

See that's the mecan't they steal these mechanics.

Like you know, Ratchet and Clank.

One of them on PS three had this thing where it's like the Clank levels where you would like record Clank doing something and then you'd start as another clank and then like you know, do the things concurrently. It's hard to explain, but uh yeah, yeah, this felt like a weird, like almost Lemmings type take on it, like a retro take on this concept.

And it's getting smart. Yeah, it's getting really interesting. Now.

I checked to see if there's speed run later boards for this, and yes, the number one has beaten this game in sixteen minutes and forty one seconds.

Wow, I kind of Mary. Have you played Mortal too at all? Okay, there's a second one hul to Mortal? What how is that possible?

It's I was like, I guess, like, are you worried about like spoilers of like the lineage of games inside UFO fifty.

I don't know how, I don't, Oh.

Prescireus you okay, So yeah, there's yeah, there's a lot of a sequels to the games earlier in the UFO, like a library that show up later in UFO fifty.

Oh interesting, that's cool. I'd like to. I'd like to.

This is like the one that hooked me. I haven't gotten hooked by any of these games that much. I've I've enjoyed some. I played Party House or Party whatever, the one that.

You liked it, like, I have not touched that one. It's okay. I think it's fine.

I don't think it's bad. I think it's fine. I've played it and was like interested in trying to beat it, but nothing's gripped me, Like Mortal has very good.

You use the clicker game, the Alien clicker one's fun.

Yes, I've played all fifty.

I've been through all fifty, but I think some of them I was like whatever and like like quit within like two minutes.

I have a low tolerance.

When I was just like I'm not learning all this shit, Like that's not happening.

The second I like had to go to a town and talk to someone who was like, this feels like a JRPG.

I need to get out of herey.

How does one feel intertwined with another reality and dance?

I see what you're doing it. I'm not gonna fall for it. No metaphors for this guy.

One of the things I like about UFO fifty with the sequel stuff is like a lot of them are like, oh, this is made by the same team. They'll have like either the real team or the fictional teams, like listing on the copyright. And there's a couple where it's like, this is the sequel, but it's made by a different team. So I'm like, is this gonna be a very different game? And I think, yeah, sometimes that's the way they'll do it.

So some Snakes Revenge stuff where it's like here's Metal Hero, but then Snake's Revenge wasn't Kajima, you know, like I think it right almost.

Exactly like that, yeah, exactly, And it's like there's said like there's a lot of like cool attention to detail on that side of things that I really.

Appreciate about UFO fifty. That's another one that I just got.

I need so much more time to explore all that stuff that I haven't been able to appreciate it fully.

It's crazy that with the amount of not that I put that many hours, but for like putting eight to ten hours into into Mortal, I still can't beat it. I have to put more time into I need to save more men in levels five through eight, because the final two are motherfuckers. There's no longer a plane. That's the crazy one.

Now.

You know how like when you die, you.

Just drop right out of the plane, right, okay, In the last two levels you come out of like a little hole, and if you die, it goes all the way back to the hole. You gotta go through a lot of places, and there are checks brutal, there's checkpoints, but it's fewer and further between, so it's a lot easier for you to just burn through. Good men and just with waves and waves of good men have.

Lost their metaphor for war. You know, I think the.

Real yeah, the real loss is that we were the men the whole time.

Oh wow, problem man, you think they intended that? Damn it must have. It's about sex, blow jumps holes.

Those guys are all fucking we know, going nuts.

Clearly a penis just look at it.

I'm going hard.

Yeah, that's okay, absolutely, all right, I'm educated.

Now. All right, that is it for our games this week.

We do have some emails coming up, and I will grab this hard drive here and see if I can embarrass myself. We will be back very soon. All right, We're back, and I have found my paper from Theater and Film two eighty three, my class at the University of Kansas. Uh So this is let's see if I understood film and metaphor in two thousand and two. This is my paper, Jack's Smirking Revenge, an analysis of fight Club. All Right, fight Club is a film that speaks directly to its generation.

Shit, oh doesn't it?

Oh No, Millions of skeptical, pessimistic young men and women cite Fight Club is their favorite movie of all time. Okay, there's no source on this fight Club because it seems to transcend what movies generally contribute contribute to the mindset of the viewer. It is a film that has changed countless outlooks on life and contributed to many personal philosophies. On this paper. There's no bibliography or anything. One of

This is a called thing.

It does sound like you're bullshit. It does sound like you complete bullshit. You are just like you're like, what are some things it does?

I need a third thing. It's really good act it's got hot sex.

Scenes, it's got editing lights and actors come on movies.

Until Fight Club.

I think I'm getting deeping in here and another break from the norm. The protagonist of the film is a very flawed human being.

It was the first movie to have a flawed protagonist, flawed character in a movie.

I might even say he's almost some kind of anti hero.

Why I sit here?

It's similar to a clockwork orange because Edward is a man who is so depressed about his own life. He frequents self help seminars for people with terminal cancer so we can feel better about his own. There are no heroes or villains in fight Club, only individuality versus conformity.

Oh my, it just it does sound a lot like any conversation you would have had with someone about fight Club in college.

I was that.

I was that kid who watched a bunch of Tarantino movies in high school.

Thought I undersaid movies.

I saw some Kuber stuff and then yeah, okay, and I'm just saying, like, the lighting's good, the soundtrack's good.

I say it was good. You said the lighting was perfect. Mean, yeah.

I literally all of my short films and shows, and so I did in college, I did not want I didn't use lights because they seemed.

Like too much of a hassle. It all looks like shit.

Okay because of this reason, okay, rare occurrence of a film that's noticeably better upon his second viewing. Blah blah blah blah bah. Let me see I get deep in the final paragraph. Okay, final paragraph.

In conclusion.

In conclusion, this film could have easily been just another that simply tries to add to an individual's personal philosophy, but it is proposed and produced in such a way that makes it stand far out from the thematically similar films. It avoided this by using big name stars, intriguing marketing, and an entirely unique package of filmmaking.

What does that mean?

It is a film that doesn't seem to borrow from any others. Rather, it invents its own in an effort to spread its ideals. Every detail of the film's production is unique to Fight Club and Fight Club alone. It is through these measures that the message of this movie has reached so many people. No, I'd never what is the message.

That I'm talking about. It sounds like you've never mentioned it, which I don't think you did. I don't think I did either. Wow. That sucks shit D minus Yeah.

I mean I think at a certain point it's like, you know, you're a professor, You get a paper like that, you see a million like that, What.

Do you do club? Whatever exactly you fucking did like that.

Poor professor probably had to read so many Wi Fi Club is really fucking cool.

Dot doc from a bunch of kids who did not understand that it was supposed to be supposed to suck.

Oh. I definitely, I definitely had a community college professor that was like, you could write about any movie except flight Club that.

Yeah, it's it's exhausting and people are wrong.

I don't understand jezus I bet I was insufferable.

Talking about movies.

I mean it just sounds like you're you're you wrote a paper to get a grade. Like that's what that paper sounds, Yes.

What it was.

And so to me, it's like this is like a minor speeding ticket in douchebaggery.

Like that's it. Like this is not that bad compared to my heart is about the author. I'm looking better here.

Listen, I don't have to throw Maharty under the bus. This is your show. That's where you do that. You can do that, Okay, I'm about the wine, all right, that's right, Okay, Fuja dot Org.

We'll add it to it. We'll let the audience decide.

God. All right, onto the emails.

Uh, first one here, wait real quick, what do you think so if you had to say something that Fight Club is about now other than like the satire, Yeah.

About just angry, toxic masculinity and trying to find meaning in lives that they just didn't have anything else going on.

Yeah, because that was the only thing I knew.

Try to find human connection and not knowing how to do that and so it has to come through it through Yeah. Yeah, that's completely fair, completely good rating.

Yep.

Okay, I'm gonna go back to college and get a new degree. I'm gonna double it. Yeah, film degree too. Yeah, plus a search for Curly's gold. I wouldn't be because I wouldn't get to keep the things that I left college with because I've gotten stupider.

You're just watching dumber movies. Why face off is actually a cry for help?

Okay?

Uh?

First email is from Eric from Saskatchewan. If all Earthlate knowledge was wiped from Earth and we had to start from square one, science textbooks would eventually come back unchanged because science is experimentation and observation. If all games were wiped out and we had to start from square one, which ones do you all think would come back just the same. That's Eric from Saskatchewan. That's a great email. Brothers just like it, Like you know.

It's somebody just like it, because like, isn't that the game?

Like this is like what I was kind of getting too early about, like the the like Vampire Survivors and Tetrists, like there are some things that like kind of get to a truth of the medium of of Like when you played Super Mario Brothers, the physics felt right.

It's not, they just felt good. It feels right.

This is like exploring something that feels truthful about momentum and physics and our interaction with those things. So I think at a certain point someone would stumble up upon that because it feels right.

I agree. Like the lighting in Fight Club, it's perfect, it's perfect.

Battlefield Earth, perfect lighting, sick marketing.

Perfect lighting, says man who doesn't know anything about lighting, who thought lights were quote as.

Unnecessary for film production, your to one hundred, God damn it.

Yeah.

I think Tetris or like you know, or even like Tetris, like down to the shapes almost would be like pretty similar.

Shapes would be constructed.

That's crazy, it's possibly yeah.

Right, and like falling down a well, right because again that's like clearing lines, right, because that feels like right, because it's like gravity and and it's incessant. Yeah, clearing lines because it's like, yeah, I deal with a problem and now I have a new problem to deal with and it never stops.

Yeah.

That's that's another like truthful thing that a video game explored.

For sure.

What about like the Battle Royale genre, like a pubg. I bet there would be another Like okay, like action games will happen because they would emulate war, and then it's like, oh, but what if there's like a bunch of them and then you had to like survival style you know.

Yeah, And there's always the instinct that a shooter would exist because what it what an exciting thing to be Like if I were to play a video game, the first thing you do is be like, well, I'd want to like run around and shoot people because I can't do that, you know, in real life, and this is something where I get to like get those jollys out, So I think that would occur.

And like Battle Royal was like this idea of like the Last Man standing that there's just something appealing about that. There's just like that, I just understand the the impulse there. So yeah, and like that that's what it felt like at the time. When the first like battery really clicked, Everyone's like, Yep, this is it. This is what we're doing now for the next several years. Because it's just so easy to understand minecraft, building, yeah, building games, crand games, yes, yeah,

Absolutely, that sort of stuff would be a big part.

Of its stranding one one to one and the game Shot for shot remake.

Yeah, somebody's gonna make that. It's too obvious. Yeah, it's too.

Well, like you wipe out every Kojo would still I just come back because he's God's most perfect creation. Yeah, Brian and Jeff Keeley. I want to see that on a bootleg T shirt.

Yeah, it's incredible. All right. Next up, Hello, fire Escape.

Last episode or a couple ago, Dan made the comment that doctor Fernando was the official doctor a fire Escape quick question for Dan, Hey, what the fuck from your friend doctor Ryan?

Now listen, listen doctor Ryan. When I think of.

Doctor Ryan, I think of Giant Bomb and my personal stream first and foremost. That's where most of my interaction with Doctor Ryan. Almost all of my interaction, if not all, has been through Personal Stream and Giant Bomb. So I don't think it's a slight to doctor Ryan to have have met a doctor in the flesh and talked about fire Escape and it's like, all right, you're the doctor of fire Escape, You're not the doctor my whole life, Doctor Ryan.

Give this one to Fernando.

Uh, you're your giant bomb twitch break right.

You just have to work constant, doctor Ryan. I just don't want you to have to work. We do late nights here on fire Escape. I just want to give you a few hours off every couple of weeks.

Your fingers still hurt.

Actually, yeah, it still doesn't spend all the way down. It's much better now. But yeah, it's been over here, Mary, I mean it's this is forever now.

Yeah, I wasn't involved. There was a self fall. I can't be I can't be held liable for such or.

Karma's instrument, right, he should not have said what he said about being able to eat that much mac and cheese. This is and and Karma worked through you. This is not your fault, Mary.

Not legally liable, but emotionally.

Yes, liable. In America, I'm always like, I wasn't even there. I wasn't in the room.

I saw these assholes.

Before I know what you're talking about.

Tomorrow I am walking into the police station and describing this and seeing what they can do about it.

Officer ire I don't even know who they are.

How long before she can give them the double middle finger? Oh you ll fuck yourself. I didn't record fucking dies break.

All of the bones in your body, officer.

Damn, what would that conversation go like? Uh so on a podcast? Officer?

I said, I could eat how much mac and cheese?

Was it?

I could eat a bathtub full of it? Eat a bat literally a bathtub full of it?

And then someone called my bluff and then I slipped and fell and hurt my fingy?

Can we put this woman in jail? Okay? Who made me a bathtub of mac and cheese? I think would I have?

Would I get laughed out quicker by the police or lawyers if I wanted to file a civics so.

Definitely, Police lawyers might talk talk me through this. Lawyers might think there's some money there.

Yeah.

Then I'm going to my lawyer tomorrow.

Yeah, I'll put you in touch with Misney, which is a shout out to everyone from Cleveland. That's all ambulance chaser.

Okay, excellent, all right, great, go after it.

As I've stated my entire life.

I don't know this man.

Then there's no evidence to the contrary. Next up we got years ago. I asked the three of you how many clones of yourself it would take to fight and defeat a Mike to a Mike Tyson.

Yeah.

My new question to you if you could add or subtract years from Mike Tyson before fighting him, at what age do you think you could actually beat him at? Could you beat up a fifteen year old Mike Tyson? What about a seventy five year old Tyson? Superno on both, especially fifteen because that early put it to him. He's not that much older in fifteen people.

Did you did you see the jack Ball fight? I watched it with Mary. Yeah. Yeah, we watched it right before we did our.

Big podcast event, and we kind of there's a footage of us running to make sure we saw it.

Yes, I didn't show the footage because there's like this clear like us being like it's star and then there's like footage of us halfway through the fight and we're like, oh god, damn it.

You can tell within five minutes, not even you tell within like a few seconds of the first round, You're like, oh, this isn't this isn't happening.

This isn't it. He's not throwing any punches. I mean, like, I.

Think it's a sad fight and a reflection of sad thing. Yeah, it's just like to me, it's it was a waste of everybody's time.

Well I sent for balls.

Sure, I mean they got a ship ton of money out of it. But I think to me, we all kind of got bamboozled a little bit. And do assuming there's going to be some kind of interesting.

Fight, every one of these spectacle fights is always so disappointing. You know, I feel like fool me. This is like several times now where it's like I should have known better. Yeah, that's an old man. That's an old man who's been through it. Well, it's been a really.

Tough year and we've been beaten down a lot, and as Jake said getting off the plane, I can't take another l and I really need that guy to murder that YouTuber.

Yeah, we didn't want to go to YouTuber get beaten to a pulp. That's all we wanted to hope.

But yeah, that didn't that did not occur. I mean, do you think you guys could take down Tyson in his current state?

No, I think if I had time to train, yes.

Makes zero percent chance for me. And I also highly doubt Grub.

I think that there's a strong chance still that he knocks me out in one punch.

Let's be clear. Sure, but I think if I had time to train, I would have a chance. I feel drunk.

Twenty two year old Mary Kish could beat a four year old Mike Tyson.

Yeah?

Four, absolutely, Yeah, I'd kill him.

I'd put my money on you. Yeah, what ages I become picks him up and punts him? Yeah? Yeah, kurrent age? Mary?

How young or how old would Mike Tyson have to be for you to beat him?

I mean I would say tween tween Tyson. I could take him out at twelve?

You think you could?

I don't know as a teenager's twelve?

Twelve?

Okay, still I don't know twelve.

He hasn't developed yet cognitively, not cogetatively.

I don't know what ever happened.

I don't think that he's developed his muscles at twelve.

No, but he was probably training to box, I think. Let me, I want to see when he started training.

What about old year old Tyson? Well, let's figure out the first one. He looks pretty strong.

Yeah, I want to be I don't think there's any chance you take out a twelve year old Mike Tyson.

No, I really don't think.

So, oh my god, he looks so I don't chance I could take out twelve years His first fight was with a bigger you who pulled the head off of one of Tyson's pigeons.

Holy shit.

By okay, by the age of thirteen, So at the age of twelve or younger, he had been a rested thirty eight times.

Oh okay, all right, I gotta go. I gotta go younger, all right, hold on, hold on, Yeah I was young, let's go. Let's go with five. I think.

Okay, so five on the young end, I'll take that as well, and then on the old end, what do you now?

He's fifty eight?

Now fifty eight, I would say seventy.

I would feel confident. At seventy, I'll say ninety and dead.

Would do I get like a board with a nail in it.

Just missing?

No, No, I mean I think seventy. My hope is that his heart would give out.

Oh god, this year training videos, he looks pretty good. Yeah, he threw like two punches and got tired. I don't know.

I'm going five and dead and five a dead five year old? Yeah, you could beat up a dead five year old.

You're saying five dead Okay.

Living five Dead Old.

That's my favorite justin Timberlake album.

By the way, Uh, finally here we got When was the last time any of you watched Team America World Police? That movie kind of holds up in some weird ways, and super doesn't, and others like mcgroober that's joke from New York. Now, I do take serious umbrage with the mcgroovers. I do too, because mcgruber's knows what it's doing.

Every joke, every joke, it knows what it's doing, and it's deliberately delivering them in the way it does because it like, that's the joke. Uh, World Police was like, wouldn't be funny if it was the Film Actors Guild instead of the Screen Actors Guild.

And then we use that word a bunch of times. It's like I forgot that bit.

Yeah, And there's a bunch of the accents and stuff that probably like a lot of the accents that can.

Be heavily like relies on racist tropes, but in.

A way that like I think South Park typically tried to do by being like, oh, we're being so over the top with it that it's like we're making fun of the racism. But I think even that now is just kind of like seeing this lazy And I don't think.

They were making fun of the racism. I think they were relishing in the racism.

Yeah, the song is.

Not like, oh, we're being tongue in cheek about this. You're just making a joke about how people are, you know, how people can communicate and say there're r's and l's. Like that's not that. Yeah, it's the whole fucking song. Yeah, it does not hold up.

There's no way.

There's no way that movie holds up. But as far as to say, I I don't know. I mean, I think like they go so far with it, the thing like that makes I also disagree with this, Like I think mcgruber does hold up because there's an element to how you can use cursing that accentuates a sentence and makes it funny. I'll give you an example, like in mcgroober, they ask like about the team, and he's like, it's a bunch of fucking good guys, and like the way he adds fucking adds to that sentence. It adds to

They're like, it's it's funny if these puppets are swearing. Sure, this is like based on the Kids Show. And then they just kind of went that that that was the whole movie.

Yeah, can you believe these puppet these puppets, These puppets are saying fuck every sentence, Whereas mcgruber is a real piece of ship and so he's around regular people and he just can't help himself.

He's aggressive, asshole and.

Yes, there are a bunch of fucking really great guys.

The second the second part of that line is it's after the funerals and he's looking out the window of the sunglasses and he's like, there were fucking great guys and this is a fucking asshole a day.

There's something about it that I think does work that I just don't think Team America had. And I think in retrospect because I used to be a real big advocate of that group and South Park, and I still look at some of the old episodes with nostalgia because it was powerful to me, and we used to not miss an episode of South Park when it came on, like you had to see it when it was like launching on Comedy Central. And I look back on a lot of it and it's just like, it just doesn't

That's the thing, and the one thing that I'll even like other mcgrooover fans sometimes a point is like the one joke that doesn't hold up is the one where he's putting the team.

Together and he's like, okay, I got anyp I got a mark.

It's all the wrestlers, and he gets the Big Show and he's like, oh, the Big Show, Hell yeah, and then Big Show makes out with the guy and then mcgroober freaks out and crosses his name out. I will say the joke there is that mcgrooper fucking sucks and of course he's homophobic, like you know, yes he is.

He is the one asshole in a world of like regular people that are just doing their thing and just like are actually competent and doing their jobs. And so him being the worst in every situation, including like morally, is the joke and rules it's funny. Yeah, it's not haha, Big Show's gay. The joke is like, oh, of course he's a homophobe too.

Yeah, yeah, of course he'd be afraid to work with a gay man. Yes, yes, exactly. So now i've i've hauled up.

I mean mcgroover is twenty ten, it's fifteen years old almost, and we just watch half of it a week ago, Mary.

Yeah, or we did watch half of it before.

Can Jake fell asleep because it was four in the morning or something.

Aggressively picked Mike's nose.

That was decker, That was decker. Yeah, Jake went nuts.

Your finger was in there and he rubbed it in his mouth.

So grubbed myself. I thought he would do. He was playing a little game of chicken with me. I thought he was because like he was asleep and I was like, who's gonna put my binger in your.

Nose the way most people like chicken asleep and without consent.

Go on, Yeah, I got to put I'm gonna put in his nose.

And he wasn't moving, and I like just barely, like kind of touched here. And he's like, Oh, he's fucking with me.

He's gonna see if I if I got the guts to keep going.

And I just kept moving, and I instantly was like, I don't want to keep going. I hope he gives up on this. I don't want to keep putting. And I got my finger pretty far up his nose and he didn't sell it at all.

Oh, because he was actually asleep. I think he was working.

Sleep and then you take it out, laugh, put it in his mouth, and then you do it again.

So what's the defense For the second time? I thought he was playing double Chicken.

Double Chicken car, double Chickens, the classic double Chicken.

Classic, double Sleepy Chicken.

That's a trademark. Yeah, of course he loves that shit. Yeah.

Yeah, well, Joe, you're wrong.

But I do think that.

I haven't seen Team America in years. Actually don't have a desire to.

Yeah, I was like, I meanbe I saw a YouTube video that was like talking about it, and so I started watching again and I'm like, Okay, Nope, this really really really doesn't hold up.

Yep.

Last I probably saw it was in like two thousand and six with Kayla. I remember like, oh, she should see this.

I agree with you, Joe, there are parts of it that do hold up.

I think the first parts of the first half of the movie is like pretty good, and then it just like all the jokes run their course and everything just gets run on the ground, and then they do the thing they always do where it's just like, now, let's tell you why we really need America to protect us from these savages.

It's like, oh my god.

Yeah.

Maybe at its best when it's like mocking that post nine to eleven ultra nationalism stuff, where's the freedom Isn't Free?

Song and all that exactly, that stuff does hold up. Yeah.

Yeah, and the America fuck yeah. I think some of those songs probably still have some value in the sense of, like you're making fun of america imperialism and our war system. There's there's jokes to be had about how right.

Team America shows up to like save the day from the terrorists, and in doing so, they're destroying the countries that they're in and stuff like that, and they don't even notice it, and they're like just fuck yeah, It's like all that stuff does work, and then it just keeps going.

I just remember the joke though, that holds up pretty well where the guy wants to sleep with the lady puppet and she's like, no, I can't, you know, you'll you'll die, just like you know, my or whatever, and he's like, I can only sleep with you if you can promise me you'll never die, and he just straight face turns there's like, I promise I will never die.

Now, there's a really interesting metaphor in that film, Oh about dick's fucking pussies.

Oh god, that's the whole speech, isn't it.

America long You need a dick because an asshole can't fuck a pussy?

Right, Let's say, oh my god?

Really, yeah, you are really really impressed by your metaphor here.

Yeah, do you have a college essay about dick's fucking pussies because assholes can't fuck pussies.

I don't know if newspaper here.

In this essay, I will explain I'm looking at your camera right now.

Did you steal that book from my house or did you buy that?

I bought it while sitting in that chair at your You don't care, yep, I remember you look at it.

Take that from me? Yep.

I literally was just like, I'm gonna stand up, but I really want to keep reading this book, but I'm just gonna buy it right now and then downstairs.

Yeah, books and sixty four companion.

Uh huh.

It's a fun one day. That make them joined quite a bit. Yeah, a lot of good a lot of good stories in there.

Yes, all right, grub, thank you so much for short notice joining us here, you know.

Yeah, no problem. Love love to be on the show. Yeah, oh, I don't know.

We'll be doing some Uh we got the BombCast tomorrow.

Tune in for that game this morning.

Six days in the past or seven days.

I have nothing going on that I get. I'm gonna be deeply unemployed, so yeah, don't worry about it.

We have to do our countdown to the Game Awards first, So that's right.

Yeah, people that we could talk about that now, countdown to the Game Awards, which apparently I'm involved in somehow. So yeah, Greb, we should have a meeting or six hundred about that, you know what, I say, six hundred and one just to be sure.

Yeah, it's been a month. Yes, it's been NonStop, but yeah it seems like a big deal. We're ready to help. We'll do on part for God in Country. Yeah, absolutely. All right, Mary, what do you got?

I am still streaming every Monday and right now I'm trying to get through Silent Hill too, and I'm having a great time. So if you like spoopy scary games, this is the time to get on the Silent Hill to train. It's a blast. I'm I'm really having a lot of fun with it.

So every month glad to hear that. Yeah, what about it.

I'm doing same stuff as Grob with the giant bomb stuff and then Instagram and I'm on Blue Sky now. I'm a Dan Record dot Com on Blue Sky, so you can find me there. I'm actually kind of liking it, so maybe I'll be over there a little more than I was on Twitter for the last few years. But that's all I got for now, and that is it for this episode of The Fire's Good Cast.

Real quick, I did see you got Dan Record dot Com on there, and so that inspired me to go get grub dot.

WTF on blue Sky, so the registered domain.

While while waiting for my kids to get done sho opping a Disney World, I was like, I'll just get this right now and go for it.

So coming to DNS settings and yeah, exactly, and it didn't work. For a minute.

I'm like, gosh, I can't figure this whatever, And then eventually the next day I think it just clicked in place and worked.

Yeah, grub dot w t F on Blue Sky. Oh hell yeah, all.

Right, we're out of here. Thanks so much, Mary and Jeff. Goodbye everyone.

Bye. I forgot flip Patreon. If this is still in the episode, go to our patron. We put up an neckleplin in a web video.

But also we have merch and uh our social channels and don't forget to rate us stars.

Yeah, just all s in the last episode, step stop