SI #146 – We Recorded Again! - Subtle Interference

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:27):
[Alex] you know what i just realized right as we're starting this that i fucked up i forgot to tell you to watch something what was
[Erica] that
[Alex] i completely blew it I was scrolling through Netflix the other night looking for something to watch.
[Erica] Yeah.
[Alex] Moving on, moving on. It's all trash, right? You go through Netflix, it's all fucking trash. Or is it maybe just because I'm not interested in it, right?
[Erica] Oh, we got rid of it because we're just like, we're not watching it enough. So you don't

(00:50):
[Alex] even have Netflix? Well, this doesn't help you then. Well, here's the
[Erica] thing, Alex. If I need to watch something, there's ways that I can watch Netflix.
[Alex] Sure. So I'm scrolling through it and I see The Iron Claw is on there and I had never watched it. You know, they did that movie about the Von Erich family with Zac Efron. I had wanted
[Erica] to watch that as well. That's on there.
[Alex] What's his name?

(01:11):
[Erica] uh the the yeah yeah
[Alex] from the bear what's his name
[Erica] the bear jeremy something
[Alex] jeremy allen white there it is something like that he's the
[Erica] bear that's just yeah you're the bear and you're just gonna have to deal with that for the rest of your life
[Alex] and it's so good Yeah. It was fucking sad as fuck. Yeah. I know everything that's coming. And they took a little they took a few liberties. I mean, you know, it's I think I realized by the end of the movie, they combined two of the children into one.

(01:42):
[Erica] OK,
[Alex] because there's a lot
[Erica] of them.
[Alex] Well, yes. And I mean, spoilers. But if you care to watch this movie, it's all depressing as fuck. It's been out for a
[Erica] few years, too.
[Alex] And so I've been out for like two or three years. And if you're a wrestling fan, you really should know the history of the Von Erich family anyway, which is that pretty much all these children killed themselves. Yeah,

(02:07):
[Erica] it's rough.
[Alex] And I think two of them actually both shot themselves, and they combined that into one. Okay. Shooting himself. Because I think they, I can only assume. Were they like, this is convoluted. That they were like, there's enough kids, like, I mean, they're not kids. They're like young adults. Still. There's enough people killing themselves in this movie. Like, maybe we don't need to

(02:30):
[Erica] add another one. Maybe we like, yeah, we get it down to like two.
[Alex] And, you know, the only one that's still alive is Kevin Von Erich. He's been on AEW a little bit. Yeah. You know, he was a fine wrestler, and that's how they portray him in this movie, right? He's a very good technical wrestler. There's no charisma. You know, whereas some of the other Von Erics were like charisma machines. I was

(02:55):
[Erica] going to say, I can see his face perfectly in my head. I cannot remember his name. Because didn't one of them lose a foot or something in like a motorcycle accident? Yes, that was Carrie,
[Alex] I believe. And that's who Jeremy Allen, that's who the bear boy is. The bear, yeah. Here, listen,
[Erica] listen, listen. This is the defining role of your career. That's how I'm going to refer to you, all right? And if that makes them mad, sorry, bro.

(03:20):
[Alex] You should have had a better name. Yeah. You should have had a more memorable name. Right. I mean, there's only so many Brad Pitts.
[Erica] Right.
[Alex] Exactly.
[Erica] The Bear. George Clooney's. The Bear.
[Alex] The Bear. It's like The Rock. Why would you try to not be The Rock? It was very
[Erica] funny when he was like, yeah, Dwayne Jett. Fuck you. You're The Rock. Deal with it. Yeah.
[Alex] And so the movie, I mean, it's a great movie, but it is sad as fuck.

(03:43):
[Erica] It's a very sad story. Yeah. Because it wasn't, I remember, I think I watched, they had some kind of documentary about it. I want to say on like the network or whatever. And it kind of. Maybe
[Alex] you watched like the Dark Side of the Ring thing possibly. I
[Erica] don't remember. This is a while ago, but they had that great moment. It was like at Stampede or something. Like one of the Canada based shows. Or no, Stampede Wrestling was, that was the show up there, wasn't it? Or am I making

(04:15):
[Alex] shit up? No, they were in a different promotion in Texas.
[Erica] Okay, okay. But I just remember there being like a moment where they even had the dad come out and it was amazing. And then it was kind of all downhill from there.
[Alex] Yeah, I mean, they had some career highlights, but it was all brought on by tragedy. I mean, I think it was Kerry won the NWA championship at a time when that was still one of the two major titles. And he won it, though, because his brother died in Japan. It was basically like, I can't remember all their names, but one of them... Did he get a weird

(04:51):
[Erica] infection or something? Yeah.
[Alex] Yeah, it was something like that. He was the only one who didn't essentially kill himself on purpose. He was on the road, wrestling, getting sick, and just tried to power through it like all morons do. Jim
[Erica] Henson did,
[Alex] yeah. He died in a hotel room in Japan or something. Not from any sort of steroid abuse or anything, I don't think. Just his... He had some sort of infection or heart disease or something. No, that's what happened to

(05:21):
[Erica] Jim Henson. It was like, you're working... And he started feeling weird, and it was like, oh, no, I'm fine. I'm just going to push through. And it's like, homie, go to the fucking hospital. 24 hours later, he's dead.
[Alex] Yeah, and I... Well, the thing of the movie and the story, I guess, is... It is kind of crazy that Kevin comes out of it, like, not only not having killed himself, but, like, has a good life, like, with his wife and his kids and everything and goes on to have all these grandkids and all this. Because if you just think about it for a moment, it's like, holy shit. Their father, and actually, just from everything I've always heard, their father, Fritz von Erich, is an unbelievable piece of shit. And he was like a piece of shit in this movie. But I think they didn't even lay it on quite as thick as how much of a piece of shit he really was. And so you got this awful father, kind of shitty mother. Yeah. All your brothers killed themselves. It's unbelievable that he comes out of it not having also killed himself, really.

(06:26):
[Erica] Well, I'm sure. He's probably got some demons. Oh, I would. You see that, and it is just kind of like, okay, well, somebody's got to live. Try and have the best life that I can. But I have wanted to watch that. I can always run to the library and see if they have it there.
[Alex] Yeah, I mean, it's worth watching. It's a great movie. I mean, it had been on HBO previously, and I just never got around to watching it. And then I saw it was on Netflix, and I was like, I got to watch this. As a wrestling

(06:54):
[Erica] fan, I think you owe it to yourself to watch the movie, for sure. And if you don't know the story, you should.
[Alex] Oh, I mean, that'll really...
[Erica] Because that's one of the... It's going to
[Alex] really crush you if you don't know what's coming.
[Erica] Oh, it's rough. It's a rough sit, but it's worth knowing. If you're into wrestling at all, it is... I mean, that's just... Yeah.

(07:14):
[Alex] Yeah, for sure. So I'm a little sad I forgot to tell you to watch that because maybe that's something we could have talked about today.
[Erica] Well, next episode. Next podcast
[Alex] in a few millennia. A few years,
[Erica] yeah. So welcome to Subtle Interference, the occasional podcast that we do. We are busy people, all right? We've got a lot going on. I've got a lot going on. All right. No, just a normal amount. Just a normal amount of things going on. You just

(07:40):
[Alex] don't know how to cope with a normal amount of things going on.
[Erica] I mean, it's dark out here, Alex.
[Alex] It is dark. It's
[Erica] been pretty rough.
[Alex] I do sit back and not to like just go sad right out of the gate, but since we're already here.
[Erica] Yeah, why not?
[Alex] I just, I always wonder the same thing is what has to happen before people are like enough's enough.

(08:04):
[Erica] You know what was hysterical, Alex, the other day? I think it was a random Tuesday. I think it was like the Tuesday after Easter. We're outside. The kids are playing. I'm talking to the folks across the way. And he looks at his phone and he's like, oh, we got an hour until the ultimatum. And I was like, oh, that hasn't happened yet? He's like, no, no, no. It's like 8 p.m. Eastern. It's 7 o'clock our time before we find out if we're dropping nukes or not. So I can't even pay attention anymore, Alex. I pay attention and I could feel my heart wanting to explode out of my chest.

(08:32):
[Alex] Well, it's all like two weeks, right? Oh, in two weeks, this is going to happen. In two weeks, that's going to happen. And then he backs off.
[Erica] Taco.
[Alex] He's a brilliant negotiator is what it is.
[Erica] And we don't have to get all the way into this nonsense like we always do. And we say we're not going to, and then we end up talking about it for 45 minutes. I don't understand how you can see everything that's laid out before you and these lies and untruths still persist. How can you look at this idiot and be like, oh, he's a brilliant negotiator. Brilliant, Alex. Brilliant. He's bringing peace. Peace through aggression. Like, what fucking post-apocalyptic nasty-ass video game are we living in? Well, I always say... What's the one Helldivers 2 with all the great, like...

(09:17):
[Alex] Oh, the, yeah, the propaganda. Yeah, the
[Erica] peace through a great, like, yeah, the peace, war through peace or whatever. They're like, oh, well, yes, the war. He's a peaceful president. Don't you know that? He cares about
[Alex] peace. Peaceful dove, Donald Trump, yes.
[Erica] Okay. Yeah, you
[Alex] know, for me, I think my biggest problem with all of it, because at the end of the day, that's our country. We're going to go wage war. Oh, of course we are. That's just what we're going to do. Sure. But I don't understand... I mean, I say on one hand, I don't understand what the plan was. But on the other hand, I also know there was no plan. No, there was no plan at all. And I think they just clearly got dragged into something that Israel wanted to do.

(09:58):
[Erica] Clearly.
[Alex] No,
[Erica] but there were people. There have been people. You're Leslie Graham. Leslie Graham. What's his name? Lindsey Graham. There are people who have been wanting. to go after iran for 30 40 50 however many years
[Alex] sure
[Erica] like salivating for it so when the opportunity came up oh okay let's go

(10:19):
[Alex] here's what i don't get okay now it's going so bad You got this whole shit with the straight of whatever the fuck where nothing can get in and out. And why not just occupy the country like that? I mean, there must be there must be they must be seeing polling numbers that show them as if they actually put American troops on the ground. They're just going to lose, like, every election in the midterm, so that must be why they're not doing it. I can only assume.

(10:51):
[Erica] Well, I mean, they've already said that they're, I think, starting next year, they're automatically enrolling 18, like, young men between 18 and 25 in the draft, are able to be drafted. You want to lose every election until, like, now, until the end of time? Yeah. You're going to get, even with everything they've tried to do, and will still try to do, they're going to get decimated in this midterm, Alex.

(11:20):
[Alex] Well, assuming we get to, like, vote normally and everything.
[Erica] Well, we won't. There'll be people, like, in blue states, you know they're going to come and occupy us and try to intimidate people away. Like, a thousand percent that's going to happen. I think, though, you're seeing in these special elections, you have pissed off people to such a point, there's Democrats winning in, like, Missouri. Like, it's bad for them. Because what did he run on? I'm going to lower prices. I'm going to lower prices and I'm not going to pull us into any more foreign wars. Yeah. And what have you done? Prices keep going up. Tons of wars. Gas is currently like, what, four and a half dollars. So that's gone up like a dollar and a half since he's come in. We seem to just continue to start wars. And my grocery bill has not gone down at all. In fact, it has gone up. So...

(12:11):
[Alex] At least you guys have an EV.
[Erica] That's true.
[Alex] Which has been nice. You should drive that EV as much as possible. Oh, I
[Erica] do. Believe me, I
[Alex] do. I would never be driving that gas fuel.
[Erica] I mean, here's the thing. Electric costs have gone up as well, but...
[Alex] It's still got to be cheaper than gas, though.
[Erica] No, no, no. I mean, I can count on probably two hands because I don't... If I'm in town or like... I don't drive the other car much anymore. Now, if I'm going, if we're going on a longer trip, if I'm going to be tooling around all day, if it's cold, because the battery on the electric car, it tanks when it's cold outside, which is infuriating. But if I'm just staying around, like I go to work, I'm doing my grocery shop, we take the electric car. And it's been great. I love that little car.

(12:58):
[Alex] No, it makes sense, because you go to the... freaking gas station now it'll probably cost you $60 to fill the tank at least so I mean I just yeah the thing is for me I think the thing that sucks is I already know what's going to happen I mean there's going to be a few things that are going to happen but you're going to have the group of people who are going to be like oh I don't like what Trump's like and I'm talking about people who voted for Trump now They're going to be like, oh, I don't like what Trump's doing now. Oh, well, you hear it

(13:26):
[Erica] now. Oh, this isn't what I voted for. Motherfucker. Well, as if we
[Alex] didn't know he was going to just be a maniac. But my point more is that... They're going to do all this thing. People are going to do this song and dance now where they're going to say, oh, I'm not going to vote for Trump. I wouldn't vote for Trump again. I wouldn't. I didn't know this was going to happen. But then the next Republican that comes along, they'll just vote for another Republican as if this whole party hasn't like been pushing in this direction for decades.

(13:53):
[Erica] As if they're not just, you know, Cristo fascists. Like the next guy is going
[Alex] to do the same shit, but just with a different face. Like and probably better at hiding it. Well, that's Trump's thing is he can't hide anything. He can't. He has no ability. I mean, the whole thing. I mean, there's so much funny
[Erica] stuff. They're like, it's a conflict. It's an armed conflict. It's not a war. And he just can't help himself. He's just like, no, it's a war. They tell me not to say it's a war because then I have to go through Congress. But it's a war.

(14:27):
[Alex] Yeah.
[Erica] I can't listen to him talk because it makes me want to put a railroad spike through both of my ears.
[Alex] And on the other hand, you've got the usual stuff with the Democrats where you just know. Oh, we're
[Erica] still voting to give massive amounts of money and weapons to other countries. Yeah, that's great. Nice job, guys. Well done.

(14:48):
[Alex] You've got that usual stuff. You've got the, you know, we're just going to keep doing the status quo. Because at the end of the day, the Democrats are very much like a status quo party. Oh,
[Erica] absolutely.
[Alex] And I think that's what all the people who have been, you know, tricked into somehow believing this is like the fucking socialist parties. There's like two goddamn socialists in all of Congress.

(15:08):
[Erica] Well, in all of Congress now, I think from what I've seen, and granted I'm not following as much as I used to, you do have a fair amount of grassroots people who are working toward better things. And I do think you have a really good example of what can be done well in Mamdani in New York.

(15:31):
[Alex] Well, we got to see, right? You're not going to see the results. No, no, no,
[Erica] no. But at least now. At least someone's trying something different. He's trying to get out there and do stuff. He's doing the, what was it, the free child care for, I forget what the ages are. They just imposed a new tax on. Like
[Alex] second residences or something. Second
[Erica] residences in New York to raise funds to be able to do the stuff that he wants to do to help the city. And honestly, that's what people want to see. I want to see these fuckers having to pay their fair share. Right? That's what it's all about.

(16:04):
[Alex] Yeah, well, people like to do this thing where they say, well, the rich pay more taxes than anybody. But it's like, yeah, money-wise, but not percentage-wise. Like, you're out here on your taxes paying 20, 30, 40 percent, whatever it might be. And they're paying like 15. What the fuck is that about? If even.
[Erica] Right.
[Alex] If even. So... Yeah, I mean, we need to go back to these, like a progressive tax where, you know, if you're making over like a million dollars a year, you're getting taxed on like 50% of it.

(16:35):
[Erica] Absolutely.
[Alex] You know, that was back when the country was actually functioning correctly.
[Erica] Well, and we have to also break people of the, I was talking about this with a friend of mine, this prosperity doctrine thing where it's like, oh, someone is doing well, so they must be good. They must be blessed. God must love them. That's why they're doing, that's why. Yeah. That may not be the forefront of their thought, but people want to think that, oh, this rich monster who is sitting up top of hordes of money, there's no skeletons hidden underneath there. They must be good people. That's how you prosper, right? They

(17:10):
[Alex] must have worked hard and done the right things.
[Erica] You don't... You're not... That's just not the way life works. That's not the way it works. All right? That's not the way it works here. You're exploiting workers. You're not paying people enough. You're stepping on as many necks as possible. More than you need to, really. You don't need a billion dollars. I don't think people even realize how much a billion dollars actually is. Oh, you can't even

(17:33):
[Alex] conceive of it.
[Erica] You can't. You don't need that. And if you're just sitting there and hoarding it and not doing anything with it, like... be one thing if it was like is it jeff bezos's first wife that got divorced and she has like more money than you could ever fucking need and she just donates like the majority of it and she's still one of the richest people in the world so it's like you could actively be helping people you just choose not to because you're a fucking monster so kudos to you And I think the more you keep poking people in the face and just expecting them to be okay with it, they're going to find you eventually, man.

(18:14):
[Alex] Yeah, I think the number one thing... Sailing
[Erica] around on that super yacht. The orcas will come for you eventually.
[Alex] Well, and you have stuff like, I mean, again, this isn't someone who has stepped on the necks of thousands and thousands of people to achieve their money, but even someone like Gabe Newell, who founded Valve and everything, right? Sure. Made Half-Life, made Steam, and as a payment processor, they're making unbelievable amounts of money. And that guy really hasn't done the usual like mega millionaire thing, right? Where you've like exploited the labor of unbelievable amounts of people for no money. But you're still talking about someone who has like seven fucking yachts or something. Right. It's like.

(19:01):
[Erica] What do you mean seven yachts?
[Alex] That's my thing too. I mean, what do you do? Do you like populate the yachts with like horrors and bikinis? And maybe you go to a different yacht each day and kind of check out the different selection of horrors. I mean, you know what
[Erica] I'd be trying to do? It'd just be like, okay, who's the current like obsession? How much would it take for me to get him on my yacht? I don't even want to do anything. You want to hang. You want to hang and watch some Netflix. You are not obligated to do anything you do not want to, sir or madam. I would just like to hang out with you. How much is that going to cost me? And let me tell you, money is no object. I could set your ass up for life. One day. Good hang. What do you think? That's what I would be doing.

(19:47):
[Alex] Yeah.
[Erica] Because who wants more like, and I say this as someone who buys a fair amount of dumb bullshit, more stuff.
[Alex] More stuff. It's like the whole thing. And again, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not really hating on people who want to like throw money out the window, but it's the whole thing where you get like a fucking warehouse and then you fill it with like a hundred like classic cars. And I get it's like neat to go in there and see all the classic cars and everything, but you can't, you don't have the time. Even if you literally never work, you don't have the time to enjoy all those cars. There's just not enough time in the day. There's not enough time in your life.

(20:23):
[Erica] Well, then you're kind of like hoarding it and other people don't get to see it. And I don't know if that's kind of a, kind of gets people off like, well, it's mine. I possess this.
[Alex] Yeah. I mean, there's definitely, I think.
[Erica] That's a rich fuck mentality, isn't it?
[Alex] Yeah, for sure. I'm the only
[Erica] one who owns this.
[Alex] And I think it's the same thing. Like, when you think about the Epstein stuff, I mean...

(20:45):
[Erica] I try not to, but sure.
[Alex] But I think the whole thing is the power dynamic, right? Oh, absolutely. Like, I don't even believe that these fucking, like, assholes are, like, true pedophiles. Like, you know, there's, like, true pedophiles out there, right? Who are attracted to, like, 10-year-olds. sure i don't even think it's that i think it's just like here's this like i have the power

(21:11):
[Erica] over this this person i can make them do whatever i want them to i can do whatever i want i can give them the other oh yeah it's a huge power trip for sure i
[Alex] think that's all it is i mean i'm sure there's some fucking pedos in there but oh absolutely
[Erica] just by the law of like statistics alex there has to be a few
[Alex] I don't know, man. I just the whole thing with the Epstein stuff cracks me up. I mean, like, what's her name? Melania had the press conference today. She's like, I've never met any of these people. I don't know any of these people. There's like 50 pictures. It's like,

(21:43):
[Erica] sweetheart, there's so many photos. What are you talking about? But the people believe
[Alex] this shit. They're so stupid. I
[Erica] don't know. I don't know.
[Alex] I don't know. I mean, for me. So anyways, getting back to it, I already know what's going to happen. Assuming we get to have normal-ish elections, the Democrats are going to win a shitload of seats. Not do anything. Probably not do anything with it. Well, they're going to have the excuse that they don't have the presidency, so they're not going to be able to. Well, depending on if you got the supermajority, which you might. They're not going to get the supermajority.

(22:17):
[Erica] I don't know, Alex. I don't know. I don't think so. I don't know. I'm just saying. If that does happen to happen by some fucking miracle. They
[Alex] still wouldn't do anything.
[Erica] They won't. But what I would hope to see just if after the midterms, Chuck Schumer doesn't need to be in a position of power anymore. He's got to go. He's got to go. I haven't. I want

(22:40):
[Alex] AOC to run for that seat.
[Erica] So do I. I definitely, because I think she could take it. And it's just, this is a man who has so not prepared for the moment. You were aware of the Bailey's, right? We've talked about the Bailey's on this show before. The Bailey's? Oh, I thought we talked about this. So Chuck Schumer, in his head, has two voters. Now, we don't go out and actually talk to people, Alex, and talk to our constituents. He's got two people who live in his head, the Baileys. And he has conversations with them about how they would vote for stuff or how they want him to act. And so that's how he votes. John Oliver did a whole thing on this. I highly recommend watching it. Because I had known about this. Me and the ghost of Bob were flipping through one day just looking for stuff to watch. And I was like, oh, click on that. Bob did not know about this. I didn't watch the video. I watched Bob's dawning horror. And that was some of the greatest entertainment that I've had in a very long time. Highly recommend the video because it is just like, because he had an interview once where he was like, oh no, they voted for Trump this last time. And it's like, so your constituents aren't even voting for you, motherfucker. What's wrong with this mental image? Let's just keep doing the same thing. What's the fucking matter with you, you old fuck? Go away forever.

(24:05):
[Alex] So I think what's going to happen is that we're going to get... As long as they don't run Gavin Newsom, I think we're going to get a Democrat as the next president. And then we're going to do the same song and dance. I'm going to tell you what, right now,
[Erica] Alex, they're going to try to run Gavin Newsom. Oh, they're
[Alex] going to try. They're going to try. But I think he's such a fucking phony bitch that when he gets in front of certain audiences, he's going to be exposed. But... I think him and Harris, it's like a fucking California thing where they very much share this. They're too produced. Sure. They're too fake. It doesn't work when you get in front of more people. That's the thing that people like about Trump, right? Is he's fucking real. Sure. That's the guy.

(24:51):
[Erica] For all his...
[Alex] flaws and his evil. The monstrous
[Erica] and the evilness. The
[Alex] wanting to line his own pockets at the misfortune of everyone else.
[Erica] That's the guy. That is him. That's him. That's the guy. That's real. Unfiltered. Sure. And
[Alex] that's what people like about him. And I just think the more people get to see Newsome, the more they're going to get the proverbial ick.

(25:19):
[Erica] It's like, oh, that's right. You suck, actually.
[Alex] Yeah, and people, it's not only his positions that suck, it's that he's such a phony.
[Erica] Yeah. No, I would agree with that. Oh, do you remember that picture where he had like all the progressive books that he was reading? Oh, God. And he had like snuck, this was my favorite though, Alex, because I'm looking and I'm like, and it's hidden underneath there. And I'm looking, I'm like, that's genderqueer. That's that book that everybody, like the right wing is like, oh, we got a band. Okay, it's there, and I as a progressive person know what that book is, but it's hidden and you can't see the title. How about you go fuck yourself, you asshole? How about you get fucked? Because I know what you're trying to do, and I don't appreciate it very much.

(26:00):
[Alex] At the end of the day, I always feel the same. So anyways, just to finish my thought real quick, I think what's going to happen is we're going to get all these Democrats into all these positions, and then they're going to spend two to four years trying to fix all the damage that's been done. Not fix it like real good, but just like okay-ish, because we don't want to do too much.
[Erica] Band-aid,
[Alex] right. And then people are going to go, oh, well, everything fucking sucks. Let's get another Republican in there. And then they'll do more damage and the cycle will repeat.

(26:25):
[Erica] And we'll be having the same conversation eight years from now. But I think... In the Road Warrior wasteland. I think the only... So it'll just be over like a fire pit. We won't have the recording equipment anymore.
[Alex] I think the only benefit of all the AI stuff is... And I really, in a certain way, want to see it work for this reason. Is I think it's going to come along and potentially eliminate so many fucking jobs... The government will have no choice but to do a universal basic income because otherwise you're going to have so many people that are on the streets that there will be too many people with nothing to live for and everything to gain by starting to do crime of various types. I

(27:12):
[Erica] mean, I'm inclined. I think it's been done in other countries to great effect, but... it's here, like, there would have to be massive violence happening for them to even start considering that. And even then, they'd be more concerned with getting people into prisons for, like, the forced labor, the forced free labor, that there would have to be such a shift, Alex, for that to happen. Like, look at how much we've been, like, just over universal health care.

(27:46):
[Alex] I know.
[Erica] And even that's only crawling forward by inches. But you are seeing more people talk about it and be in favor of it. Well, and if you
[Alex] wanted to win elections...
[Erica] Well, we've talked about this before, too, where it's just like, just fucking say it. That's what the Republicans always do. We're going to do this. We're going to do this. We're going to do this. The Republicans end up doing it and ruining everything. So, you know,

(28:11):
[Alex] just say it. And then if you can't do it, be like, just say why you can't do it. You know, blame certain people or whatever. That's what everybody likes. Well, it's always it's always Biden's fault or potentially Obama's fault. Have we
[Erica] trotted out Obama anymore? I think it's just Biden now.
[Alex] No, he did get blamed for something recently. Oh, did he? It was something involving the Pope because the Pope's also from Chicago. Oh, so it's collusion. So it's like, yeah, Obama was feeding the Pope lines. These

(28:39):
[Erica] malort-swilling assholes are against our fearless leader. Wouldn't it be great if he got excommunicated? Wouldn't that be great?
[Alex] Like, come on. Did you have to belong to a church in the first place? Come
[Erica] on, Chicago Pope. Ban him from Christianity. How great would that be? All of them. J.D. Vance, too. You're not allowed in the club anymore. How about you go to hell? It's crazy. Literally. It's crazy. You're beefing with the Pope. The Pope!

(29:10):
[Alex] It's just, they're so soft. I mean, the Pope just says something totally like, it's like a nothing, right? Like, oh, I'm not, you know, there shouldn't be wars and violence never solves anything. And maybe people shouldn't go hungry. I don't
[Erica] agree with that. Violence solves many things. But, you know, sure, Mr. Pope. I get it.
[Alex] The French have proven that violence can solve many problems. Violence solves

(29:31):
[Erica] many problems, yes.
[Alex] um but i i just i don't know man i at the end of the day it's hard not to feel like you were saying it's hard not to get checked out because you read it and you're just like you're scrolling through your phone you're like oh another day in paradise you know
[Erica] i look at I want to look at the shows from the cute cartoon that I'm watching that swears a lot. I want to see fan art from Has Been Hotel Alex. That's all I want anymore. That's where I'm at mentally these days. What, the world's on fire? Great. Show me a picture of the red guy with the little fucking antlers. Awesome. You know what? A little bit of serotonin? Great. Thank you. Great. When's season five of The Witcher coming out this year? Let me know then. That'll be great. You know, I am... Little pockets of joy, Alex.

(30:23):
[Alex] This would be better to talk about with the ghost of Bob, but I forgot. But I was just thinking about this. I
[Erica] will do my best. Thank you. No, no, I was
[Alex] just thinking about this because it's of interest to you as well, I think. But I had read a story recently that I guess wherever... all the various sets for Star Trek were set up, all got, like, torn down and dismantled. Oh, yeah? And I was just, like, essentially meaning, right, that they're not planning on shooting anything anytime soon, which is kind of sad. That's disappointing. Yeah. Because I think some... I mean, I haven't watched them, but some of those Star Trek shows I heard were good. Yeah. Bob really liked... Below Decks or something?

(31:01):
[Erica] Below Decks was... I've seen a bit of Below Decks. I enjoyed it. I'm not a huge Star Trek person. I'm more of a... I was more of a Star Wars person. And then we decimated that because we can't have nice things. Sure. But... Because the mouse will get its claws in anything and everything and destroy it. Um... But from what I saw, it was funny. I enjoyed it. I know some people got a little annoyed at it because it wasn't like what they were used to, but it was pretty funny. And then he really liked Strange New Worlds.

(31:31):
[Alex] Yeah, and I think that's the one that was actually using sets.
[Erica] There was another one that was Starfleet Academy, I want to say. I don't know the people really crazy about that one. I think that might be airing now. Airing in that it's on like whatever the fuck streaming platform. But... No, what I have heard is that people are going back, because I think everything is on Paramount+, and watching the classic stuff, like the original series, TNG, which is fucking great.

(32:06):
[Alex] Well, I was going to say, the original series, I'm not sure how well that holds up, but stuff like The Next Generation or Deep Space Nine hold up really well. Oh,
[Erica] yeah. For sure.
[Alex] Like, those would be great TV shows if they came on today.
[Erica] Well, and the whole point is, especially now, and just in general, I think you see a trend of people going back. I think we've talked about this before. Going on to Netflix.

(32:30):
[Alex] Because
[Erica] everything new sucks. And it's only like eight episodes long. Okay, here's eight episodes. And then it'll take
[Alex] them two years to produce another eight. And we'll be
[Erica] back in like three years.
[Alex] Okay, bye. Well, that's the
[Erica] other thing.
[Alex] And that's what happened to me with The Witcher, right? I haven't watched every season 55 times like you did. Why
[Erica] not, Alex? But
[Alex] every time there's a new season of The Witcher, I come on here and I tell you, I can't remember half the characters' names. Absolutely. I can't remember what was going on. I watched the recap and I still can't remember. Mm-hmm.

(33:01):
[Erica] it's like no way honestly
[Alex] fair and i have a pretty good memory for nonsense i mean anything that's important in one ear and out the other of course but nonsense
[Erica] important birthdays vital like information
[Alex] I don't know anybody's birthday.
[Erica] You ask me some nonsense that happens on one of the shows that happens to occupy my brain space right now, I got you. Anything important? A person's name? Nah, sorry. Can't help you.

(33:28):
[Alex] No, I'm terrible with that.
[Erica] Though I do like that they filmed seasons four and five back to back. So in theory you
[Alex] won't be waiting forever?
[Erica] Five is, Netflix has already said it's coming out this year. And then that's it, right? And then that's it.
[Alex] Oh, that's a shame.
[Erica] Until somebody buys the rights and we remake things because we don't do new stuff. But, you know,
[Alex] that's fine. Well, that's the thing that sucks too is because everything is such a major investment now. You're only allowed to do remakes and sequels and prequels and everything because we have to stay within universes and franchises and everything that we already knew made money.

(34:05):
[Erica] You know what's wild though, Alex? So, do you know, have you heard of the Amazing Digital Circus at all?
[Alex] I mean, I know of the TV show. You know of it? Yeah, I mean, I don't know anything about
[Erica] it. So independently created show. It's ending with episode nine and they're doing a fathom theatrical release of it, which in and of itself for a little indie show that comes out on YouTube, pretty huge. It has already sold something like $5 million in ticket pre-sales. And they're like opening up more theaters. And they're like, okay, we're going to try to get it other places. Because people are starved for new shit.

(34:44):
[Alex] But here's what you got to remember. $5 million for like some indie thing is incredible. Yeah. But $5 million. Oh, in the grand scheme? $5 million. I understand that, Alex. I get that. For like whoever, Paramount or something, is not something they're willing. Which I get. Even if it costs them $100,000 to make. I understand that, Alex. And then they make $5 million. They don't care. My point

(35:07):
[Erica] is, I'm not interested in what these giant studios have to give me anymore. I'm more interested in giving my money to these indie spaces.
[Alex] Sure.
[Erica] So me and Sass are going to go see it in the theater because I recently watched the whole thing. I think it's worth watching. It's pretty fucked up and enjoyable. And yeah, I'm just looking forward to see if they can stick the landing or how exactly they're going to end it after what they did in this last episode. But I'm like, this is interesting. This isn't the usual like... Because it's just some person on the internet just making a show. So it's like, there's no, okay, we got these execs that we have to deal with. Okay, but then what do the stockholders want? Is this an IP that people are going to recognize? It's just, I'm making a thing. If you want to watch it, great. You know, you want to support it, great. Here's our Patreon. We've got merch that you can buy to help us. And this is what we're doing.

(36:06):
[Alex] The other funny one I saw recently, I think it was the head of Sony Pictures, maybe, said something. It was something along the lines of, like, I'm begging the theaters to stop showing 30 minutes of ads before a movie. I saw this, too. Yeah. Because it's like, and everyone knows this, right? But nobody's watching them. Even if you do watch them, you can't watch. register it or recall it because you got hit with so much stuff and and by the end of it none of it matters people are coming into the theater late because in a lot of places right you have like uh reserve seating and everything too so you don't even have to worry about i know where my

(36:45):
[Erica] seat is i don't want to sit through 45 minutes of commercials and shitty previews right I'm just going to show up when the movie starts.
[Alex] And
[Erica] then what you're doing is if I do get there when the movie is supposed to start at seven and you're tacking on an extra 45 minutes, I don't want that. Like the movie is supposed to be, the movie is already going to be three hours long because we don't make short movies anymore.

(37:09):
[Alex] Yeah.
[Erica] My kingdom, Alex, for like a $10 million, 90 minute romantic comedy. And I know they're out there. I think they're all on Netflix and stuff. But like, because I used to really like going to the movie theater. I genuinely did.
[Alex] I haven't been to a movie theater since before COVID.
[Erica] And because why would you?

(37:29):
[Alex] There's nothing I care about.
[Erica] Why would you go? It's so expensive. It's a miserable experience. The
[Alex] popcorn's not even good anymore. It's not,
[Erica] Alex. You can make better popcorn at home. And it's just...
[Alex] You remember when we were kids, movie theater popcorn was the popcorn. Hell
[Erica] yeah.
[Alex] You couldn't replicate that at home if you wanted to. It was fucking impossible. It was impossible.

(37:52):
[Erica] But now it's like... You literally
[Alex] needed a machine to pop the popcorn like they have at the fucking movie theater.
[Erica] I can make, though, like real good stovetop popcorn. So now it is like the stale ass shit that I get when I get to the movie theater at the end of the day. is not good it's not tasty
[Alex] and and the thing is now and and this is where i would think these companies would care more about what they're presenting because now things have gotten so expensive like i was talking about this earlier i went to chipotle with dead bob the other day and stabbed through a heart with a tree trunk if you recall i do yes yes and good to maintain trunk but

(38:33):
[Erica] maintain the lore that's important for anybody i apologize but it was a
[Alex] tree branch yeah it was quite thick i mean you know the man didn't get taken out by some wimpy
[Erica] branch no it was rough
[Alex] but
[Erica] manly strong branch
[Alex] The strongest branch. No one's ever seen a stronger branch.
[Erica] Such a strong branch. No one has branches like that. You got to do the hand. The hand is very important, Alex.

(38:59):
[Alex] So we go to Chipotle and I just get like, this wasn't a carryout order. I'm ordering it. I watch him put the thing together right in front of me, just like the fucking stupid funny videos where they put like three pieces of steak on there. The sad pieces of steak. Yeah.
[Erica] Because God forbid you get decent amount of food in your order.
[Alex] I get three tacos and a small soda. It was $16. And I was like, this better be fucking at least

(39:29):
[Erica] edible. The
[Alex] food was cold. I told you already, I shit for a day and a half afterwards. It was disgusting.
[Erica] Amazing.
[Alex] I don't know why I ate it because I paid $16 and I'm stupid. And here's my thing. I could tell you this right now. I'm not going back there for at least three years. No, yeah. I was just going to say, you're just going to go back. Because I know I got fucked. Because if you get fucked on like a $5 thing...

(39:58):
[Erica] You're like... That's your own. It's five bucks, right? Well,
[Alex] I'm just saying it's like, you know what? It was five bucks. What did you expect? Maybe next time the five bucks will be better. But it's $16 that I just got fucked on. And now your lunch is ruined.
[Erica] Yeah,
[Alex] I don't want to give them like another $16 to fuck me again.
[Erica] Oh, valid and fair, man. And you

(40:19):
[Alex] speak with your dollars, so... So you just like permanently lost a customer pretty much. And I can't be the only one who goes in there and has that experience, clearly. I mean, I just, you know, the one thing I learn over and over again, though, is there's so many people out there. Like, see, I'm like a weird, right? I only charge things that I know I can pay off. Sure. A lot of people are out there just charging, charging, charging.

(40:45):
[Erica] Correct.
[Alex] They're paying the fucking minimum and letting the interest carry, which is bonkers. Correct, yes. And you just see people just spending money, spending money, spending money, and I don't know where they're getting it from. Well, they're not. It's all on credit. That's the point. It's
[Erica] all going to be bad. It's going to get bad. But

(41:08):
[Alex] I just can't imagine. Here's the thing. If I go to Portillo's, Is Portillo's as good as it was 10 years ago? No. No.
[Erica] Not even close. But it's still
[Alex] good.
[Erica] I'm never mad that I got it. I don't go as often as I used to. No, I almost

(41:28):
[Alex] never go.
[Erica] It's very rare, but if I do have the occasion to want a beef sandwich, I have started going to Bona.
[Alex] Well, it's also like five minutes away. It's very close. And you and Bob are both very proximity oriented.
[Erica] I honestly, though, like I was a very like, no, Portillo's is better. Portillo's is better. And the last like year or so, I'm like, I got to give it to Bona now.

(41:50):
[Alex] I'd have to have a beef from Bona. I still think that I still think the combo, the trick.
[Erica] Well, you get a
[Alex] combo, right? You get the sausage and the beef. Well, I have to because if you just get the beef, there's no taste. But the last time I had beef with Bona, there was also no taste. Okay,
[Erica] fair and valid. But you know the other thing, though, Alex, is when I tell Bona, I want that fucker, like, I want it held under the water like you're trying to kill it. That's what I... They call it baptized. Bona does that for me. I ask for that at Portillo's. That's a dry-ass sandwich, and it pisses me off. I want air bubbles coming up.

(42:26):
[Alex] I do.
[Erica] It's what I want.
[Alex] I
[Erica] just imagine...
[Alex] Like you go in there and you're like, listen to me, listen to me. I want you to imagine that you're taking my head and holding it in a toilet until I drown. Yes, correct. Isn't that a fun visual? Yes. Now do that to my
[Erica] sandwich, please. Thank you.
[Alex] But I just, you know, like something like Portillo's, again, it's not as good as it used to be, but it's still good. Like it used to be great. Oh, yeah. Now it's just good. I

(42:55):
[Erica] never, if someone is like, let's go to Portillo's, I'm not going to be like, I'm like, oh, no, sure. So if I'm going to get
[Alex] fucked for $16, I want to get fucked for the thing that I at least know is decent. Sure. Not the thing that was like barely edible. Right. You know, it's like it's something like I don't know. I haven't had Taco Bell in forever. I don't know what prices they're charging or anything. I mean, Taco Bell is not cheap either. But Taco Bell, like they would always dump enough spices on their fucking grade triple F meat that it would still taste good. Sure. Sure.

(43:25):
[Erica] Taco Bell is a very specific craving for me. If I want Mexican food, I'm going to go to one of the local Mexican places. Sure. Taco Bell is a very like, I want white man tacos. Yeah, and why didn't
[Alex] Bob suggest that? He fucked me. He did fuck you. He fucked me. He fucked
[Erica] you,
[Alex] Alex. He's the one who suggested that shitty place. You should have gone
[Erica] to Potbelly. We did Potbelly for lunch a few weeks ago, and I was actually like, oh, okay. I forgot that this is actually decent.

(43:48):
[Alex] It's not bad. I mean, I haven't had it in a long time, but I remember being not bad. It's
[Erica] nothing to write home about, but it's fine. I wasn't mad I had it.
[Alex] Yeah. They're all so expensive. I think the reason I generally, like, if I get fast food, I talk myself into Panda Express because I'm at least like, well, white rice isn't that bad for you. You know? Yeah.

(44:09):
[Erica] Well, I mean, I haven't had Panda, and I couldn't tell you how long, but it's tasty at least, right? Yeah. Tasty adjacent.
[Alex] I've never eaten anything in there other than the orange chicken, but that orange chicken is fucking crack cocaine. Then, hey, as
[Erica] long as it's good, that's all that matters. I mean, I
[Alex] think the orange chicken is just as good as it's ever been.
[Erica] If you're getting your money's worth, Alex, if you feel you're getting your money's worth, that's all that matters.

(44:31):
[Alex] I can't even remember. See, this is what happens. This is like a season of The Witcher. This is what happens when we never record. But did I talk about the Wagovi shenanigans on here or no?
[Erica] I think the last time we recorded, you had just started. So we didn't. I don't think we talked about it.
[Alex] Well, I don't know if there's much to talk about because I can't remember what I really said. I don't know that we've really

(44:52):
[Erica] spoken about, like, I'm on it. I have been since last summer. It's been working pretty well for me, though, once we switched insurances at the beginning of the year.
[Alex] Oh, did you get insurance to finally approve
[Erica] it? Finally, yeah. Somebody must have missed a form somewhere. But I started, like, emailing them, like, daily, like...
[Alex] Hey, what the fuck?
[Erica] I was seeing really good results. And I didn't end up gaining any weight back, which was actually kind of nice. But I was just like, this was working. So what fucking... Who do I have to come in and grease the palm of to get this going? What are we doing?

(45:30):
[Alex] And which one are you using?
[Erica] I'm on Wegovy now. Oh, no, no, no. I'm on Zepbound, which is Monjaro, but it's in everything but name. It's the same pen in everything, too. It's very
[Alex] annoying. And that targets a different receptor or whatever than Wegovy does, right? I believe
[Erica] so. Yeah.
[Alex] I mean, I know these things all kind of do the same thing.

(45:51):
[Erica] Sure, but they have to have, like, little different, whatever. But I've seen real good results. I'm down, I think, about 40 since last summer. Like,
[Alex] in a year, basically? About-ish.
[Erica] I started, I want to say, right around my birthday last year. So, like, beginning of August. So, that's what? Like, eight months-ish. Okay. It's April-ish, so... Like, it's delivered pretty good results. It's really helped me with, what do they call it, the food noise? Sure. Because my big problem is, like, you know, kid goes down to sleep, you're finally sitting on the couch, you're relaxing, and be like, clap your hands, like, all right, let's go eat, like, 5,000 calories while I'm sitting here watching television. Just like, what can I stuff in my face? Just, that'll make me feel better, right? Um, or just you're sitting down and it's like, you should eat something. You should eat something. Why aren't you eating something? You should eat something. And okay, let me go get up and see what we got. That's kind of gone away. Like, do I still snack? Absolutely. But not to the, I'm not eating nearly as much as I used to.

(47:02):
[Alex] And so what level of the dose are you on?
[Erica] So they had to start me back from the beginning, though I didn't get up that high. I think I was at 7.5. Which is what level? Jumped off.
[Alex] There's four levels, right?
[Erica] No, I think you can go up to like 15 or some shit.
[Alex] There's 15 different versions of the dose?

(47:24):
[Erica] I believe so, yeah. Oh. Like, I know people that are on, like, 15 mLs or whatever.
[Alex] No, I'm not talking about, like, the amount. I'm talking about, like, they're usually, like, like on Wagovi, I don't know the different amounts, but there's four different levels of the dose.
[Erica] So I started on one, then they moved me to 2.5, and then five, then there's 7.5, or .75, and then it's one. So it's been very, like, tiered. And I didn't get past .75 when I got kicked off. And then I was off for a few months. They're like, you have to start all over, because if you go too high, I guess it can mess with your, you could get real sick or whatever. Okay. So I'm only on the five ML right now, but once I run out of this, I'm going to jump back up to 0.75 or whatever it was that I was on before.

(48:17):
[Alex] And so like, what have you, what is like side effects have you noticed?
[Erica] I mean, sometimes when I first started, I'd get a little bit of a stomachache after a shot. If I have a very, like, fat-heavy meal, I will pay dearly for that shit at some point. I, this last, now, like, this second round of taking it, I have noticed a little bit, I mean, I don't want to be gross, but a little bit more constipation than before. But not nearly as I've seen some people have had. If anything, I've always been on the other side of the spectrum.

(48:54):
[Alex] Yeah, and I think it's like you really... I think this is the good part of it, right? Is you need to make sure you're eating the right stuff to avoid problems like that. Yes. And I think that's kind of what I've been doing. Is I've been trying to, you know, like, eat stuff that I maybe normally wouldn't eat a lot of. Like, say, oranges or apples. Sure. I mean, I've always liked, like, stuff like white rice. But, you know... I

(49:23):
[Erica] do always try to keep rice in the fridge because I do think that's just a nice, like, you can either, like... You can make a quick meal with that.
[Alex] Yeah. Or, you know, stuff like... What was I going to say? You know, like instead of eating like white bread, eating like whole grain bread, which, you know, doesn't exactly taste great. I mean,

(49:46):
[Erica] we've always kind of done that. But I mean, the whole thing for me was when I first got on it, like my numbers were starting to creep up a little bit. And we've got a fair amount of bad stuff in the fam, I'll say.
[Alex] The genetics aren't great. The
[Erica] genetics aren't great. So once that started to creep up and then the A1C started to creep up a little bit, it was because I was very resistant for a long time, too. But it was just kind of like, OK, if this is going to help with that, I don't need to get, you know, diabetes. I've got enough shit I've got to worry about just heart wise and cancer wise. If this can help a little bit, mitigate some of that shit, you know what, fine, great, let's go.

(50:30):
[Alex] You know, for me... I just kind of want to see what's possible. Sure. Because the truth is I'm really not that overweight. And when I actually tell a lot of people that I'm taking Wagovi, they're like, but you're not even fat. And I'm like, well, maybe not, like, really. But, you know, if you want to be technical about it, you know, if you look at, like, the freaking, what is it, the stupid. Well, the

(50:58):
[Erica] BMI is so. The BMI horseshit. You shouldn't be looking at that anyway. And here's the thing. But
[Alex] doctors still look at, though. I know they do. But
[Erica] I'm also a big believer in you can be healthy at any size. It doesn't necessarily matter.
[Alex] Well, and that's what I was kind of getting at is I, last time I went for like a yearly checkup type thing, when they did all the blood tests and everything, everything was in normal levels. Okay. So it's like I wasn't, I don't have like high cholesterol or whatever else. See,

(51:26):
[Erica] I'm on something for high cholesterol. They had started having me take, I believe it was metformin to kind of help with some stuff. So it just came down to, is this going to be able to help get stuff down? Yes. Great. Let's do
[Alex] it. And that's the point is at the end of the day, it's like for me, you know, in 20, 30, 40 years, we're probably going to be developing some awful disease along with the other millions of people that are on this shit. Here's the

(51:56):
[Erica] thing, Alex. It's either going to be the big C or the widow maker that's coming my way. So if I happen to be alive in 40, 50 years... You know what? Hey, great. I'll be in my late 80s, early 90s. So, all right.
[Alex] At least she'll be skinny.
[Erica] At least she'll be skinny. And according to society, everything should be fine then.

(52:24):
[Alex] No, but that's what I'm kind of getting at is, like, we don't know what's going to be coming. Like, we're all part of the big test tube experiment right now, right? But... We know for a fact, no doubt about it, if you're overweight, the older you get, the worse it is for you. Sure. There's no argument to be had about it. Like if you're like 40, 50, 60 years old and you're overweight, bad things start to happen to your body. Can start to

(52:52):
[Erica] happen, sure. With more frequency.
[Alex] It's pretty much inevitable.
[Erica] I don't know that I necessarily agree with that, but... Because again...
[Alex] Maybe not as bad with some people than others.
[Erica] Sure, sure, sure. That's what I'm saying. Yes.
[Alex] But... So my thing's kind of like, you know what? I know that's going to be a problem if enough time passes, and I'd rather try to fully address it now. Well,

(53:14):
[Erica] because you've got some stuff in the old family tree that ain't great either. Yeah.
[Alex] And so I'm like, you know what? And I've been trying to do other good stuff, too. You know, it's like I've tried to I've been doing like protein powder and stuff like protein shakes to try to not like lose a shitload of muscle mass and everything. But, you know, it's just I kind of want to see how it goes and see what happens. And I think I've been somewhat fortunate because a lot of people start out like my aunt, my mom's sister was doing it. And I don't know which one she was on. But she was bedridden. It would make her so sick. And I was like, why are you taking this? This isn't working. Well,

(53:55):
[Erica] this is the thing. If it's not working and you're in so much pain that you can't get out of bed, stop. What are you doing?
[Alex] Yeah, and for me, that's kind of the funny thing is, so I'm only on, like, the second level of the dose. Sure. Like, on Mugobi, there's four levels of the dose. I'm only on the second level. And, you know, it's like sometimes my stomach feels a little weird. It's usually in the morning right after I take it because I think that's when it's, like, doing its thing. You're on the daily? I'm on the pill. Okay. Yeah, so every morning. It's easy. All you do is before you eat or drink anything, you take the pill. Sure. And then you just got to wait half an hour. All right. It's easy. That's fine. And it's a tiny little pill. It's not like one of those fricking antibiotic like horse pills. When I was

(54:40):
[Erica] pregnant, they had me on these like prenatal vitamins. Alex, I had to cut it into like three pieces to swallow it. This fucker was like this big. I'm like, how do you expect me? That's just not a thing. Oh, when I got
[Alex] COVID and I was taking Paxlovid or whatever, that pill was so fucking big. I was really struggling to swallow it. I'm like... I'm like, I don't have practice taking large things down my throat. This is terrible. There's gay guys out there who are like, this is fucking easy, dude. What's the problem? But I mean, I just. So anyways.

(55:14):
[Erica] Interesting side spot.
[Alex] No, it's fun. That'd be fun. You never know. But I just...
[Erica] Takes all kinds, Alex. Exactly. Whatever you're into. Exactly. Doesn't matter. That's the
[Alex] same way I feel about everything. As long as you're not hurting anybody else, you do you. Right. But it's funny though. I've had like... No side effects. And actually, I kind of want to see over time how much it actually does because I'm worried I might be one of those people that's like a non-responder because that is apparently a certain amount of people. I have heard that. It just doesn't do

(55:52):
[Erica] anything.
[Alex] And I kind of notice some stuff. Like I do get full faster and I do feel full much longer. So I think that it is doing something. But you talk about like food noise and I don't know if... Like I've never really felt that like, and I know I've heard like you and Bob talk about this. I've heard lots of people talk about this. I've never had that thing where I'm like, I want to eat. I want to eat. I want to eat. I want to eat.

(56:19):
[Erica] It's not even like I want to eat. It's you're bored. You should be doing something. You know what you could be doing?
[Bob] Eating.
[Erica] Eating. But the other thing I do want to say, too, is because I'm in culinary school. Food is a very big part of my life. I have a very big passion for it. I haven't, that hasn't gone away. I still love to cook. I still love to bake. Like, I was worried that that might go away when I first started taking it. And it hasn't. I still have a passion for it.

(56:49):
[Alex] And that's the other thing. Like some people, and who knows, again, I'm only in the second level of the dose. If I ever, and I don't even know if I will, but if I ever go up to like a higher level of the dose, I might be affected more in some way. Sure. You know, you hear like some people talk about stuff like, you know, food tastes different or some stuff that used to taste good kind of tastes bad now. And I haven't experienced any of that.

(57:11):
[Erica] There are a few things. I can't think of any examples off the top of my head, but that I remember being like, oh, That used to be kind of good, but it wasn't anything that like it was like like fast food or something like that. It wasn't anything that I was like, oh, that's a bummer. Like I used to really like that. Like like we went when we were down in Florida, Bob and I went out and we went to a it was a restaurant that a bartender we had stopped at this bar we like down there. had recommended and it was i'd put it in one of like the top five meals that i've ever had and it's stuff like that that the juji like i hesitate to call it a tasting menu but it was kind of like that that i that all was delicious and still good but you're gonna go and get like i don't know french fries from like mcdonald's it doesn't hit quite the way it used to if that makes sense

(58:12):
[Alex] I had McDonald's a couple of months ago. It was fucking terrible.
[Erica] Yeah.
[Alex] It was disgusting. And this was like pre-Bagovi or whatever. Sure,
[Erica] sure, sure, sure. It
[Alex] was like, this is just, the fries aren't even any good anymore. Like, they're whatever. They're fine. But they're not anywhere near what they used to be.
[Erica] Well, because you know they're probably cutting back because, one, I don't think as many people are eating there anymore because millions of people are on this shit now. And it's expensive. Why am I paying like $20 to go to McDonald's?

(58:41):
[Alex] Yeah, and that's the thing I wonder about is how are these... You know just more and more people are going to get on these GLP-1 drugs, and I just wonder how are all these fast food places, especially the mediocre ones, going to make it because you're just peddling dog shit at really high prices now. Like, I don't, I don't, I feel like there's got to be some sort of transformation in the market. I mean, I, I feel like I've seen more, like, I think it was like Doritos now is selling like a high protein Doritos, I guess, to

(59:14):
[Erica] try. High protein Doritos. Okay.
[Alex] There's no way they taste good.
[Erica] There's no way that's tasty. We almost got to buy a bag just to try it. I
[Alex] would like to know what
[Erica] it tastes like. That's got to be disgusting. But let me
[Alex] tell you, I've been trying to eat some of these protein-filled yogurts. They're dog shit. No, they're bad. Yeah. They're terrible. Yeah. The protein powder is just tolerable. First thing I tried, so I tried this one. So I was looking at protein powders and everyone said this like ghost protein powder was really good, right?

(59:51):
[Erica] See, whenever anybody says that, this is just the collective delusion of like, well, we all have to say this because then if we say it, it makes it true, right? Like we can con ourselves into thinking this is tasty. This is what I
[Alex] discovered later is everyone who says any type of protein powder tastes good. Is a damn liar. Is that they've convinced themselves it tastes good so they don't want to throw up every day. There you
[Erica] go.
[Alex] But there was this thing where everyone was like, oh, the Chips Ahoy protein powder actually tastes good. It actually kind of tastes like Chips Ahoy. I'm

(01:00:19):
[Erica] sorry. Okay, first of all. I was like, listen, I
[Alex] know what you're going to say. I was like, listen, Chips Ahoy isn't good to begin with, which is what you're going to say, right?
[Erica] Just the very notion of a Chips Ahoy protein powder, just the concept of that is like, what are you even talking about?
[Alex] So it was discussed. A
[Erica] Chips Ahoy, the chewy ones, the soft ones, back before, I could put that away like nobody's fucking business. But in the realm of a chocolate chip cookie, no, it's not good. Of course it's not good.

(01:00:52):
[Alex] So it was disgusting. I ate all of it because I paid like 50 bucks for it. But it was like, I will
[Erica] choke this down. Damn
[Alex] it. Yeah. And then I just tried their like basic just like chocolate protein powder. And that one is better. Apparently, that's like the best one. Sure. That one is like shit. It still tastes like chalk going down your throat because it's all protein. But it's whatever. I mean, it's like, you know what? You got to do what you got to do.

(01:01:20):
[Erica] You know what I was kind of rocking for a while there? I
[Alex] don't want to lose like 20 pounds and like 18 of it is muscle. No, yeah, that's not good.
[Erica] That's bad. I really liked, and I don't think they sell them anymore. Costco had these really good, they were like little nuggets. It was like a beef jerky situation, but they were like Korean barbecue flavor. But then of course there have been like found to be like metal shavings in them or something. Sure. So I was like, but I don't care. Those were really good. And they had like 10 grams of protein in them and each little packet. Give me my metal. I'm already full of microplastics, Alex. What does it matter at this point?

(01:01:55):
[Alex] Yeah, that's another thing I've been trying. I've been trying like these protein bars and the protein shake is actually the best thing I've ever tasted compared to these protein bars. These protein bars. One, you have to imagine someone put like three pounds of peanut butter in your mouth and they were like, chew this bitch. That's what like a real thick, not smooth, like a real thick chewy peanut butter. That's what these protein bars are like. You got to chew them and chew them and chew them.

(01:02:31):
[Erica] Tire you out. Then
[Alex] you got to chew them some more. Then you got to chew them some more. And then once you finally choke down all of it, you've eaten maybe a quarter of the bar and you have to do that all over again for about 15 minutes. Yeah, that
[Erica] sounds terrible.
[Alex] I bet you the ghost of Bob fucking loves them. No, he doesn't. I bet you he's convinced himself he loves protein bars. He's
[Erica] got all those dumb, like, the gels and shit for the races that he's like, well, these are good. I'm like, there's no way that's tasty.

(01:02:56):
[Alex] It's got to be disgusting.
[Erica] You're telling me that this gel thing is a gel in a packet that's got, like... It's bioengineered to help you run. That's the most vile thing you could stick in your mouth. And no one could convince me otherwise. But no, I really like beef jerky for a nice hit of protein. But that's also astronomically expensive. So that makes me a little sad.

(01:03:23):
[Alex] Well, and there's some stuff that's just good, simple protein that I've always liked anyway, like eggs. Like, eggs are just pure protein. Oh, yeah. I like an egg. Sure. I can just, like, throw an egg on the fucking griddle, fry it up, and eat it. Oh, I love an egg. Like,
[Erica] scrambled egg, love a scrambled egg. I love a hard-boiled egg. I love a sunny-side-up egg. I'll put an egg in, like, a... If I make a rice dish, a little... You know, to scramble it in there. If you're going to do, like, a little... fried rice situation or you do the egg sunny side up and then you put that on top of the rice with a little like meat in there or something a little bit of green onion that's nice very versatile i like an egg

(01:04:02):
[Alex] So, yeah. But anyway, I feel like I've been lucky. I have, like, no side effects, really. That's good. I'm, you know, just screwed myself by saying that. Yeah, probably. And we'll see if I ever go up. I mean, my doctor was kind of like, I don't even think you really need to go above, like, the second level of the dose. It should be more than enough for you. But, you know, it was a wait and see type thing.

(01:04:26):
[Erica] How long have you been on it?
[Alex] Uh, like less than two months total.
[Erica] Have you seen any, like, have you know,
[Alex] um, not really. I mean, I think I, So the other thing, I don't know if they all do this, but I know part of what Wagovi does is it kind of like cleans up like the inflammation in your body too. Sure. And I think maybe that's part of it too, is I like, it just fixed some of that. So I think in like the first month I lost like seven pounds, but again, that could just be like water weight or something. I don't know.

(01:05:01):
[Erica] Well, and the other thing is, if you are going to lose weight, the healthy way to go about it... Is
[Alex] slowly.
[Erica] Is slowly. It's, they say, one pound, like, a week, if that. Like, all the stuff, like, ooh, you're going to drop, like, 20 pounds in a month. That's not healthy. That's not healthy. That's bad for you. And as soon as you stop doing it, you can't stop doing it because then you're just going to gain everything back and then some. Yeah. And it's just not healthy. Like, you do have to learn... You know, and there's nothing wrong with indulging. There's nothing wrong with having sweets. Sure, you just can't

(01:05:34):
[Alex] do it every day.
[Erica] No.
[Alex] Yeah, and I think that's the thing for me is I'm just kind of using it as like a crutch to enforce like better eating habits on myself. Because I know if I go out and I eat like dog shit every single day, the medication is going to cause me to have an adverse reaction. Sure. so rather than like feel that adverse reaction because I don't want to feel that I'm just going to try to do the right things so we'll see you know but it's like again it's like Got to see how it goes over the course of six months or a year or whatever. You need a

(01:06:09):
[Erica] bigger sample size for sure. It's only been a couple months and yeah. And I'm one of those
[Alex] fortunate people that my insurance covers it. You know, not everybody, like you had struggles and not everybody, a lot of these insurances don't want to cover it because it's a, you know, they're pretty expensive medications. Sure,
[Erica] sure.
[Alex] But I also think as more competition is hitting the market, the prices are dropping. And then I think the insurance companies will pick it up because it's not obscenely expensive for them to cover anymore. Yeah, I mean, I pay like $45 a month for it. It's no big deal.

(01:06:45):
[Erica] Yeah, I think mine is less than that, actually.
[Alex] Yeah.
[Erica] I want to say it's like $25 or something like
[Alex] that. I mean, what I kind of said to Bob was there are people out there who are paying the full price, which, again, no one really pays the full price because there's coupons and stuff. But I think the real price off insurance is more like $200 to $300. Well, there
[Erica] are also people who are doing that who definitely don't need it. There's some people who I have talked to, and I'm like... Like you weigh 100 pounds fucking wet. You don't need to lose weight. But we live in a society where. Sure. You know, it's.

(01:07:20):
[Alex] Looks are very important.
[Erica] Right. Well, and you need to be. It doesn't matter if you're cute and you're fat. You got to be skinny, motherfucker. If you're not skinny, you're a fucking leech on the ass of society.
[Alex] Cute and fat's okay. Skinny and ugly is better.
[Erica] That's fair. That's fair, Alex. Especially here in America. Fuck yeah. Gotta be white, too. Very important. That's preferable. Preferable, yes.

(01:07:42):
[Alex] Indeed. I mean, you better be careful who you start speaking Spanish with.
[Erica] Exactly. Do you speak Spanish? I can understand some. I took four years of Spanish in high school, but that's a long time ago. It's all gone. All gone, Alex.
[Alex] Those fucking stupid ass second language classes that they make everyone take in high school, nobody retains any of

(01:08:04):
[Erica] them. There's some things I can't carry on a conversation. I can understand it much better than I can speak it. I can get by. You
[Alex] know what the problem is? It's too late at that point. We should be doing what they do in other countries. You should be teaching kids a second language in like goddamn kindergarten. Alex, we have

(01:08:28):
[Erica] proven that so many things work so well in other countries. We don't do those things here. I
[Alex] know. This
[Erica] is America.
[Alex] Fuck yeah.
[Erica] We're trying to figure out our countercultural programming for the 4th of July this year. Oh,
[Bob] boy.
[Erica] We are going to have a barbecue, but I'm like, I don't want to see nary a star or a stripe anywhere. God damn it. I just want to have a party and hang out with my friends. You

(01:08:56):
[Alex] should hang the Helldivers flags or something. Ooh, that'd
[Erica] be fun. Yeah, we'll figure something out.
[Alex] No one, like three people will know the reference. I don't give a shit. But those three people will really enjoy it.
[Erica] Because I know my mother's going to rock up with all this stuff, and I'm going to be like, I'm not putting any of that out. I'm going to get black napkins, black plates, because it's the big 250 this year, right? And we're going to celebrate with an MMA fight on the White House lawn or some nonsense.

(01:09:22):
[Alex] Yeah, Trump was at the UFC recently, because that's what was important.
[Erica] Well, right. The UFC fight. Sure. That's the important shit, Alex.
[Alex] They're just
[Erica] happy to get him out of there.
[Alex] That Ronda Rousey, Gina Carano fight should be coming up soon. I can't wait to watch those two beat the fuck out of each other. That

(01:09:43):
[Erica] could be fun.
[Alex] I think it's going to be fun.
[Erica] We might have to find a way to watch that.
[Alex] I think it's just going to be on Netflix. Oh,
[Erica] okay.
[Alex] Yeah, so that'll be a nice, easy watch. I mean, it's probably just going to be Ronda choking her out in 30 seconds, but you never know.
[Erica] There's a little bit of... I wouldn't mind watching that. I'm not a fan of either, but you know.
[Alex] Yeah. Preferably they both like punch each other and it's a dual KO. That'd be pretty great. That'd be pretty great.

(01:10:07):
[Erica] Yeah. I would enjoy that. So you had me watch an episode of, is it Jujitsu Kaijin? Am I saying that right? Kaijin. Yeah, I
[Alex] always butcher the name too. It's not Jujitsu. No? It's like Jujitsu. I don't even know how to say it. I'm a terrible American. I don't know how to say it right. And here's the thing,
[Erica] Alex. I'm not going to bother to learn because I'm probably not going to watch this show. I've been marginally aware of it. I think it's fairly popular. I feel like I saw a fair amount of art for it at C2 this year. Which, may I say, I went in full cosplay, and I had ducky slippers on all day. Not a great call. Though I did have inserts in said ducky slippers, so that helped mitigate. Destroyed. Bad Alex. Not as bad as it could have been. I was anticipating much worse, but not great. Not a great choice. Who were you cosplaying as? I was Lucifer from Hasbun Hotel, in a very specific instance. Because I don't go into, like, I can't do anything elaborate, Alex. I have no skill in this regard. You just got

(01:11:06):
[Alex] to, like, buy an outfit or something.
[Erica] As soon as Bob was like, oh, I'm interested in getting back into sewing, I was like, oh, are you? All right.
[Alex] Well, I have a job for you. This
[Erica] bodes well for Erica. So I kind of threw a few things at him right away. The poor thing. But he helped me out with that because he's a sweetie pie.

(01:11:29):
[Alex] Yeah, I mean, I basically just showed Erica one episode of just a bunch of fighting and cool animations and everything. I mean, the show overall is good. I wouldn't say it ever approaches great. I think there's like a thing now... where it's weird. I don't know how to describe this. I think even though a show like Dragon Ball Z had about a billion fucking episodes and 90% of them were filler, they were better at building to big moments.

(01:12:04):
[Erica] Here's the thing, though. We can talk about filler for a second here because that has become such a dirty word. And it's like... But if we didn't have filler, we wouldn't have had that Dragon Ball episode where Goku and Piccolo go get their driver's licenses. And that's a fucking classic. Or
[Alex] in Dragon Ball Z where they play baseball. Or Super where they play baseball.

(01:12:24):
[Erica] That's a great fucking episode of television. That's one of
[Alex] the funniest episodes of TV I've ever watched. So
[Erica] good. And it's just... I want to hang out with the characters more. And let's do some goofy shit. Because then you get some good characterization. You get some fun moments. There's nothing wrong with a filler episode.
[Alex] Yeah, I agree. I just would say Dragon Ball, like a show like Dragon Ball had a bit too much filler. Oh,

(01:12:46):
[Erica] well, there were times where it was definitely like, okay, we're just charging this attack for an entire episode. And we probably didn't need to be doing that.
[Alex] Goku's running along the fucking pathway to get back to Earth for like 20 fucking episodes. And I know it wasn't really 20 episodes, but it felt like 20 episodes. And so, yeah, I mean, but now here's what happens in like a lot of these anime, especially the like shonen battle animes, is every episode is like fight, fight, fight, fight, fight, fight, fight. Go here, fight, fight, fight, fight. You know, it's like... It's too much. So it gets a bit overwhelming. Well, there's no

(01:13:21):
[Erica] anticipation.
[Alex] Yeah. And
[Erica] you do need to have that build up like... Like, the first time when Goku was trying to get back to Earth to, like, you know, get there to help when the Saiyans came. You're building up to that ultimate confrontation between Vegeta and Goku. And it's like, once you finally get there, so tasty.

(01:13:43):
[Alex] Oh, that's one of the greatest fights in the whole series. Oh, yeah. Right out of the gate.
[Erica] Good shit, man.
[Alex] I mean, and that's the thing I guess I'll be interested to see if... I mean, like, we already know, and it's different. See, it's unfair to compare because a show like Dragon Ball Z went worldwide at a time where there wasn't a million animes coming out. And it wasn't so easily accessible, right? Right. So they had, in a sense... Like, it wasn't easy to distribute it, obviously, but they also had an unfair advantage because if they were able to distribute it, they had essentially no market competition.

(01:14:21):
[Erica] Sure, but if it hadn't become at least a little bit popular with the subcultures, there would have been no taste for bringing it over here in a more official capacity anyway. And it is something special. It is. No, it
[Alex] is. I'm not trying to say it isn't. I love Dragon Ball Z.

(01:14:42):
[Erica] No one is ever going to call that into question,
[Alex] Alex. It is different because there's just another... Well,
[Erica] the market now is so flooded.
[Alex] There's so much anime now. There's so much. And I think anime is very much in a golden age in terms of... How accessible it is on Crunchyroll or whatever else. I know I say this all the

(01:15:03):
[Erica] time, but could you imagine? I just think of myself as like 12-year-old Erica.
[Alex] Oh, you'd be over the moon.
[Erica] Just found like this weird show on like Fox 32 that they would show like an hour of if it wasn't preempted by baseball on like Saturday afternoons. I was like, oh, this is different. This is kind of cool. And then, you know, a few years like losing it for a little while and then discovering like a friend of mine at school watched it and they got the tapes or whatever because they used to get like... You'd have to go in, like, the back of magazines and stuff, and they'd have, or, like, you know, not IGN, but stuff like that, and they'd have, like, oh, well, you could buy, or go to Suncoast Video, and you get, like, a tape for, like, $45 that had maybe three badly dubbed, like, episodes on it. Then you'd have to wait six months for the next one. Like, brutal.

(01:16:02):
[Alex] When you were watching like Dragon Ball Z air live on Cartoon Network, not live, but you know, in order. Yeah. And then they would get to the end of an arc and you'd come on, you'd get, you wouldn't even know, right? You'd get to the end and then you'd go to watch the next day and they'd be starting over from the beginning. You'd be like, no. Wailing
[Erica] in agony. Yeah.

(01:16:22):
[Alex] And you knew you weren't going to get to watch any new ones until they went all the way back through
[Erica] again. Yep. But even that, even just that being on Cartoon Network every day after Toonami was huge. And then like Adult Swim with like Cowboy Bebop and Outlaw Star and was like, oh shit, this is the shit that I used to have to like... Again, maybe go to Suncoast and just take like a shot in the dark on something because you couldn't find it anywhere.

(01:16:51):
[Alex] Well, and that's I guess kind of the interesting thing is now we just think about like like now it is really just like these soulless fucking executives just doing whatever they think is going to make them the most money in the moment. But then obviously all decisions are driven by money. But there it kind of is interesting, though, for like there were people, I'm sure, at Cartoon Network at the time, like they probably had to lobby like fucking crazy. Like, hey, this stuff is good. We should give it a space. We should build around it. Like we could create like real viewership with this, you know, and they probably had to fight like fucking crazy to make that happen. Yeah.

(01:17:28):
[Erica] I mean, you hear about that even with stuff like Seinfeld. Seinfeld had to have a, and obviously it's completely different than anime.
[Alex] Oh, yeah. No, that first season of Seinfeld bombed.
[Erica] It had a champion at the network that was like, give this space to breathe. This will find its audience. Yeah. And it eventually did, and it's one of the greatest shows that's ever been on. But now everything is run by these venture capital tech bros who there's not a shred of artistic integrity in anybody. And everything is just based off these algorithms and what's going to make us the most money. And everything is gray, boring slop that I'm not interested in watching.

(01:18:11):
[Alex] This is like a total side note. I just thought about this. Did I ever tell you what I did to my
[Erica] nail on this toe? I don't need to hear about foot stuff.
[Alex] Are you sure? I'm
[Erica] absolutely sure. You can tell Bob. I don't need to hear about foot stuff. I'm going to veto that right away. He had a thing with like something on his foot and he kept trying to tell me and I'm like, nope.

(01:18:33):
[Alex] It's not like disgusting. I
[Erica] don't care. I don't do foot stuff. Feet are repugnant and I don't want to hear about it.
[Alex] Here, wait, let me show you.
[Erica] No, I don't want to see it either. I will stop this podcast and kick you out of my house. Nope, absolutely not.
[Bob] Okay, back on Jiu-Jitsu, guys. I wouldn't even want my

(01:18:55):
[Erica] husband to show me that. I'd be like, you've got to put socks on. I don't want to see this shit. walking around trying not to look at his feet. Vile, Alex.
[Alex] I still say the same thing I always do. People with a foot fetish, fucking weirdos.
[Erica] Correct. You want to come at me and be like, we talked about this in an episode recently too. I watch the most vile, hentai, tentacle, whatever the fuck. You know what? Good for you. You come at me with a foot, get the fuck out of here. perverse

(01:19:29):
[Alex] so anyways I wanted to show you this one episode of Jujutsu Kaisen because when I was watching this for the first time I was like holy shit this animation like this level of just detail it's beautiful thought and work put into this was crazy just those shots
[Erica] with the twins where the one had like her her head like and she was like holding her with her hands I thought that was gorgeously animated when she crawled over first and that was beautiful Stunning, really.

(01:19:59):
[Alex] The transition from holding whatever it was, like the piece of wheat, into holding the sword.
[Erica] Oh, yeah.
[Alex] So good. There was so much great stuff. And there's been other great... I mean, there's another episode I want to make you watch at some point that's just unbelievable. But there's been so many great fights and great episodes, but...
[Erica] So is she like the, was it Mai? Is that her name? Maki. Maki. Is she the main character?

(01:20:22):
[Alex] No, she's not. Oh, okay. She's like a side character. I love it. Great. No, there's a bunch of different kind of, there's one definite like main character, but there's a lot of people who get a lot of focus. Okay, cool.
[Erica] But no, yeah, I appreciated the Kill Bill of it all. The Kill Bill reference was great. I
[Alex] thought that was a little on the nose. You know

(01:20:43):
[Erica] what, though? We were talking about it upstairs, and it is like that you watch stuff now.
[Alex] That was so long ago that a ton of the people who are watching that have never even seen Kill Bill. Won't even
[Erica] realize, but it's folks who are our age who are making this stuff now. And that was a major cultural touchstone for them. It's why you see a bunch of like, you can watch a fucking like Steven Universe and it's like, I see that Dragon Ball Z reference. I see that revolutionary girl with tenor reference. I see the Sailor Moon of it all.

(01:21:14):
[Alex] That's the funny thing. I think about someone like Quentin Tarantino. And it really is like you with so many of these people. I mean, it's just like if you watch pro wrestling, you got to separate the art from the artist. Correct. And he's like very much like you got to separate an art from the artist guy, right? Because if you ever listen to him talk. He sucks. You're like, would you just please shut the fuck up? Yeah. But he's made so many masterpieces.

(01:21:40):
[Erica] Man can make a good fucking movie and his knowledge of movies is vast.
[Alex] Well, that's what I always say about a moron like Joe Rogan. If you just wanted someone to talk about MMA with or comedy to an extent, you're like, oh, here's a guy with shitloads of knowledge of this.
[Erica] Not someone actively ruining democracy. Anything else, just please shut the fuck up. Right, exactly. But he has a podcast, Alex. If I wanted

(01:22:09):
[Alex] to talk about pedophilia, I would just go talk to Donald Trump. There
[Erica] you go. Allegedly.
[Alex] Allegedly. You're
[Erica] going to come like, Charles, you've got to be careful, Alex. The FBI will be at my door. Absolutely. You've got to be careful.
[Alex] Oh, God. Like, just cut that out. No. We ain't no punk bitches. Nobody listens anyway.

(01:22:31):
[Erica] That's a very fair point there, Alex. We have, like, what, four people that listen to this?
[Alex] And, no, I mean, I just thought it was, like, such a... It was one of those where you're watching it and you're just like, this is, like, a half hour. This is a fucking achievement.
[Erica] Absolutely.
[Alex] What was done here?
[Erica] Beautifully animated. Gorgeous. And really made the stylization work for it because you're on a TV budget, right? And that's not a lot of money. But the Kill Bill of it all was very cool. I appreciated that. The music? The music was great. Like you said, the guy she was fighting kind of had same-face syndrome, but I don't fucking care about that. That doesn't matter.

(01:23:13):
[Alex] Oh, yeah. We actually made it better.
[Erica] Exactly, because it is almost like these are all just faceless nobodies. It doesn't matter.
[Alex] You know these guys are getting butchered.
[Erica] But even when she got up to the main people, she was fucking bodying them easily anyway.
[Alex] She ripped out two of their throats. Oh,
[Erica] great. Just outstanding. The punch where you get to see the skull
[Alex] turning
[Erica] to powder made me very happy. Yeah, just

(01:23:34):
[Alex] like Mortal Kombat, which is another little fun reference.
[Erica] Mm-hmm. just like that kind of stuff was great um and i love that it's just a side character that's pretty great too
[Alex] well i just yeah i think it's like it's just so cool that her body was so again so improved so strengthened and her reflexes were so improved that she's literally counting out this dude's movements

(01:23:58):
[Erica] yeah i like that too that was very cool
[Alex] I showed it to the biggest fan of the podcast and he loved it too. I had to really like, come on, man. You got to fucking watch this. Every time you watch something that I tell you to watch, you fucking love it and then you resist it every fucking time.
[Erica] Honestly, usually if something is animated, I feel like there really isn't nearly as hard of a time getting me to watch it because I do enjoy... Animation is one of my great loves. What else did we watch? It was funny because he was

(01:24:29):
[Alex] watching this and he's like... He's like, did they really hand draw all of this? This must take so much work. Yes, it does. Yes, they do. A lot of these studios are using, there is CG work, but it's usually background stuff mostly, which again, I would obviously prefer everything to be hand drawn. TV

(01:24:53):
[Erica] budget. The reality is
[Alex] they're trying to make everything they can on the budget they can.
[Erica] But it looks gorgeous. Yeah. It's beautiful. I think most of the character stuff is, the character animation is hand-drawn, I would assume. Yeah, I would think so. But whatever they're doing, it looks great. Oh, it was working.
[Alex] Yeah. Oh, yeah. MAPPA's one of, like, the titans of anime right now. Everything they touch turns to gold.

(01:25:16):
[Erica] What else have they done?
[Alex] Well, they did the back half, I think, of Attack on Titan. Oh,
[Erica] okay. Because the name, I have heard the name, but I'm not sure what they're kind of attached to. I know Trigger. and I know Madhouse, because I will die salty about the fact that we got that first season of One Punch Man with Madhouse.

(01:25:38):
[Alex] God, that second season was fucking bad, and I heard the third season's even
[Erica] worse. That third season came out in October. I didn't see anything about it anywhere. That's insane.
[Alex] Well, it is so crazy to be like, well, we want to cut the budget so much to the point that no one will watch it.
[Erica] Right.

(01:25:58):
[Alex] What's the point of doing it then?
[Erica] Oh, God. What a fucking crime. Because that first season, that animation is gorgeous.
[Alex] I've also started another show, and I'm actually not really a big fan of the harem animes, but sometimes the standouts are pretty fucking funny. Sure. So I've been watching this one, and I forget how many reallys are actually in the title, but it's like the 100 girlfriends who really, really, really, really love you. And the premise of the show, Erica, is pretty funny. Yeah. It's about this guy. Of course, he's like in fucking Japanese high school or whatever the equivalent is. Sure. And every time he tries to ask her out on the date, he gets fucking turned down. Every single time. Yeah. Just shit that doesn't even make sense. Like girls will appear to be into him. Turned down. And what he comes to find out is when you're born in this universe, there's like a god of love or fucking something that assigns everyone a soulmate. Oh. Like how many soulmates you're supposed to

(01:27:06):
[Erica] have. Okay. Interesting. Can you have more than one?
[Alex] You're supposed to have one.
[Erica] You're supposed to have one. Okay.
[Alex] But he was watching TV and he got distracted. The God. When this kid was born. Amazing. And he accidentally wrote down 100. Ah. So
[Erica] he has
[Alex] 100 soulmates.
[Erica] I see.
[Alex] Okay. And the problem is, is that.
[Erica] I appreciate that this God is keeping like a notebook with like pencil. Yeah. Not like an Excel spreadsheet. That's great. Yeah.

(01:27:33):
[Alex] And what happens is, is if you don't meet your soulmate or don't fall in love or stay with your soulmate or whatever in this world, eventually they'll be so unhappy and so sad that they will die.
[Erica] Oh, okay.
[Alex] So what he has

(01:27:53):
[Erica] to do. This is straight out of fucking fan fiction, by the way. I love this.
[Alex] So what he has to do to keep all these women happy and alive is anytime he meets one of his soulmates, he has to date them and he has to keep dating them and he has to make them all happy.
[Erica] Sounds very exhausting.
[Alex] Well, he's a maniac and he loves this shit. Is he
[Erica] someone's soulmate then? All of

(01:28:14):
[Alex] theirs.
[Erica] Oh, okay. Yes.
[Alex] Okay. So like the moment any of them meet each other, there's like an electric shock that happens and they know instantly. The oh moment, baby.
[Erica] Yeah.
[Alex] So I've only seen enough where he's met like five of them, but he's already got like, they all know each other. They're all like, oh yeah, whatever. Well, I really want to be with him. So I guess I'm going to have to like. Just

(01:28:35):
[Erica] be okay with this, right? Be
[Alex] okay with this ridiculous situation.
[Erica] Amazing.
[Alex] Yeah, and there's been some funny stuff. I mean, like, two of them got into a fight, and one of them had big boobs, so she's, like, literally using her boobs to, like, knock the other out and shit.
[Erica] Shocking. Oh,
[Alex] anime. Never change.
[Erica] Never change.

(01:28:57):
[Alex] But there is some fucking funny stuff. And then the other show I've been watching, I think I told you I was going to start watching, is that Shorzy?
[Erica] Oh, did you start watching it?
[Alex] Yeah. Have you seen this?
[Erica] I have seen Letterkenny, and there's been a couple episodes where I was literally laughing out loud. It was so funny. How are you finding Shorzy?
[Alex] I've seen some clips from Letterkenny, and I think Shorzy is funnier. So if you enjoyed that, I would probably strongly recommend you watch Shorzy. Basically, I mean, do you know the premise of the show? Should I explain

(01:29:28):
[Erica] it? It's like the hockey spinoff of Letterkenny, right? Yeah.
[Alex] Right, so basically it's about this goon, Shorzy, who plays in some like adult, like old dude hockey league. And he's just a total, like he's just a piece of shit, right, on the ice. Like he just slashes guys in the back of the knee, blindside punches them. A goon, yeah, sure. Yeah, he's just a total piece of shit. And it's basically about, like, the team he's on is total trash, and they lose a game, and the owner is threatening to close the team. Like, just shutter the team. It's done. Like, fuck this. It's over. I'm tired of losing. They've lost, like, 20 games in a row or something. And he's like, no, no. He's like, you know, we'll take the money from the coach that just quit, and we'll use that to get more players in. And basically he's like, the promise he makes is we'll never lose again. And the show kind of goes from there.

(01:30:19):
[Erica] Okay.
[Alex] But it's pretty funny. There is a lot of like... Sometimes they're talking so fast that you can't catch all the fucking jokes.
[Erica] Sure, sure, sure, sure. Letterkenny's kind of like that too. But it's
[Alex] really well written, I think. And I mean, there's some funny stuff. I mean, one of the recent ones I recalled was they're shooting like... And it goes into a lot of like the gags of hockey, which is... I know you don't really like follow sports that closely, but... You know, on the ice, these dudes are talking a bunch of shit. Oh, yeah. But all hockey players, they go into like spork dude mode when they get off the ice and they're in front of the camera. You know, like the empty platitudes. Like, we just got to work real hard and make some good passes and block a few shots. Yeah, we can win the game. Sure. You know. So anytime these guys get in front of a camera, they lose like all their personality and it's so fucking funny. And so at one point they're shooting like a commercial for like a local car dealer. And this guy Shorzy is standing next to the car and he cannot deliver the lines with any sort of believability. And they're like, okay, try putting your hand on the car. Maybe you just relax. Just try putting your hand on the car. So he puts his hand on the car like this with a closed fist instead of doing it like a normal person. Right, like a

(01:31:36):
[Bob] normal person.
[Alex] And she just goes like, why is your hand on the car like that? And he goes, like what? And she goes, like you have damage to your central nervous system. And the whole show is just them firing back and forth. You could tell a lot of it is, like, there's some improv going on.

(01:31:58):
[Erica] It does have, Letter Kenny, at least, has some of those, like, you don't want to, like, it's always sunny when they're just, like, going and they're all talking over each other. And it's just that, like, it's got those similar vibes.
[Alex] Yeah, so it's on, I mean, I don't know what you have. It's on like Hulu or Disney Plus or whatever. And it's pretty funny. It's pretty funny. And it's not that much of it either. There's five seasons.

(01:32:20):
[Erica] And they're not long, right?
[Alex] No, there's five seasons. They're like 24-minute episodes. And there's only like six episodes a season.
[Erica] So there's
[Alex] like 31 episodes or something. And you could blow through it.
[Erica] No, what I've seen, I've enjoyed. So, because Bob was working through it. And I
[Alex] think the hockey stuff is, like, pretty well done. Like, it's, you know, you're not, like, watching, like, oh, my God. You know what's going to generally happen. Sure,

(01:32:47):
[Erica] sure.
[Alex] But it's like all pretty well done. And I think like they, you know, I think for the most part, they just hired a bunch of Canadian actors who could skate.
[Erica] Amazing. You know. Well, you said Canadian. They all know how to skate up there. Right. And that's one of
[Alex] the jokes in the show is they're looking for guys and they need like goons. Right. And they're like, well, I know these three guys in prison. They would play like prison guards. And they're like, well, can they skate? And he's like, oh, can all Canadians skate?

(01:33:14):
[Erica] right yeah like that's just what we do up here dummy
[Alex] Yeah, so I've enjoyed it. I think it's pretty well done and everything. I mean, it's a good show. And this was, if you recall, I made a deal with our loyal listener. Yes,
[Erica] I did recently listen to the episode which you mentioned this. So what does he owe you now?

(01:33:37):
[Alex] Oh, he has to go through the entire Nikkei story. Ah, there it is. And he hasn't started yet that piece of shit, but I'm going to hold his feet to the floor.
[Erica] Well, because you can't welch up on a deal like that.
[Alex] That's right. If you agreed. If you agreed. You've given your word.
[Erica] You've got to get in there. And your word is your
[Alex] bond. Absolutely. What good are you as a man? Now, women can be worthless. But what good are you as a man if your word means nothing?

(01:34:00):
[Erica] Clearly. Because, I mean, the world we live in now, women are just trash. We don't fucking
[Alex] care. I mean, you should just be happy this isn't The Handmaid's Tale yet. Nobody gives a fuck about it. We're going that way.
[Erica] Yet, Alex? Yet? What else did we watch when we were upstairs? Oh, the
[Alex] Street Fighter. The second trailer for the Street Fighter movie. And let me tell you, this looks like fucking... dog shit i'm

(01:34:23):
[Erica] gonna tell you right now though alex i think that movie might be kind of fun am i going to the theater to see it no absolutely no chance however
[Alex] there's not i don't have enough time
[Erica] there's not not a chance in hell however i will probably watch that when it is available
[Alex] I think if you wait like a month and a half, it'll be on Netflix or HBO. Oh, I won't have

(01:34:44):
[Erica] to wait long. But no, yeah, I think that that could get there. And here's the thing. If we're doing like, because I don't need like that first Mortal Kombat, that remake that they did like during COVID. It was like, why is this not the tournament? I want the tournament.
[Alex] And it seems like the new one is the tournament, right? Yes,

(01:35:06):
[Erica] it does. We can talk about that a little bit, too, because you've seen that as well, right? That trailer. I saw it when we were down in Florida, and I'm standing there, and I'm like, don't do this to yourself again. Like, don't. You know. You are, like, into your 40s, you dummy. Well, there is
[Alex] one thing that has not changed about Hollywood. The people that put together the trailers are the true artists. Yeah, they know

(01:35:26):
[Erica] what they're doing.
[Alex] Like, those are, like, you ever wonder, like, you know, you watch something like Mad Men, right? And it's just a bunch of marketers in a room trying to figure out how to fucking sell something. Yeah. That's the trailer, guys. That's why they're probably making the goddamn big bucks. Oh, yeah. Because they know how to take two hours of absolute trash and somehow make it appear like it might be good.

(01:35:47):
[Erica] Yep. absolutely but yeah i'm like oh we got the guy what's
[Alex] wwe was really good at doing that too remember they would do like their packages for matches and they would actually make it seem like there was a coherent story
[Erica] because that was when i mean their their video people have always been great do you remember that one where it was like the lead up to and it was placebo's cover of running up that hill And it was, this is like an art piece. It was the run-up to HBKV Undertaker 2.

(01:36:19):
[Alex] I don't remember that.
[Erica] Oh, you should look it up, Alex. It's good. It's real, real, real good. There's been a lot
[Alex] of them. There's been a lot of them. But there was
[Erica] that time where it was like we weren't telling coherent stories, but the video package people were able to be like, well, this is what was supposed to be happening. And here it is in two minutes after this, like, four-month storyline that made no sense.

(01:36:41):
[Alex] I'll tell you what. If I were, like, the two or three guys who were probably putting together all those video packages back in the day, I'd be asking for all the money. And if I got any fucking bullshit from Vince, I'd be like, Vince, this goddamn company's on my fucking back, buddy. Right, exactly. You better leave me the fuck alone,
[Erica] pal. Let me do my art in my little room. Thank you. Keep moving. Keep moving down the hallway, Vince.

(01:37:06):
[Alex] Go find another secretary to abuse. You rap bastard. Monster.
[Erica] Piece of shit. No, no, no. Yeah. Like that one, it sticks out in my mind because I do really like that cover of the song. But very good, Alex. Very good. I'd highly recommend looking it up. But if we're going to do this dumb tournament with all of these very colorful characters and then you got M. Bison in the background trying to take over the world, I think we could have some fun with it.

(01:37:35):
[Alex] Well, and I think, like I told you, I mean, I believe the guy playing Ryu, I think his name is Andrew Koji, I believe, I think. And he's like a British actor, but he does a real, he's a good, one of those guys who can do a real good accent. Mm-hmm. I don't know what accent he's doing in this fucking movie. It'll probably just be like some generic American accent. He was the guy that
[Erica] starred in Warrior. Was that it? Yeah. Was that that guy? And

(01:37:57):
[Alex] that was a great show. I mean, that was a great show. I'm sad that that show kind of got cut off before they got to finish it. That sucks. But you know what? It's like you're a show on fucking... cinemax or something you should be happy you got like four or five seasons
[Erica] oh did they really get that many seasons
[Alex] yeah i think they got like three or four
[Erica] oh dude then you just gotta like that in streaming now come on

(01:38:20):
[Alex] yeah
[Erica] that's huge
[Alex] um and that was a really good like martial arts show you've talked
[Erica] about it on here before
[Alex] yeah and i wish there were more martial arts show i mean look like I know someone, you know, like I know like what's his name? Who was Walker, Texas Ranger? Chuck Norris. Chuck Norris. Chuck Norris is a piece of shit. But you know what? It was fucking fun to watch him roundhouse kick

(01:38:41):
[Erica] people. It really was. It was always fucking fun. Do you remember? I think it was on Conan when he used to be on like the late show. He had a lever that he would just randomly pull like during his like opening and whatever. And it would just show random clips of Walker, Texas Ranger because they had that library like they had just acquired it or something. And he would just randomly and you just get random Walker, Texas Ranger clips. And it was always the funniest fucking out of context nonsense. It was amazing.

(01:39:13):
[Alex] Yeah, I mean, I don't understand why they're... Why aren't there more, like, martial arts shows? Like, who doesn't enjoy watching people get beat
[Erica] up? I don't know. But I think it's the kind of thing, too, that you could, like... It's fairly easy to build a story around that, right? Any kind of a tournament-type situation. What's the one show Izzy used to watch? It was... It's a Lego show, but it's, like... Oh, the Spinjitzu Ninjas. Bob and I actually got really fucking into it because it's actually pretty solid. Okay. And one of their seasons, it's a tournament and it's like fighting through the tournament and I'm like, this is riveting.

(01:39:52):
[Alex] Tournaments are always good.
[Erica] Love a tournament.
[Alex] It's such a simple storytelling device. Oh, it's great though.
[Erica] Why is that first Mortal Kombat movie great? Tournament.
[Alex] Well, I would argue it's the music.
[Erica] It's also the music. You hit me with that fucking song.
[Alex] I would argue it's like 90% the music.
[Erica] But the tournament is at least 7.5% of that. You know what I
[Alex] was thinking about again the other day,

(01:40:13):
[Erica] man?
[Alex] We're going to go back to Street Fighter. Sure. That's the podcast.
[Erica] This is what we do. Yes. I...
[Alex] Can't even tell you how much to this day I love the soundtrack from Streets of Rage 2.
[Erica] Yeah.
[Alex] Do you remember that soundtrack?
[Erica] Vaguely, yes.
[Alex] Oh, my God, Erica. You and I should just sit down one night and just play through Streets of Rage 2 so you could hear all the music in this game. It's... fucking incredible

(01:40:44):
[Erica] yeah
[Alex] it's so great and this is one of like and this is one of these games right that was made by like six or eight people it's
[Erica] like chiptunes right yeah it's chiptunes yes
[Alex] and it's incredible it's so well done it's all kind of like that synth wave like dun dun dun dun didn't didn't you know it's like real simple stuff right where you want to be but it works and it works so well and it's like i mean literally just the fact that you're thinking about like someone like created this on like a goddamn midi keyboard like 30 years ago or something and had to make it work like on a sega genesis because again right you're dealing with like a limited sound situation

(01:41:29):
[Erica] even go back and think to like those sonic games and granted you have
[Alex] limited space
[Erica] limited space right the music from those games you hear green hill zone you're right back
[Alex] there
[Erica] Yeah, absolutely. They hit that shit in the movies, and you're like, Izzy went through a big Sonic phase a little while ago. We were watching those movies a lot. They're not great, but they're fine.

(01:42:01):
[Alex] And the thing is, not only is the music an all-time great soundtrack, but the gameplay is incredible, too. This is probably made by six people. Whoever, it's like the guy who made the, did all the music composing, his sister did all the art for the game. Like, it's like a few other people did the programming and everything. It's like, it's, I mean, that's the thing is back in the day, like in those, in those Nintendo or Sega Genesis games, they could pump out a game so fast because you just, one is like a lot simpler concept. Sure. And also you'd, You didn't have to make, like, this giant, expansive, 50-hour fucking thing.

(01:42:44):
[Erica] Well, I would argue you still don't have to. Like, this is kind of a choice that's being made. Like, you don't have to make the big 100-hour, $500 million, no chance in hell it's ever going to make its money back game. You can do simpler stuff that I genuinely think... People are starved for... Especially in the video game space. And I'm so out of it. I could be completely wrong. But simpler stuff that doesn't take as long.

(01:43:18):
[Alex] Well, the
[Erica] funny
[Alex] thing is... To
[Erica] play. Because I don't have that kind of time anymore.
[Alex] Yeah, I think the funny thing about video games now is... There's like... A lot of the multiplayer stuff is not that great because everything is just like we got to make the next live service game. Right. But the problem is, is that the winners are already set. Like everyone's already entrenched. So like Roblox and Fortnite and Call of Duty or Overwatch or whatever. I mean, everything kind of goes up and down. But the winners are kind of already determined. Right. So if you want to like get into that space, it's so fucking hard.

(01:43:57):
[Erica] Well, it's kind of like stupid to want to try and get into that space because it's very oversaturated. Like you said, who's taking down Overwatch? And Marvel Rivals is
[Alex] doing really well, but they're like coexisting.
[Erica] Sure.
[Alex] You can't take anything down anymore. The only time it gets taken down is by the executives who ruin a game themselves. Who fuck

(01:44:18):
[Erica] it up. Right, exactly. So to me, I think you should be looking at, okay, what's another genre that we can get into that maybe hasn't been done well in a while? And let's try and jump in on that.
[Alex] Ooh, there's a new Overwatch cinematic that I haven't shown you. Oh,
[Erica] is there? Interesting.

(01:44:39):
[Alex] They're always good, Erica. They
[Erica] are very good.
[Alex] They're
[Erica] very well animated. They're very well acted.
[Alex] Yeah. Well, anyways, for example, Bungie like a month ago or whatever came out with this game Marathon. And it's like an extraction shooter. I don't know. I don't even need to explain what the fuck that is. But basically like another one of these big multiplayer battle royale type bullshit. I

(01:45:02):
[Erica] honestly didn't even know Bungie was still around. Shell of its former self. Oh, yeah. Yeah.
[Alex] So here's what happened. I'll give you the quick history, the quick recent history of Bungie. They did everything they possibly could to fuck up Destiny. Like rampant mismanagement to the point that they needed to be bought or the company was going under.

(01:45:24):
[Erica] Which is wild.
[Alex] And Sony bought them. I think not realizing just how bad things were.
[Erica] This is all sounding vaguely familiar. I feel like we've talked about this probably a long time ago.
[Alex] And I bought them for like way too much, like $3 billion or something. Jesus. And quickly realized how bad things were, I think, and started laying off a lot of people and did not want to, by the way, because, see, Sony, what happened was that Sony wanted to make a push into the live service space. You know, Sony has a lot of successful single-player stuff, but they don't have successful multiplayer

(01:46:06):
[Erica] stuff, really. Yeah, you do think of Sony as more single-player games than that.
[Alex] And so they bought them and a large part of the buy was that they were going to retain the talent and pay them to stay around and help them develop other stuff. Sure. And lend them their expertise. Well, what they realized after they bought them, which I could have told them if anyone would have called me, is these people don't have any expertise anymore. There's no one leading the ship. Right. They don't know what the fuck they're doing. It's a goddamn disaster. And if you've been playing Destiny for any length of time, you would know that. So Destiny is like dead. Like I'm talking, I think last time I looked at the Steam charts, like maybe 5,000 people are playing at any given time, which for a multiplayer game is death.

(01:46:59):
[Erica] Bad.
[Alex] And so they launched this marathon game. And if you know anything about video games, extraction shooters are kind of like a niche genre to begin with. And so I think they had this grand plan, like, we're going to make the mass market extraction shooter. Well, I played the beta, and I knew this game ain't good. Dog shit. Now, that doesn't mean a game won't be successful. True. Very true. Because there's plenty of games that aren't good that are still

(01:47:23):
[Erica] successful. Very true.
[Alex] But it's not free to play, which is a major hurdle for multiplayer games now. It's like a $40 game. And there were other issues. So I was like, I am interested to see how this does. So apparently, apparently. I'm going to stop you
[Erica] for a second because I'm just sitting here and I'm watching. You're like speaking with the wrong hand. You got to be talking with your hand that doesn't have the microphone. Because you're going, you're all over the place with the mic. And it's going to be

(01:47:51):
[Alex] like... Whatever, people will figure it out.
[Erica] Hey, I'm not too worried about it.
[Alex] They'll hear enough.
[Erica] Exactly.
[Alex] So I can't remember what the numbers I saw were, but the budget seemed to be, from the speculation I heard... It was somewhere between like $250 to $300 million for this game. Jesus. And I think they sold like 1.2 million copies. So it's a mega disaster. Yeah. Like, I cannot believe they haven't shut the studio down yet. And I think what's saving Bungie at this point is a big part of Japanese culture. It's not like over here. If they admit that this is a disaster and they fire everybody, somebody's head's going to be on a goddamn spike.

(01:48:40):
[Erica] Sure. Probably multiple people. That much money,
[Alex] yeah. So... So, yeah, I mean, Destiny is fucked. Marathon, last I saw, has about 20,000 concurrent players at any given moment, which, again, for a game that you spent $300 million on. Not great. Is really bad. Yeah. That's so much money, Alex. Yeah, well, and that's just, that's pure manpower. That's because they're in Seattle, and it's an expensive place to live, so you got to pay people. Sure. You know, I mean, that's the thing of something like an Expedition 33 is because they were in fucking France somewhere making the game, they had 100 people or something working on it, but their cost of living isn't obscene. Sure. So it just doesn't cost as much to have those people working on the game. And I think that's the same thing you see with like CD Projekt Red. They're over there in Poland. God, you know the cost of living is fucking nothing. You know, I just don't, it's like, I get that people don't want to live in certain places, but why not just like open up a studio in Kentucky?

(01:49:48):
[Erica] Well, or like, you know, let people work from home and, you know, like then you could be anywhere.
[Alex] Yeah, and I mean, I think that could work for some people. I think with something like that, where it's, like, an artistic, like, collaborative thing, I could see work from home being an issue.
[Erica] Maybe a little bit of a problem, but I think with... I
[Alex] think there would be hurdles to overcome.

(01:50:10):
[Erica] Sure, like, you might have to, like, have big team meetings, like, you know, once a quarter, people got to fly out, and you're probably on Zoom a fair amount, but, I mean...
[Alex] But you're not spending an unbelievable amount of money employing people.
[Erica] Right, exactly.
[Alex] So I don't know. We're going to see what happens there. But, I mean, that's another example of someone trying to get in on a market and just failing miserably. Yeah, that's wild. Oh, on another note, so we're going to get back to Street Fighter. Don't worry.

(01:50:38):
[Erica] i'm sure all four of our listeners are very concerned
[Alex] uh well i'm about 25 ish hours into final fantasy 7 rebirth have you have you been playing anymore or no i gave up just gave up
[Erica] it's not a matter of giving up i just haven't had the time
[Alex] you gave up it's okay it's all right
[Erica] How are you finding it?

(01:50:59):
[Alex] I'm enjoying myself. I do think it's kind of funny how horny the game is. Like, I didn't play original Final Fantasy 7. The
[Erica] original was pretty horny as well.
[Alex] But like, Aerith and Tifa, oh my god, do they want Cloud? Real bad. And Tifa kind of tries to hide it. Aerith is like, Cloud, let's go on dates. Cloud's, let's fuck. Cloud, I'll do whatever you want.

(01:51:25):
[Erica] No, Aerith was always a little bit more overt. But really, the vibe that I got from what I played was like, they would be perfectly content to open that up to all three.
[Alex] Or maybe just the two of them.
[Erica] Yeah. Like, Cloud doesn't have to come. I mean, we're already sharing a bedroom. It's fine. Where are you at? Because I know there's some, obviously they're doing something a little different. I am

(01:51:48):
[Alex] kind of in the middle of like Costa del Sol. Oh,
[Erica] okay.
[Alex] So there's been like beach stuff.
[Erica] Did you have the fun boat ride across the ocean?
[Alex] I have not had a boat ride across the ocean.
[Erica] Oh, okay. Interesting. Interesting.
[Alex] Oh, there was a boat. No, no, no. You're right. There was a boat ride. Yes, yes, yes. There was a boat ride across the ocean. I apologize. I forgot about

(01:52:08):
[Erica] it. Any fun fights on the boat ride?
[Alex] There's some fun fights, yeah. Okay, cool. You do like another Queen's Blood tournament or something.
[Erica] Queen's Gambits or whatever. Yeah, Queen's
[Alex] Gambits. They love their mini games in this goddamn game. There's so many mini games. This is the thing. There's too many mini games.
[Erica] Did you... Because I don't want to say anything that's like spoilery, but... Because I don't want to ruin anything for you. Because there's a specific fight on that boat in the original that's kind of fun. That's like the first of its sort of...

(01:52:39):
[Alex] With the Jenova stuff? Yes.
[Erica] Yeah. That was fun. You get that music the first time? I love that Jenova theme.
[Alex] You know what's funny? This is unrelated somewhat, but I heard in original Final Fantasy VII that a lot of people found Yuffie annoying, but in Intergrade... Skill issue. Yuffie racks. In remake Intergrade... she's super fun and adorable and the little bit she's been in rebirth so far she's super fun and adorable here's

(01:53:09):
[Erica] the other thing she's 16 years old she's supposed to be annoying that's part of the charm
[Alex] at one point she's just like pissing off cloud like making copies of herself so everything you hear is like repeated seven times
[Erica] Amazing. Again.
[Alex] Cloud no-sells the whole thing, but you know he's just pissed off.
[Erica] Right. He's like begging for death. She's 16. She's a teenager. She's supposed to be annoying. This is the way of things.

(01:53:35):
[Alex] So I'm enjoying that. Still trying to figure out what my favorite party composition is. I mean, I normally just roll. I mean, the truth is the game's not that hard, so I can kind of play whatever. But I normally just roll like Cloud, Tifa, Aerith.
[Erica] That was mine in the original game until the inevitable happens. And then I slipped Yuffie into Aerith's role because I liked her limit breaks.

(01:54:01):
[Alex] Well, in Remake, it was a lot of Cloud, Barret, Aerith. But in this one, I've been using Tifa more because Tifa, I've kind of learned, is like a stagger machine. She can really stagger enemies fast. than other in ways that other characters really do not which is like her basic normal attacks sure um so that's why i've been using her more

(01:54:25):
[Erica] nice
[Alex] um and oh i by the way i followed through on my promise i installed a mod that made tifa's boobs the size of the moon
[Erica] did your friend notice didn't notice that's hysterical because we're not actually watching right there we go
[Alex] about 10 hours like that point proven never noticed i put the stream on for our most loyal listener within like three minutes he was like what's going on he was like i do not remember tifa's boobs being that big and he was like and then like 30 seconds later he was like did you install a mod

(01:55:01):
[Erica] amazing
[Alex] and she's like well i just i just never really looked and i was we were like we're like dude they're twice the size of her head like you don't have to look
[Erica] right you really don't have to look at all right exactly amazing
[Alex] anyways i unsolved the mod after that but i was just like this is unbelievable

(01:55:23):
[Erica] just waiting yeah
[Alex] And then I started because it just hit Game Pass, Hades 2. Oh,
[Erica] how are you finding it? I'm
[Alex] enjoying it. I enjoyed the hell out of it. You know what I'm finding the most difficult about it? Is they've added so many on-screen effects and animations that it's hard to see attacks coming.

(01:55:44):
[Erica] Sometimes, yes. I would agree with that. How far in have you gotten? Not
[Alex] that far. I mean, I haven't really played that much. I've only been playing for, like, a day. Oh, okay. I was just curious. Have you
[Erica] gotten upstairs yet? What's
[Alex] upstairs?
[Erica] Like, you can either go down or you can go up. Have you been up yet? No, I
[Alex] haven't been up yet, but I think I'll have to go up soon because there was, like, something. I got some, like, message from Olympus, like, we need your help.

(01:56:09):
[Erica] Yeah, you've got to, like, get as deep as you can to get, like, some... Stuff from there to cast a spell that allows you to be up there for, like, as long as you can be.
[Alex] Yeah, I beat, like, the Sirens. I love the Sirens. Which is, like, the second boss.
[Erica] Scylla and the Sirens, they're fun.

(01:56:30):
[Alex] But I don't think I've beaten, like, whatever the next boss is beyond that.
[Erica] Have you gotten to it?
[Alex] No, I don't think so. Okay, I won't spoil it for you then. Yeah, I think I usually die in, like, that watery area or something.
[Erica] Well, the Watery area is where Scylla is.
[Alex] Oh, no, you're right, yeah. Well, whatever's beyond that. The morning fields or whatever? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

(01:56:55):
[Erica] No, I had a lot of fun with it. Once I kind of beat it, got to some of the epilogues, there's still stuff to do, and I will come back to it, because it is a very fun game.
[Alex] I think I'm still trying to kind of figure out what abilities I like and everything. Oh, yeah, you've got to
[Erica] figure out your boon composition for sure.
[Alex] Yeah, I'm still trying to kind of figure that out. There's some good stuff. Like, there's the one where, like, when you kill an enemy, they explode, and then you get, like, these big chains of explosions. Oh, that's a good one. Yeah, I like that. For clearing out, like, weak enemies, that's great. But, yeah, I'm still trying to figure it out. I mean, I like that there's some cool stuff. Like, you need to use that, like, aura you can put down, that field that slows the enemies inside it.

(01:57:36):
[Erica] Oh, no, I do find that, like, I have a friend who doesn't use the magic at all, but I like having both the attacks, the physical attacks and the magic. I think that's kind of cool.
[Alex] Oh, yeah, yeah, you got to use all of it. So there's some interesting stuff there, like, where you can power up the attacks but use the other resource.
[Bob] Mm-hmm.
[Alex] Yeah, they did some cool little cool iterations on a good formula and all the art and the voice acting, the music is all really good. So I'm interested to kind of see what's going on and everything. I assume the headmistress or whatever is up to something. She seems like a schemer. Maybe not. Maybe she's just a great person. But she seems like a schemer. Perhaps. So we'll have to see.

(01:58:18):
[Erica] I love the siren songs. Those are great. Skill is great. Yeah. The design is outstanding too. I got there for the first time and I was like, this is wonderful. But like you said, a good iteration on a very, very good game.
[Alex] I like her little friend, Nora or whatever, the ghost, whatever it is. Oh, Dora. Dora.

(01:58:40):
[Erica] Yeah, she's fun. Have you gotten Lord Moros yet?
[Alex] Yeah, one time.
[Erica] Love him. He's great. He's my good time boy. Who else?
[Alex] I've started giving out gifts to get their little keepsakes.
[Erica] There you go. Nice. I've
[Alex] been using the one that gives you an extra life because that just, you know, especially early on, that's great.

(01:59:04):
[Erica] Oh, yeah. That's a good one. I really liked it. I had a lot of fun with that game.
[Alex] So Street Fighter. I mean, here's the thing. Okay. It looks so bad and so corny. It
[Erica] looks very cheaply made.
[Alex] It does also look like it's like low budget garbage. I mean, I'm hoping at least the choreography is good. Here's the thing. I think that movie will likely... I think this is the thing. Even if the story makes no fucking sense, I think this movie is completely dependent on the charisma of the actors, line delivery and having good lines for them to deliver, and the fight scenes. And I think that's really all that matters. If the movie itself, like if the story, the overarching story, is fucking dog shit, I don't think that even matters. Here's

(01:59:56):
[Erica] the thing. It could be the dumbest story. If I'm having a good time, I genuinely don't care. And if you're going to give me good fights, some fun one-liners of dialogue, that's all I care about. Because when was the last time we had, like... Again, I'm trying to think of, like, a tournament-based kind of thing where you just had a bunch of, like, an action movie with a bunch of good fights. Well,

(02:00:24):
[Alex] just in general, there's just not enough action movies. No. There just isn't. Like, and they don't seem to be on anything. Like, you were kind of saying earlier, like, where's the rom-coms? It's like, if you go on Netflix or Amazon Prime or whatever. You can find that shit. There's a million. of these, like, shitty rom-coms with, like, soap opera actors or whatever. Sure. Like, fucking Minka Kelly is in, like, every single one of these. I have no idea

(02:00:50):
[Erica] who that
[Alex] is. She was on one of those fucking Fox shows. But I'm just saying, like, if you saw her once, you'd see her in four of these. Sure,
[Erica] sure,
[Alex] sure. I can't remember the name of all these women, but it's always the same men and women that are in all these fucking stupid rom-coms. Mm-hmm. It's like that's where... Who's Daredevil? Not Daredevil. Deadpool.

(02:01:12):
[Erica] Ryan Reynolds.
[Alex] Ryan Reynolds was in like every rom-com ever. Oh, that's right. Yeah, he earned his bread and butter there, baby. Until Deadpool, it was like all rom-coms.
[Erica] Yep.
[Alex] Which is what happens to most attractive men. But... Are you making money? Who fucking cares? Oh, Deadpool. But... Yeah, I think they say from the trailer, I have some hope of So Bad It's Good. I have some hope.

(02:01:42):
[Erica] I could get into Fun Bad, Alex. We haven't had a good Fun Bad movie in a while. I'm totally
[Alex] fine with Fun Bad. Mortal Kombat's fucking terrible, but it's So Bad It's Good.
[Erica] It's still
[Alex] the best video game movie ever made to this day.
[Erica] Correct. I would wholeheartedly agree with that. I
[Alex] know there's some dorks out there that would be like, oh, what about that Super Mario Brothers movie? And it was fine and everything. It was

(02:02:03):
[Erica] fine.
[Alex] But it wasn't like... It's cute, but it's fine. I'm not going to remember it for the rest of my life. Like, that music from that Mortal Kombat movie, I'll be able to hum that on my deathbed.
[Erica] Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. So good. What was I going to say? And I will say that Mortal Kombat 2, that also.

(02:02:25):
[Alex] Terrible.
[Erica] If we're going to do the tournament thing, same criteria. You're giving me good fights. What's the guy's name? He's in the boys. I can see.
[Alex] Oh. You know who I'm talking about. Yeah, Australian actor. Yeah. New
[Erica] Zealand, wherever he's from. What the hell is his name?
[Alex] Oh, my God. Don't do this to me.
[Erica] It's not Keith Urban, is it?
[Alex] No. Carl Urban.

(02:02:46):
[Erica] Carl Urban. There it is. I like him. He's fun. And he's Johnny Cage, I think. So we're just going with a character that's in the fucking games and not some random ass new person. And we're doing a tournament?
[Alex] Okay. Every time I think about Carl Urban, I think about that Dread movie.
[Erica] How good is that movie?
[Alex] Mama's not the law. I am the law.

(02:03:09):
[Erica] So good. Simple, stripped down. That's another one.
[Alex] That's essentially a tournament movie.
[Erica] Yeah, we got to get from point A to point B.
[Alex] That is literally a video game movie of proceeding through levels of difficulty in different boss encounters to get to the big bad. Yep. That's literally a video game layout of a movie.

(02:03:30):
[Erica] And it's like, you've got recognizable people in there. Him, obviously. You had Cersei.
[Alex] Lena. Lena Headey or whatever.
[Erica] You had the one dude from The Wire. Fuck, I can't remember his name. But nobody like crazy big stars. But
[Alex] probably made on some shoestring fucking budget.

(02:03:51):
[Erica] Fun. Pure
[Alex] style.
[Erica] Had to like, OK, we got to figure out how we're going to make this because we don't have all of the money in the universe. Great action. Well, there's a thing. It's like that one's getting up there now, too.
[Alex] Yeah,
[Erica] that's a long time ago.
[Alex] Yeah, for sure. But this is the thing. It's like back in the day. You think about like like in a fucking Super Nintendo game had to fit on like an eight megabyte cartridge or something. You can't even make a fucking Word document anymore that's eight megabytes. You know what I mean? Could you imagine the creativity that was required?

(02:04:26):
[Erica] Well, this is part of the problem. It's because we have unlimited resources and the computer can do everything for us. We don't have to think about it anymore. Oh, we'll just do it later. It doesn't matter. We don't have to think about how we're going to get it done because we have the money to do it and the resources to do it. Like back when it was, well, fuck, we've got some duct tape, we've got a stick, and we've got some fireworks. How are we going to make this movie? You had to actually think through it and come up with clever solutions. And interesting camera angles. You had to actually think through this crap. And that's where the art came from. People were allowed to apply their craft in order to make shit good. It's art from adversity.

(02:05:13):
[Alex] Yeah, I mean, there was stuff like, I forget, I think it was Oblivion. They got some story about like when, like a certain thing would happen in the game. I think it was like when you would hit a certain part of the game, there would be so much stuff loaded into memory that they literally had to figure out a way to reboot the system on the fly to load up the next part of the game without you noticing that they rebooted the Xbox.

(02:05:39):
[Erica] That's wild.
[Alex] And it's like, imagine having to come up with like a, I mean, stuff like Resident Evil 2 on the N64. That was originally a PlayStation game. So they had way more storage to work with. And they had to find a way to compress all the full motion video that was in that game into like a 64 megabyte cartridge. Yep. it's like people used to have come up with all these crazy ass solutions to problems that now they're just like well whatever the game's 120 gigs it's like well and

(02:06:12):
[Erica] we our budget is astronomical so it doesn't matter yeah
[Alex] we'll just delay it and just spend another 50 million dollars
[Erica] right and then it won't make its targets and we'll all get laid off exactly
[Alex] Well, and that's such a stressful situation to work into where it's like, okay, if we succeed, we're probably all going to get fired. And if we fail, we're probably all going to get fired. We're definitely all going to get

(02:06:38):
[Erica] fired. Yeah. Cool. It sucks. It genuinely sucks. That's why I do want to start seeing, and I hope you're starting to move towards it, you do start seeing more smaller indie studios. You know, maybe they're not big teams, maybe we don't have huge budgets, but what can we make with this? Let's do that in...

(02:07:03):
[Alex] And I do feel like that's part of what a Netflix has done is they've gone out and been like, okay, we need content, right? Sure. So we're just going to pick up every fucking bullshit TV show or movie we can find and just throw it out there. But it would be nice if it was a little bit more than like, hey, here's another. I feel like when I go on Netflix, it's all like rom-coms or period pieces. or like kids stuff. And it's like, can we, why don't we branch out? Like, why don't you go try to find, find a director and a writer or something who want to make like a martial arts movie for $10 million and be like, figure it out.

(02:07:45):
[Erica] Right. Here's your budget. Let's go.
[Alex] Yeah, but I don't know. Whatever. I mean, I don't know how their business works, so I don't know what the fuck drives them over there. I mean, I
[Erica] don't think that they know how their business works very well either. Because again, I know a few people who work in the industry, and it's all tech bros who don't care. They're just interested in the bottom line, and how can we make line go up? They don't care about... The art of it all, the long term. What can we do right now to make stock and our shit go up? Because if it doesn't, we'll just sell it. Or some right wing maniac rich asshole want to buy us and we can just sell and then we'll all have all of the money and it won't matter. I

(02:08:29):
[Alex] got a question for you.
[Erica] Sure.
[Alex] What in the flying fuck has the ghost of Bob been up to for like the past hour now? I
[Erica] think he's packing. So he's moving around a lot. But it does definitely sound like he's coming through the ceiling. We need to do the test one day where one of us goes up there and just walks around. Because every time we're down, he's up there. It sounds like he's going to come through the

(02:08:53):
[Alex] ceiling. The packing makes sense. I had forgotten that he told me he was going somewhere. Yeah, he's moving around. I was just like, what in the fuck could he be up to at 11 o'clock at night? He's packing.
[Erica] And why would pack earlier so you could go to bed? Because I think his friend is picking him up at like 6 in the morning. Oh,
[Alex] my God. What a
[Erica] maniac. Right? Nice little day planned tomorrow. Izzy's going to be at school. I got some errands I got to run. And then she's going by Grandma and Papa for a sleepover. Oh. Erica's got the night all to herself. Erica's got the night off. I'm going to go. My buddy's getting a tattoo done, so we're going to go see her because she's going to be in the chair for a minute, bring her some snacks, come home, get myself some Asian food. I haven't decided what yet. I don't know if I'm going to go ramen. I don't know if I'm going to go Korean. There's a Filipino place on a little north of here that I really enjoy, but they don't deliver, so you've got to go get it. Well,

(02:09:50):
[Alex] that's just too much effort. It's so good, though, Alex.
[Erica] Because there's really not a lot of good Filipino here that delivers. You've got to go and get it. No, I've got a nice little evening planned for myself. And then maybe take myself out on Saturday morning, get myself a nice coffee. We'll see.
[Alex] You only get the one night? Just the one? Yeah.
[Erica] Yeah, you know, you don't want to... I think my parents had plans on Saturday. And you don't want to push... We've done the two-night sleepover. We've done that once. And they said it was fine. Because I went to Gen Con last year. And then Bob had a race he had wanted to go to. Or that he was running that same weekend. Because he was like, well, you're going to be gone. It was my birthday weekend. And I was like, if you want to run, but we've got to make sure, you know... Grandma and Papa are okay with, you know, like 72 hours with a very energetic five-year-old. And they were. It's not something that they would probably do all the time, but the older she gets, the little easier it gets. But she likes to play. She'll still sit and watch TV, but she wants to be, like, doing stuff. Which is good. Oh, yeah. You don't want the kid just sitting in front of the TV all day. Yes,

(02:11:06):
[Alex] that's the worst thing for kids. Yeah. The TV is a powerful hypnotic tool and should be kept away from kids as much as possible.
[Erica] You really do just got to make sure you're monitoring what they're watching because I feel like so much shit, it's so easy to either slip into slop or the right-wing propaganda pipeline. And Bob's got it pretty well locked down here. She doesn't have any access to YouTube without one of us sitting there with her because I know some people just sit and give their kid a tablet and it's just like... No, that's a bad idea. You can't do that.

(02:11:41):
[Alex] That's just lazy parenting.
[Erica] Well, unfortunately, that's what a lot of people do.
[Alex] Teach their own. You gotta deal with the
[Erica] repercussions one day. I get it. Sometimes it is easier to just be like, here's your fucking tablet. I need a minute. Leave me alone for a little while. I gotta get dinner going. But, you know, if they'd rather be coloring or fucking around with something else or just let them go.

(02:12:08):
[Alex] You know what, man? It's like... I don't know, dude. When we were kids, it's like my day would fly by just playing with fucking Legos or something. I mean, it's like you don't. You didn't need the TV. I mean, obviously, when I eventually had my own little fucking TV, I would just play video games all day. Oh, sure,

(02:12:31):
[Erica] sure. But a video game is better than just sitting and staring. Because video games interact. You're an active participant, and you have to be doing shit, right?
[Alex] Yeah, a video game. Especially back when we were younger, too, when video games were harder. You had to solve problems.
[Erica] Yeah, exactly.
[Alex] You know, like something like, I mean, like you think about some of those games on the NES, those games were not holding your goddamn hand. I mean, it was like, you're going to figure this out or you're going to lose on the same goddamn level over and over and over again,

(02:13:04):
[Erica] bitch. Yep. Yep. No game facts anywhere, baby. The
[Alex] Japanese do not believe in easy. They believe in struggle.
[Erica] Yep. Yep, yep, yep. I love it.
[Alex] Well, on that note, you got anything else?
[Erica] No, I don't think so. Holding out for hope that we get some fun bad.

(02:13:26):
[Alex] We'll know soon enough, I suppose. And hopefully we'll find a way to do the podcast more often. My fault. I'll take the blame.
[Erica] I think it's both of us, but it's all
[Alex] right. Hug me. Hold me tight.

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SI #146 – We Recorded Again!

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}SI #146 – We Recorded Again!