Welcome to the Nice Ashes. I'm Mike. I'm Nate and Mike, we have a guest with us this evening. We do. We have a special guest and his name is Al. Yeah, this is Al. Nice to meet you, Al. Same here. Have you guys ever met in person? Don't think so. I do not believe so. I have heard stories far and wide, but not met. All bad, I'm sure. I'm just going to say I've heard stories far and wide. Yeah, they're all true. Especially the bad ones. Yeah. Al's got to cut his stick here. All right.
What are we smoking today? Okay, I'll tell you. I'll twist my arm into it. We are smoking the Dark Sharks. This was a bulk pack buy from our not sponsor, pipesandcigars.com. I think it works out to be a little over a dollar a stick for these, somewhere around the one to two dollar per stick range. Very reasonable. We're practically giving these away. We're here to tell you if it's worth taking them up on that offer or not.
Yes. Though I did see they kind of went up in price a little bit, I think, since I bought the pack. There may be more like two to three a stick now, but still pretty dang reasonable. That's true territory. Yeah. I'm going to get mine lit. It sounds like you are getting yours lit. Yes. Al has smoked a few cigars. Tonight? He doesn't really care for cigars. No, not tonight. Ever. No, I don't care for them. I can't tell the difference. That's why we were smoking the Dark Shark.
You just cheaped it on me. Well, to be fair, sometimes Mike and I can't tell the difference either. Yeah. So, full disclosure, I'm not a Dark Shark virgin. You told me that. Yes, I had one last week. Are you keeping the results to yourself? The results will be kept to myself until the end of the show. I assume so.
Just a few puffs, the drag is not as free flowing as some of the other cigars that we've had so it's probably a little more tightly packed, but the taste is not unpleasant at the start here. No, it's kind of got that acetone, acetone alcohol flavor maybe. Yeah. There's a little bit of slight, slight bitterness almost, but as we've said before, that's kind of to be expected. And Al, we've had a few other guests on the show that have not smoked cigars for several, several decades, I guess.
So don't feel intimidated and any thoughts you have on the cigar are perfectly valid because we are not experts by any means. No, we are not. You're going to want to get the edges lit a little better. Al is, the center of the cigar is very lit, but his edges are resisting the flame. You look good there. There we go. Hopefully. Hopefully. Still very much of a novice on this, or a newb.
Yes. Well, that's one of the reasons why I invited you onto the show because it's good for people to hear the perspective of somebody who's not a regular cigar smoker. One of the things we like to do is suggest who a cigar, or who the cigar would be for, I guess. Yes. And at this price point, the easiest thing is, you know, anybody that doesn't want to spend a lot of money on a cigar, but we'll see as we go along smoking if that pans out or not to be what our recommendation with this one is.
I'm a quarter inch in and that liquor taste is gone and now it's very mild. Yeah. Very mild. It's surprisingly mild for a cigar called the Dark Shark. Right. And this is dark. Root beer colored. Yes. Yes, yes. All right. Now, many of you know, undoubtedly, that Nate is a board game aficionado. One of his big pastimes. But you what you don't know is that Al here is also a board game fanatic. And I'm assuming that's what you're going to want to talk about. Yeah, we can.
I thought we were just going to play Monopoly over the podcast airwaves tonight. Pewter dog to Red 7. Yeah. How many doubles did that take? Yeah. I am not a video game or a video game, a board game guy. That's not true. We played Dune Imperium together. That's true. I like Dune Imperium. I like board games. This is not something that I've taken up as a serious hobby. Well, it's like anything we got carve out time for it. That's true. That is very true.
Yeah. Because like I said, you got an OK, Klux and started. Yes, I'm starting. What are some of your favorite board games, Al? Well, right now that I got to play recently is that me and Mike are going through that clank acquisition, Inc. Oh, yeah. Just. I'll shoot of the normal clank, but it's a legacy version. So that's basically you got like a story in one board game where it can actually where you add stickers to your game board. You can.
And some legacy version games, you actually tear up cards. OK. And all that. So like by the end of the playing it, you actually have your own unique board game. My my wife and I are about we started three or four years ago and we're halfway through the campaign for Charterstone, which is only supposed to take like six hours to finish. But that one's a legacy game.
But I would almost consider that kind of like legacy light because, you know, there's not a whole lot of story there and things to come back to. And now I've never played Clank any version. I know there's a few versions out there and I know that it's a widely popular board game intellectual property or whatever. Oh, yeah. Because, yeah, you got your traditional Dungeon Delver one and you got your sci fi version. Air space version of it. Yeah. I do like legacy. It's a lot of fun.
We tried to get my wife to play with us and she went around. She doesn't care for it. Well, it's the legacy version. She didn't care for it. Where you're stopping in the middle of the game, adding the stickers or reading up story text. Right. That's the part that I enjoy. It's kind of like Dungeons and Dragons. But in a board game. Yeah, I'd like to I'd like to try Clank and, you know, the Clank legacy. There's a few other legacy games like is I don't know is Gloomhaven.
I don't is that legacy or is that they've got a campaign, but it's not like destructive. I don't think. It's legacy. I would say legacy light. Okay. You do add stickers to it. I'm not sure if you rip up cards in it at all, but I have the game. But I never been able to play it yet. Yeah. I've tried it on Steam a couple of times and I'm not even for through the first scenario. Okay. Because it's also a lot different gameplay. Yeah. Than your normal games. So a lot more complex.
Because, yeah, you get you get a handful of cards and you use like top half of one card. You have to make use two cards to make basically one card and what you're doing. Okay. Because you have like one top card so you could attack the other bottom of the card says you can like move and you try to manage your cards and not go all the way out by the end of the scenario. Okay. So it's kind of like card crafting.
Yeah. And the further you play along you get more cards and you get rid of your bad cards. Yes. But that game is a beast because Mike sees right now can see easy how big plank is the all acting game. Yeah. And the gloom havens double that size. Wow. The toys that clink legacy game is that's the size of a workbook box. It's big. So it's got to be huge. And they're coming out with their second game here I think shortly. Frost Haven. Oh yeah. I saw that was they kick started that a while back now.
Yeah. I think back in 2020 I think it was being kick started. Yeah. I you know mildly or briefly kind of looked at that because I'd never played gloom havens so I didn't have a huge interest in in frost haven and I've got the rise of Fenris campaign. It's like an eight eight game campaign. So it's not legacy but you know it's got kind of the similar campaign storyline to it for size.
But I haven't had time to play that because you need you need like you know it's eight games so you need somebody that's willing to put in you know two hours a week for eight weeks basically to get through it because if you give those things too much time in between I find it's really hard to kind of get back into them. Oh yeah. I'm just waiting for me and Mike finally get back into playing because we haven't been back into it since last winter I think. Yeah. It was spring probably.
Yeah. Yeah. I got a new position. He's been working like a madman. Okay. Yeah. I got evening shifts at where I'm working now so I get done at like 2 30 a.m. Yes. I get three days off. Well that's good. Yeah. Yes sir. Yeah. Yeah I will say this dark shark is a little sweeter than I was kind of led to believe. It's not that it's not bad. No it's not bad.
It's not and it's not overly sweet but you know it's looking at it and the color of the wrapper it's kind of like deceptively sweet so it's I think if you smoked it side by side with you know like a lighter wrappered cigar you wouldn't think that this one is overly sweet but you know going into it with the name like dark shark it's sweet enough to be like huh. Right. Yeah. It's not overly dark tasting. Tastes fine though. It's not bad. What do you think of it now?
It's pretty good so far from the other teaching lessons like I'm not hacking on it or anything. I was a cigarette smoker. Okay. Yeah. Completely different style of smoking for cigars. Yeah. Yes it is. But roll your own cigarettes. Oh yeah I know a few people who do that. Have a lot cheaper. Yeah and I think you can kind of control like what's in it more because don't they put different additives in the store bought. You can always buy different blends and blend your own.
Yeah. And you can then also to determine how packed you want your cigarette. You want like super packed or nicely or a little bit on the loose side. It just takes well like once you make like two or three packs you basically got what you're looking for by then. Right. Are you in your second or third machine? I think I went through two mechanicals and I'm still on my electric one right now.
Okay. Yep. When you roll your own cigarettes do you have an option like I don't know this is going to be really dumb because I don't know anything about rolling my own cigarettes. No problem. But do you get to choose like your different paper like is there paper that might have different like tastes you know. Sometimes they'll dip like cigar tips in different things or you know the tip has or the cap or whatever they call it.
The only difference I've seen so far just in the paper wise is I mean because I'm not I don't like smoking menthols but it's like I've seen like these boxes on sale for like a buck for 200 like 250 rolls. So I was like I bought those not thinking early and I was in a green box so like the whole box was all menthol. Okay. Wrap and say okay well I'll get through these.
But that's so far and I because like when I first started rolling on one side I was trying to ask the clerks like which ones give me the better smoke. Yep. And they give me like I don't know like try these the Zen one because I mainly go between Zen wraps or for a while there was tops. I think the Zen ones give me a little bit more smoke. Oh there we go. Yeah. During the Obama administration they banned flavored cigarettes other than menthol.
So I'm guessing that they are not allowed to sell roll your own that flavor. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because I know that I used to in buy occasionally in a brand called Sweet Dreams. They were German flavored cigarettes. Chocolate flavor. Yep. Well they had vanilla and other flavors. I really like the chocolate flavored ones. They were very nice. Yeah but now those eights that special tobacco you got the HS3. Oh HS3. Yeah. I can definitely taste the difference in all those.
Oh yeah well that's a different kind of tobacco totally. So Al will occasionally roll cigarettes with my pipe tobacco. Okay. And you really have to dry it out to make it work in a cigarette. Yeah. How do you dry it out? You just. I just leave either the container open or just leave it next to the sun in a window area next to the sun. Oh okay. Just naturally dry it. That makes sense.
Didn't know if it was like a kind of like a Martha Stewart like put your oven on 150 and put it in there for two hours. Now you get a box ran you put a sheet over or the fruit drying method. I suppose you could put it in a dehumidifier or that's what they're called right the things that make beef jerky. Dehydrator. Dehydrator that's right. Yeah. Dehumidifiers once in my basement pumping out water all the time. Yes. Oh yeah.
I modified a dehumidifier to make a machine that would cook oil out of bowling balls. All right so Mike made it about 16-17 minutes before mentioning bowling. That's right. I don't know if anyone had the over under on that for our listeners. Well I got a topic for him then on that. On bowling. No have you heard of that nine pin or duck bowling or. Yeah duck pin bowling. Yeah. Yep. Because apparently I found out my company makes the wood underneath the laminate on it. Oh really.
Yeah. That's cool. Very cool. I would like to go duck pin bowling someday. That's like northeastern United States I think and parts of Canada. Do you need special lanes or what's what's duck bowling. Well I think one is a smaller ball. Use shorter fatter pins. And a shorter lane. And I think it's a shorter lane and a smaller ball and there's no holes in the ball. OK so it's like shot put for people that can't throw overhand. Something like that yeah. OK. It's like a little small pin ball.
It's like ski ball but more advanced. See and I love me some ski ball. I think they have a five inch diameter ball. And how what's the weight on that then. Is it. Oh I have no idea. It's got to be probably lighter than a regular bowling ball then. Got to be. It's got to be. You would think so. Yeah I'm assuming you're just throwing it with one hand. Right yeah you're throwing it with one hand and you're not. I mean there's no fingers in it so you're. You're just throwing it. I've seen it.
I've watched duck pin matches on YouTube. I'm assuming the scoring is all the same and all that. There's three balls per frame in duck pin. All right. Yep. And then they modify the strike and spare system for what I understand. So. But you still want all the pins down right. Yes same goal. Same goal is to get all the pins down. I think the score is still 300. Yeah it'd be interesting to go and do it. So I just don't know where any.
I guess the only place around here you could do it's probably down in the cities or something. I don't know if they have it in the metro or not. Well if it's not. Maybe they have any duck pin in. You know what if it's not here it doesn't it doesn't exist. I don't know we'd have to look because I feel like it's probably just like obscure enough that it would be here.
But then you know like we could do a Google search or something and it'd be like in some little town you know like on the Dakota border or something would be like hey we're the premier like North American duck pin bowling a bowling destination. Oh it could go either way. You know like it's either in the big city here or it's like somewhere you never would think that it would be next to the world's largest ball of twine. Ellies in Mars. I am searching for duck pin bowling.
Bryant Lake bowling and theater. Yeah I know they do. Amalor is giving me bowling alleys in the metro. Or is it also known as candle pin. Woodrose duck pin bowling. Look at that. Where's that one Mike? That is in Michigan. Well it's not as far as Canada eh? That's true. That's true. Atomic duck pin. Where's that at? Oh there we go. That one's in Indiana. Yeah that might be the closest one to us. Crazy. Well we might have to do a nice Ashes road trip for season two.
Yeah that would be interesting. That would be very interesting. Yeah it looks like it's all east coast and the farthest west it made it was Michigan. I think there's a couple in Minneapolis. In Minneapolis? We'll have to look. We can look later. We don't have to do it on air. This is great radio guys. Everybody's on the edge of their seats while we frantically google. Duck pin. The only thing that came up on mine was how to perfect your duck face. Oh jeez. You know. Thanks Obama.
I don't even know how that became a thing. I don't know but I took some senior portraits for Dev's daughter and he was on the show and we were out and doing all these portraits and for one of them she busted out the duck face and so I called her out. I said wow we almost made it through a whole photo shoot without duck face popping up. And she's like I don't know why I did it. I felt like I had to. So now that's the only one I'm going to edit up for her and send back to her.
We have a first ever on the show. My cigar went totally out when I was smoking it. You're not smoking it enough because mine's still going strong. So was Al's. So was Al's. Al you might want to teach Mike how to smoke a cigar quick. Suck often. That can be said for a lot of things in a lot of places. Yep. I don't know did it go out or did you lose your cherry. It just went out. I had a hard time relating it too. Interesting. There must be like a little hard spot in the middle of the cigar.
Is that a manufacturer or is this Brent? Oh no. I'm guessing that these cigars because they're so cheap don't have the best quality control. Not that they're a bad smoke necessarily but they're not going to have the same level of control over consistency. I think Mike just hit the dark shark spot. It's different in each one of these sticks but when you hit the dark shark. Yeah. Yes. Oof. I'll give it a little bit. Now it's sour of course on a real light. My nephew shot at a deer today.
Youth hunting is open right now for those who. Clarification. Clarification. Quick quick. So youth hunting is open right now during the recording of this show. How old does it have to be? I don't know what the number of ages. Is it 12? I thought it was 12. Nah I think it's more like 8 or 9 now. Oh is it? They lowered the age. Yeah it used to be 12. Okay. Back in my day we walked uphill to school both ways in blizzards and it was 12. And mine's yearling around with my car.
It was 12 and there was no youth season. Yeah. Which apparently there is no. Yeah I think they like pioneered or like piloted the youth season like just as I was aging out of that. Because I feel like my two younger brothers went youth hunting. Okay. I don't know. I could be wrong. I never did. I never do. Which is fine. But now I only hunt two days a year anyway. Deer hunt two days a year. Yes yes. Indeed. Do you guys remember G4 TV? Yup. You're not going to do them? Yes. You don't remember G4?
Tagging show, Olivia, Mon, X-Play. It was like a video game. Never. Television. We never had like TV. Tagging show. Sure. I don't. Well. I mean in high school we had like satellite but nobody in the family was really interested in any of that stuff. Like I'm the techie is still in my family. Sure. So. I only watched Attack of the Show. Okay. I've heard of Attack of the Show so like at least that's familiar to me. I don't think I've ever watched it. Right. Attack of the Show was on G4.
They just shut down forever. They went off air and then they went onto YouTube. Long story short is they couldn't make it on YouTube. Well they had other problems too. Yes they did. I think it's hard to make it on YouTube without putting out a bunch of just absolute shit. You know what I mean? Right. Yeah but they already had some other. G4 already had a couple problems already when they went to YouTube. Yeah one host basically do a woke meltdown. The woke meltdown?
That's the only reason why I knew G4 went to YouTube. Huh? You say that again? Oh I said somebody had a woke meltdown? Yeah. Like they were pro-woke or anti-woke? Well she was basically going like oh because I'm not looking like this person or I'm not looking like that person. You don't value my opinions or because I don't look like Olivia Munn. I constantly have to prove my credit and my gaming credit or stuff like that.
Yes. But. I feel like video games is a very tough arena to get into if you're a female and don't want to show any cleavage. And I'm not saying that women need to show cleavage to be taken seriously in the video game realm but we had a whole episode about incels and I just feel like maybe that's just a stereotype of video gamers but I feel like it's tough if you're trying to be taken seriously as a female in video gaming. Not that that's fair because anyone can video game. Oh yeah.
And then also too like the basically culture has changed since G4 has been gone. So we don't have to really go to them anymore to find like our video game reviews or get our tech updates anymore. Yeah because anyone can stream now right? Like on Twitch anyone can be streaming the game. Right. Yep. Like it's not like before the internet speeds we have now and the connected games that we have now where they encourage you to stream.
Yeah. Yeah the woman that had the meltdown she was an expert in e-sports which I have no idea what style of video game that is. I think it's any kind of you can have like your sports games. Yeah like Starcraft or like FIFA right? Or like yeah. She was an expert in that and they had her reviewing games that were not related to that. So she got some flack and then she freaked out which again it's got to be difficult for a woman who's not selling sex to work in the video game industry.
I would guess you know. I don't know that for a fact. There's that one well and I think just selling sex in general it doesn't matter what your gender is really but because that cyberpunk 2077 or whatever came out and their whole thing was like you can characterize or you can customize your characters junk and you can make them have like whatever size penis or labialypsy you want. You know like that's like and I never played it and I never looked into it but that's all that I heard about it.
You know like the buzz surrounding it. So. No I bought the game like when I did my character creation I'm like playing in front of one of my brothers and it's like what the fuck? Sorry if I can't curse on this or not. Yeah you can. You absolutely fucking literally can. Well yeah it's like seeing that aspect and like do your character want to have underwear or not like what? I just want to play a game man. I don't want to make wardrobe choices.
And I was like okay well guess I'm definitely not playing this in front of my six year old son. Guess I'm definitely not wearing underwear in this game. Yep. Well it's funny because my buddy got that. We talked about Luke before and Mike's met Luke and we watched some shitty movies with Luke but he played that game and I was like how big did you make your character's dick man? And he goes you know I always play women because I don't want to be looking at a dude the whole time I'm playing.
Yeah. And I'm like fair enough. In Skyrim I always play as a woman too. Always. But that's for practical reasons. Do you have the nudie mod where everybody's naked in Skyrim? I had it on Oblivion but I don't have it for Skyrim. I did. I had the nudie mod and I had the skinning mod. So when you took hides off of animals it would skin them out. Yep yep. Good times. Never gone to that part of video games.
We've been playing We Need to Go Deeper recently online and it's like this 2D art and it's really bonkers like animation and stuff but you're in a sub and you have to go deeper lo and behold. But that's pretty fun because you've got like some in sub bits and everybody man's a different section of the sub.
You know you've got your I don't know they call it like a captain like the sub captain or pilot and you've got engineering and gunners and then you get like these caves and you go in and you can fight all these mobs in these caves and get gold and you can buy more and more ridiculous outfits for your character. But it's all like 2D but it's very like weird and kind of like it's not Thulu but it's kind of like a weird mythology that they've built around this game. So interesting.
I've never heard of it. I thought it was like a double untantra there. No it's super. Well that's what I scream in the bedroom every night but uh. Uh oh. Hold on I'm being told in my earpiece here. Yeah okay. Nope I won't be continuing that train of thought. But it's super it's like a super cheap game like we got it on sale like three of us are playing it now and you can you can have up to four people in a sub and then you can get like bots and like mercenaries and things so it's pretty fun.
It sounds pretty fun. I play popslots for no reason. Well that's not true there is a reason. There's always a reason. There's always a reason yeah. You can collect points and redeem them if you go to Vegas that's what I want. And Mike loves points. Yes I love points. I actually like Vegas. Have you been you've been to Vegas? Yeah I've been a couple times. Okay I went once and I was 18.
So they and but it was a family trip right so it's not like we were going to the see the strippers and ship but when we walked through like the casinos they were like you stay on this path and you don't like look outside of the path. Like they were very adamant that an 18 year old could not. Because 21 is the age for gambling there. Yes. So I'd like to go back. I don't really like gambling. I did almost get into a fight at a blackjack table at Treasure Island south of the cities here.
I think it's south of the cities isn't it? Yeah yeah it's by the Duke plant. I almost saw the cities around like Valley Fair. Okay because I this guy like called me out to the parking lot to go like have a fight and I guess that would have been my opportunity Mike and a good thing to talk about on our fight episode.
But I declined because I even though I was a little intoxicated I was nowhere near as intoxicated as this other person and we were at like the dollar table or something like it was like the cheapest table in the casino and I came with I came with 20 bucks and I left with 40 because I said if I double my money I'm out and I'm done playing and this guy stumbled out it was like two or three in the morning and this guy stumbled out and
of the high roller table so he you know lost his wad there and then he comes and sits down and tries to tell all of us how to play a blackjack as if he knows. And I wasn't playing very well because in the car ride down I was asking my brother like okay so what like what's like the inside scoop on this blackjack stuff and he's like okay well and so what I thought he said was always hit on 16 but what he actually said was don't hit on 16.
So I was constantly hitting on 16 which ended up working out for me but it was driving this guy bananas because he was like when you take that card you're stealing from the rest of us at the table and it's us versus the dealer and I'm like dude it's me versus the dealer and you can you all can fuck off and you know but he had this whole thing like you don't want to take a good card from somebody else and I'm like I didn't see you fronting some of my money on this table bro.
But my brother was at the other side of the table and one of the guys next to him was like dude if your brother goes out to the parking lot with that guy I totally got his back because this guy was an asshole to everybody at the at the table and everybody at our table it's the dollar table or like the five dollar whatever the cheapest table is you know and like we're all just there to have fun and try to win like ten bucks you know.
Yeah you're not there to lose your ass you're there to drink and yeah we're there to drink and entertain you know we're not there to like I got to make the mortgage you know like. Yeah your name's not getting put on the side on the side of the wall with your epic win. Yeah. This dude hit on a 16 like a moron but it worked out for him that's the wall I'd be on. Right. I've only played blackjack a handful of times and always in like Boomtown shithole bars. Yeah but drunk oil trash.
I've heard that I've heard that blackjack you have the best odds like against the house. Maybe not necessarily good odds but like better odds than other card games. Well I can control your hand a lot better. I would assume. Well you don't you have it's better odds than a slot machine. Yeah. My brother was a blackjack dealer and when I turned 18 he had a conversation with me because I was going to go to the casino for 18th birthday right. OK yeah.
And he said Michael when you go to the casino and you bring your money go to the table remember that the person that you're playing against plays cards 40 hours a week 52 weeks a year for years on end. So you have luck trying to beat them consistently. Their job is this. Yes. Their job is to not not lose. Their job is to not lose to you and to manipulate you to try to make you lose. Yeah. But like they have their own kind of like parameters for the dealer.
Right like the dealer has to hit on certain numbers and doesn't hit on other numbers. They can't go above 17 or something I think. I think once they hit 17 they have to stop or something like that. I'm not sure I'm not much of a gambler. Yeah me either. But I mean I think like as long as you know what their rules are and kind of the basics of the game and if you're not absolutely inebriated and like full of yourself you could just play cautiously and kind of like stay pretty even. You know.
Yes. Or make some money you know. Not huge amounts because you know you make a huge amount once at a casino. I mean that's what they want you to do but it's only that one time and then you're hooked you know. And then you go back and you blow it all. Yep. It's like the e-tap machine or pull tabs. They want you to put that money back in the box. I've never played pull tabs. Really? I don't know maybe once or twice was like for me there's not much thought into it.
No there's no thought it's all random luck. And I know that there's more chances of losing by a significant margin. But the whole thought is basically how many winners are still available and how much is left in the box. Right. And they got people playing. Somebody said I heard like if you see one person constantly playing in one box you don't really I think it's so you don't want to go in their same box or something. It's considered rude by gamblers.
Yes. Gamblers get very upset when other people win when they are losing. Yeah. Especially if you're new to it and you're not following the whatever the fake subculture protocol they've invented for their little whatever game it is they're playing you know whether it be pull tabs or blackjack or even slot machines you know it's like the people that go and wait for you to stand up from a slot machine like the vultures or whatever. It's going to hit big now.
Yeah. Yeah. I've only gambled a handful of times. So when I was in Vegas the last time I was 21 so I could gamble. And every day I went to Caesars Palace and pulled the big one dollar coin machine that they have you have to like wait in line to go and do. And that was the only gambling I did the whole time. And how did you make out. I lost every dollar I put in there.
No because yeah my mom finally went last April and I think she basically almost broke even and she wasn't even really trying to play. Sure. She was just like okay well I'm waiting for a couple of friends of hers to get done with their gambling or whatever. So she puts a couple of bucks in a slot and she said she basically counting her price for the trip and all that she broke even almost. Oh nice. That's pretty good. I've only gambled that one time.
Well we went to I don't know we went to one of the other ones kind of here in the cities and played a couple of slot machines but I don't really I mean that's gambling yes but I went with like five dollars so I don't really count it as gambling because it's just kind of like I'm going to put five dollars here and see if something spits out. But when I went to the blackjack I was like I'm going to just view this as entertainment.
I could I could spend this 20 bucks going to a movie or I could spend it here playing blackjack and so I was like I was and then I you know set in my mind I'm like if I double the money even though it's only 40 bucks right then I'm going to be done. So I'm not going to get greedy and I'm not going to sit here all night even though I think we left around three or four in the morning but I was the younger man back then. Right.
Oh have you tried on board games and all this have you tried going to like in the cities like the place called the source or fantasy flight. Yeah I've been to both of them fantasy flight rebranded in the world's dumbest naming convention outside of Zorbas. And so for those of you don't know Zorbas is a they have a location in Brainerd they have a location in Detroit Lakes they have a location somewhere else.
I absolutely hate their menus and their billboards because they change all of the S's and Z's and it makes me like rageful like just beyond belief I don't understand why it like gets at me so bad but I just I absolutely hate that. And so following that fantasy flight gaming center rebranded to game center with a Z of all things game center. And it's like the actual fuckity fuck are you doing.
But it's a great place to go they've got tables they've got tables in the back that people go and they bring their miniatures in and they do like painting parties. They have a they have a little like grill kitchen thing I would never eat anything from there but I've seen other people eat things from there and I'm like thank God I sleeve my cards with your fucking barbecued chicken finger. You know. Well it's like I don't. No because I never ate that stuff they're both like.
But they have beer on tap so like I get the beer for sure. The source is good I've never played there but they've got a good selection of games and fairly decent prices.
I like down here in the cities my buddy and I we usually play at lodestone which is in kind of St. Louis Park Minnetonka ish area and they've got huge tables and they've got a little like coffee coffee bar which is nice and they've got you know library to play at they don't have so many games for sale because it's more of like a gaming area than a coffee shop with a game.
Yeah and then I really like all systems go because they'll put you you can preorder stuff for them and they only charge you like the MSRP so they have no extra shipping and stuff. But then there's this place in Wisconsin called Boardlandia and they back a lot of kickstarters and you can get the Kickstarter games from them for the retailers price without and then you pay a little extra shipping or whatever but you don't have to pay so like it works out to being a pretty significant savings.
All right. All of these stores are not a sponsor by the way but they could be. Not a sponsor not a sponsor. So I've got about an inch and a half left of this. I have about the same. Let's do a stick check stick check everyone whip them out. Stick check. Al's about halfway he's got maybe three inches left. Okay do we have any additional thoughts? I know we haven't usually when we don't talk about a cigar it's a more enjoyable cigar. Yeah typically yeah this is very bland in my opinion.
I don't really get a lot of flavor out of it I'm not gonna lie. Yeah so the first time I smoked it I was underwhelmed drastically until like the second half. Okay. And then I felt like the second half was a little bit better. It wasn't it still wasn't like phenomenal and it wasn't something that I'd be like hey you really got to get one but for what we're doing tonight and when I smoked the first one you're just shooting the shit.
But on the second smoking like the first part was was I noticed it was a lot sweeter than I remembered even from just a week ago and and maybe it's because of the slight variations you know it's not going to be as as quality controlled perhaps as you alluded to Mike.
But I came away from my first smoke very favorable towards the cigar and the second smoke is I don't know kind of reinforcing it like it's not it's not you know if you're like hey what's the greatest cigar you've ever smoked this is not even going to be close to the list but for a cheap cigar I mean it's cheaper than the bin maduros that we had and I'd read this and I'd really smoke this then I agree Duro without tequila. I agree. I'd be curious to try these tequila cigar.
I was thinking the same thing but this would be a good one for tequila. Yeah I think this isn't bad. It's definitely it's not a gas station. No I'd say it's decent. It's decent. It's decent. The price it's value for money. You get 20 of them for a dollar or two dollars a stick. Like right. Done. Done deal all day long. Yes value for money wise it's definitely worth it so far. But I'm at I'm going to guess it's going to stay fairly consistent.
Yeah I mean it's not one we're going to be sitting here going like oh we should get the roach clip out but. No no no no this is not this is not going on the all time great list. No but it's not a bad stick. You know I mean it's you know it's it's inoffensive all the way through pretty much and it's not as dark as it would lead you to believe. So it appeals to a lot more people that maybe don't smoke as many cigars or don't like the really dark stuff.
Right now I don't have a problem with it that much. Right. Do you can you tell the difference between this and the moon trance. I don't going to tell you which one was the moon trance that you gave me. Well so for everybody including that blast for me he tried to show trance and also a La Gloria Cubana series are which are Nate and I have both had him on the show and we must like he must be single.
Are you trying to woo him or no we were just we were just you know I'm talking to Sarah about that part. But Al couldn't he couldn't tell the difference between the two. OK. Well these are those two how far apart. All right. They were a couple I mean it was a couple days or weeks apart. It wasn't like the same night or anything. But I was like you can't taste the bourbon vanilla. He's like no. Again that's the problem with me and us small races smokers like your taste buds go down.
Yeah. So note to the children listening. Like if you don't know if you. Yeah. Anything ever. Yeah. But like I mean honestly though if you don't smoke a lot of cigars. How would you know. I mean it's almost the same as like wine or bourbon or meatloaf. Like if you don't consume it a lot how would you know. Like how could I go back and say hey ma your meatloaf is has these notes to it versus this other person's meatloaf. You know like how would you know if you don't do a whole lot of it.
So it's not. I don't think that's out of the realm of possibility or normalcy. You don't have to know all these things about cigars to just enjoy smoking a cigar. Right. Well like if he gets me hooked on it I'll be teaching him some stuff then. Won't be the first time. Right. No it wouldn't. But what I guess what I was more getting at is that something like this if you had it in your home humidor and you were going to have a little smoke session with your buddy.
If they're not a cigar smoker something like this would be a great stick for them to have. It's perfectly adequate. It's a good cigar. Smoking nice right. Yeah. And it'd be fine for you to smoke with them. You know. Yeah. Oh yeah. This would be totally fine. I mean sometimes that's it too. It's like oh yeah here you take the cheap stick and I'll smoke this really fancy stick. You know like you don't want to do that to your buddy either. No no. You're not smoking the same thing I'm smoking.
Like what's wrong with this one. Right. What do you lace it with. But yeah it's perfectly perfectly adequate. Yeah I think I think though you're right and I was thinking this and I didn't want to say it at the at the start of the show but I was I too was dreaming and salivating about making this into a tequila cigar. I knew it looking at him. I had an idea of what I was about to entertain based on the price. Yeah. But you know I guess I was pleasantly surprised.
It's better than those bin maduros. Based on the price because this is about half the price of those bin maduros. Or less I don't know. I mean I guess it depends on when you catch it on sale or not but you know I honestly would rather smoke this than the bin maduro you know just plain. So right. And I just got for those who don't know I just made a big order. But I just got some Rocky Patel Edge Fuma Corojos I want to say for less than 40 bucks for 20.
So you can get good deals on something like that and we really like those Fumas. We do. We did not have the Corojo I think we had the Maduro and the Connecticut. Yeah. Yeah. We didn't do the Corojo. Yeah. But yeah you can get good deals on something like that and that's extremely high quality I think. I like it. And especially now that it's getting towards the holidays a lot of places are having their discounts and sales. Yeah tis the season.
Tis the season and if any one of them are sponsors I'd happily name drop them now but I shall not. Yes. There we go. There we go. Goodness gracious me. Goodness gracious me. Typically we talk about politics but I have been purposefully avoiding the news the last couple weeks. And you sound all the more calmer for it Mike. I'm not a doctor but I can tell your blood pressure is way down. I gotta do something you know. It is futile all that. So your lovely wife was over at my house last night.
I heard and I saw pictures of the lovely nail job. Yes. Is that what they call it? Manicure? Yeah. A nail job I think is what they call it. Okay. Yeah. Nail massage. Yes. And your wife brought me a gift. Did you know that? No. Oh yes I did. I did. Okay you did. Okay. I'm gonna send you a picture and make you jealous. Yeah. Hold on. I need to go on mute for a minute. But yeah it's awesome. She got me a nice outdoor ashtray from Tobacco Grove I think is what she said. Nice. Yeah it's awesome.
I like it. That's where I got mine. My big copper looking one. Yep. Yeah yours is pretty cool looking too. For sure. For sure. I'm about done with my cigar so I think that is... I have like an inch and a quarter left. But it's out. Again. It's out again. Second time out. And I'm a puffer as you mentioned many times. So I'm thinking that the consistency on this particular one was less than what I would expect from a $10 cigar for sure. But it's not a $10 cigar it's a $1.50 cigar.
For that it was good. And I've had two of them and neither of mine have gone out and Al's hasn't gone out. Nope. No Al's still puffing away. And he's letting his sit too. Let's just hope yours is the fluke then maybe. Yeah I don't know. Could be. Well that was made on a Friday. Made on a Friday. Yep. No. I did hear that Ford is going to be investigated because of all their vehicle recalls. Oh. Which is interesting. As a Ford driver. But it's going to be the 2021 Broncos I think.
Okay. That was the big reissue of the Bronco wasn't it? Yes. Yep. Big push. And they've been having engine issues I guess. Which is unfortunate for anybody who bought a new Bronco obviously. Oh did they? I also hear like they're going to stop retail sit. Car dealerships. I didn't hear that. Okay. I've heard a lot of them have kind of been toying with the idea of not having the dealerships and moving everything to kind of like an online, you know you customize your car online.
They build it and ship it to you. I don't know if that was Ford or if that was just kind of in general like a couple different car dealers were kind of like hey we could cut out the car dealerships and just make more money. Tesla wanted to do that and they were blocked from doing it by the dealerships. Okay. I think it was the other way around. They couldn't sell their cars. Well Tesla wanted to sell them direct and the dealership system of course paid off bribes to politicians.
Or is there a cut? Right. Which is fine. I don't know if I could buy a vehicle without driving it first. Well that's not true because Sarah bought a vehicle in the spring and we never drove it. I could probably buy one without driving it but I'd have to sit in it before buying it. Right. Because I'm tall. Right. Well we knew what the car was. We had driven cars like it. We just hadn't driven a specific vehicle. Yeah. My brother's doing that right now.
Bought one without test driving it or anything. Really? Yeah. Apparently from what I was hearing he bought himself his Maverick. Yeah. I know. My head's shaking too. Is he going to sell his other two vehicles that he has car payments on? Well it's a car payment and a lease. Okay. Great. Yeah. Yeah. This is not an economics podcast but word to the wise, if you have two vehicle payments, don't order a third vehicle. Oh my God. I guess it must be a lot of money.
My input is they- It only makes a little bit less to me. Go ahead, Nate. Oh, I don't know much about cars. But my input is drive the old trusty rusty 2004 Honda Civic and ride it till it dies. Yeah. That's all. The jury in my vehicle's gone. Yeah. Yeah. You got a- What was that for 50 bucks? 150. What was the Volkswagen? Oh, it was 150. Yeah. It wasn't a Volkswagen. I think it was a Ford. What's it a Ford? I know you drove it for a long time. No, I had it for basically a year and a half.
That's a long time for 150 bucks. Yeah. A lot longer than those Vegas hookers, I'll tell you that. Yeah. All right. 150 bucks. That's very reasonable really. Yeah. But then eventually what killed it, it's like it got a hole in its piston. Probably from the Vegas hooker. Yeah. Vegas hooker. Yeah. Then my dad's like, yep, it's shot. Get a new one. All right. Next day, got myself a Volkswagen Jetta. Okay. That's when you got the Jetta. Yeah. Cool. That lasted me until the training went out.
I'm not going to say anything. No comment. No comment. We've talked about that on this show before. We're not talking about it again. We've talked about it not on the show. Well intoxicated. And that conversation is sealed in the vaults. Yes it is. So final thoughts on the cigar since Al's probably getting pretty close. Yeah. Overall it's decent. I would say. Yeah. I would say value for money wise, it's a winner. If I was at a lounge, I don't know if I'd get one.
To me it's like if you're a newbie, it actually makes you feel like you're having a decent cigar. Right. It's not like one of those thin, like, thinny ones with the caps on the ends. Yeah. It's like a swisher. Yeah. Well it's nice I think too because if you want to have a lot of cigars that you know are like decent and you can just go out and smoke, like great. You can buy 20 of them for like 24 bucks, you know, on sale. Right. It's a great way to just beef up your stash, your supply.
And they're not, they're decent. You can, you know, mow the lawn with them. You can have a drink and have some conversation with them. You can pass them out to some buddies. I think it's all around. It's a winner, you know, like. Oh yeah. Absolutely. I think it's great as a, I don't want to call it a filler, but it's like a yard gar. Yeah. You know, it's a perfect one just to light up and go out to the shop and dink around for half an hour or an hour.
Yeah. When you want something, you don't want to put a whole lot of thought into, man, I need to savor every puff of this one. You know. Right. Yeah. You're not, you're not pretending to be in some novel. Yes. Whatever. Cool. I think that, uh, that about wraps it up folks. That wraps it up. It was a nice meeting you, Al. Thanks for joining the podcast here and we'll have to play some board games in the future. Hey, whenever we're at Mike's on during the weekend.
Yep. All right, everybody be safe. Have fun. Thanks for listening. I hope you guys have a good one.