Fire Escape Cast #101

On this episode of Fire Escape, Mike and Mary talk about a new rat game and Dan waxes poetic about Avowed.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:11):
Hello, everyone, Welcome back to the fire Escape Cast. It
is episode what one hundred and one?

Speaker 2 (00:18):
Whoa one on one done?

Speaker 3 (00:23):
We would crumble on our one hundredth episode and the.

Speaker 1 (00:28):
Mike was doing voices back in the forties and they
thought that would bring us down. Mary was talking about
Nixon way too much in the sixties. Dan had his
Vince McMahon fate. Well, he still likes Vince McMahon, but
we just don't talk about it as much. True. So
here we are episode one oh one. I'm Mike Mahari.
That's Mary Kish. Hello.

Speaker 3 (00:46):
We almost we did almost break up on episode one hundred.
I think that was probably one of the most intense conversations.
But people liked it.

Speaker 4 (00:56):
I think people liked it.

Speaker 5 (00:57):
I had a second wave of being annoyed because I
forgot because I was probably several drinks deep by the
point this happened, so I forgot it happened. But I
saw someone be like, Wow, I can't believe Mary was
arguing Diablo too is more influential than Mario sixty four.
And I saw that comment, and I'm like, what about
a comment about our own podcast?

Speaker 1 (01:17):
I forgot about it, got mad about again. You made
a noise I've never heard you make. When she said that,
you did like that point where it was just being yeah,
it did okay, Mary, Like I I think someone can
easily like Diablo too more than Mario and it can
be more important in their life. But like, yeah, I
think Mary was just trying to she'ld be in a state

(01:38):
on you.

Speaker 4 (01:38):
At that point.

Speaker 3 (01:39):
I just didn't have much to work with. But I
know that Diablo two is really important to me, so
I was like, I think it is more influential. And
then I think what I said something was like, you know,
I made the assumption that how I feel is probably
how everyone else feels, and it should win. But I
did lose that battle. I think the only thing that

(01:59):
was really valuable was when the Witch a three.

Speaker 2 (02:04):
One in the past episode.

Speaker 5 (02:06):
In the past episodes, the important thing is big personal news.
You remember my tea kettle in the background. Oh the furnace, Yeah,
I remember the furnace sound. Yeah, it's been plaguing my recordings. Well,
I was gonna call a furnace guy, which I don't
even know where you'd start with that. I don't even
just google furnace guy. But the vent is up above

(02:27):
my reach, and so I was like, I don't want
to go upstairs and get a step stool and just
see if there's something clogged in there. And then I
was like, wait, I got all these WrestleMania chairs down here,
like I've got like twelve chairs from like WrestleMania as
I've sat in, and so I just brought it in here.
I stood up there and I just touched the vent
while I was making the noise, and it just stopped
making the noise.

Speaker 1 (02:46):
Ling.

Speaker 5 (02:47):
I just pushed it in a little bit, and now
no no longer making that noise. So I sold the rug.
I just took the rug the FedEx. Today it's like
I don't need this joker anymore. It wouldn't do anything anyway.

Speaker 1 (02:56):
So but so, okay, so you prefer the room without
the rug by default? What's that You prefer the room
without the rug, and you wanted to get rid of
it because you wanted to see the floor.

Speaker 5 (03:10):
I was, uh, sometimes I like to do like stretches
and stuff on the hard floor, and being on a
slippy little rug thing I didn't like. And so I
moved it over closer to that door, and I told Bonk, like,
oh I definitely like it over there better because then
I have more of the hardwood floor. She's like, wait,
the thing you like about the rug now is that
it's not on the floor. We're oh, yeah, that's a

(03:32):
good point. I should just get rid of it. And
so I get rid of it.

Speaker 2 (03:34):
So you brought it where? Did you just get to FedEx?
Oh you returned it?

Speaker 1 (03:38):
Yes, yes, I found that often if there's a noise
that's annoying me in the apartment, is something's loose and
I just have to tighten it. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (03:46):
I just touched it and it just stopped.

Speaker 1 (03:47):
Like our our like combo washer dryer we have makes
loud noises, and anytime I just lightly touched my finger
to the bottom right corner, the whole plastic like facade
stops shaking.

Speaker 2 (03:59):
It's like, oh, it's just loose. Then I taped it. Yeah, look,
home owners.

Speaker 3 (04:04):
Yeah, you are not doing the job. Touching things and
hoping that they work and returning carpets is not normal.

Speaker 5 (04:13):
There's a problem in my house. I got to work
on it, and now it's not a problem.

Speaker 1 (04:18):
The problems gone.

Speaker 5 (04:19):
I was standing on top of chairs and touching metal stuff.

Speaker 4 (04:23):
He's thinking about stuff he'sensive.

Speaker 3 (04:25):
You have stumbled through life yet again. But I will
not give you any like credence nortal for it.

Speaker 1 (04:33):
You know how I imagine Dan looking while he's working
at his house. You know those photos where people pretend
to be thinking as if there's not a camera there
in the garden when they make announcements and they're just like, oh,
I just have news. I just I'm very pensive right now.
I'm thinking about the future. That's how I imagine Dan being.

Speaker 5 (04:48):
I'm always pensive and I'm always thinking about things. That's
my whole deal.

Speaker 1 (04:51):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (04:51):
No, if I'm thinking about stuff like all the time,
I'm awake.

Speaker 1 (04:54):
I do fix stuff for real here too. Have I
told you about robes Pierre, He's the it's the event
on the room that was screaming once. What we had
a like crazy windstorm, uh it You know those like
circular vents that rotate on city roofs around the like
smoke stacks.

Speaker 2 (05:14):
Oh yeah, the crazy metal things.

Speaker 1 (05:15):
Yeah, we had such a like intense windstorm two years
ago that it like bent the metal so it was
just scraping against the rod, the axle at the center.
I went up to the roof and I just WD
forty did it and then but then it made the
noise again next year, so I actually had to like
pry the metal back into place. It's fine now, but
I do fix stuff. I don't just tape everything. It's
not all band aids.

Speaker 4 (05:37):
What what'd you fix?

Speaker 1 (05:38):
Mary?

Speaker 4 (05:39):
Tell us what your house?

Speaker 2 (05:40):
Are you not judging us?

Speaker 1 (05:42):
Oh?

Speaker 4 (05:42):
Yeah, you got your dvate septum on?

Speaker 2 (05:44):
Oh yeah, how was that good?

Speaker 3 (05:48):
The reason we recorded so early, Thank you both of
you for recording early, was because I had surgery the
next day and I was like, oh crap, I probably
won't be able to talk or do any thing for
several days because I'll be on drugs. So we recorded
our one hundredth episode early, and then I got my
surgery that following morning, and uh, they knocked me out

(06:10):
for it, and I woke up a couple hours later.
I assume this is what happened to you, Dan, and
they packed me full of gaze. It was probably one
of the most uncomfortable days of my life. I you
did warn me, but this severely uncomfort.

Speaker 4 (06:28):
Your face wake up pain in.

Speaker 3 (06:29):
Front nose, septum surgery.

Speaker 1 (06:32):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (06:32):
The thing I'm shocked about is that you said you
got the stense out the next day, like I had
four for hours. I actually had like a week of
being able to breathe through my nose, Like, yeah, how
long until you could breathe out of your nose?

Speaker 1 (06:44):
Uh?

Speaker 3 (06:44):
Within twenty four hours? So yeah. The first day was miserable.
You can't breathe at all, and I'm trying to breathe
through my mouth, but it's painful. And I would wake
up like every one to two hours because I would
need a sip of water because my throat was dry
because I was breathing on my mouth. So had it's
terrible sleep Monday night. And then Tuesday, I went right

(07:06):
back in and he was like, let's see how you're healing.
He pulled out my stents, the things that he shoved
up my nose and I could breathe, and he was like, sick,
you got some stitches in there. Don't get punched in
your face. And I was like, you got it, Bud.
And I went home and I slept like a baby.
It was great. And I slept all Tuesday like that,
evening throughout until Wednesday. And then I went back to

(07:28):
work on Wednesday and I was fine. I was on
like pain killers a little bit for like Wednesday through Friday,
but I mean, I feel I feel I know they
were intense, but I feel I was fine, Like I
was breathing and sleeping normally Tuesday on.

Speaker 5 (07:43):
Okay, that's good to hear, because you have mine was
like four operations on top of the sinnest thing. So
that must be the discrepancy in like a week for
me a day for you.

Speaker 3 (07:52):
They were really in there, you know, whereas like for mine,
he was like, I straightened your tubes out and I said,
thank you very much, and he was like, good, you
should be good. Just don't let anything. He said, don't
fall and hit your nose and don't have anyone punch
you in your nose. And I said, I can handle that.
And I think we're back. It's been two weeks now.

(08:14):
I feel totally fine. I breathe amazing. I fully recommended it.
I know we've like talked about this before, especially for years,
but I have to say, if anyone's been thinking about it,
I have slept with nose strips on my nose for years.
I have just dealt with it and been like, oh yeah,
to go to sleep at night, I must have a
strip on my nose because I can't breathe good. I

(08:36):
don't need that anymore. I breathe perfectly fine in the evening.
It's so much easier even doing little things like working out.
I swear to God food has more flavor, and I
think that's because I was stuffed up when I was
eating and I couldn't smell the food. Prob really, so
it really has dramatically increased my quality of life. And

(08:56):
I'm thrilled that I die. I have no regrets.

Speaker 5 (09:00):
Hell, yeah, that's awesome. Yeah, it's great when you were
like over the hump with that stuff. It's it's awful
when it's like going on. But then once it's all settled,
it's okay.

Speaker 2 (09:07):
That was worth doing.

Speaker 3 (09:08):
Yeah, that was super worth it. So that was my
big fixer upper was my own face. I did not
do my own surgery. But I also didn't pretend that
I fixed it by touching it. So I feel like
I'm still on the up from you guys.

Speaker 1 (09:22):
I love you face.

Speaker 3 (09:24):
Thank you.

Speaker 1 (09:25):
That's great.

Speaker 5 (09:26):
I'm gonna put it under on Thursday for a little
thing today I got. I'm going to get a what
do you call it? An inflats?

Speaker 3 (09:33):
What are you missing.

Speaker 2 (09:36):
Eighteen. I was eighteen and I lost that.

Speaker 3 (09:37):
Get a gold one in there.

Speaker 5 (09:39):
I could, Oh, no, I'm just gonna get a normal one.
But they got to do a sinus lift first, so
they got to lift my sinus up and put some
fake bone in there, and then put a screw in
there and all this stuff. So yeah, they told me
when I was eighteen, and I was like, just take
it out, and they're like, you sure we can save
that tooth.

Speaker 2 (09:53):
I was like, bad, just take it out.

Speaker 5 (09:55):
And then it was like twenty plus years of like,
oh wow, I wish I could chew on this side
of my face, and then like now my sinuses and
the bone structure were all fucked up.

Speaker 2 (10:02):
Probably should have listened to the dentist people when I was.

Speaker 3 (10:04):
Ever put a straw in that tooth hole.

Speaker 2 (10:07):
No, I never have, or like drink here, but I
don't have a straw tarnish in there. I guess this
this this week with my last chance.

Speaker 3 (10:15):
Yeah wait, now we're a farmer, Is that where you'd
put your straw?

Speaker 2 (10:19):
Yeah?

Speaker 5 (10:19):
Well, if I moved to like Los Angeles, when I
got off the bus and I showed want to show
that I was a hay seed from Kansas.

Speaker 2 (10:25):
That's where I would put the straw.

Speaker 3 (10:26):
Yeah yeah, tooth hoole.

Speaker 1 (10:30):
Or if you're a getaway driver who wears bomber jackets
and toothpicks in his mouth, that's where it would go.
And you'd stare at Kerry Mulligan for ten seconds without
saying anything.

Speaker 3 (10:39):
There's a stack of toothpicks in that because you could
put more than one toothpick in that hole, and then
you could like give them to other people that need
a toothpick.

Speaker 1 (10:46):
Cool.

Speaker 4 (10:46):
I think people you can put like a Roman candle
in there.

Speaker 2 (10:49):
Oh yeah, yeah, cigarette or not, all sorts of I'm
going to cancel the surgery. I'm going to keep it
like this. This seems great.

Speaker 1 (10:56):
Keep the keep the hole. There's too much cool stuff
you could do with that hole.

Speaker 2 (11:02):
Dude, man, I had twenty years of this hole and
I didn't know what to do with it.

Speaker 3 (11:06):
Now you're running out of time.

Speaker 4 (11:13):
I'm still pretty lost.

Speaker 1 (11:16):
Yeah, I'm the only one who has not had a
surgery during the fire escape tenure cave up.

Speaker 4 (11:21):
I know we'll figure something out.

Speaker 1 (11:23):
That's right. Bones broke bones, there's never got them fixed.
I think I.

Speaker 2 (11:28):
Broke another knuckle. Maybe Mary you broke this one.

Speaker 3 (11:33):
I'm not liable. I'm not liable for that. I was
the one in the room when it happened.

Speaker 2 (11:37):
Well, that's true.

Speaker 5 (11:38):
The one right next to it has not been bending
right and it's been hurting in it ever since. That's
when I smashed the vege slicer on it, and like
all the bleeding stuff is long done. That was weeks ago,
but I still can't bend it right. And I did
close the veget slicer on the knuckle.

Speaker 1 (11:51):
I don't I think you're talking about the veggie slicer
as if we've talked about it. But I don't think
we've talked about it, Mary, unless I'm mistaken.

Speaker 5 (11:57):
Oh, short version, I slammed my hand and a veggie
slicer gathered all over the blaze.

Speaker 1 (12:03):
Talk Wait, was the blood from just like crushing it
or did the actual blade hit your hand.

Speaker 5 (12:08):
A bunch of the blades because it was one of
those like fine like like waffle ticktac toe.

Speaker 2 (12:13):
Things, And.

Speaker 5 (12:15):
Yeah, I was cleaning it and I like dropped it,
and as I dropped it, I somehow put my right
hand into it and slammed it shut with the left hand.
I don't know how that happened. But I just looked
down and it hurt real bad for a second, and
I just saw blood start pouring out like five different cuts,
and so I just like wrapped a towel around he
real quickness, like buck. She just runs in and she
she told me, like she's seen this before. We're I'll

(12:37):
just be yelling and she's like, I'm gonna walk into
the room and I don't know what I'm going about
to see and it's just me, just blood all over
a towel and no, she cleaned me up and stuff.
So but it still won't bend, right.

Speaker 3 (12:47):
Was it your vegetables? Yeah, okay, so you used the
vegetable slicer properly and then upon cleaning, you destroyed your hand.

Speaker 2 (12:57):
That's great, Okay, just making sure.

Speaker 4 (12:59):
Sure that's how you messed your hand up, to.

Speaker 3 (13:02):
Make sure I understand that it wasn't in the process
of like slicing cucumbers.

Speaker 1 (13:07):
Yeah. I burnt it on the air fryer like an
hour ago too. Okay, I take it back. You really
should not cook like this is. We've mead the whole
situation pretty good.

Speaker 4 (13:18):
At there's blades held of that sometimes.

Speaker 3 (13:21):
He almost chopped his finger off microwaving a factor meal.

Speaker 4 (13:25):
Yeah, job hazard of being Dan Riker.

Speaker 5 (13:28):
I'm getting used to it. I'm getting a little more
used to it now. I still keep getting hurt over
and over again.

Speaker 3 (13:33):
But yeah, you gotta be careful with your fings. You
only get so many of those bad boys, and they're
pretty valuable. I feel like you need them, especially to
do your job. You know, like there's really though fxterity.

Speaker 5 (13:50):
I mean, it's not like I'm talking about stuff way
more than I'm like playing stuff for typing stuff these days,
I can talk.

Speaker 3 (13:56):
But if you had eight fingers, do you think that
you would be as good at your job?

Speaker 2 (14:02):
I mean, I played a bunch of games with the
broken finger, and that was nine.

Speaker 3 (14:07):
I said eight, and that the other ones are gone.

Speaker 2 (14:11):
Oh they're just missing entirely.

Speaker 3 (14:13):
Yeah, you can pick which ones all.

Speaker 2 (14:15):
I'd make it work. There's great strides and accessibility these days.

Speaker 3 (14:19):
It's true. I do think you're making a lot of
excuses for you to lose fingers.

Speaker 2 (14:26):
I don't, For the record, I don't want to lose
any part of my body.

Speaker 3 (14:31):
You'd like to keep them?

Speaker 5 (14:32):
All I'm gonna get I'm adding to it I'm putting
a fake tooth in there himself.

Speaker 4 (14:39):
Soon he'll be unstoppable.

Speaker 3 (14:40):
Yeah, he's gonna have eleven fingers and no holes.

Speaker 2 (14:44):
Gonna be like three more shoulders. Yeah, it's like dis
x mankind divided. I would do that.

Speaker 5 (14:49):
I would do, like seriously, if it was like a
reputable company and it wasn't some like weird neuralink elon
musk thing. I would just if they were like, yeah,
we can chop off your head and give you a
good robot body and it's safe, I would absolutely do it.

Speaker 3 (15:02):
We can rebuild him, we can fill the holes.

Speaker 5 (15:04):
Yeah, my holes, what I say to the doctor, Yeah,
why are they looking at me?

Speaker 2 (15:12):
Weird?

Speaker 3 (15:12):
They love it? Well, I'm glad we have no back.
Did you have me?

Speaker 2 (15:18):
Mike, Mike, get out of the disorges. Talk about the
glitterists all day, Mike, Mike, stop talking. They jacked off
in a right for us.

Speaker 5 (15:26):
We got to just kick him out of kick him
out of the call, kick him out, kick him out.

Speaker 4 (15:30):
That poor man, that's my best friend.

Speaker 3 (15:33):
He did say those things.

Speaker 2 (15:34):
Though he did say those things, it's true.

Speaker 1 (15:41):
Doesn't know where the glitterist is.

Speaker 3 (15:42):
What else is going on? I feel like he does,
I'm sure leave him alone. I send him a bunch
of salt.

Speaker 2 (15:49):
Mike, Yeah, we had.

Speaker 3 (15:52):
We had a nice conversation over Christmas break or somewhere
around there games the Game Awards where we were talking
about salt and he had only had like one kind,
and so I asked for his address, and I sent
him three different types of chicken salt so that he
could taste them and taste the differences of them.

Speaker 4 (16:10):
Was it that Portland company that you gave us finishing
salt from?

Speaker 3 (16:14):
No, but I do really like the finishing. We're big
salt people here, but this is more of an Australian
thing because Australians like chicken salt on their fries. It's
just salt that's flavored like chicken. It usually has MSG,
but it's like a heavy flavor component there, so you're
not just having salted anything, you're having chicken flavored salt. Anyway,

(16:34):
we have three different types of chicken salt in this
house because it's a big deal, and I sent all
three different types to Mike so he could taste the
differences of them.

Speaker 2 (16:44):
Is he reported back?

Speaker 3 (16:45):
Yeah, he liked the one that had the most MSG,
which I think is okay the.

Speaker 5 (16:50):
Word on MSG these days, because I feel like in
the nineties it was like whoa, we got to put
no MSG on the packaging and stuff, and like now
you don't ever hear about it, so are we just
cool with MSG now?

Speaker 2 (16:59):
I don't even know what it is.

Speaker 3 (17:00):
I think it was like a satanic panic type thing
where everyone was like, no one could determine it. Yeah,
nobody could actually like mono making sure that it actually
was anything. And it is just a form of salt,
so it's not for you. It doesn't give you headaches.

Speaker 1 (17:16):
And I thought it was she was a form of sugar.

Speaker 2 (17:19):
What does Satan have to do with it?

Speaker 4 (17:20):
No, she's just saying it's like comparing it to Okay,
I thought it was.

Speaker 1 (17:26):
I thought it was a kind of sugar that's like
supposed to be a I think the narrative was that
it's people put it in food to addict you. That
was the narrative. And like the early aughts.

Speaker 3 (17:35):
Oh, I thought it was that it gave people headaches.

Speaker 2 (17:37):
It sounds like it's okay. Now I'm looking at it now,
it seems.

Speaker 3 (17:40):
Sounds like it's okay. Yeah, it's it's always been okay.
And now culturally it's being more accepted. And I think
Mike is also right in the sense that like there's
a little there's like a tinge of racism in there
as well.

Speaker 2 (17:52):
Yeah, I'm saying that too.

Speaker 3 (17:53):
It's an Asian food thing, and like we don't want
that at our food And it's like it's freaking salt.
Like let it go.

Speaker 1 (17:59):
Speak assault and headaches and a mystery ingredient and French fries.

Speaker 4 (18:05):
I got quite a segue. It's gonna connect all four
of those things.

Speaker 3 (18:07):
I'm really excited about this.

Speaker 1 (18:08):
Have you ever talked to anybody who says that the
sulfights in red wine give them headaches?

Speaker 2 (18:14):
You know, not really talking to many people about wine,
to be.

Speaker 1 (18:17):
Sure, But the people who think that they're allergic to
sulfights in red wine love to bring it up. It's
like being it's like CrossFit or being vegan. They can't
now talk about it. Sure, there are more sulfights in
the average French fry than there are in a bottle
of red wine. The amount of sulfur that's added to
stabilize a wine after or to stop fermentation, or to

(18:39):
clarify it. And this is after six weeks of studying
taking night classes.

Speaker 5 (18:46):
Yeah, but you've also been screencapping his Instagram stories about
wine and my father and so much.

Speaker 1 (18:55):
No, I'm just saying anybody who thinks that red wine
gives them headaches because the sulfights you're there's more cellfites
in French fries than there are in red wine. You're
probably getting a headache because you're not drinking water and
you're drinking too much red wine.

Speaker 4 (19:07):
That's probably what's doing it.

Speaker 1 (19:09):
Or maybe there's some other chemical in red wine that's
giving you a headache that white wine doesn't. But it's
not cell fites. Yeah, dumb asses, No, tannins are tannins.
I guess you could have a reaction. If you're allergic
to grape skin, then you might have a bad reaction.

Speaker 3 (19:23):
Red wine makes me fight. What's in the red wine
that does that?

Speaker 1 (19:26):
Higher alcohol content?

Speaker 5 (19:29):
Yeah, I don't feel any difference between the Oh, if
I have tequila, I'm gonna have a crazy night, or
if I have this, it's gonna make me be sad
or something. Every alcohol I've ever had has the exact
same effect on me.

Speaker 2 (19:38):
Is that normal?

Speaker 1 (19:41):
I feel like wine I'm more mellow if I have
a few too many.

Speaker 2 (19:45):
Yeah, you know what, I guess you're right on that.

Speaker 1 (19:47):
But there's also like sparkling wine and bubbly drinks, carbon
dioxide can contribute to getting you a bit woozier. So
it might feel you're gtting quote unquote drunk more quickly,
but the carbon dioxide is playing into that, so you're
not You're not imagining it. If like champagne is getting
you drunk more quickly, it's it's just not just alcohol.

(20:10):
But yeah, I don't know. I last I read and
this stuff I feel like changes every year, and then
I end up sounding stupid. So I'm just gonna say
it as if this is the current science. I don't
think mixing drinks ever had a negative effect. It was
more that you're drinking liquors with different alcoholic contents, so
like you're not pacing yourself. Sure as if you're drinking
one thing. Please the doctors who listen to us tell us.

(20:34):
And we've had this conversation before, Yeah, several times.

Speaker 5 (20:37):
I currently of the mind that like, oh, the o
beer before liquor or mixing alcohols and stuff is a
bunch of hohoy.

Speaker 2 (20:43):
It seems no.

Speaker 1 (20:44):
Wait, wait, wait, wait, we did get the email about
the beer before liquor thing, and there is some truth
to it. Oh, let me look at it's gonna take
me foreverything something would like agitate the bubbles would agitate
your stomach lining more.

Speaker 2 (20:55):
So I learned something if it takes five more seconds.

Speaker 1 (20:58):
Someone someone sent it in like two years ago, and
it was something about if you start with a certain one.
I think it was the more bubbly liquids, it would
agitate your stomach lining and then allow.

Speaker 3 (21:07):
More before liquor. Never sicker.

Speaker 1 (21:10):
Yeah, so I guess maybe there is a but mixing
drinks in general.

Speaker 4 (21:13):
I think maybe that's where that comes from.

Speaker 3 (21:15):
I disagree every time I mix drinks, I do get
a little bit more sick. And it doesn't mean that
I've had six drinks. If I have three drinks, which
I did last night. I had a rum drink because
it was the launch of that new Lotus and I
always like to have like a tropical drink because I'm
on vacation when I'm watching White Lotus. And then I

(21:37):
had a whiskey drink because I felt like it. And
then I had a vibe could drink because it was
getting close to the end of the evening and I
didn't feel super great this morning. That's only three drinks.
I can drink three drinks, but I think the mixing
confused my tummy, and it was I can get that.
Make up your mind, lady, So I think that. I
do think mixing alcohol different types of liquor can get me.

(22:01):
But more than anything, red wine just puts up some
of my defenses or something like that. And for whatever reason,
if I have like a bottle of red wine and
someone crosses me, I'm more likely to tell them I'm.

Speaker 1 (22:16):
Yeah, you're yeah. There's literally more alcohol in the vast
majority of red wines because by definition, the most of
the red wines will need to ripen more on the
veins so.

Speaker 2 (22:25):
They develop drunk.

Speaker 3 (22:26):
I don't think it's just the alcohol. I am a
very considerate drunk. I think that there's something about red
wine that makes me more irritable while I'm drunk. So
I am drunk, but I'm also like, I don't like it,
like there's something going on.

Speaker 4 (22:42):
It could be something.

Speaker 1 (22:42):
I'm not bar it's just not unless unless you also
get pissed off when you eat French fries, then maybe
it is sulfites.

Speaker 2 (22:50):
But the opposite pissed off.

Speaker 3 (22:53):
Sedate me.

Speaker 1 (22:54):
Yeah, so maybe there's something in red wine. There could
be some sort of allergen that you react poorly to.
But also again, a bottle of red wine is anywhere
from thirteen to fifteen percent alcohol, and there's outliers, but
that's the general range the white wine is gonna be.
I mean, white wine could be like eleven to fourteen
or even lower if it's a sweet wine.

Speaker 2 (23:12):
Man, I had a bottle of wine and a bunch
of beers last night and all I did was played
like ten hours of about that.

Speaker 1 (23:17):
Sounds pretty seed.

Speaker 2 (23:18):
It was awesome.

Speaker 1 (23:19):
Yeah, it's like a good Sunday, three day weekend Sunday fun.

Speaker 4 (23:24):
Well, speaking of do you want to talk about video games?

Speaker 3 (23:26):
Let's do it.

Speaker 1 (23:28):
Sure, Okay, we're coming off of an episode of not
talking about new games. What was the newest game we
talked about in Yeah that No, it's Diablow too.

Speaker 2 (23:40):
Oh yeah, I.

Speaker 1 (23:41):
Think that's it. It might have been elden Ring. Honestly,
I don't think we talked about a newer game than
elden Ring. Last tea on the top one hundred or
top sixty four games.

Speaker 2 (23:51):
Well, probably the newest one eighties.

Speaker 1 (23:53):
We talked about a lot, but that was twenty twenty.
But anyway, Yeah, we didn't talk about new games last episode,
and the odd slot of February is also well upon us. Dan,
you have been texting me full disclosure, I have not
started Avowed because I'm playing a lot of other stuff
and I want to. It seems like a game I
want to just like dive into and not deviate from

(24:13):
and stack up other games. Yes, but uh, you seem
to really like a Vowed.

Speaker 5 (24:19):
Yeah, and good call on that, mic, because yeah, I
have two other games that I'm sure the embarger will
be up by the time this goes up, but no
point really saying what they are. But like other games
that I want to play, But I was so into
a Vow that it's like, I Am not going to
touch anything until I'm done with this and then I'll
all get to this other stuff. But Avowed right before
we record it tonight, I I'm on the definite final

(24:41):
stretch of the game.

Speaker 2 (24:42):
It was definitely already. I've played fifty hours of it.

Speaker 3 (24:45):
Wow, I can't believe you've burned through that many hours
of it.

Speaker 5 (24:48):
Oh my god, I've known like eight to ten hour days,
like pretty much since it came out, Like, I fucking
love this game, and it was none on my radar
at all, Like I like Skyrim, I like a Blive
and follow that three of the Bethesda style things, but like,
you know, like the story heavy RPG is not exactly
my genre, but I figured I'd give it a shot

(25:08):
and got a code for it, and it's like, all right,
well it's you know, it's it seems to be a
pretty dewey one of those. And as soon as I started,
like going through the tutorial and it's like, okay, kill
these lizard dudes, It's like, oh shit, that felt really good.
Oh wow, okay, wow, the dodge is really good. Here
the pairing and blocking and oh shit, okay I can
get magic. The magic feels really good and it's really
easy to switch between all these different to you know,

(25:30):
if you want to do a bow, if you want
to do a gun, if you want to do magic.
Like there's just a lot of freedom in this game
and the way you approach combat, your character, exploring the world,
and like all of it pays off in a major way.
Like I think exploring is so much better than I expected,
Like the moving around is great, the like parkouring around stuff.
It's kind of that thing of like I almost like

(25:52):
breaking it in a way that like, Okay, I'm probably
not supposed to be able to go over this rock
cliff here, I'm probably supposed to find like an entrance,
but you can kind of like you know what, in
Skyrim you could do that where you just kind of
like jump diagonally up like a thing or whatever, and
you kind of felt like you're cheating in a way,
but it was like fun, and there's some of that here.

Speaker 3 (26:08):
But I think it's intentional though, Like I think they
are trying to get you to play. I think I
recognized as well. I'm also playing it, but I'm not
nearly as far as you. I'm a couple hours in,
and I think in the very beginning they're like, hey,
this building probably has some stuff in it. You can
walk by it and not go into it. You can
go in through the front door and you can fight
the stuff. Or what I ended up doing was I

(26:30):
was like looking around, and there's boxes you can climb
to get to the roof and then drop in through
the ceiling and surprise them, which is what I did.
And I thought it was really cool that they gave
you lots of options, including you don't have to fricking
go in there. They wasn't a part of the main quest.
There's lots of side places that let you play the
way you want or just avoid it altogether, which I
think makes me feel like I have a lot of autonomy.

(26:52):
But it made me feel like I was cheating a
little bit, but it's clearly designed that way, but it
felt good.

Speaker 5 (26:57):
Yeah, I feel like there are times where it's like
you'll just approach like a house on the side of
the road, and it's like, okay, well you could open
this door if you want to burn through four of
your lock picks, or you could find the actual key
to this barn which is somewhere, and I anytime I
saw that, I'm like, I'm finding the like bespoke key.
I'm not just like burning through my lock picks for this.
And yeah, just like searching around. There's lots of little stories,

(27:19):
a lot of like little you know, diaries and notepads
to read and it's like, oh, I wonder what happened
to this skeleton who looked like it died crying on
a cliff or whatever, you know, it's like, yeah, that
stuff is just kind of littered throughout the whole world.
But it's not like I feel like with open world
games there was definitely this period and like maybe the
three sixty ish era where they were obsessed with like
square mileage or even going back to like you know,
Sanadreas and PS two open world games, where.

Speaker 2 (27:39):
It's like you could get twenty of that map into
this map. We're not that pussy small map. We're a big,
big dig map here, like that was the whole thing.
It's just like how big the fucking map would be?
And this is like in terms of square mileage. It's
not like I'm sure, I don't know, but it wouldn't
sprise me with like a Skyrim or a Fallout four
or something's bigger. But I do feel like everything is

(28:00):
just kind of crafted and interesting and well thought out
here that made me enjoy exploring this world a lot more.
Which it is, like it's numerous different open zones. It's
not one big square so it's like you'll spend you know,
ten twelve hours in Dawn Shore, then you'll move on
to em World Sarah, and there's like four of these
different spots here but yeah, I had a ton of
thoughts while I was playing this because I was very surprised.

Speaker 5 (28:23):
When I was playing it, I was thinking, like, this
is a killer game. I feel like this is like
in terms of just the game mechanics, like this is
like the standard for the genre now for me.

Speaker 1 (28:31):
And then the.

Speaker 5 (28:31):
Reviews came out, and I think largely they were positive,
Like when I last looked, it was a like an
eight m Metacritic, but there were definitely some like sixes
out there. I think IGNN game Spot both gave it
a six, and you know, I was just kind of
reading around. I was like, Okay, I want to see
kind of what the common complaints are here and everything,
and I saw some of the more negative reviews or
kind of medium reviews were like, okay, yeah, we played
thirty hours of this game, and I remember when I

(28:52):
read that, I was like, I'm over thirty hours in
it right now, and I feel like I barely started.
I'm like, you know, just finishing up the second area.
And it really got me thinking about just that nature
of getting games early and trying to rush through them
to review them.

Speaker 3 (29:04):
Great, because you would need to hit embargo and say
you're running out of time and these have this game
in particular, in my opinion, I have like eight side
quests already and I just started. So if you're not
doing those side quests and you're not really exploring that game,
you're probably missing a good chunk of what's fun about it.

Speaker 5 (29:23):
Yeah, yeah, you're not just missing you are definitely missing
some really fun side quests, like some of those are
the best quests in the game. But also, I think
you're doing yourself a disservice in terms of what you're
doing in the main quest, because I do think that,
you know, in a lot of the more negative reviews,
I saw complaints about, like, oh, the crafting system. I
feel like I was always overwhelmed and I was dying
too much. I never had strong enough gear, and I
was reading that stuff and I was like, I've never

(29:43):
run into that. I've never felt like I've died, but
I feel like I've been dying the right amount, you know, Like,
and so I think, like, oh shit, I guess you're
rushing through this. You're missing front of stuff gear, You're
not prepared, you don't have good gear. So like I've
definitely been telling people, like, do the side stuff.

Speaker 2 (29:58):
It is good. It is worth it.

Speaker 3 (30:00):
Yeah, and you're leveling up your character, which you need.
The I'm curious how you're leveling right now. I have
I think there's three. There's warrior abilities, there's ranger abilities,
and then there's uh magic Yeah, I was gonna call
it magic man abilities, but wizardry. I think it's the

(30:21):
right one. Yeah, and I went magic Man and so
I'm shooting these like balls out and doing a lot
of damage. Those are all upgradeable significantly. And I think
you can also upgrade your the people that you're with.
And so if you're not doing this stuff, you're not
upgrading yourself and your your companions, you're gonna be pretty

(30:41):
weak sauce for those later bosses.

Speaker 1 (30:44):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (30:44):
And like the gear upgrading stuff I thought was great.

Speaker 5 (30:46):
Like it's not the most like intricate, uh you know system,
It's just like, okay, well, these type of things require
these two items, and these require these two leveled up
versions of those items, so you can combine things to
you know.

Speaker 2 (30:56):
It's it's all very well thought out.

Speaker 5 (30:58):
But like, you know, you've got your which I'm sure
if you're a wizard, you've got the wand which is
like infinite, Like there's no finite AMMO for.

Speaker 3 (31:04):
Any of your right now, mostly the grim War.

Speaker 5 (31:07):
Yeah, so that's the thing is like, that's what I
love about Wizard is I've got the grim War in
my left hand and a wand in my right. So
it's like you can boom boom bom boom, like kind
of range throw magic at him, but then you can
grimwore throw fireballs or rain ice down on them and
stuff like that.

Speaker 3 (31:20):
And the switch your load out really fast, which I
really like because I'm I'm mostly a distance combat person.
I very rarely have a sword or a mallet. It's
usually like a bow and then my wizard skills, and
so it was really neat for me when I ran
out of I forget what they call mana, but when
you run out of juice, I would whatever and I

(31:43):
would switch to my bow and then I would bow
them to death. And it was kind of sick that.
I like, it's a quick swap button and so what's
really nice to essentially like use all my magic pop up,
pop pop up, hit them with a bunch of balls.
I killed a bear this way, and then I when
I ran out of magic, I switched right to my
bow and I just did mad head shots with my
bow until he was down and it felt great.

Speaker 5 (32:02):
Yeah, it's it's the Y button on Xbox to switch,
and it's just like switching guns and Call of Duty.
So it's like switching to a launcher to knock down
on a UAP or something. But like there's also rings
and accessories and stuff, so if you want to like, okay,
it's very important to me that I'm switching between stuff frequently.
Like no, put on a necklist that makes it plus
forty percent you know, equip you know, speed and stuff
like that, so and you can like you don't really

(32:23):
get too pigeonholed into your skill tree because like most
of my stuff was in Wizard, Like I'd say ninety
plus percent of my upgrades I put into a Wizard,
but I would look at the Ranger stuff. I would
look at it and it's like, oh shit, this ranger
ability lets me like get twice as many like crafting
materials when I pick up these things, or you know, oh,
this chargeability would be good from the Fighter Warrior thing

(32:43):
because then I could knock down walls with this charge thing.
So it is very easy to just kind of like
you don't have to like put a billion points into
a tree that you don't care about. You can just
cherry pick, like I want that thing and then you
know stay the course of the wizard and stuff like that.

Speaker 3 (32:57):
So can you respect if I like have way through
the game, I'm like, I actually do want to be
a warrior? Can I switch? What does it cost me?

Speaker 1 (33:05):
Uh?

Speaker 5 (33:05):
I don't know if it goes up every time. I
did it once and it cost me like a thousand gold,
which is not much at all. No, yeah, okay, Yeah,
money comes pretty easily in this, so yeah, you can
respect any time.

Speaker 1 (33:15):
Uh.

Speaker 5 (33:15):
And it's just like it's very easy because like the
weapons are simple to like again, you don't have to
live up a bunch of different trees. Like I did
not have warrior stuff at all, but if I found
this super unique you know, exquisite battle axe or something,
I could pull that out despite not having any like
points that go into like you know heavy weapon abilities
and stuff like that. So and it's got all the

(33:36):
usual RPG you know, speech check stuff and everything, and
you know intellect and perception and things like that that
you know open up.

Speaker 3 (33:42):
Yeah, the dialogue options have been really interesting. What did
you go with? I went with uh, I went with
like a shady guy court.

Speaker 2 (33:51):
Yes, I think me, you and Bank all did the
exact same.

Speaker 3 (33:54):
I know I was with a court Auger.

Speaker 2 (33:57):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (33:57):
I think I will go ranger for the Wreckord. I'm
much more early on than you. But for my first
round I did Wizard just because I wanted to see
what the magic balls were. Like, you can't just say
shoot three balls of magic that do damage and have
me not be like, well, I know what a sword
and a bo do, but gotta I know what three

(34:19):
balls do.

Speaker 5 (34:20):
Yes, Mary, that's awesome because like, let's say you like
having a Let's say you're a warrior and you've got
a sword and shield. You could put a point into
that like missile salvo, magic salvo ability and just map
it to your dpad, So no matter what weapons you
have equipped or anything, you could have your sword and
shield out. But you see a dude up there and
it's kind of sniping you, you can just look up there,
hit a deepad magic missile stuff going that way.

Speaker 3 (34:41):
I do need to do that because I found it
a little irritated. So I'm not as Yeah, I keep
saying this, but like I think I still have a
couple qualms of this game that I haven't solved yet
that it looks like you've had the time to solve.
And one of them is is that like, uh, I'm
hitting right bumper to find my magic abilities. It's also
how you can tell your partner what to do, which
you need to do because my partner has an agro.

(35:04):
So when I'm fighting a giant bear, for example, I
need my partner to agro the bear so that I
don't fricking die so that I can shoot him with balls.
So I was constantly like right, left bumper, find my agro.
Agro the guy, left bumper, find my magic magic missile.
I think a dpad would be so much smoother for me,

(35:24):
but I haven't short mapped anything yet.

Speaker 2 (35:26):
Quick Miro, Oh yeah, it's super simple.

Speaker 5 (35:27):
So just when you go into that radio menu, so
you hit LB, just highlight anything and just tap a
deepad thing. RB is your grenade. But then up down, left,
right you can have anything. So if that can be
companions step too. So if you know, every time into
a fight you want him to draw a fire map,
it to up and then every time a fight starts
to tap up you're good to go. But they will
also do that stuff of their own volition in combat.

(35:49):
But there are certain ones where you just want to
be like, okay, use the vines and wrap that guy
up right now.

Speaker 3 (35:54):
You know you want control over that. The vines are yea, yeah,
I want the vines. Those are the ones that they
prevent you from walking forward. I was curious and we
were talking about intelligence and things like that. So because
I went with a build that was a bit smarter,
I had more intelligence options and I can kind of
tell when people are lying, or I can kind of
I get like, I think a bit of a warning
in my dialogue options that are like that' sus. There

(36:16):
was a lady who was in a jail cell that
had like a couple lies that she told me, and
so I called her out on them, and she admitted
that she was lying, and then later it was like
you have a key? Do you want to unlock her?
And it's interesting because if you didn't have that much
of intelligence and you didn't call her out she didn't
come clean about lying to you, you might have not
opened up the gate and been like you're a liar,

(36:36):
like we don't trust you. But I ended up unlocking
the gate and she was beneficial and she didn't try
and kill me. So it's really it's I do like
that type of world building, same thing with Skyrim, where
you can essentially be like this person might be a
liar and I don't know the full story, but you
trust people are not based on the dialogue options that
you have.

Speaker 5 (36:57):
Yeah, and there are big like you know, that was
one of the early ones where it's like, you know, oh,
I wonder if I should trust or not because like
and it doesn't make it, you know, super duper obvious
with some and some of them have huge ramifications for
like basically who you're siding with and things like that
and what's gonna happen the fate of certain characters, and
so there were a lot of decisions where I was like, man,
I can't decide what to do here, And a lot
of times before you have to say like this or that,

(37:19):
you can say like, let me check with my companions.
And depending on because there's four companions you can get
in the game, and you can have two with you
at any given time, and so depending on which two
you get, like one of them, like you might be like, oh,
should I kill this person or let them go. You know,
you might have someone in your party that's like, no,
they killed my fucking family. Fuck them, let's throw them
into a volcano. And then you might have others that
are like, yeah, she sucks, but like also we have

(37:41):
to kind of see, like so it's really interesting, like
kind of like huddling with your dudes and be like,
I don't know, should we do something here, like actually
hearing them out and I've made this and.

Speaker 3 (37:50):
Their own biases too, right, yeah they might not be right.

Speaker 5 (37:53):
Yeah, yeah, it's incredibly well written. I love the Companion
except for the last one. Last one. I know I
do not like that last companion. You'll know when you see.

Speaker 2 (38:00):
It's that the yeah, the second, the second I saw,
What the fuck is this? I've seen like several review
horny reviewers called her out wait, like pro horny.

Speaker 5 (38:16):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (38:16):
There was like a pull quote on a review that
I saw that says something about like the permanently horny
mage Yachtsley is fun.

Speaker 2 (38:22):
To be horny.

Speaker 5 (38:23):
I thought you were saying people were horny for Yatley,
which would be no, I don't know, weird.

Speaker 2 (38:27):
Okay, okay, that's funny. Yes, she is horny. Her character is.

Speaker 3 (38:30):
First of all, you're allowed to be horny for a maze.

Speaker 2 (38:33):
You haven't seen it.

Speaker 5 (38:34):
You haven't seen Yachtley, I haven't seen. If anyone's horny
for y, they need to go to jail.

Speaker 3 (38:42):
Based on visual or based on how they after both
a little bit.

Speaker 2 (38:45):
At just more than like, I think it would be illegal.

Speaker 5 (38:50):
This is just a weird animal, weird Harley Quinn something
or other like, I just yeah.

Speaker 2 (38:56):
You should just just go to jail. Okay, check yourself
into a jail if you have sex with.

Speaker 3 (39:01):
I really like the guy I have now. He's Blue.
I like him. I think that he's really consistent, he's
not annoying. He's been very helpful so far, and his
attacks have been beneficial to me in battle. So I
like this guy.

Speaker 1 (39:14):
Guy.

Speaker 3 (39:14):
I'm going to keep him around.

Speaker 5 (39:16):
That fire like blunderbusting he's got that can burn like
vine very effective.

Speaker 3 (39:20):
Burning in general is very effective in this game, or
at least in the island I'm in now, because I
can't tell you many times it's like damn, there's thorns
in the way, and it's like not for me, not
for me. And Blue Boy because he can burn right
through them, So it's it's been nice to have him around,
but I have historically had problems with annoying sidekicks, Like

(39:40):
it's easy for me to just kind of get tired
of people who are around trying to help me out.

Speaker 5 (39:45):
What have you.

Speaker 3 (39:45):
I you saying, it's well written, but I'm just curious
just because of the amount of dialogue in this game,
and as someone who is just such a more dewey person,
this might just be me because I don't gravitate towards
games like Oblivion. This is not my bad. Yeah, I
still find it really talky with You can talk to
them at the fire when you camp for the night,

(40:08):
and they'll have a little asterisk over their head if
they have something to talk to you about. And so
I was like, let's see what they have to say.
And it was like a novel of crap that he
had to say to me that I did not give
a shit about. And I ended up speeding through it,
which I don't think you're supposed to do to really
appreciate that game, but I did. And I just I
just want to say that from my perspective, it's like

(40:28):
more of a dewey person. I thought it was a
lot of texts like and.

Speaker 5 (40:31):
You know, I think we're wired the same with that stuff.
And just to ease your mind with that, I think
each character has that opening salvo of just like tell
me about yourself, where are you from?

Speaker 2 (40:41):
What's your deal? You know, like what do you like?

Speaker 5 (40:43):
And that's what you do with Kai And it's like
a lot and I don't know if you got the
thing when you do that, like it's like, oh, he
taught you this thing and you got like plus two
permanent perception bonus or something it did.

Speaker 3 (40:52):
Which is why I was like, I'll do that again.
But I did speed through it and didn't actually read
or listen or care. And I think that that's a
bit of a that's a bit of a knock on
myself for not probably playing the game I'm supposed to.
But I'm also just saying it was a lot to read.

Speaker 5 (41:07):
I'll say the story stuff is good like all that.
All those conversations with the companions I thought were good.
But just to ease your mind when you go back
to the party camp in the future, if you have
done that opening, you know, what your deal.

Speaker 2 (41:19):
What's your backstory?

Speaker 5 (41:20):
Like there's everyone has that first like here's seven questions
and things. You go down and that's it going forward.
After a big story beat or something, you might go
back and there's a little thing over Kai's head and he'll.

Speaker 2 (41:31):
Just be like, man, that was fucked up back there.

Speaker 5 (41:33):
Hopefully things are better, and then that's it, Like you've
you're not going to have another like thing, not going
to tell me.

Speaker 3 (41:39):
A mountain back story because he's already told me his
ex r those.

Speaker 2 (41:43):
Yeah, each there's three companions.

Speaker 5 (41:44):
Each one of them has one longer sequence of kind
of getting to know him at the camp, and then
once you do that, it's just like quick check ins.

Speaker 3 (41:51):
So the good news is that even though there's a
lot of dialogue so far, I have enjoyed the dialogue,
and my companion was pretty fun, and the characters that
I've met so far have also been enjoyable. I haven't
been tired or bored by the story in this game,
but I don't think I also have the main hook
of the plot yet. I think I'm still in that

(42:12):
intro area where they're like like, I'm killing stuff and
I'm learning everything, but I don't. I haven't met a
king yet, and I feel like in this game you're
going to meet a king or something. Have you met
the king? What's he like?

Speaker 2 (42:23):
Well, the king you have? You've heard about the Emperor.
He's the one who sent me.

Speaker 3 (42:27):
Yeah, I've heard I've heard about him.

Speaker 5 (42:29):
Yes, yeah, you're basically going like I heard someone described
it as like fantasy Australia.

Speaker 2 (42:33):
It's like this like island words.

Speaker 1 (42:36):
Right, Oh, your skinny bag of bagdaggons with three XP.

Speaker 5 (42:50):
I'll say it's not a lot of like fantasy.

Speaker 3 (42:53):
Chicken so own your froy he's there.

Speaker 1 (42:57):
He's called chicken soap.

Speaker 4 (42:58):
That's that's more cockney.

Speaker 3 (43:00):
Get him. Yeah. I turned in to cat me really easily.
To Australia, it's called chicken Soap.

Speaker 1 (43:09):
I just went into like a Hammersmith kind of Newcastle
thing there too. Get in.

Speaker 4 (43:15):
Yeah, what is the premise to this? It's sent the
Pillars of Eternity Universe.

Speaker 1 (43:20):
I know that.

Speaker 2 (43:20):
Yeah, I didn't know that until a few hours in.

Speaker 5 (43:22):
Andy'd be kind of interested in it because I thought
this was an interesting world.

Speaker 1 (43:26):
You would hate those games, I'll tell you before.

Speaker 2 (43:28):
Yeah, I know there's the RPGs, and I believe I would,
but I will say the world.

Speaker 4 (43:32):
So much reading in those games.

Speaker 2 (43:34):
You, this is the right way for me to take
in that world.

Speaker 1 (43:37):
The world like people, I'm just saying I wouldn't recommend
you play those games, but I wasn't maybe read it
wasn't at risk of it.

Speaker 5 (43:42):
I just I can appreciate the world here because like, yeah,
so basically you are sent you're like an Adyrian, which
is basically just like the big conquering uh you know,
just like they're like the military basically of the main
land here, and you get sent to this island to
meet up with this ambassador and Adyrians are starting to
like come to the island.

Speaker 2 (44:03):
I won't give.

Speaker 5 (44:03):
Every beat here, but basically you get there and it's like,
oh man, everyone here hates Darians. What's the deal? And
then it's like, oh, why are some of these people
fucked up? And they got like plants grown out of
their face and they're you know, having crazy dreams and
going crazy. So it's that's called the dream scourge. Is
this like pandemic situation that's going across the island. So
it's a lot of like investigating that. It's a lot

(44:25):
of like your character wrestling with like, man, are you know,
are we the good guys? Like the adyrians, like everyone
here seems to fucking hate us, Like I'm just here
doing a job and I'm trying to be like yeah,
it's that, and you could you could lean into it.
You could just be like I'm here like there's a
lot of dialogue options that this is the law of Aderia,
this is you know, this is how we do things.
And then there's like hey, you know, like I mean,

(44:45):
I'll give you one example of a side quest. It's
you go to a brothel called the Mermaid's Den and
this lady's like, hey, we needed to can you go
pick up the shipment? Like there's a bunch of like
assholes that are like hoarding the shipment and I need
my shit, and it's like I needed to keep the
business open. And I was like, okay, what the hell
is this? Like is this gonna be a wire season two?
Like I need to go get a bunch of like,
you know women something. Yeah, yeah, that's kind of what

(45:07):
I thought it was going to be. And it was
just like a box and I took it back and
it turns out it's this like herb that is a contraceptive,
and you can you can the dialogue options are you
can be like this is illegal, this is a violation
of a Darien law. I'm you know, sending you in
or whatever. But then it's like I also I picked
the one where I was like, hey, yeah, just nobody's
like she was like kind of worried about like, oh shit, no,
like she was, I don't worry about it.

Speaker 2 (45:28):
No, you're good. You're good.

Speaker 1 (45:29):
You know the charisma check. Lets you say, get to fucking.
So it's kind of.

Speaker 5 (45:36):
Interesting stuff like that, like, and it's uh, I think
I liked the story I did. If you would have
told me when I saw the like SGF reveal of
this fantasy RPG from Obsidian and the Pillars of a
Turn of the Universe, I probably would have been like
that ain't for me.

Speaker 2 (45:49):
But I like it.

Speaker 5 (45:50):
I like it a lot. Like I said, I'm like
fifty hours in now. I feel like I'm literally like
going up to the last thing right now I had.

Speaker 3 (45:57):
What do you think your completion is? Sounds like you've
done a lot of side quests. You think really like
stretched the boundaries of this game and have done.

Speaker 5 (46:05):
A lot of the Yep, all these areas have like
these six golden totems you can find. I've gotten every
one of those. I've done every bounty. Every place you
go to has like five bounties you can pick up.
I've done every bounty, every side quest I've run into. Yeah,
there's no like in game percentage count or anything like that,
but like by the time I've gone on to the
next area, every time I don't have a single side
quest open up. There are a couple where it's like, oh,

(46:26):
you got this like metal that you won't be able
to get forged until three things later.

Speaker 2 (46:30):
So like a couple of those. But like, I've been
doing everything in this game, and I have not gotten
tired of it.

Speaker 3 (46:37):
I mean, I think that that says a lot, and
I appreciate that you haven't just like made an effort
to complete this game. You are really getting into playing
this game and like discovering all of its secrets. And
I think for people who are fans of Oblivion and Skyrim,
you kind of want someone who is invested in the
world building more than just like ye average play through

(47:00):
of the game. So I'm more inclined to listen to you.
But I also find it fascinating considering, like how talky
this is, that this is something that you feel really
interested in because good. That's what made me concerned when
I was playing it.

Speaker 5 (47:14):
Yeah, it's like even like with like Oblivion and Skyrim,
which games I really enjoyed, Like I didn't. It felt
very fantasy trophy to me, like, Oh, I'm the dragon
born and here's you know, the warring factions and the
dragons and all that.

Speaker 2 (47:24):
It's like, all right, this is every fucking Lord of
the Rings thing I've ever seen.

Speaker 5 (47:27):
And I was assuming I would be buttoning through a
lot more stuff than I was here because I was
listening to everything. I was like examining every option. I
was really trying to think of, like what I would
want to do in this situation.

Speaker 2 (47:38):
And it's made it a great experience.

Speaker 3 (47:41):
Oh that's great, Dan, I think it's great that you're
enjoying it. I have also enjoyed my time with it.
But I've been really torn because there's another game that
I've really wanted to play, and it was really difficult
to decide each evening if I would play this or
another game that I want to talk to Mike about
thoughts with a vowed Is there anything else do you

(48:03):
want to say?

Speaker 1 (48:03):
Dan? Uh?

Speaker 5 (48:05):
That's that's the you know, I just can't imagine, you know,
the last hour I probably have left.

Speaker 2 (48:09):
I can't imagine turning hard on it.

Speaker 3 (48:11):
It seems unlikely.

Speaker 2 (48:12):
Yeah did you pay for it?

Speaker 1 (48:16):
Uh?

Speaker 3 (48:16):
No, I I was gifted a copy.

Speaker 2 (48:18):
Why would be a classic kish? Okay, yeah, I did
not kiss it.

Speaker 3 (48:23):
I was I was gifted a copy. And I will
also say my last piece about this, for we moved
to Tales of Iron two that I got a Xbox
code and I have not turned my Xbox on in
a hot minute. And when I when I turned it on,
I was like it was like updating, like a year's
worth of updates. Yeah, and uh, it's really gotten me

(48:45):
back into having my Xbox on and I really missed
having my Xbox, so I think about is cool for
doing that too. It's like also revived my love of
my Xbox. Because for the record, when I play Game Pass,
I played on my PC. It was like exclusively like, oh,
I'm playing in my office on my PC and enjoying
a computer game. But the Xbox I play on my
couch on my TV, which is my jam. So grateful

(49:08):
to have another couch game to play. But the reason
I was torn and I haven't put as much time
into avout is because I started getting really into Tails
of Iron two, which Mike dmd us and said, you
both need to play this because I'm obsessed with this
fucking game. Mike tell us about Tales of Iron two
Whiskers of Winter. This is a little name.

Speaker 1 (49:29):
I played the first one. I want to say twenty
twenty one, the first game I think I talked briefly
about back in the day on fire Escape. Odd Bug
Studio basically made very very Metroid light, more of a
two D side scrolling Souls Born game.

Speaker 3 (49:47):
Feel solsy, Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (49:49):
Deliberate combat, slow paced. It's the aesthetic is you're a
bunch of rats. You're like a rat kingdom that gets assaulted. Yeah,
there's always rats in my games. Wait, why what's the
deal with the ra I think these are the only two?
Or no, there's are mice.

Speaker 4 (50:04):
There might be mice.

Speaker 3 (50:05):
They're cute. I feel like they're mice versus bats and
bats are the bats?

Speaker 1 (50:12):
Are the bat guys in this? It was frogs last time,
the frog kingdom you were fighting against. But now it's
it's very like if you were just to look at
the art for the game, he'd be like, oh, that's cute,
but like someone gets their head chopped off and you
see a spine and there's a blood around it.

Speaker 4 (50:23):
Within the Yeah, but it.

Speaker 1 (50:26):
Plays out like a cross between the Witcher three because
there are monster hunts here where you're following these side
quest mythical beasts around the map. Some Metrovenia light elements
you do unlock like new tools to get around different areas.

Speaker 5 (50:43):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (50:44):
Souls born combat and that's reductive.

Speaker 1 (50:46):
Just by that, I mean it's very deliberate, and once
you commit to an attack, you're the animation is going
to play out, uh for better or worse.

Speaker 4 (50:55):
But there's also like.

Speaker 1 (50:57):
Monster hunter vibes in the sense that the big you
kill and the enemies you kill and the biomes you're
going to are reflected in your armor, so you're getting
a lot more different kinds of armor and weapons in
this game.

Speaker 4 (51:11):
There are a lot of trade offs to each one.

Speaker 1 (51:12):
There's elemental weaknesses, but generally you're going out into the
world coming back and you're rebuilding the like the mouse
Kingdom or rat Kingdom, and you're building back up your hub,
which is very satisfying. There's not really like a tree.
You're upgrading things along you're just like going out into
the world to get each of these major buildings restructured

(51:34):
at your place. But it really makes the first game
feel more like a proof of concept or a demo,
because this is a pretty big game, like deceptively big.
The more I play it, the more I don't know
how close to the end I am. I'm in like
the fifth big biome.

Speaker 3 (51:50):
Do you have all your stuff? Like, you've rebuilt your
four different you have your cook, you have your smithy,
you have your I think there's four that you have to.

Speaker 1 (52:01):
Get, the armorer and the no the smithy, the cook,
the grosser, and there's one more I forget something like that.

Speaker 4 (52:09):
But I have those finished.

Speaker 1 (52:12):
But there's several There's still a decent amount of question
marks on my armor because they show you it's like, oh,
here's the hunter tree for your armor. Here's the bone
armor tree. It's a very monster hunter. So I still
have question marks at the bottom of those. So I
either haven't found the beast in a side quest or
haven't gotten there in the story.

Speaker 3 (52:29):
But so many side quests too, where they're like asking
you to do things. I haven't found any of these
things yet, but I was just curious your experience. In
one of the first areas, there was like a guy
who lost his glasses and I'm just like trying to
find the glasses. There's another guy who's on.

Speaker 1 (52:44):
The fishing poles.

Speaker 3 (52:45):
Yeah, so there's lots of different places for you to
find things for people, but I haven't found any of
that stuff yet.

Speaker 1 (52:52):
I found the fishing pole. And once you find the
fishing pole, that leads into this whole other part of
that side quest.

Speaker 4 (52:57):
I actually like those the most.

Speaker 1 (52:59):
Those are also when they lean into the Metroidvania aspects
of it, where you really have to look for those,
but if you ask townsfolk, they'll kind of point you
in the right direction, and like it's it reminds me
of like Zelda. It's like if you get stuck, talk
to townsfolk, they'll give you hints. But I love the combat.
The mob's enemy mob variety. They throw it you really

(53:20):
makes you. It's a pretty typical like, oh, if they
flash red, you have to dodge it. If they flash yellow,
you can counter it. It's really crunchy. When you hit
someone with a power attack, you really hit. It feels great.
The counter attacks when you tie them perfectly, and then
you also dodge the next dude and then you It
feels great the panter recognition and the bosses. The boss
spectacle is really impressive as well, just like the first

(53:42):
few major bosses. I was the scope and scale of them,
I was. It made me. The game feels very double
a throughout, but it feels like they really upped the
budget from the first game.

Speaker 3 (53:55):
They also put a lot of energy into the Perry system,
which I think is really interesting because like, this is
a very difficult game. This is a complicated and tough
game to get through, and they don't give you a
lot of health. You have potion that you can refill
at very few stations or berries, and sometimes I would

(54:15):
do it. I would finish a boss on like the
skin of my teeth, and then there would just they
would just throw an enemy at me before I could
get my next fill station, and it's like, I have
one chance to get this done. And it's usually what
they're really encouraging you to do is perry. If you
get your pery right, not only do you obviously not

(54:36):
take damage, but they fall over and they're prone, and
it's like the best time that you can do a
lot of fish. Yeah, you could fuck them up with
the proper parry. But I just had to say, like,
for I like really suffered through Sekiro, Like I'm not
a pary person. I really I really suffer with parrying.
This game is I think the first time I got parrying,
I was like, Okay, they have a little they have

(54:57):
a little warning sign. The animation is clear and if
you do it, you get a huge reward. And I
was grateful for the Perry's system.

Speaker 2 (55:04):
And this now stupid question.

Speaker 5 (55:07):
I did download this and start this, and everything you're
saying you're boasting about this sounds intriguing to me. But
like I started it up and it was like, I
feel like it was like ten minutes of just like
very serious narration about the lore of a rat kingdom,
and it was just like I can't fucking do this,
and I just turned it off. So like it is like, bitch,
how much of that is there? Because like you're giving

(55:28):
me take these rats? Seriously, you're giving.

Speaker 1 (55:30):
Me PTSD from metaphor. Because it was not ten minutes
of intro in this game.

Speaker 5 (55:34):
I got it, got through the intro, and then it
was like, oh, here's like systems, like let's just start
throwing like a bunch of like oh that, yes, didn't
talk at you, And it's like this has just taken
a lot to get into here.

Speaker 1 (55:46):
Uh. I definitely think they keep introducing like oh, you're
rebuilding your kingdom. There is a certain point where the
gameplay overall loop will come more into focus. It's like,
all right, I'm going out to these different biomes to recruit.

Speaker 3 (55:59):
That's even get attacked. Did you even let the bats attack?
How did you get yes, I'm talking to you?

Speaker 2 (56:08):
I played.

Speaker 5 (56:09):
Look, is there like you know, like certain games are
like a ractophobia mode where it's like spiders will turn
into pieces of bread. Is there a way that I
can just they can be dudes instead of rats? Because
I just can't take the like a rat kingdom seriously,
like rat kings.

Speaker 1 (56:22):
They're rats the whole game.

Speaker 2 (56:23):
That's ridiculous.

Speaker 4 (56:26):
I don't know, I am bread.

Speaker 3 (56:28):
It's just a bread kingdom.

Speaker 5 (56:29):
That's being a serious rat lore.

Speaker 3 (56:35):
And I think you're getting You're getting the hollow Night
treatment because I think dan Is like severely judged this
game based on one type.

Speaker 5 (56:43):
That's why That's why I said it was a stupid thing.
Is like I I realized when I was going off
of nothing. I was just like, this seems stupid. I
need to get out of here.

Speaker 3 (56:51):
You are denying yourself. I think one of the best
games of the year, and I think it will come
up and so you probably should get it another play.
I have adored this game, and it is the reason
that I've only played a limited amount of a Vowed.
I think it is phenomenal artistically and for combat reasons. Mike,

(57:12):
I agree with you. I think the boss fights are
spectacular and they're so well earned, and you get this
really fun animation when you kill them. It's sick. It's
really cool to like chop off a snake or like
Znik's head, or like kill one of these like giant
giant frog bosses. But what I've really personally enjoyed I'm
curious to your take on, is like it's the world

(57:33):
building for me, and I really do think that it's
similar to Hollow Night. There are stunning backgrounds in this game,
with mysteries galore of like why does this tree have
all these like pieces of paper, or like why are
there tentacles of like a boss? Where is it? What
is this giant ship in the background, and how is

(57:54):
this going to impact me, and most of the time
so far it hasn't. But like mystical world building behind me.

Speaker 1 (58:01):
Yeah, Dan, I don't know if this answer your question,
but it does. Once you get past like your kingdom's attacked,
it's destroyed, and you're basically going out on a revenge
quest to rebuild your town. You're now the rat king
and you're the second biome you go to is a
bunch of like owl people, owl people that live in
a forest that you're helping out, and then you're recruiting
someone from there to come do this in your kingdom.
Then you go to like the bog marshlands where the

(58:23):
frogs are, but you're the engineer. The smithy you're trying
to recruit is like this alcoholic engineer who.

Speaker 3 (58:29):
You can't save him. Talk to me.

Speaker 2 (58:31):
I feel like the problem with me.

Speaker 5 (58:33):
I feel like it's the Lord of the Rings thing
where it's like because I think the Hobbits are idiots,
and I'm just like, why would I root for these
little idiots?

Speaker 2 (58:39):
And it's like I just mice. Like if there was
like a bunch of mice bad.

Speaker 5 (58:43):
Guys, I'd be like, yeah, sure, but like I don't
want to root for a little mice, dumb ass that
like I want to play as something cool, like I
don't know cool.

Speaker 3 (58:51):
He's a fucking motherfucker. He kills but we kills them.
You think you were tough looking Danny.

Speaker 2 (59:00):
One wants you No, I want to be a condrac man.

Speaker 3 (59:03):
It's very impressive that a little wee mouse can kill
a giant snake monster. Wish like the the like tiny
little weapons.

Speaker 4 (59:13):
Literally, it's just Game of Thrones.

Speaker 1 (59:15):
But they just like Gary was just like normal people
instead of little idiots. Super normal for sure.

Speaker 2 (59:23):
No talking about the people like you. Yeah, this is
the problem.

Speaker 5 (59:30):
I understand you guys cannot enjoy Lord of the Rings
because all these guys look like little helpless idiots.

Speaker 2 (59:35):
And I had the same feeling, like a bunch of mice.

Speaker 1 (59:38):
What do we why?

Speaker 2 (59:38):
Why are they cool?

Speaker 1 (59:39):
Those A those little helpless idiots A bow to no one,
and B the rats cut off people's heads and kill
giant snakes. You don't have to if you don't want
to play the game, that's fine. I feel like I should.
I just need to get past this. You're not going
to there's you're a rat.

Speaker 3 (59:56):
The whole game a therapy.

Speaker 2 (59:58):
I would rather be a rat than Elijah Wood.

Speaker 1 (01:00:01):
Yeah, same, I agree.

Speaker 3 (01:00:03):
There, yea, I will say so Buggy.

Speaker 1 (01:00:07):
I don't love how because you are backtracking a lot
in this game. On the one hand, I kind of
appreciate that the enemy mobs respawns can be randomized. When
I was in the forest, i went back. I also
don't think the monster hunts are the side ones are
always that great. It's less involved boss fight in more

(01:00:28):
whittle away. It's health down a third, then he's going
to go somewhere else in the map, go get another
the second third of his health down. Some of those
are just not interesting. You're just fast traveling around the world,
going to do the same fight again. But also going
back to what I was saying, the enemy mobs that respawn,
I think they vary them, so when you are backtracking,
it's not oh, it's three of those giant beetles right

(01:00:50):
now that I need to fight. I know how to
fight them, just dodge them, and then once they they
trip and slide, I can hit their unshielded side. By
varying the respawns, I think they make it a bit
more unpredictable from area to area. However, when I'm trying
to not that I'm really grinding in this game. But
there's been a several times I'm like, oh, I almost
have this entire armor set. I want the last I

(01:01:11):
want like the bone shield. So I have the entire
bone armor set. It looks awesome, it works, it's got
electrical resistance or something like that. Really helpful. This area
I'm going to, I know exactly where there are a
few beetles because I need some beetle shells, And it's like, well,
the spawns have randomized and there's not beetles there, So
you're just kind of wandering in certain times unless I'm
completely misunderstanding how those respawns work, which is possible. No.

Speaker 3 (01:01:34):
I think I also couldn't find full sets. What I
think is interesting about the sets is that, like you
were saying, they're all elemental damage, so you're ultimately playing Pokemon, right, Like,
if you're going to fight someone who does heavy ice damage,
you want to make sure that you have the right attack.
If you are attacking someone with a sword that does
ice damage against an ice enemy, it does nothing. You're

(01:01:58):
wasting your fucking.

Speaker 1 (01:02:00):
The snake is like fire you need and what when
you use the weakness. It really fucks them up.

Speaker 3 (01:02:04):
Like set, Yeah, it fucking kills them. And so I
think is fun is that by literally, by changing my
armor set and my weapon to be the right element,
I was kind of melting certain enemies. That makes me
feel like a golden god. Going back to those areas,
I think what it's trying to get you to do is, hey,

(01:02:25):
remember how hard this area was once upon a time. Well,
now that you have the right set of armor for it,
they kind of you can just really I don't don't
think you're cheesing it, but you're kind of you can
burn through it a lot faster, which I think makes
me feel really smart and good at the game.

Speaker 1 (01:02:40):
Also, Yeah, I mean the like the balance once you
start getting more and more tools, it's like the balance
between the bow enemies. It's like enemies will start reacting
and they're like, they know you're using the bow. You
just kill them, that's their weakness. So they'll start charging you.
So then you're dodging, you're countering, you're using your spell
just recharts. So you're shooting this giant fireball at a
giant force. Yeah, one of your four spells just recharged

(01:03:02):
and you're shooting that at them.

Speaker 3 (01:03:03):
It's kind of like oblivion.

Speaker 1 (01:03:06):
Abow.

Speaker 4 (01:03:06):
Yeah you're just.

Speaker 3 (01:03:07):
Getting these Yeah, you're just getting these like spell I
just realized I also have the same spell systems. Yeah,
it's really funny just to have these spells. In addition,
Dan by all means you should like this.

Speaker 2 (01:03:19):
I think I probably will. If I give it a shot,
I probably will like it.

Speaker 3 (01:03:22):
I think mechanically it's your jam the.

Speaker 4 (01:03:25):
Like serious storytelling.

Speaker 1 (01:03:26):
If this answer your question really does not stick around,
it becomes literally more just like hey, go get this
person who can rebuild this aspect of your castle, bring
them back. Okay, I don't think it's overly cute. Really
throughout the owl character is a bit you're cute.

Speaker 2 (01:03:42):
I think it's just the issue that they're mice.

Speaker 4 (01:03:45):
Do you not like rodents like in real life?

Speaker 5 (01:03:47):
No, it's it's really I mean when I say, it's
like the same thing as like the Lord of the
Rings thing, where it's like I think if Lord of
the Rings didn't have Hobbits and it was just following
like Vigo Mortensen trying to kill a big evil guy,
I'd probably be into it. But it's just when it's like,
who are these dumb like I can't get past that.

Speaker 3 (01:04:01):
He's he's a strong motherfucker. The main character of this
game is a beast, and I think if you play
literally ten minutes of it, you'll kind of discover that
because there's people that you're fighting with and they just
a lot of people get brutally murdered in this game,
right in front of your main character, and he's like
all right, and he fucks people up. So I think

(01:04:22):
you'll I think you'll come to appreciate how strong these
characters are.

Speaker 2 (01:04:26):
If I played, I guarantee.

Speaker 3 (01:04:27):
That they're not little weenie boys. They are These are
like murderous mice men.

Speaker 5 (01:04:33):
So it's cool and especially hearing about the like you know,
I love like in Rogue Legacy and any game or
Haites does this too, where you go back and you're
like leveling up your hub and stuff like that. Like
I'm a sucker for that type of stuff. So like,
I have no doubt that if I just got past
my stupid thing, I would enjoy it.

Speaker 4 (01:04:47):
Yeah, it's still it's still a bit rough around the edges.

Speaker 1 (01:04:49):
Certain mechanical things like the grappling hook, the the like
I don't know how to even describe it. The hit box, yeah,
or to recognize, like to give you the prompt is
you have to like if you run too far and
I'm at a certain point when you're backtracking, I'm just
sprinting around the world fast traveling and running back to Oh,
I remember there was a chest there.

Speaker 4 (01:05:09):
Oh that mine had a lot of these enemies. I'm
gonna go back down there.

Speaker 1 (01:05:12):
The grappling hook I wish was a little more free form,
but you really need to be in its like circle
of influence for it to give you the button prompt
LB or whatever it is.

Speaker 3 (01:05:21):
On controller, I have a nitpick the side quest that
you can take. There's like bosses per area and you
can replay the bosses. And I accidentally hit replay boss
and I don't I didn't want to, so I was like,
I'll just undo that quest. You can't once you accept
a quest, you just have to kill the fucking boss again.
Oh and I wasn't able to undo it, and that

(01:05:43):
really pissed me off.

Speaker 1 (01:05:44):
Wait, sorry, what were you trying to do that? It
didn't let you do it.

Speaker 3 (01:05:48):
Didn't let me unselect replay a boss Like I had
a boss that you could redo the quest. You can
redo their same boss quests and I undo it.

Speaker 1 (01:05:57):
There's also I had a boss down to or no,
So I had a particularly tough mob down to, like
the last enemy, and he was toward the edge of
the screen and I went to swing my sword or
axe at him whatever I was using, and it transitioned
the screen because I went into the next area. So
they all respawned after a pretty difficult fight that only

(01:06:19):
happened once so far. But like now I know why
they bring up barriers during boss fights, so you can't
just accidentally despawn them and respawn them.

Speaker 4 (01:06:28):
Yeah, it's you could, Like I said, you could tell.

Speaker 1 (01:06:30):
It's like there's a lot of like excellent craft on
display here, but there's also some oversights that maybe they'll
patch them out, but I don't know. It's one of
those games I kind of like because of its rough
edges in some ways. It's not a perfect game by
any means, but I like it a lot. I like it, Yeah,
for them to odd Bug Studio, for them to make

(01:06:55):
that first game, and I played that on Switch and
I really liked how deliberate, weighty the combat was, how
responsive it was, how the pattern recognition and like responding
more quickly could feel like get you in that flow
state after a while, but this new one like blew
that up a lot. It's a pretty big game for

(01:07:15):
especially what it seems like at first, but I like
it a lot.

Speaker 3 (01:07:18):
Yeah, going back to the world building that I've really
liked about it. I got a couple hollow night vibes
from this game. Dan. I was in these corridors. There's
lots of different ways to get into the same spaces,
so maybe it will be a like a wishing well
or something, and going into the well does it. Or
maybe there's like a tunnel system, or there's bridges and

(01:07:42):
at one point a boss made the bridge collapse and
now the bridge is an entrance into these like tunnel systems,
so that's cool, right. There's like lots of different ways
in and out and they change based on the progression
and the story. And in one area I think I
was like, this wall seems weird. I is there a
ladder here when there's nothing here? And I pushed against

(01:08:04):
it and it was like a secret area and A
had two little moles, I want to say. They were
like hanging out and I talked to them and they're like, hey, uh,
are you our delivery guy. We're waiting for our burgers.
We're really hungry. And I was like, no, I'm not
your burger delivery guy. And they were like, all right,
well if you can, you like, if you find them, like,

(01:08:25):
bring us our burgers. Were really hungry. There's like two
little mole guys hanging out, and so I'm like, okay, well,
I don't have any of the shit. So I leave
and I defeat a boss in the area, and I
leave and I come back later, as Mike was saying,
probably to get some armor, and I kill some shit
down there, and I get a bag of food. I
get a bag of burgers, and I went, oh my god,

(01:08:47):
I have these moles delivery food. And I fucking door
dashed this shit right to them in their little bunker,
and I delivered them their food and they put on
some music and we have a meal together. And in
this very violent, very intense, I would say, extremely stressful game,
because it's very soulsy in the sense where you like

(01:09:09):
always are nervous that you might die before you get
your next health it was this moment of peace and serenity.
We shared a meal together. I brought them their burgers.
They were really thankful I got some like fun little
bonuses for my character. But I think more importantly, I
think I was just like, what a nice tonal shift
that I got to have a meal with these little
moles and like relax for a minute. I appreciated that

(01:09:31):
the devs put this kind moment in this game, And
to me, that is something that Hollow Knight did a lot,
where it was like, what a stressful world, and then
all of a sudden you'd be like, Oh, you want
me to relax and enjoy this moment with you in
this beautiful little area. And it's just like this game
kind of gets that too. It just like knows when
to let you chill nice.

Speaker 2 (01:09:52):
Oh And I definitely had that. I did appreciate that too.

Speaker 5 (01:09:55):
It's so just like Graham and then it's like, oh,
this shopkeeper is being funny and then having a little
song and yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:10:00):
Yeah, dad's a nada.

Speaker 1 (01:10:01):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:10:01):
I think that this game has vibes like that, I
really do. I think it had its moments where it
wants you to relax or enjoy or mourn, which I
think is also really interesting. Like there's a lot of
fucking people die in this game, and it's brutal, and
I kind of started getting a little off put. Every
time someone was like, I need you to help me
find my brother, I'd be like, your brother's fucking dead, Bud.

(01:10:23):
We all know that, and we would just constantly like
find these dead family members and deal with it. But like,
every once in a while you will actually save someone.
More often than not, they're dead, but it feels really
good to help someone find their kid or their brother

(01:10:44):
and actually bring them back, and they're extremely grateful, and
it's meaningful because in this world, people die. They throw
people away very very quickly in this game, So it's
sick to save someone's life. It's sick to deliver burgers,
and it's sick to kill a snake.

Speaker 1 (01:11:01):
Yeah, I gotta go back and finish it. I think
I'm like.

Speaker 2 (01:11:05):
I've heard it's like twelve hours total.

Speaker 4 (01:11:07):
It's really not huge huge too.

Speaker 1 (01:11:09):
Okay, Yeah, it makes the first game seem short, short,
but it's still not like A. It like Double A
is even pushing it.

Speaker 3 (01:11:15):
I think it depends on how difficult you find it
as well, because I've struggled on certain bosses and put
like a like an hour into a people, but other
places I've kind of been able to breeze through, but
I'd like to finish it by the next time we
talk as well. My playtime is ten hours. I don't
even think I'm I don't think I'm as far as.

Speaker 1 (01:11:35):
You, so yeah, I must be close. I'm about that
as well.

Speaker 3 (01:11:39):
But yeah, but I'm stupid, so I feel like I'll
have to to really burn through. I was struggling with
some of those fights.

Speaker 1 (01:11:49):
Another new game. I've played a lot of Sieve seven
at this point. I don't think I love that game.

Speaker 3 (01:11:56):
Oh no, I've heard problems with the launch of this game,
and I'm curious what you think about it, because I've
heard a lot of people say that maybe it came
out too early, it was like bud here something.

Speaker 1 (01:12:07):
I don't have any technical problems with it. I know
people are like not loving the UI. I don't think
it's as exhaustive with its satorialization and CIVI six. The
Civilipedia you could just hover over anything and it would
kind of explain it. This you need to dig a
bit more. I for those who don't know the basic
The big thing here is that whereas in past civilization

(01:12:29):
games you would pick a civilization, you pick ancient Egypt
with the leader would be Cleopatra, let's say, Or you'd
pick America and the leader would be Teddy Roosevelt. Here
you're picking a leader who's going to be your leader
throughout the ages the eras. However, you're changing the civilization
each time based on what you were doing in the

(01:12:51):
previous one. So what they're trying to do is lean
more into the emergent gameplay, Like, oh, here's how you'd
in the age of antiquity, you were really obsessed with expansion.
So at the beginning of the Age of Exploration, here
are a bunch of civilizations to choose from because you
were so obsessed with expansion. You can now go with Mongolia,
whose militaristic, militaristic and expansionist, or you can kind of

(01:13:15):
shift course because you were also going a bit more
into trying to like build more banks and your economy.
So here's the califits, et cetera. So, like you're they're
trying to, basically, I think, introduce more emergent gameplay into
it and how it evolves. So you'll have these cool
water cooler like, well, I'm Ben Franklin, but in the

(01:13:36):
modern age, he's in Charge of Russia, like it's cool
on paper, and I like, that seems right up my alley.
And this game is very good for ACCESS has always
stressed the one more turn mantra, like they want you
to stick around for one more turn. CIV seven is
very fucking good at that, more so than you know

(01:13:59):
the the joe of each for SIEV game is like,
wait for the first expansion. That's when the game really
becomes what it's supposed to be with Gods and Kings
in SIB five or Rising Tide, which whatever it was
with SIEV six. But I really have a hard time
putting this game down, and the more I played it,
the more I realized it doesn't leave that much room

(01:14:21):
for intentionality. I think my favorite parts of SIV five
and six were when I had a plan. I was like, Okay,
I'm gonna take over this island chain, this archipelago because
it has a ton of natural resources I want. It
has like Wales, and it has like prime fishing areas,
and it would be great to build up the rest
of my civilization and kind of become like my hub

(01:14:42):
for naval if I need to go to war with
my navy. The fun of civilizations is when like that
plan goes awry and some other huge new objective comes
up because fucking Gandhi is being a dick on your
east flank.

Speaker 4 (01:14:54):
So now it's like, well, now.

Speaker 1 (01:14:57):
Now he's become like I have a vendetta against him,
So fuck that whole archipelago gasoline whaling plan. I'm going
I'm going to build up my eastern front. I make
plans in SIV seven, and the game just does not
give me the room to see them through it all.
It's like, oh, here's a new narrative thing. You have
to choose between letting these immigrants in or turning them away,

(01:15:20):
or oh, this world leader, the city state leader like
of Sparta, wants you to help them in this minor skirmish.
Do you or do You're not? Like each turn, I'm like, okay, okay,
I gotta focus. I'm going to I'm going to war
against Confucius. He's been he's been like putting pressure on

(01:15:41):
me politically. He's turning a lot of the other leaders
against me. His agenda keeps changing for the worst, and
he's hostile against me. The game is so obsessed with
this emerging game plan, giving me new scenarios at such
a breakneck pace that I never feel as if I'm
steering toward anything. Any goal I set the game doesn't
give me a chance to reach. I really have to

(01:16:02):
ignore everything the game's doing in order to do that.
So I don't think it's just a matter of an
expansion coming along. I think they like, it's not a
UI think for me, it's a tuning of the core
gameplay loop that I think this game needs for me,
because I think I've played a decent amount of it.
I'm like fifteen hours in two play sessions or sorry,

(01:16:23):
three play sessions, so there were long sessions. They were
enjoyable on the surface level, but when I like reflected
on them or just thought back, I was like, wait,
what did I do? What am I doing? When I
reload that campaign, it was really just like ADHD more
than like actually planning out my civilization. So it kind

(01:16:43):
of feels empty right now, even though there's a lot
going on. It's a very complex game. It's many parts
of it are extremely well crafted, and they carried over
a lot of cool things from SIV six from a
city building aspect. I love this game already. I think
they still need to tune things there, but they just
need to like get out of my way. More often
it's back to like the pace of a SIEV five,

(01:17:05):
where I'm actually working toward building up my nuclear supply
because godh he's doing the same and I need some
sort of deterrent so he doesn't just bomb my cities
like it. Uh yeah, it's just overload the notification to
pop up every turn. It's they need to scale back
for me to really enjoy this game.

Speaker 2 (01:17:26):
But there is a lot of cool stuff there.

Speaker 1 (01:17:28):
I and if for acxis has proven anything they can
do that x chosen like every expansion for at the
first expansion they release of every game, it's like, oh,
this is what the game should have been. I just
you know, put fifteen hours into it before that expansion
came out. So if anybody's like on the fence about it,
and if you're you really like seeing a leader and

(01:17:50):
a civilization through and setting out a goal for yourself
and keeping it in sight even when other cool stuff
pops up, this is probably not your game. This game
really is going to like be pulling you in eighteen
different directions, and even when you do commit to one direction,
I feel as if it's like, wait, but there's also
all this other cool stuff going on. Come come see this.

(01:18:10):
I feel more like a tourist than a leader of
a civilization, which is a huge problem for me in
a game where the fantasy is building up this empire
or cultural entity or world economy. So yeah, I'm hopeful that,
you know, they'll be fixing it or tweaking it, so
to speak. And I appreciate what they're trying to do,

(01:18:32):
and I think there's still a cool idea that they
can get closer to. They just need to like ease
off a bit. What else are you playing? Dan?

Speaker 5 (01:18:43):
Uh?

Speaker 2 (01:18:45):
Game about digging a hole? Yeah?

Speaker 4 (01:18:47):
Is that what's called?

Speaker 2 (01:18:49):
Yep, you dig a hole?

Speaker 3 (01:18:52):
In a game so perfectly named? Since uh yeah, that's
it's always.

Speaker 5 (01:19:02):
After I'm talking about, I know, strategy, something really deep
where it's like the whole time, I'm just having flashbacks
to uh and Gifted Class. That was the one game
we would have on the computers where we play CIV too,
And I remember, like, again, I'm easily the dumbest person
in that class because like everybody else was really into
it and talking about diplomacy and all that stuff, and
I would get on there, and it's like, why is

(01:19:23):
this not Command of Conquer?

Speaker 1 (01:19:24):
Right?

Speaker 5 (01:19:25):
Like, how do I build the tanks? How do I
build the cure offs? And like and it just kept
like so from CIV to I've never understood that series.
So the whole time you're describing that, I'm thinking about
how it was just way too much for me. Yeah
you tossed to me and it's like, oh yeah, game
about digging a hole? Yeah, that's that's your speed, my speed?

Speaker 1 (01:19:40):
Yeah, what is so? Yeah?

Speaker 4 (01:19:42):
What is a game about digging a hole?

Speaker 1 (01:19:43):
How does this?

Speaker 2 (01:19:45):
So you dig a hole?

Speaker 1 (01:19:46):
Uh?

Speaker 5 (01:19:47):
You I beat it in about probably an hour and
a half on stream yesterday. And you get a house
and you got a backyard and there's a spot for
you to dig a hole. And you got a garage,
and when you go to the garage, there's an upgrade terminal.
There is a like sell computer, so there's like an
upgrade bench and like a computer where you can sell

(01:20:08):
the shit you find.

Speaker 2 (01:20:09):
Uh. That's pretty much it.

Speaker 5 (01:20:11):
And the upgrades you can do are your shovel, your inventory, uh,
your battery because your shovel is like an auto shovel thing.

Speaker 2 (01:20:18):
They're like, well, probably.

Speaker 3 (01:20:19):
Once you upgrade it at first, it's probably.

Speaker 5 (01:20:21):
Start well, so it starts. It is an automated thing
with a battery and a tiny battery at first. But
it's just like and I've heard, uh, I heard the
next land you guys were saying it's not great on
mouse and keyboard because you have to click every time.

Speaker 2 (01:20:33):
For the shovel controller, you can just hold the trigger.

Speaker 5 (01:20:37):
So when you start, you have this tiny, dumb ass
little shovel and you go into your backyard. It's like
it's just like little tiny bits of dirt coming up
and it's like, ah, fuck, this sucks. And uh then
like every one in obviously like, oh there's a rock. Okay,
we're a stone. Okay, I got a stone. You take
the stone back to your computer. You sell a stone
for a dollar, and you can, you know, cost money

(01:20:57):
to get your upgrades from.

Speaker 2 (01:20:58):
The upgrade.

Speaker 3 (01:21:00):
People.

Speaker 5 (01:21:01):
I love it so much, un ironically, and so it's like, yeah,
you start and there's like a lot of stones right
at the service and I got five stones.

Speaker 2 (01:21:06):
I'm gonna go sell that for five dollars. Then I'm
gonna upgrade my thing.

Speaker 5 (01:21:09):
And then you get a shovel upgrade and it's like ooh,
the radius of the thing you're digging is now much bigger.
It's like, oh, I'm actually okay. I'm like I'm down
to my ankles in this hole. Now this is great.
And then you start getting further and there's like you know,
different types of like ore, stone, iron, and as you
get much much deeper, it's like gold, silver, platinum, diamond,
stuff like that, and uh as, like every upgrade you

(01:21:30):
get just feel so good, Like you get a jet
pack because like, like I was an idiot because when
I was streaming to everybody said that they like did
a circular pattern as they dug down so they could
get out of the hole, and me, I just kept
digging straight down.

Speaker 2 (01:21:44):
At a certain point, it's like I'm having trouble getting
out of this hole.

Speaker 5 (01:21:47):
And jetpack. Yeah, and so I bought a jet pack.
And you can just gonna get a bunch of rocks
and jet pack out of a hole?

Speaker 1 (01:21:57):
Is it?

Speaker 4 (01:21:57):
First person?

Speaker 2 (01:21:58):
First person?

Speaker 5 (01:22:00):
Dude, I guess any scratch, Yeah, yeah, And so yeah,
you're just going deeper and deeper, and you can buy
a little upgrades, like you can get like lamps and
stuff because it starts getting dark and you can put
lamps on the on the walls, and like at times,
like you like a little radar like metal detector thing
that's like, oh, you need to, you know, go in
this direction. You'll find like a secret little reminded me
of Barbarian, like a secret like hallway and it's like,

(01:22:21):
oh shit, there's like a treasure chest in here, and damn,
it's not that scary.

Speaker 3 (01:22:25):
Well, there's other whole based scenarios that you could come
up with besides Barbarian.

Speaker 5 (01:22:31):
I mean it a hallway underground and it may be
called holes.

Speaker 2 (01:22:36):
I have not seen holes. I've seen Barbarian, but you
got to go that.

Speaker 1 (01:22:40):
You must go see Madam Zarne on the mountain.

Speaker 2 (01:22:45):
What's he doing?

Speaker 3 (01:22:46):
You should see holes?

Speaker 2 (01:22:48):
But I like holes.

Speaker 3 (01:22:50):
Yeah, we know, Dan.

Speaker 4 (01:22:52):
Yeah, but we didn't talk about you saw Barbarian.

Speaker 3 (01:22:54):
We should we talk about it?

Speaker 1 (01:22:57):
Yeah, about it tonight. We always got on an episode
one hundred okay, gotten show or yeah, maybe I was
swear you might have stepped away it was great, okay,
or maybe.

Speaker 3 (01:23:09):
We discussed it before we.

Speaker 4 (01:23:11):
Did, but that was the last episode. Yeah, okay.

Speaker 1 (01:23:13):
Anyway, Anyway, the game about digging a hole sounds pretty straightforward,
but there's jet packs, so maybe it's not.

Speaker 5 (01:23:20):
You get a jet pack, you get likes to get dynamites.
You'll get to like lava rocks and stuff like that
that you can't dig pass and so you die. Yeah,
there's health, and you gotta you can pay to get
your health back.

Speaker 3 (01:23:31):
It looks like a five dollars like it was.

Speaker 5 (01:23:33):
It five dollars. It's worth five dollars for sure. So yeah,
you just just keep digging further and further. You just
have a good time.

Speaker 3 (01:23:41):
I can see this as one of my like mental health. Like, listen,
I'm putting some I'm putting Simpsons on TV, and I
would like to play a game on the steam deck
on my couch and not really give a ship. That
is what this says. This is Wow, you're doing powerwash Stimulator.

Speaker 2 (01:23:56):
Yes, it is that. It is the whole version of
Wash Simulate.

Speaker 3 (01:24:00):
Yeah, this is very simple, but I do I do
like simple mechanics for a night or two. I think
like at a five dollars price point, this is a
reasonable investment for someone who is maybe like stressed out
and wants like I consider this a cozy game. This
is a I could see that this is a cozy game.

Speaker 5 (01:24:17):
I see it as a like dopamine game where it's
like you get you know, if you're using the shovel
for so long, you upgrade to the drill, and it's
like it's like, oh man, this is an incredible feeling
right now.

Speaker 3 (01:24:27):
Yeah yeah, if it brings you joy, I mean, I
think that's great. And I and I am an advocate
for like simple mechanics, right, Like I remember like when
I was doing my uh I forget, I was like
a I was like a bar made, you know, like
in an RPG, and I poured beers and I mopped
the floor, and I was like, this is a nice existence.

(01:24:48):
You're digging a fucking hole. This isn't rocket science. You
go down and then maybe you sometimes once you're down
there long enough, you go left and right.

Speaker 2 (01:24:58):
Sometimes you will.

Speaker 3 (01:24:59):
Yeah, yeah, but I think it's probably pretty nice to
stumble across like a chest with like stuff in.

Speaker 2 (01:25:06):
It, right, and they make it rare enough to where
it matters.

Speaker 5 (01:25:08):
It's like, oh, this had a bunch of money and
some dynamite and some lamps in it, and it's like,
oh shit, that's great. And then it's like as you're
going deeper, you come back up and you got a
big inventory. It's like I got twenty fucking things of
gold and silver and platinum, and you cash like I
just got three thousand dollars from that hole where it's
like when you start and you're getting like three dollars
a hole. You know, it's it's very just simple, just
dumb dopamine mechanics. But yeah, I like that shit a lot.

Speaker 3 (01:25:30):
I think that's great. I think this is simple and
something I would probably play on like a stress like
to relieve stress after a tough day is probably how
I would do this. So I'm kind of in, yeah,
like dumbest shit, but like effective at bringing joy.

Speaker 2 (01:25:46):
Yes, what does this face MIC's had for the last
two minutes.

Speaker 1 (01:25:51):
I don't know. I was just like making a face
up that I like a person would make when they're
listening about a game about digging a hole. It's not
knocking to it. It looks I've been watching like the
gameplay on Steam. The gifts are mesmerizing.

Speaker 2 (01:26:06):
Yeah, it's five dollars. That's like that's a no brainer. Yeah,
Dan or no Mary, what's spirit swap?

Speaker 1 (01:26:13):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (01:26:13):
So on the other end of uh, what I would
call like cozy relaxing games is spirit swap low five
beats to match three two A bit of a mouthful,
but as you can imagine, it is a match three
game with lots of story and friend building mechanics. So

(01:26:37):
you're like a new You're like in a town. You're
going over to people's houses. You play a couple match
three versus games against them. Matching three is exactly how
you remember it on your phones. You match the shapes
and the colors. If you do that successfully, it puts
I don't know, immovable blocks on the opposing teams side,

(01:27:01):
like kind of like tetris right where it's like building
and if it gets too high, that person loses. But
they can do the same thing to you, and so
you have to use these special mechanics that this game
is constructed to help break down some of those unshakable blocks.
It's things like you make a diamond and then that
gives you a special move, or you can make a

(01:27:21):
square and that gives you a special move, and those
special moves can break up those squares and have you defeat.
But they're not your enemies. These are your friends. And
in other ways, I actually think these are like romance situations.
I want to be careful comparing it too much because
I don't think it's like dream Daddy. But like multiple
times I was talking to these people and playing Match

(01:27:43):
three against them, and I was like, I think they're
coming on to me, and then like two seconds later
it was like, do you want to be romanced by
this character? And in all of these situations, I said no,
because I'm not really playing this to romance, so you
can say no, But I think it sounds like you
can say yes and romance these like hot to trot

(01:28:04):
little characters that are playing Match three against you. So
I'm a little I'm not completely understanding exactly that mechanic
of it if it is like that type of game,
But you obviously can build friendships and relationships with all
these different towns people, and then you also get lots
of items, and then you can build out your cozy space,
so your apartment you can decorate with your own rugs

(01:28:27):
and lamps and elements, and so you're kind of decorating,
You're discovering people in the town, maybe you're romancing them,
but ultimately you're just like playing this match three game.
It's very simple stuff, Like it's never stressful. I was
never overwhelmed and the music, as you can imagine, is
lo fi. So you just kind of chillin the Lofi

(01:28:48):
and matching three.

Speaker 2 (01:28:51):
What Tetris block would you want to fuck?

Speaker 1 (01:28:56):
This is square?

Speaker 5 (01:28:57):
The stick?

Speaker 1 (01:28:58):
No no no, no, no no no, the the block
the no, like, I don't even know how to describe it,
is l block.

Speaker 2 (01:29:08):
Well there's the block. There's the block. Yeah no, not
the T block, the one that block like an hour.

Speaker 1 (01:29:17):
The.

Speaker 3 (01:29:18):
Little freak. Yeah, there's always one.

Speaker 1 (01:29:22):
It's already, it's already, it looks ready to go.

Speaker 2 (01:29:27):
Elaborate. No, I am I really almost said something vile?
Please please please?

Speaker 1 (01:29:34):
What was it? No? Was it?

Speaker 4 (01:29:36):
You can't suspense I'm not a creep.

Speaker 1 (01:29:40):
I am not a creep.

Speaker 4 (01:29:42):
Dan, what's this? Eternal strands?

Speaker 3 (01:29:44):
You guys don't have anything else to say about.

Speaker 2 (01:29:49):
Puzzle blocks.

Speaker 3 (01:29:52):
There's no conversation about this.

Speaker 1 (01:29:55):
I don't know. It's nice.

Speaker 4 (01:29:56):
I'm just trying to move on, not from your talking
about the game.

Speaker 1 (01:29:59):
From okay.

Speaker 2 (01:30:01):
Sorry, I was holding back all of my like does
everything you have to have fucking in it? That thoughts?

Speaker 3 (01:30:06):
So, like, I know why I didn't know that this
would have romance options, and in general I did not
want that from this game. So I didn't partake. I
don't want that. I said no, but I was able
to say no and it was very comfortable. It wasn't awkward.
I was just like, no, thanks, we're friends. Just the

(01:30:26):
coffee and the swap three for me. So I mean,
you can uh not do that.

Speaker 2 (01:30:34):
As a puzzle game by itself? Is it good?

Speaker 3 (01:30:37):
I think that it is a simple swap three game mechanic,
so I think it succeeds at doing swap three mechanics.
Does it get more complicated than that? Not really, except
for the as I was saying, you get those special moves,
which is like you've made an X out of your
colors or you've made a tea. There's different shapes that
you can make that do special moves. But I think

(01:30:59):
it is a simple game. I don't think this is
like a complicated game. But I think the last thing
I just want to say is visually, I think it
is very beautiful. The art person went off making these
character designs. I just think they're really good looking characters.
And there's like this fun frog that hangs out with
you as well that I think literally this does look

(01:31:19):
like and the animation is so cute.

Speaker 1 (01:31:24):
This reminds me of a Goodbye Volcano High. Like the
art style, the character design kind of yeah, like Haities
meets Goodbye Volcano High and people are.

Speaker 3 (01:31:35):
Hot in it, like everyone's attractive. But I was like, no,
I didn't. I didn't want them that way.

Speaker 1 (01:31:42):
Very I just always horny. Maybe I feel like you
bring up horny games a lot and I.

Speaker 4 (01:31:47):
Can't help it.

Speaker 2 (01:31:49):
There are a lot of horny.

Speaker 3 (01:31:50):
Games now for the In my defense, I was never
like playing Haites and was like, uh, like trying to
get it on. I was just trying to play this
sick game. And then I was like everybody's hot, Like
why did they make all these people so hot? And
it was I was like, no, off put by it.
I was surprised and I was not prepared for how

(01:32:12):
sexy they made all these characters. And then Spirra Swap
like they just kind of like made these good looking
workout characters or whatever. It's like someone is in the
gym and he's wearing these like little gym shorts and
I was like, I'm just trying to swap three sir
or just throwing those hams in my face. But yeah,
I don't. I mean, in my defense, what I would say,
is like I've learned that I don't always want to
be horny when I play games because I chose no,

(01:32:35):
I chose not to be romanced. In this game and
in other games. I have absolutely been like, uh oh,
I am now into this weird game because they've made
it hot. So it does happen to me. I I
didn't mean to goon.

Speaker 2 (01:32:50):
I wish horniness was merely a choice for me.

Speaker 3 (01:32:55):
It's a way of life.

Speaker 5 (01:32:58):
I love video games, and I'm also, you know, a
horny as as human beings will get, I just they
don't intertwine.

Speaker 1 (01:33:06):
I just don't like, I'm not against it because except
have you played uh what what are the I'm trying
to think of the game, oh, Dark Watch back in
the day, No, that was a horny vampire while West
Shooter game I'm.

Speaker 3 (01:33:19):
Trying to think of, like a horny game that could
break most people.

Speaker 2 (01:33:24):
You've never even realized was horny until I saw people
talking about.

Speaker 5 (01:33:28):
So okay, look, there was like maybe like okay, I'm
saying late nineties, So there's a sweet spot, a little
bit of you know, Anna Williams and tech in a
little bit of looking for the nude code and tomb Raider.

Speaker 1 (01:33:40):
Yes, you know I was.

Speaker 5 (01:33:41):
I was dude to teenager as a teenager like anyone.
But I can't say I've been horny while playing a
video game since the nineties.

Speaker 3 (01:33:50):
I think it's been a minute.

Speaker 1 (01:33:52):
I got to put the controller down every once in
a while.

Speaker 3 (01:33:55):
Yeah, Haiti's switch in my brain. I wasn't prepared for
that one.

Speaker 1 (01:34:00):
But it didn't get me.

Speaker 3 (01:34:02):
Haities got me for I didn't.

Speaker 5 (01:34:04):
Even realize that it was supposed to be horny. Like
I beat that game and I started reading all this
stuff about it. I was like, oh, what, it's horny,
Like I just had no idea that.

Speaker 3 (01:34:13):
Did something to me. But I I think generally I'm
able to ignore it as well. But I also feel
like I'm constantly playing games like Mike, Like I'm playing
like some kind of mouse fighting game or some kind
of like Orri where you're like some weird alien forest creature.
And it's like that's not meant to invoke anything inside
of me.

Speaker 2 (01:34:33):
That's how I feel about it.

Speaker 5 (01:34:34):
It's like, this is like a rat lady, you should
not be horny about what is this?

Speaker 1 (01:34:39):
What's with them in the room?

Speaker 3 (01:34:44):
And yet he has a problem with rats yeah, but
you're fucking rats and he's been like digging holes with
no boners. You guys are both.

Speaker 4 (01:34:50):
As I'm not.

Speaker 5 (01:34:53):
She's like a cat bird type something like. I don't
know that's what it's. It's weird when people are horny
for things that are supposed to look like animals.

Speaker 3 (01:35:00):
You are allowed to escape our regular earthly planes from
time to time. Have you ever played mass effect?

Speaker 5 (01:35:06):
Like, come on, I did play all the mass effects?
Are those horny? I know they're romance options, but I
didn't consider them horny games.

Speaker 3 (01:35:14):
Oh my god, you have no dick?

Speaker 2 (01:35:21):
Should I put that on the soundboard?

Speaker 1 (01:35:23):
Yes? Da?

Speaker 4 (01:35:25):
What's eternal strands?

Speaker 1 (01:35:26):
Oh?

Speaker 2 (01:35:27):
I was way hotter on this.

Speaker 1 (01:35:30):
Before every furry in the world comes to kill you,
I'm gonna I got no.

Speaker 2 (01:35:34):
Problem with furries. They can do whatever they want to do.

Speaker 4 (01:35:36):
Subscribed a furry basically.

Speaker 2 (01:35:39):
But I'm saying stuff's not for me doesn't mean it.

Speaker 3 (01:35:42):
Does not be for Everyone's like you don't have to
be but there is like an element of like. But
if it has for and ears, you're not supposed to
be attracted to that.

Speaker 5 (01:35:52):
It's is like, well, I think it's a general rule
you shouldn't want to have sex with animals.

Speaker 2 (01:36:00):
I don't think that's not an extreme thing, right, I
don't know.

Speaker 3 (01:36:03):
I mean, I think we're just it is a spectrum.

Speaker 1 (01:36:08):
I tried.

Speaker 4 (01:36:08):
I tried to move on to the next game.

Speaker 1 (01:36:12):
Again.

Speaker 2 (01:36:12):
Consenting adults go to town.

Speaker 1 (01:36:17):
Walking around, conditioning the air, walking around screwing each other's
brains out. Okay, yeah, before I'm gonna what is Eternal Strands?
I think this is the third time I was.

Speaker 5 (01:36:30):
I was way hotter on the support how it came out.
It's okay, this sounds much better. I'm not meaning to
insult this game, but it's like, it makes me think
of Breath of the Wild meats Shadow of the Classes
meets Dragon's Dogma, but I want to specifically tipper that
with like but definitely not on that level.

Speaker 2 (01:36:48):
You know. This is definitely a smaller budget, more like
an indie title. It is good.

Speaker 5 (01:36:54):
I was having a great time with it, and I do.
I still think it's a really fun game, but UH
avowed it. It's kind of one of those things where
it's like, Okay, I can't imagine going back to finish
it now. It's a lot of the same stuff. It's
a lot of you know, magic going out crafting, killing
things to you know, pick up things to upgrade your
gear and stuff like that, and like it's good, Like
it's got fun, like there's shadow of the costs of
stuff is fun of like hunting these big gloss eye

(01:37:16):
and hanging on to their wings while they're flying around
and hacking at them, and you know, it's the magic
feels good. Has a bunch of weird physics stuff going on,
you know, like force powers and shit like that. It is.
It is a good game, and I was having a
lot of fun with it at a time where there
wasn't really a lot else on my plate. But again,
now that there is other stuff on my plate, and

(01:37:37):
Avowed is just such a bigger experience, I think it'd
be hard to go back to like a smaller scale.
It's not exactly like an Avowed, definitely not, but it's
I just don't think I could go back at this point,
you know, But it's it's good.

Speaker 2 (01:37:53):
It is a good game.

Speaker 4 (01:37:55):
Eternal Strands kind of looks like at a glance.

Speaker 2 (01:37:59):
Phoenix writing the Old Gods, the Monsters, Mortals, Phoenix Rising. Yeah,
it's got that look.

Speaker 5 (01:38:04):
And I will say that the story it's It's very
like that Prince of Persian New Crown, where it's like,
I think I'm into everything but the story, the character
is the art style, And I don't even think that's
just like a me Dan, You're.

Speaker 3 (01:38:14):
Into everything but the story, the characters in the art style. Yeah, No,
I mean yeah, I mean I'm just a lot yeah, thechanics.

Speaker 2 (01:38:21):
Gameplay, guy, it's.

Speaker 5 (01:38:22):
A fun game, you know, but it's like there's not
a lot going on there with with anything else outside
of just you know, pure gameplay loop stuff, which it
does well. But uh yeah, it's just hard to get
too excited about it. There's just you know, bigger and
better out there. But I'm sure this is cheaper. It's
so if you don't want to, if you don't have

(01:38:43):
game Pass, or you don't want to spend fifty sixty
dollars on a full fledged thing like it's a it's
a fun little title.

Speaker 2 (01:38:49):
I would have been way hotter about this. We talked
about this before about.

Speaker 3 (01:38:52):
Yeah, I see what you're saying.

Speaker 1 (01:38:54):
Yeah, right, I think that's everything. No, yeah, rude, what
did I forget.

Speaker 3 (01:39:04):
Under Magnolia bloom missed?

Speaker 4 (01:39:06):
That does not sound like a real You made that
name up?

Speaker 3 (01:39:09):
That's a real game that I'm going to under.

Speaker 1 (01:39:11):
Magnolia bloom in the mess sounds like a game you
would in the name, you would have made up for,
like Mike's Game of the Year.

Speaker 5 (01:39:16):
You said that when I was talking about there that prequel,
the one the predecessor under Quietest of the Night, under Something,
you said the exact same thing. This is the sequel
to that. I said that, Yeah, yeah, you said this
sounds like a fake game. Yeah, under Lily's Quietest of
the Night. And now it's Interermagnolia.

Speaker 2 (01:39:32):
That's right.

Speaker 3 (01:39:34):
So it's a metroid Vanian ann and I actually think
it's pretty good. It's got some really neat mechanics where
you are actually not fighting. There are homuncular I'm gonna
try and say that right, and homuncular fight on your behalf.
So when you hit attack, a person like comes out

(01:39:56):
of you and slashes. The animation looks pretty sick and
you end up getting I think I think four different
homuncular and they each have different skills. There's one who
has like a gun or he's like your ranger, and
so when you want to shoot someone from afar, he
like kind of comes out of you and shoots them.
If you are doing a slash attack, there's one there's
this fun guy who it's a charge and so you

(01:40:19):
just kind of push forward and you can knock people
off guard. A guy like shoots out of you and
does that. So I think that's pretty neat. Visually, this
is not my bag. You look God, I don't know
if I can describe this art style, but you look
like a little girl, very flat style drawn.

Speaker 1 (01:40:43):
I don't know.

Speaker 3 (01:40:43):
It kind of reminds me of like Sultan Sanctuary, Like
it's a very simple, desaturated, sad world, but very quickly.
Oh and you get a wolf, which I fucking love,
and I'll get to that. But I think what I
have enjoyed about it is that very quickly this game
ramped up and gave me several homunculi that allow me

(01:41:04):
to play this game in lots of different ways. And
you can upgrade your characters with different skill tree sets.
They can be quite different, and so I feel like
my build will be different than somebody else's build. I
can have my person have a totally different type of gun,
or my ranger can actually shoot out like these like
spiral moves that attack in a very different way. You
get lots of different mechanics. You can have a double

(01:41:25):
handed hammer type weapon, or you can be quick with
like slasher swords that are faster but they do less damage.
And I was dashing and double jumping faster than I
uh before. I was like, I'm frustrated. I want to
have another move. This game is constantly giving you your
next move, your next upgrade, your next skill set that
lets you progress the game. So I liked the speed

(01:41:48):
and the progression of this game. I also like the map.
I will say I've had like a couple like, oh, like,
this map is so big, but it's cool that the
map is taking you all over the place. Because it
is so big, there's lots to discover, and in that
Metroid venue sense, you'll be like, I can't get past
this wall. This is so annoying. Within like thirty minutes,

(01:42:09):
you'll probably have figured that out and we'll now get
past that part. So it doesn't tease you for too long.
It lets you get lots of secret doors that open
up quick paths and fast you know, just fast ways
of fast travel so that you can you can move
in the area quickly. I I'm trying to see how
like far I am in it, I want to say,

(01:42:29):
I'm probably I'm well over six hours seven hours in,
so I am really liking it. My problem is is,
like I'm really into the Mouse game, so I'm probably
gonna finish that first. But as a metroid Vania enthusiast,
I think Ender Magnolia is quite good and worth playing.
And you know, if you're like I don't know what

(01:42:50):
else to play, I've been playing this game with a
whole for like three days, Like, give Ender Magnolia a try.
I think it's a fantastic metroid vania.

Speaker 2 (01:42:58):
Yeah, I've ever being impressed by the last one kind
of came out of nowhere, and there's so many metro
advenias nowadays, and I remember thinking that the like you
know when you talk about the different summons or however
you want to call them, Like, it's got an interesting
take on combat, Like I should check this one out.

Speaker 3 (01:43:11):
Yeah, it's got a nice vibe to it as well.
It's sorrowful, but it's not like too depressing. And I
also think, respectfully, they've known when to shut up, Like
I've really gotten to avoid talking, and a lot of
this game, a lot of it is you can just
like ZipZap through, like you know all of your humunculized
backstory and get to the fighting. So I also respect

(01:43:33):
that about this game. It knows its place. Let me
fight the boss.

Speaker 2 (01:43:38):
Nice cool.

Speaker 1 (01:43:40):
I think that is everything. Pretty sure. I don't need
to talk about Dragons Dogma two. They finally uncapped the
frames on console.

Speaker 2 (01:43:50):
So I went back, Oh that's big, Okay.

Speaker 1 (01:43:53):
I still really like that game a lot. I like
it about as much, but now it's not fucking chugging.
I played like twenty hours of or Less a few weeks.

Speaker 2 (01:44:01):
That's one of those where I, yeah, I got code
for PlayStation and I played it a little bit and
I have the pro and it was like chugging, and
I was like I had to go back and like,
can I get it on PC? Like this is just
like the performance was like noticeably annoying.

Speaker 1 (01:44:15):
I love the Pond system. I love making my pond,
upgrading my pond, trading with other people's ponds. It's a
if you can't tell I like Ponds, it's a it's
a good game, so we get it. You like Ponds,
I have I'm a pawn addict. Are you guys wanna
emails or marry what what did you say?

Speaker 3 (01:44:35):
I have one more?

Speaker 1 (01:44:37):
You don't?

Speaker 4 (01:44:37):
Are you adding stuff?

Speaker 1 (01:44:39):
No?

Speaker 3 (01:44:39):
I thought of another one I played.

Speaker 2 (01:44:40):
Okay, wait, hold on is it I thought another one too.
I've been playing Warrior Land.

Speaker 5 (01:44:47):
Oh wait, okay, Mary's adding it is Freezing Bulldog Assassin. You.

Speaker 3 (01:44:53):
I didn't type that, I done. That's not my game.

Speaker 1 (01:44:56):
What is your game?

Speaker 3 (01:44:57):
It says it's called Crab Champions.

Speaker 2 (01:45:00):
Oh my god, that sounds more like a very.

Speaker 1 (01:45:05):
Yeah. Crab Champions. It's a real game that I played.

Speaker 3 (01:45:14):
With some of my coworkers for fun. This game is
from twenty twenty three. Uh, it's a oh god, it's
a crab third person crab shooter. They drop you off
on an island. You have to kill everything once you've
Once you've cleared the island, you get three treasure chests.

(01:45:36):
You pick which treasure chests you want, which will give
you one upgrade, So you can choose if you want
to upgrade maybe your defense or your gun, or how
fast you shoot, or your reload speed, or a million
other things. There's actually so many different types of things
you can upgrade, and then each island gets progressively harder.
I think I died on Like island. Forty six or

(01:45:58):
something like that. So eventually, like it gets so fucking
hard that it is very difficult to get through. But
your first like ten twenty, maybe even thirty islands, like
you can kind of start churning through, but you're building
your crab load out over time. Over time, you build
like maybe someone who's so fast with one giant bullet gun,

(01:46:18):
or maybe you have like two shooters and you're like
constantly like shooting out lots and lots of bullets consistently.
But it's really it's like a simple concept, but it's
very fun and it has co op. You can play
up to four people with these islands, and I think
it'd be fun if we played.

Speaker 2 (01:46:37):
Cool.

Speaker 3 (01:46:38):
I feel like you never have anything to say about
my games.

Speaker 1 (01:46:43):
I don't. There's not much to like.

Speaker 2 (01:46:44):
You guys didn't anything to say about the whole.

Speaker 1 (01:46:46):
Yeah I did. I said it was spoke after Civilization.
Well that's oh, I'm Mary, I'm the vipiting here. No
one said shit after civilization. Fuck you, we suck it up.

Speaker 3 (01:46:59):
You talked enough about it, and ditto to you, crab champion.

Speaker 2 (01:47:05):
I can keep talking about the whole.

Speaker 4 (01:47:06):
We get let's okay.

Speaker 1 (01:47:07):
On the kind of three, let's all talk about the
alta about civilization. Dan talks, No, I don't want to
do that. It's not gonna be fun.

Speaker 2 (01:47:13):
It's experiment.

Speaker 3 (01:47:15):
I'm glad you started that. It wasn't a good idea.
Crab Champions, Champions, the shooting, there's a boss fight at
the end.

Speaker 1 (01:47:24):
What is the other themes? What's the theme? What's the
overarching are there?

Speaker 4 (01:47:30):
Is there a subtext?

Speaker 3 (01:47:32):
No, there's no there's no story. There's no dialogue at all.
You start immediately as a crab and you just start killing.

Speaker 1 (01:47:39):
Let me do I'm gonna do my Waypoint host character.
What about the meta text?

Speaker 3 (01:47:45):
Though there is no meta text? You're a crab?

Speaker 1 (01:47:49):
Is there an text here?

Speaker 2 (01:47:51):
What's you?

Speaker 1 (01:47:53):
Guys don't know what?

Speaker 4 (01:47:54):
Oh god right, I forgot You're you're not normally on Waypoint?

Speaker 2 (01:47:58):
Are they still around? They came back?

Speaker 1 (01:48:00):
What are what are what are the what kind.

Speaker 4 (01:48:02):
Of thematic undertow is there?

Speaker 1 (01:48:06):
The characters?

Speaker 3 (01:48:07):
It's definitely like an underdog story because you're like this
simple little crab and you end up taking on these
giant boss fights.

Speaker 1 (01:48:14):
It's about it's about class disparity, yeah, capitalism, colonialism. Yeah,
I'm just joking. I loved Waypoint. Yeah, I don't know.

(01:48:35):
It sounds like a simple game, and you you didn't.
I'm not gonna play it, but.

Speaker 3 (01:48:40):
Come on, it's your crab.

Speaker 1 (01:48:43):
Maybe maybe i'll play it.

Speaker 4 (01:48:44):
What kind of crabs?

Speaker 1 (01:48:48):
Like a normal one?

Speaker 3 (01:48:50):
The red, the orange red? But you can actually change
your color. You can change your skin when you play.
You get unlockable so you can look like a green
leaf and stuff like that, which I think is neat.
But I think you just play it so that you
can smash into stuff and kill it. It's hard to
get health back, so you have to be really careful

(01:49:11):
taking damage over time because you don't you're never guaranteed health.

Speaker 2 (01:49:17):
That's how life is.

Speaker 1 (01:49:20):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (01:49:20):
Yeah, maybe it's about healthcare systems.

Speaker 2 (01:49:24):
The crabs under capitalism.

Speaker 3 (01:49:26):
Yeah yeah, it's privatized.

Speaker 2 (01:49:29):
Yeah, I like my game is to explore these things.

Speaker 1 (01:49:32):
Yeah, digging a hole. It's just uh, it's uh, it's
about how all of us just are trying to escape
reality capital All right, you've done enough are the crabs? Gay?
I just don't like it.

Speaker 2 (01:49:46):
Could be.

Speaker 4 (01:49:48):
Want about emails to do that all the time? Do
you want to read some emails?

Speaker 1 (01:49:55):
Sure?

Speaker 4 (01:49:55):
Yeah, Okay, we're gonna get into emails.

Speaker 1 (01:49:58):
But first, and I'll mention this again at the end
of the episode, but both Vinnie and I, Vinnie being
over at Next Lander, have been talking about a show
we've been doing. We have several episodes recorded. We are
getting closer to ready launch. We are looking at March third,
twenty twenty five. That is basically next week it's fire

(01:50:19):
Escapes off week. We're going to launch the show. I
mentioned this a few episodes ago, but basically Vine and
I are doing two co op total war Warhammer three campaigns.
We couldn't come up with a better name, so I
think the name is. For the fire Escape series it's
Mike and Vinnie Save the World, and then for Next
Lander it's Mike and Vinnie Destroy the World.

Speaker 4 (01:50:39):
Or Vinnie and Mike.

Speaker 1 (01:50:40):
I don't know. You know, Vinnie, he's an ego maniac.
If I say Mike first, he'll freak out.

Speaker 2 (01:50:44):
Younger. Is he like a like TikTok kid or what's
his Vinnie's deal?

Speaker 1 (01:50:48):
Uh? He does some stuff on Chive and snap check.
But yeah, if you're already subscribed to fire Escapes video
tier on Patreon, you will have access to this. It
is a top tier exclusive series for us, you will
see our whole series. We're basically doing that campaign every

(01:51:08):
other week. We're going to put a new episode up
on fire Escape in our off weeks when there's no
new podcast episode. If you want to see the evil
campaign that Vinny and I are also playing in parallel,
go subscribe to Nextlanders. I believe it's their ten dollars tier.
They do a lot of bonus stuff over there that

(01:51:28):
we will be posting the evil campaign. So if you
just want to stay on fire Escape, don't want to
worry about Nexslander and Vinnie, you'll still see Vinnie. We'll
also not miss an episode of Mike and Vinnie Save
the World. But if you want to see both, go
subscribe Nextlander. Basically we're planning it so the next Lander
episodes will go up when in the off weeks from

(01:51:49):
fire Escapes episodes.

Speaker 2 (01:51:52):
So it's been fun to have both to follows. You're
not missing anything.

Speaker 1 (01:51:55):
If you're only subscribed, you're you're missing another campaign if
you want to see it, but you're not separate show.

Speaker 4 (01:52:00):
The series itself is not jumping to another channel, correct.

Speaker 2 (01:52:04):
Yeah, but check out Next Landers tiers as well. They
do great stuff over there.

Speaker 5 (01:52:07):
I'm frequently on a podcast they do called Never Been
a Better Podcast, and that is basically just a beast
Cast reunion podcast, and so it's me Abby Backler, Alex Austin,
Vinnie just shooting the shit about whatever. So they got
good stuff over there. Check them out as well as
checking out our Patreon.

Speaker 3 (01:52:23):
That's awesome. I just am such a fan of those
guys and they do great work. So it's awesome to
see you, Mike working with them for some Patreon exclusive content.
I think that's awesome for everybody, A win win.

Speaker 1 (01:52:37):
We're having fun already. We've got a few episodes banked
and some funny stuff has already happened that Vinnie was
not aware was in the game that I was hoping.
So it's been fun. But anyway, for emails, as usually,
you can rite into firescape cast at gmail dot com
for questions, comments, concerns, which we take very seriously. Don't

(01:52:57):
pass over at all. You want to send in questions
to be read on the show that is fires kip
Cast at gmail dot com. This first one tonight from
doc Hensla Dan. I think this makes sense for you
to read it considering the content.

Speaker 5 (01:53:12):
Okay, hey guys, so I recently fell down a nineties
movie action marathon. This weekend, after getting off of shift
at the hospital, I watched con Air, The Rock, Heat,
and Bad Boys. I've seen all of these movies before,
but at the age of thirty six, it's been fifteen
to twenty years. Each of them had their flaws, but
Heat was a movie I thought, I'm so fondly that

(01:53:32):
when I watched it, I had to turn it off.
The plot, especially the end, was so awful. What movie
have you seen before?

Speaker 1 (01:53:42):
Wait? What? Heat?

Speaker 2 (01:53:48):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (01:53:48):
We just watched Heat recently. I absolutely it's still a
good movie. But I think, yeah, it's still a really
good movie. I didn't even see it back then. It's
not an astulted thing. I saw it in my thirties.
Watch again recently ago. It's one of me and Bong's favorites.
I think it holds up like it's amazer than like.

Speaker 5 (01:54:05):
As much as I love the perfect film nineties action movies,
I feel like Heat is a different level of like
filmmaking and holding up.

Speaker 2 (01:54:15):
There's nothing cheesy about Heat.

Speaker 4 (01:54:16):
No, it's amazing. We watched it literally two or three
weeks ago. It's great.

Speaker 1 (01:54:20):
But the question here, I think is still interesting that
that doc had.

Speaker 5 (01:54:25):
What movie have you seen before that you think of?
So finally, but when you watch again, it holds up
like Dan's toilet after a Taco Bell night Listen, Doc,
I've said up before, everyone makes that fucking joke about
Taco Bell. He's like, Oh, I'm gonna get Taco Bell, Like, oh,
feel bad for your toilet the next day. I haven't
gotten diarrhea a single fucking time from Taco Bell. I've
had Taco Bell five hundred times probably more in my life,

(01:54:47):
never had a single diarrhea incident. I've had more diarrheas
after healthy Thanksgiving dinners where I ate vegetables as a
child than I ever did a Taco Bell. So between
not like and heat and thank Taco Bell screws up
my toilet. I don't know how I feel about this.
Doc Inn's lock.

Speaker 1 (01:55:03):
Yeah, Doc, you're not scoring points. However, you have an
answer a movie that I recently watched, A Man and
I watched I think two years ago at this point
that I decided is not nearly as good as I
thought as Drive.

Speaker 2 (01:55:16):
That movie sucks.

Speaker 1 (01:55:19):
I've heard that and I remember thinking it was good.
I'll tell you what it is. It starts off on
a high note. They're doing like the Coen Brothers. Not
much dialogue, but you see the process, you see his escape,
you see the bank robbery.

Speaker 4 (01:55:29):
It's awesome.

Speaker 1 (01:55:30):
As soon as fucking William winding Refin tries to do
anything with characters, it falls apart. And I love Bronson.
I'm not saying I dislike all his movies. Uh, but
it's the stuff with him. Is it Carry Mulligan or
Michelle Uh? I think it's Kerry Mulligan the love interest. Yeah,

(01:55:50):
their whole relationship where it's like this, it's just like
eighties pop since stuff playing while they stare at each
other without saying anything. Soundtrack is amazing and it's still
a great looking movie and like the the the cinematography,
but oh my god.

Speaker 3 (01:56:06):
My zoom just said, are you playing music?

Speaker 1 (01:56:09):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (01:56:10):
Picked that up? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (01:56:12):
Are? They just stare at each other without saying anything,
And like college me thought it was really romantic. I
was like, that's what I want.

Speaker 4 (01:56:21):
I want, But like, now that I watch it with.

Speaker 1 (01:56:24):
Someone, I'm very deeply in love with him, Like this
fucking sucks, Like I hate what who thought? Also, William
finding Reffin said, like only God Forgives is a masterpiece,
and William is it William Nicholas Finding Reffin. Sorry, William
Friedkin is always on my mind when I say Nicholas
Finding rEFInd because William Freakin interviewed him for like a
movie podcast and Nicholas Finding Refin told him that he

(01:56:47):
thinks only God Forgives is a masterpiece, and William Freakin
laughed in his face.

Speaker 2 (01:56:53):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:56:53):
I feel like.

Speaker 5 (01:56:54):
Because Drive did very well and it was well regarded
at the time, and then I feel like everything that
referenced since then has been like not loved outside of
Destraining Force.

Speaker 1 (01:57:04):
But I I I halfway through Drive, I told him
at I was like, I thought this was better, Like
I remember this being very good.

Speaker 4 (01:57:13):
No, it's her first time.

Speaker 5 (01:57:14):
Isn't that the worst feeling when it's like you remember
something it's good, it's like, oh, this one's gonna be awesome,
and you can tell it's like this is yeah, very well.

Speaker 2 (01:57:22):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:57:23):
That doesn't surprise me about Drive, I think that's a bummer.
But I remember when I I remember being like, there's
so much atmosphere, but I don't remember anything about I
don't remember one line or like one character development where
I was like, ah, that's good stuff. Like I just
remember the the visual style, how it looks and how
it sounded is how.

Speaker 1 (01:57:43):
I remember it.

Speaker 2 (01:57:44):
I remember someone gets beat up in an elevator.

Speaker 1 (01:57:47):
Yeah, he stops, he's like he stomps his skull and
then he looks over at Carrie Mulligan with his face
covered in blood, and it does that like he does
a slow back out of frame. It's very artistic. Nicholas
Vining Refin is a genius. Yeah, I think that. I
think that movie has aged very poorly, or it was

(01:58:07):
always like that and I just grew out of liking it.

Speaker 4 (01:58:09):
I think that's what really happens sometimes.

Speaker 3 (01:58:12):
I think it's us right, Like it's not that the
movie hasn't changed. The movie is the same, and we
are now like in a different frame of mind. I
think I have a good answer for this, which is
almost every movie that was about like trying to get
some in high school or there's that like era where
it was like uh after. I'm not going to include

(01:58:32):
American Pie because I think that was kind of like
iconic for its time, and I do actually think it
has some timeless qualities. But I'm going to include a
lot of the ones after it, including the main one
that I think is like to me prolific in this,
which is Van Wilder.

Speaker 1 (01:58:46):
I never saw, Oh god, Ryan Reynolds annoys me in
generally so bad.

Speaker 3 (01:58:50):
I think that I went through a phase watching Waiting,
Oh I had to and Van Wilder this was during
his earlier years of acting very different than where he
is now. But he's actually kind of the same annoying
character in all of his films, but in this earlier
genre he kind of played like the cool guy who

(01:59:12):
was funny and had like really good facial expressions, who
always got the girl in the end or something like that.
And there was a time in my life where I
was like, oh, good, another teen sex comedy where like
funny things will happen and they will, you know. And
I thought with this college one, it might be like
I don't know, just other college films of that era

(01:59:36):
where they would fight, yeah, they would fight with the
rival fraternity or whatever. But in Van Wilder and I
actually like stumbled across like Van Wilder references somehow on
the Internet and I was like, oh my god, I
can't believe that I watched this film where they delivered
like pastries to the rival frat that they didn't like.

(02:00:00):
And after they were eating all these pastries and had
finished them, they saw that the bottom of the basket
was it. They were like empty donuts that they had
jacked the dog off with and they were eating. They
were eating dog semen in these pastries. This is a
plot point. There's a plot point in the film. They're

(02:00:22):
showing close ups of people like eating these pastries all
over their face. This kind of is connected to what
Dan sad about earlier. And it's just like they're saying
like fucked up stuff while they're doing it, like, oh, man,
I think I've had these before, like oh, they're still warm,
and like I just remember I remember like somehow suddling

(02:00:42):
across and being like when did I this waiting? And
Waiting's fucked up too because they play the game where
they like show each other's dicks to go.

Speaker 4 (02:00:52):
I had to watch it on the floor of dance basement.

Speaker 3 (02:00:55):
Away by this history. But that's real stuff.

Speaker 2 (02:00:58):
I don't think I've ever seen Ryan Reynolds in a movie.

Speaker 1 (02:01:00):
Dan, why you made me watch Waiting on your basements?

Speaker 2 (02:01:03):
I didn't.

Speaker 5 (02:01:04):
It was doctor Ryan did a donation during a charity
stream in movie. I don't think I've ever seen a
Ryan Reilds movie. It's just homophone one video game where
we covered.

Speaker 2 (02:01:14):
That no free free, Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know
by that guy.

Speaker 1 (02:01:23):
You know, he's never out of character in Welcome Marexham
him and Rob Mackelhoney, like Ryan Reynolds cannot not be
in that character.

Speaker 4 (02:01:32):
Oh it's it's truly annoying.

Speaker 2 (02:01:35):
I'm guessing.

Speaker 5 (02:01:35):
Ah, I remember liking Jungle to Jungle in nineteen ninety seven.
I'm guessing that it doesn't hold up.

Speaker 2 (02:01:41):
Well.

Speaker 1 (02:01:42):
I never saw it.

Speaker 5 (02:01:43):
Tim Allen is a high powered executive in New York City,
and uh, he goes to South America and uh, his
ex wife introduces him to a kid that was raised
in like a tribal village.

Speaker 2 (02:01:55):
Oh jungle, like concrete jungle, Jungle to.

Speaker 5 (02:01:58):
Jungle, and then he takes this kid was raised with
like a blowgo and takes him back to Manhattan. I'm
guessing that's not good.

Speaker 1 (02:02:06):
Probably not similar storyline, probably still kicks asses in Sino
man I.

Speaker 3 (02:02:14):
Actually holds up, but I don't know.

Speaker 1 (02:02:17):
I don't like this. I just love Sean Assen, I
love Brendan Fraser. Uh what was the movie I was
speaking of high school kids trying to have sex. Super Bad.

Speaker 2 (02:02:27):
That's like a weird that's so weird. That's on the soundboard.

Speaker 4 (02:02:33):
No, yeah, super Bad is that's the plot point.

Speaker 1 (02:02:38):
They're trying to get beer and then go to a
party and hook up with these with Emma Stone and
I don't know the other actor's name, but that was
like a defining movie for my high school years.

Speaker 3 (02:02:50):
I like that movie still, the American Pie for like
the next get Yeah, I haven't watched.

Speaker 2 (02:02:54):
It in a few years, and I wonder if it's
I don't remember enough specifics, but like I remember being
as smart like Apatow, like.

Speaker 4 (02:03:01):
It was Judd Apatow.

Speaker 2 (02:03:03):
Yeah, yeah, I remember. I would hope that holds up
Seth Rogan like a lot of talent there. Yeah yeah, uh,
he still fucking rules. I don't know what the hell
they're talking about. It's awesome, It is fucking incredible.

Speaker 1 (02:03:20):
Uh. None other's none, No others come to mind. Like
I still watch Annihilation pretty regularly, and that movie's still
really fucking good. Actually avowed the vine stuff growing out
of People reminded me of Annihilation. Yep.

Speaker 5 (02:03:33):
I've been thinking about Annihilation a lot during that. I'm
hoping because tomorrow night, Bonk and I are gonna watch
two thousand and one, and I haven't seen it since
I was high school Kubrick film obsessive, serious film guy,
and I remember loving two thousand and one, and she
thinks she's seen some parts of it, but it's been

(02:03:53):
forever and doesn't know if she's seen the whole movie.
And I think I've kind of built it up because
it's like it's Kubrick and it's like it's like a
Gama's favorite movie of all time. It's like this is
like awesome. So little high watched two thousand and one.
I'm hoping that. I mean, it's like it's probably gonna
be like the second oldest movie we've ever watched together,
behind like Casablanca.

Speaker 2 (02:04:11):
It's the sixties. I mean, this is an older one.

Speaker 4 (02:04:12):
So no, the Godfather Part one, wouldn't that have been before?

Speaker 2 (02:04:15):
I think that was seventies. That was seventies.

Speaker 4 (02:04:17):
God two thousand and one was sixties.

Speaker 2 (02:04:19):
I think it was late. I want to say it
was like sixty nine or something like that.

Speaker 3 (02:04:22):
Yeah, that's I'm amazed that you even got it when
you were younger Dan.

Speaker 2 (02:04:28):
I don't know if I did. I think I just
thought Cooper was very cool and like sunbelizably.

Speaker 3 (02:04:34):
If you like good cinema, you would know that two
thousand Space Odyssey was all about symbolism. Symbolism.

Speaker 2 (02:04:42):
If you have a minute appreciation of good cinema, Yeah.

Speaker 4 (02:04:45):
It's nineteen sixty eight.

Speaker 1 (02:04:47):
God damn, yeahs nineteen sixty eight. Yeah, I watched it
a few years ago. It's like it's it's hard to
look at and not be mesmerized.

Speaker 5 (02:04:57):
Visually, and like the audio. I remember being like, this
is incredible. Yeah, maybe I'll understand more now as a
you know, refined the symbolism attuned adult The.

Speaker 1 (02:05:08):
Only other movie I would say that if I watched recently,
that did not hold up as well as I thought.
And I don't think it's bad by any means still,
but I did not like it follows as much when
I watched it recently.

Speaker 3 (02:05:21):
Oh that's a bummer. I still talk really highly of
that movie, and I still recommend it for horror fanatics
as like a good vibe. I could see that it's
maybe slower on your second go, like, once you know
all the secrets, what makes it scary as you're like, what.

Speaker 1 (02:05:39):
Is going on?

Speaker 4 (02:05:40):
Yeah, No, I still think it's decent.

Speaker 1 (02:05:41):
I think horror movies just get like go leaps and
bounds every time a new one comes out. And then
now that like Robert Eggers and Ari Astor are doing
their thing, everything they release is just kind of changing
the genre in some way. So I don't know, maybe
it's just like horror is just evolving so quickly that
it just feels a bit dated now.

Speaker 5 (02:06:02):
But I mean, I've never been a big horror guy,
and Bonk isn't a big fan either for the most part.
But Barbarians, Seriously, both of us were head over heels
for that movie that.

Speaker 3 (02:06:12):
I mean, it's so well made and it's it is
like extraordinary at its ability to create tension. And I
also think, as someone who is a horror aficionado and
has seen most horror films out there, one of my
favorite things is when you can play with the juxaposition
of like horror and then have a bit of laugh

(02:06:33):
and then back to horror, and that movie kills it.
Like there is genuine laugh out loud moments in that
in that movie, and they will also it will absolutely
make you shit your pants. With how scary it is,
but it's funny, it's playful.

Speaker 5 (02:06:47):
There's so much I would say about it, about what's
surprising and stuff about it that like I just don't
want to do here because I wouldn't want to rob
anyone of Like you guys told me to, like don't
look up anything about it, and I didn't.

Speaker 2 (02:06:56):
Yeah, and that helped, Like this is just a trust
me thing, like yeah, it's yeah.

Speaker 3 (02:07:03):
I think it's really important for a lot of horror
films specifically because I think unlike a rom com or
something like that, where when you explain the plot that
might intrigue people, the whole point generally of horror is
to understand what's happening, right, Like a lot of tension
comes from not knowing what's going on and misdirection, and

(02:07:25):
this movie misdirects the viewer multiple times. So if you
look it up, you're not going to be misdirected and
you won't have the same experience as someone else. That's
why I feel really strongly about honestly never looking at
a trailer of any movie ever. I just saw Heretic,
which is a really cool concept of a horror movie,

(02:07:46):
and they totally misdirected me, and I loved it. But
it's it's that like he always plays like a romance
film lead because he's such a cute cutie Patuti. I
have to look up his name. You guys are gonna
be like, of course, Hugh Grant. He's like such a cutie.
But in this movie he's not a good guy. And
there are these door to door people talking about religion

(02:08:06):
and he invites them in and then like fucked up
stuff happens and he's like, yeah, tell me about your religion,
and then shit goes down. The trailer misleads and like
kind of like I never finished trailers. I usually go
like thirty seconds and be like is this for me?
But the trailer makes it. I thought it was gonna
be like Saw where he was going to like put
them in like fuck them situations, you know, like where

(02:08:27):
it's like are you going to save the three people
and move the train or are you gonna save one person?
What's better for your God? It's not that at all.
It's like totally different. But anyway, I actually kind of
liked it just because of how stressful they made it.
But the point I'm trying to make is I find
it very important to not find to not figure out

(02:08:47):
the plot of a horror movie, because the best parts
of most of the horrors that I have loved have
been what is this movie even about? What are they
trying to do? And how do they trick me into
figuring out what it's actually about? The substance does that really?

Speaker 1 (02:09:03):
Well?

Speaker 3 (02:09:03):
If you look too much shit up, you'll ruin it
for yourself. You will don't look up horror movies. I'm
telling you, just watch them and a half.

Speaker 5 (02:09:14):
I will watch a trailer, like I'll do that, but
I don't read beyond it. Like I just showed Bank
the trailer for Mickey seventeen.

Speaker 3 (02:09:21):
Make seventeen looks dope. I'm very excited about that.

Speaker 5 (02:09:25):
We're going to see that opening weekend, and like, yeah,
I'll watch the trailer and that will get me in
the door for sure. Like, although if you say it's
from the director Parasite, that also would probably work.

Speaker 2 (02:09:33):
But the trailer was very good.

Speaker 3 (02:09:35):
There's lots of ways to hook you. I think horror
is a specific genre where I like to do it
by word of mouth. When someone says watch this horror movie,
I just watch it. I don't really question it, and
I find that that yields better results than looking up
stuff and then possibly having it get altered. For me,
it's just so important to not have that be messed up.

Speaker 5 (02:09:57):
That's a special tear friend where I feel that way
with you guys about like Mary, you gave me the
hard cell on Barbarian and I was like, all right,
I trust Mary.

Speaker 2 (02:10:05):
Mary wouldn't stand me wrong.

Speaker 5 (02:10:06):
I'm just gonna go in blind Mike with games as
several times been like hey, trust me, just try Outer
Wilds or something, and led to it. So like yeah,
you two, like you know Ben Hansen, ten Terry. You know,
I've got friends that I'm like, okay, you know my
taste enough, I respect your taste enough where I'm just
going to go off your recommendation purely.

Speaker 1 (02:10:25):
You know.

Speaker 3 (02:10:25):
I think I have a horror movie that I watched
the other day that I was like, this was such
my jam in high school, and now I was like, ooh,
it doesn't hold up anymore. It was this one. Oh man,
you guys are gonna laugh as I try to solve
this riddle in real time. As I describe it, a
person is being stalked and they everyone around them is

(02:10:46):
dying because of Urban Legends, and the movie is called
Final Destination Urban Legends.

Speaker 2 (02:10:53):
Wait, is that the name of it?

Speaker 3 (02:10:55):
Yeah, it's actually okay, it's not good. That's unfortunate. I
watched it again and the other day it doesn't hold up.
But the movie Urban Legends. When I was growing up,
I was like, this movie's fucking so sick. Can I
spoil it? Or is that not cool?

Speaker 5 (02:11:11):
He needs you can spoil nineteen ninety eight Urban Legends
starring Jared Leto.

Speaker 2 (02:11:15):
I think that's fair.

Speaker 4 (02:11:16):
Oh yeah, please do.

Speaker 3 (02:11:17):
I forgot he was in this Okay. Urban Legends starts
out with a girl in the car and she's getting
gas on a rainy night and a guy is like
he has a stutter and he's he's scaring her, and
he's like, I need to talk to you, got to
come in the gas station. And then she's like, you
don't need to talk to me. You're trying to kill
me or whatever, and he's like no, no, no, that's

(02:11:37):
not right. But he can't speak very well, and so
she runs back into the car and tries to get away,
and as she runs away, he goes there's someone in
the buck seat, and there's someone in the back seat
with an axe and they chop her up, And that's
the opening sequence of Urban Legends, to which I was like,
what the fuck, that's so crazy. Fast forward, There's a girl.
She's in college. People around her start mysteriously dying. Her

(02:11:59):
roommate is a total goth and keeps fucking. She comes
home and she thinks her roommate's fucking, but she's actually
being like choked to death by a killer. But because
she thinks she's fucking, she doesn't get involved and goes
to sleep and her roommate dies right next to her
in the bed. Crazy stuff. Right then she goes on
a date with a guy who I think is also

(02:12:19):
a famous actor. I think it's like Ryan Phillippy or something.

Speaker 2 (02:12:23):
It's the posters are the most like nineties stars I've
ever reads in it.

Speaker 3 (02:12:28):
I'm telling you, I see that's the other guy. No, okay, sorry,
it's the blonde guy from UH. I don't want to
wait for our lives to be colder?

Speaker 1 (02:12:43):
Doin?

Speaker 2 (02:12:44):
Joshua Jackson. Joshua Jackson's in it. Josh Jackson right now
is in it.

Speaker 3 (02:12:48):
So they go on a date and he's like trying
to fuck her and She's like, no, I'm not ready
yet because I'm a prude, and he's like, whatever, you prude.
And he gets out of the car and the killer
puts a noose around his neck and strings him up,
but he's on top of the car. So she's in
the car freaking out because she can hear something squeaking
on the top of the car, but it's him trying

(02:13:09):
to get her to stay because he needs to keep
his feet on the car so that he doesn't get killed.
But it's freaking her out, so she drives the car
away and kills him. It's sick right in my brain.
As a child, when I was like a teen, I
was like, this movie's so fucking cool. All these deaths.

Speaker 1 (02:13:29):
So sick.

Speaker 3 (02:13:30):
Upon revisiting Urban Legend, this movie, it is so obvious
who the killer is. It is so obvious what is
going on, And a lot of these scenes are just
grossly not well put together. There's plot holes galore in it.
Tara Reid is like in the radio host and she's

(02:13:50):
constantly like giving sex advice, like leave him, honey, like
you need a real man, and the killer is in
the booth, so she's running to all these different audio
booths trying to avoid the killer, and the killer finds
her even though she locked the door. They just appear
in the door and they axs her to death. It's like,
there's no it doesn't make sense how everything happens. The

(02:14:14):
timelines are fucked up, there's plot holes everywhere. People are
just constantly dying in it. I just don't think it
just didn't hold up the way that I had remembered
this like iconic piece of cinema. So unfortunately Urban Legend
does not hold up.

Speaker 5 (02:14:30):
But I'm guessing they got their stuff together by the
time the third movie Urban Legends, Bloody Mary, came out.
During Kate Mara, I have seen that one.

Speaker 3 (02:14:39):
I don't think I ever watched one past the third one.
They even have Urban Legends final cut.

Speaker 2 (02:14:45):
Yeah that was the second one.

Speaker 3 (02:14:46):
Yeah, four point four on Rotten to Oh that's a shame.
I really liked these teen slashers. I also think they're generational.
I know what you did last summer. Very iconic for
me growing up like Scream, big fan of Jennifer love Hewett.
The Scream series is iconic, So yeah, these are important

(02:15:08):
to me, and Urban Legend was a part of that time.
Valentine I saw in theaters, which is so fucking funny
because there is a new Valentine horror movie coming out
for this generation. It just probably came out.

Speaker 1 (02:15:19):
Just now, Valentine, or is it not My Bloody Valentine?

Speaker 3 (02:15:23):
So the new one that just came out that you
are talking about is called My blood Valentine, and it's
about a killer that's killing couples in love, probably because
they're a forlorned lover. Valentine is the one that came
out when I was in high school, and it was
also about a killer that was killing people's because they
were a forlorned lover. And Denise Richards is in it.
Can I just describe this this scene, it's so sick.

(02:15:44):
Denise Richards is in a hot tub.

Speaker 1 (02:15:46):
I think she's gone.

Speaker 3 (02:15:48):
It's Valentine. Denise Richards isn't a hot tub. I think
she's gonna bang, but it like doesn't work out or
something like that. This hot tub has a glass lid
or like plastic lid cover. The killer scares her and
she falls into the hot tub and they put the
glass tub the lid on so she can't breathe, and
then they get a drill and they start drilling through

(02:16:11):
the lid to drill through her body, but they miss her,
and then she like puts her mouth on the whole
to suck oxygen because she can't fucking breathe this hot tub.
But eventually they I think they saw her. I think,
are they drill her. They get the right drill and
they drill right into her body and she dies in there.
It's fucking crazy. I hope you like me because I

(02:16:32):
could do it. Dude, Google Valentine Denise Richard's hot tub scene.
Mike's way ahead of you. Yeah, Dan is like I
watched that scene. I didn't feel a thing. I didn't
even know it was romantic.

Speaker 1 (02:16:51):
No.

Speaker 5 (02:16:51):
No, with movies, I got normal horny all the time.
Movies I got super horny. Most of my horny was
with movies. I understand that.

Speaker 1 (02:17:00):
Fully.

Speaker 3 (02:17:01):
My horny is movie base.

Speaker 2 (02:17:04):
Okay, in Golden Yeah.

Speaker 3 (02:17:06):
You're still normal anyway. I think there's a lot of
horror movies that probably don't hold up like I wanted
them to, especially from my high school era. But I mean,
I just still have soft spots for a lot of
these horror movies because when I was growing up, I
was like, that's fucking crazy. I can't believe you killed
Denise Richards like that, but I doubt it holds water anymore.

Speaker 1 (02:17:29):
Ah, that was a hot tub pun.

Speaker 3 (02:17:32):
But she like sucks through the hole, so yeah, she probably.

Speaker 4 (02:17:37):
Okay. Well, thank you, Doc Hansler, minus the heat slander.

Speaker 1 (02:17:40):
You're wrong.

Speaker 2 (02:17:41):
I can't divide that note.

Speaker 1 (02:17:44):
I could do this one from Jake from Media Pa
or is it Medea? I don't know. Hello, Escape Artists.
I'm a longtime email her first time listener. In twenty
twenty four, I made a New Year's resolution to read more.
I started small and set a goal to read six books.
I also joined a book club to make sure I
hit that goal. I had such a blast reading the
assigned books that I crushed my goal and ended.

Speaker 4 (02:18:03):
Up reading sixteen books.

Speaker 1 (02:18:05):
Excuse me. In the midst of this goal, there's an
email that came in asking for book recommendations, and Mike
gave some titles that I jotted down with the intent
to submit them to the group. I'm happy to say
I just finished In the Distance by Aaron and Diaz,
and I'm excited to hear what my group thinks of
it when it gets discussed.

Speaker 4 (02:18:18):
In April, I love that book.

Speaker 1 (02:18:20):
Anyway, this twenty twenty four resolution has reshaped my thoughts
on reading and now it's a full hobby of mine
instead of something I do once in a blue moon.
So my question to you all is was there a
resolution you made in the past that ended up being
something you stuck to well after the year was made.
Thanks for all the laughs, I hope you're twenty twenty
five is starting out well. Jake from Media Media, Pennsylvania.

Speaker 3 (02:18:43):
That's a great question.

Speaker 1 (02:18:44):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (02:18:44):
I try not to do too many, just like specifically, like, oh,
New Year's resolutions, because I feel like that's just like,
you know, I don't know if you're going to do
something to.

Speaker 1 (02:18:51):
Do it arbitrary timeline. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (02:18:54):
Yeah, but I mean, you know, there.

Speaker 5 (02:18:54):
Are definitely those times where it's like, you know, after
the holidays, you know, Okay, starting in January, I'm gonna
blah blah blah. And it's almost always like a health
or food or exercise related thing. So I feel like,
not necessarily just a New Year's thing, but just a
life long thing of trying to kind of hone in
what works for me in terms of eating and exercising
and things like that. Like you learn things, and you

(02:19:15):
pick things up and you ebb and flow and stuff
like that, and it's you know, you hope that each
year you're in you're out, a couple things stick with you.

Speaker 1 (02:19:23):
You know.

Speaker 5 (02:19:24):
It's like, oh, I found out that I like yoga,
so I've been doing yoga for twenty years, you know,
stuff like that, or the running stuff, you know, the
things I learned from last year with the half marathons
that I'm bringing into this year with the full marathons
and stuff. But it's rarely like specifically a like New
Year's resolution thing.

Speaker 1 (02:19:39):
You know.

Speaker 3 (02:19:40):
I'm very similar to you Dan. I almost avoid New
Year's resolutions because I lose. It can depress me or
make me sad when I break them, and so I
try and give myself lots of leniency with my resolutions.
And so you know, talking about the reading one of

(02:20:04):
like having six books a year, Jake, Like, that's what
I did, and I did not read sixteen. That's so
cool that you were like able to read that much.
I usually like barely hit my goals, So I leave
my goals really really loose and light, so that I
give myself escapes if I have something that comes up
in my personal life or like something happens to me.

(02:20:25):
A good one that I did years ago was I
got a fitbit through something. I think it was like
through like a work. It was like a prize or
something like that, and I was like, cool, this is right.
By New Year's I will walk more. And I am
so into walking every day now and I make a
point to walk every day. I've upgraded my fitbit to

(02:20:45):
the newest version. And it's not like I need to
hit a certain amount of miles or that I need
to go running three days a week. It's not that
it's my fitbit buzzes once a day at least to
be like, hey, you haven't walked yet today. And I
make a point to walk every day. It's important to me.
I even got like one of those like walking things
that I can put under my desk so I can

(02:21:06):
walk if I.

Speaker 2 (02:21:06):
Can't underdsk treadmill. Right, that's so cool.

Speaker 3 (02:21:10):
I mean I like that kind of stuff. And so
for me, mineor much more lenient, but walking every day,
making sure to read several books a year. I say
several because it could be ten and it could be
two based on how big they are. And like the
shit that goes down in my life. And then I'd
say the last one that's been really beneficial is although

(02:21:32):
I do go on and off of it. I had
a New Year's resolution I think three years ago to
fast and I still to this day use it as
an excellent method to stop snacking late at night. But
I can go off of it, but I go back
on it all the time. It's like a great system
for me to be like, you don't need to eat
snacks after ten pm every night, you just don't need it.

(02:21:55):
And so like that's been.

Speaker 1 (02:21:56):
Good for me.

Speaker 5 (02:21:57):
Yeah, I like what you said about like not going
too crazy. You said to like be lenient with yourself
on it, because like I kind of do the mistake
where I go way too hard too suddenly all the time.
And so like, you know, I finished that last half
marathon in October, and since then, you know, I put
on a lot of the weight that I lost over
all that stuff.

Speaker 2 (02:22:14):
You know, I put on twenty five pounds since then.

Speaker 5 (02:22:17):
And it's like, all right, well, I need to be ready,
you know, once May comes around, I'm training for the marathon.
So January like one of the few like strict things
I told myself, you know, with January was that I
want this to be my biggest steps month ever in
terms of average steps a day. And so I looked
back years and it's like, all right, I got to
be you know, my best average was when I lived
in New York City and I was walking all the time,
and I got like over thirteen thousand steps a day.

(02:22:38):
And so I told myself, well yeah, and I told
myself that, like, okay, January, you know, I'm going to
go for like fifteen to twenty.

Speaker 2 (02:22:44):
Thousand steps a day, you know, so that way the
average will be the best ever. And so I got
I have this underdesk treadmill, and I was walking like
hours a day. I was walking so fucking much, and
it was you know, it's cold outside, can't go outside,
so it's just like on the treadmill hours every day.
And I did it.

Speaker 5 (02:22:59):
I broke my step record. But now it's like the
intention was I was going to do that, and then
that was going to lead into more like cardio stuff
like daily you know, runs and bikes on the peloton
and stuff like that. But my feet are fucked up
now because I went too hard all of a sudden,
like I put on you know, twenty plus pounds. Now
I'm walking more than I've ever walked in my life,

(02:23:20):
and now my ankles and my the balls, my feet.
Now my plan for shita stuff is like shitty now.
And it's like, God, you got to find that middle ground.
You can't just go from zero to one hundred and
expect your body to be like yeah, that's fine, yeah, yeah,
but that's the thing you.

Speaker 3 (02:23:32):
Got to learn, you know, yeah, you just I think
some of it is like just the mentality as well,
because for me, if I break a New Year's resolution,
I'll feel pretty bad about myself and be like, of
course you were never gonna do that.

Speaker 1 (02:23:45):
Right.

Speaker 3 (02:23:45):
If I was like read a book every month and
one month I miss my thing, I will quit and
I'll be like I'll just not do it anymore. But
if my if my limit is really reasonable, or if
I have a lot of flexibility, then all of a sudden,
it's like you're allowed to have an off month. And
this is for like everyone who needs to hear that.
Right now, you're allowed to have an off month. You're

(02:24:07):
allowed You're allowed for work to be too busy or
something personal to happen, or for you to just emotionally
or physically have an ailment of some kind and be like, shit,
now I need three weeks to get my shit together.
That's allowed. And so what I don't like about New
Year's resolutions is it doesn't often give you that ability
for you to just pick yourself back up and get

(02:24:28):
there again. So like give yourself that, and like fuck
your New Year's resolution for a second. The purpose of
it was just to push yourself. So take a moment,
get it back together, and then push yourself again, even
if it's a small little push.

Speaker 1 (02:24:45):
Yeah. I also don't really go hard on New Year's resolutions,
but in the sense that, like I have had things
become full fledged hobbies that I did not really intend on.
Like I do a lot lot of indoor gardening, Like
much of my every single Sunday is pruning plants, repotting them.

(02:25:07):
We have skylights here, which is great that I can
make use.

Speaker 3 (02:25:10):
Of that, and like you've got lots of natural light
in your place.

Speaker 1 (02:25:13):
Yeah, so like we uh project we're doing now I'm
just putting hanging plants in every window.

Speaker 3 (02:25:18):
But like it.

Speaker 1 (02:25:21):
I'm always impressed by people who like they can play
an instrument, they know several languages. They have those like
they just went hard and got really good at a
few things, And.

Speaker 4 (02:25:32):
I'm like, well, what are my hobbies?

Speaker 1 (02:25:33):
Like I read a lot, like I'm definitely into wine,
but I also like, I'm like I forget that I'm
I also spend a lot of time like doing some
indoor gardening. It's just something that I enjoy so much.
I don't even think of it as a hobby that
I would put like in my bio, if that makes sense.
So like I definitely kind of like I think I

(02:25:54):
got a couple plants a few years ago, and now
all of a sudden, it's just like it's parts of
our apartment are like a jungle. But yeah, in that regard,
it's actually like I don't I haven't made a New
Year's resolution in a bit. I definitely this year have
already been or just like not even this year, like

(02:26:14):
since last fall, have been running a lot more Like
I'm I exercise pretty often, but like do.

Speaker 2 (02:26:20):
You do outside in New York?

Speaker 1 (02:26:21):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (02:26:22):
You do?

Speaker 1 (02:26:22):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (02:26:23):
Is that hard with all the streets and crossing now.

Speaker 1 (02:26:26):
My neighborhood, My like if I go like to the
south end of my neighborhood, back up, the water. The
water especially it's really trail, but also like I know
the streets well enough to know which intersections are going
to be dead when i'm and which ones have stop
signs as opposed to traffic lights, et cetera. It's yeah,

(02:26:46):
I wasn't really a new Year's resolution. It's just like
I sleep so much better on average when I'm running more.
I lift a lot, like a decent amount. It's just
like running as that extra layer to my exercise schedule
where I sleep really well. I get outside more even
when the weather's shitty, which I kind of enjoy. So yeah,

(02:27:07):
that's that's definitely something that I do as more of
a hobby now. But yeah, I haven't. I don't. I
don't really put much stock in the January first let's
get after it kind of thing. If that works for you, cool,
But a lot of people, yeah, yeah, and like there's
like a collective thing about it. Like it's like it
can be inspirational or like motivational for to know that

(02:27:28):
a lot of other people are trying and like getting
to the gym or cooking more, what have you, But
like you know, it's for me, I'm just like I
don't know that the month that the calendar seems arbitrary,
why not just like, yeah, it's sort of to Mary's point,
just like do it when it's best for you and
just go hard on it, but not too hard.

Speaker 5 (02:27:47):
I think that there is just something though about like
it's probably not a coincidence that it's you know, January first,
because like the holidays, Like I was definitely you know,
near the end of the year where it's like okay,
holidays and travel and drinking and eating like shit and everything.
Like you know, I told myself like, you know what,
I'll do a strict thing. I'll do the full I'm
gonna be the dry January thing. And like at the
time that sounds so great because it's like, okay, I've
been indulging. It's it's the holidays, and I need just

(02:28:10):
like a reset button thing. And you know, January is
where I did get much much better aut like my
diet and I was just even a lot more vegetables
and just a lot more healthy things.

Speaker 2 (02:28:18):
But I was going to do all these different things
and then also like a dry January, and it was
the thing where it was like you know, January twelfth
or something, it was some weekend and Hanson invited us
over for like a board game night, and it's like, look,
I'm gonna have a good time playing you know, board
games at Ben Hanson's.

Speaker 5 (02:28:34):
Place no matter what. But like it's like it was
like a Saturday night. It's like it is the most primed,
just like, let's have a few beers while you know
we're doing this. And you know, obviously people that like
there are good reasons to stop entirely from drinking, but
with me, it's never been a thing that like ever
caused any trouble and just like caused me to get
kind of like a beer gut at worst, you know.
So it's like with that one, I kind of like

(02:28:54):
threw the towel in on it where it's like, you
know what, it's not going to kill me. And now
I said I was gonna do this. That and all
this vegetables and new diet and dry January, that's so
much bears the board game night.

Speaker 1 (02:29:05):
You know. Have we talked about dry January on fire
Escape before?

Speaker 2 (02:29:09):
I don't know if we have.

Speaker 4 (02:29:10):
I'm kind of a snob toward not to people's faces.

Speaker 2 (02:29:15):
I saw you posting some Instagram memes about a dry wine.

Speaker 1 (02:29:19):
Well, so.

Speaker 3 (02:29:22):
Dry January you only drink dry wine. That's funny. I
think you said that to me too, you little scamp.

Speaker 1 (02:29:28):
Was it the Pedro Pascal Nicholas cage thing or dry
cabinet truck and reastling is really dry? I just I
don't I'm I'm gonna I get the idea of taking
a month off to reset, like as a cleanse. A
lot of people do it just to like show that

(02:29:49):
they can show themselves that they can and prove to themselves,
which is good. Yeah. I just think everybody would be
better off if it just presracticing moderation throughout the year.

Speaker 4 (02:30:02):
Yes, Like I think that's way healthier.

Speaker 1 (02:30:05):
And like everybody I know who drinks a lot and
then hits January and goes dry, they feel like shit
throughout that January, and then afterwards they're like, well now
I'm just back to drinking. I don't know.

Speaker 4 (02:30:14):
Maybe maybe people maybe.

Speaker 3 (02:30:16):
There's drinking excessively.

Speaker 4 (02:30:17):
Maybe if there's people who dry January really helps them.

Speaker 1 (02:30:20):
I just think if I don't see that one January
correcting eleven months of really bad habits.

Speaker 2 (02:30:27):
Yeah, I feel that same way.

Speaker 5 (02:30:28):
And again, this is a thing where it's like I
know people have had good success with this and everything,
and I'm not saying it's stupid across the bord or anything,
but that.

Speaker 2 (02:30:35):
And things like that.

Speaker 5 (02:30:36):
Yeah, yeah, like intermidt and fasting. I've known plenty of
people who've lost like a lot of weight on like
intermritten fasting. But it's a thing where it's like, Okay,
you do this thing for a month or two or
however long you do it, you lose a ton of weight,
that's great. But if you're not doing things that are
actually like changing the way you eat in your relationship
to that stuff and lifestyle choices, then it's like it's
it's a band aid and then it's gonna come off something.

Speaker 1 (02:30:56):
Yeah, that the January becomes like, uh, like a sprint
that you get through and you just muscle through, But
what about the next eleven months? Like, I think it's
just not sustainable. Towards to your point, Dan, that's almost
the equivalent of running eight miles one day and then
walking like the thirty thousand steps to the next. It's

(02:31:17):
like almost going too hard. I think again, I think
you're just better off if like in practice moderation in
a way that it's like it's adding enhancing social situations,
but it's never really becoming a detriment. And of course
I'm saying this is someone who in my past college
years and like I've never I've I'm not a stranger
to binge drinking in my life. But I'm just saying

(02:31:39):
the going cold turkey for one month to me, I
don't people prop it up as this like big health
fad and I might be missing something, but it just
strikes me as them like not super helpful in the
long run.

Speaker 3 (02:31:53):
For some people. It can be also like the first
step towards sobriety, which is just like, wow, this isles.
And I had person who like did it and was like,
I like myself better and I'm not actually going to
drink anymore, and they just didn't drink after that, and
I was like, well, that's like a really cool realization
to have. So I think it can work. And I

(02:32:14):
understand what you're saying, which is just like, it's not
going to solve your binge drinking if that's what you're doing.
A month off doesn't solve your binge drinking, but if
it helps you come to realizations about yourself, then it
is good.

Speaker 4 (02:32:26):
So I think, yeah, that's all their own.

Speaker 3 (02:32:28):
The reason I like the fasting concept, and the reason
I think it works for me is because I can
still like eat fast food and I can still drink.
It's just after eight pm, I'm done. And it stops
me from getting drunk on a Tuesday, and it stops
me from having like I don't know, Taketo's, you know,

(02:32:51):
from my freezer at eleven thirty at night. It's just
like these things that have given me like a little
blocker to be like you can it's past eight pm
sor read those to the rules, and it's given me
something in my brain that I work towards. But I
end fasting too. I like go through periods where I
fast and then I stop doing it again.

Speaker 5 (02:33:08):
But are you doing it in the way that Like
when I've had friends that have been the intermittent fasting thing,
it's been like I've got this two hour window where
I can just go ape shit and I eat everything,
and then I don't eat for twenty two hours.

Speaker 3 (02:33:19):
Like that's what mineus eight hours on, sixteen off. So
I eat from noon until eight pm. So maybe, but
I don't eat as much as I can and eight.

Speaker 5 (02:33:30):
Hours, Yeah, I feel like I've heard for people be
like they're just shoveling stuff in for like two hours
and it's like, all right, I'm good until tomorrow.

Speaker 3 (02:33:36):
I suspect if you're really really hungry, you probably are
like binging. And I would say, like the first three
days when I start my fast, I'm hungry because my
stomach is like, but why aren't you eating at nine pm?
And it's and once I get adjusted to it, my
stomach leaves me alone and like it learns like, yeah,
you eat from noon until eight. So but I will admit,

(02:33:59):
like there is an oddness to it, especially when like
people are like, well, we're all you know, I started
that bowling league, and so my bowling starts at nine pm,
and everyone's like having like lots of beer at nine pm,
and I'm like, it's past my fast. I can't and
it's uh brutal.

Speaker 1 (02:34:14):
I know.

Speaker 3 (02:34:15):
I've actually broken my fast a couple times because I
gotta have a beer when I bowl. You guys, it's
so hard. I know it's hard. It's hard to break,
but it's been good for me to have limitations and
those rules. And so I wonder for a lot of
people if like dry January is like, oh well, it's
my dry January. So it's my rule, and it helps

(02:34:37):
you to be able to say no in social situations
or like say no to yourself for God's sakes, which
is like in December, I don't say no to shit.
If I want to have a chocolate Sunday with a
shot of whiskey injected into the middle of the molten
lava cake at two in the morning, I do it
because I'm a real piece of shit in December. So

(02:34:58):
January is like my way of being like, you're not
allowed to do that shit for at least a little bit.

Speaker 5 (02:35:03):
That's the hard part is like I feel like I'm
all the way on or all the way off. Usually
it's like the you know, the crusty doll, the good
to evil switch.

Speaker 3 (02:35:09):
Yeah, yeah, literally, like that's the problem right here, You've
said it on to fat bastard. Yeah.

Speaker 5 (02:35:16):
So it's either like okay, Well, if I'm in the
middle of like training for like a marathon thing, it's like, well, okay,
I have to be good about this to some degree,
and I still allow myself to occasionally, you know, I'll drink,
I'll have fast food once a week or something. But
you know, you got to stay on it versus like
when that switch gets flipped off. It's so easy for
me to just be like, uh, fuck it, like fuck
this weekend. You know, I've had dominoes and you know,

(02:35:39):
drank most days, and it's just like I it was
not a healthy weekend. It's like, well, I'll start training
in May. It's well, no, you can't.

Speaker 2 (02:35:46):
Just that's a problem.

Speaker 5 (02:35:47):
I can't just go from being an asshole and then
go into being a marathon train guy.

Speaker 2 (02:35:52):
You know, like it's you got to just find that
moderation in between the things.

Speaker 3 (02:35:55):
Yeah you've got you know, you're too fast, too fast,
too fast, And there are people who do that, who
are like I'm gonna do a marathon and they fuck
their body up. They like wreck there. You can like
get shin splints or like you know, hurt your ankle bones,
all sorts of stuff.

Speaker 5 (02:36:11):
I remember many years ago, they used to just thing
where they would bring in these guest hosts for Monday
Night Raw. It was terrible, but one of them was
his boxer named Ricky Hatton, and I never heard of him.
I don't really follow boxing, and I guess I looked
him up after that and like he has two he's
Ricky Hatton. But also when he's not training for a fight,
he's known as Ricky Fatten because he just like gets
himself real fat and just eats and drinks like shit.

(02:36:34):
And then like when he's got a fight, he just
gets in super good like fighting shape and stuff. And
I think we're like own Ricky Fatten, Ricky Hatton. And
I think when I saw that a No. Nine, I
was like, oh cool.

Speaker 2 (02:36:44):
I didn't know you could do that all right, Like, yeah,
you can just switch back and forth. That sounds great.
That's probably not healthy, so bad to learn that.

Speaker 3 (02:36:52):
And girls have everybody has different versions of this, but
like for me growing up, a lot of that was
like extreme dieting to lose weight. She's like something just
a lot of girls that I grew up with dealt
with and figured out and it's just really really bad
to learn and it's hard to unlearn to have those

(02:37:12):
extreme measures. So maybe that's your aversion to dry January,
which is an extreme right. You're going from extreme drinking
to extreme not drinking, which ultimately the best thing for
you to do is to develop like a healthy relationship
to vices or learn that you can't have a healthy relationship.
Devices Yeah, And.

Speaker 2 (02:37:31):
I think that's the harder thing.

Speaker 5 (02:37:32):
I think if if I had proof I had a
history of getting in fights and getting arrested and missing
work and missing flights and shit like that, I think
that would be so much easier to be like, well, Okay,
I'm just gonna like not drink. But it's like, I
don't know, I like drinking a lot, and I've never
gotten in trouble for it, and I've never gotten health,
you know, like outside of just like weight and stuff
and maybe like a hangover anxiety thing.

Speaker 1 (02:37:51):
Like.

Speaker 2 (02:37:52):
It's when there's not that like need to where like
that like, oh you have to you got the shit,
got to get your shit together, it's easy to be like, well, whatever,
it's not going to be what's the worst is gonna happen?

Speaker 1 (02:38:02):
You know.

Speaker 3 (02:38:02):
Yeah, it's a slippery slope, but it's good that you
have that in check.

Speaker 1 (02:38:06):
Yeah, it's yeah, if it's something where someone really needs
to take a step back, then sure go for it. Yes,
And then if they realize they, like Mary, you said,
your friend just likes themselves better when they're sober, then.

Speaker 3 (02:38:17):
They literally were like I think I'm happier and we were.

Speaker 1 (02:38:20):
Like and January was like the foundation for that. I
think my thing is like when people I know who
are going to get hammered on February first, I'm like,
there's no point forward, There's no Yeah. If February first
is what you're looking forward to the whole time, I
think you should examine maybe have like drinks, drink better,

(02:38:43):
not harder, almost like drink stuff you really enjoy in
small in like moderation and like because again, like alcohol
can enhance social situations.

Speaker 4 (02:38:52):
It can, it can, It can help people develop like like.

Speaker 2 (02:38:55):
A little bit of crack, a little bit of yeah,
a little bit of crack.

Speaker 1 (02:38:58):
Never anybody a little a little a little crisch, a
little cristy crack.

Speaker 4 (02:39:03):
All right, well, thank you from media. I'm gonna call
the media.

Speaker 1 (02:39:09):
Mary. You want to read this last one? That's kind
of directed me, but I'm gonna I'm I pick out
the emails, so I indulge myself with this one. It's
about what sure Jacob? From which to talk to Jacobs?

Speaker 4 (02:39:21):
Okay, cool with Cheta.

Speaker 3 (02:39:23):
Which Cheetah, Cheita, Hello, escapees, congratulations on one hundred episodes
all of this? Uh talk about uh? Not drinking or
drinking in moderation made Dan thirsty and make him made
him go get a beer. Yeah, congratulations on one hundred episodes.

(02:39:47):
I have a question. I'm going to Italy with my
family in April, and I just want to know if
Mike has recommendations about certain food and wine pairings I
should try when we get a chance. And more import importantly,
back in the first year of fire Escape, Mary mentioned
she thought blowing out your nose in the shower was
the worst thing ever, and I'd like her to expand

(02:40:09):
on that, because, if anything, it sounds like the best
time to do that. Thanks for all these laughs. One
hundred and one episodes. Here's two one hundred more. Jacob
from Wichita, Kansas. Thanks Jacob. Unfortunately, Mike doesn't have any recommendations.
We asked him before this and he was like, I
just don't really know anything about Italy and I don't

(02:40:33):
want to sound ignorant, So big.

Speaker 1 (02:40:36):
Book of wine grapes before I let you do the
nose snot and we go low brow. Okay, I think
I'm gonna I'm gonna do a teach a man to
fish rather than give a man a fit. I forget
the phrase bouchet. Thing to keep in mind, you're probably
gonna be having a lot of pasta in Italy. Depending
on where you're going, there might be a lot of lamb,

(02:40:56):
there might be some truffles if you're in Northwest, but
you're probably gonna be having a lot of pasta. And
the number one thing to remember is if you're having
tomato based sauce, that's gonna be very acidic, so you
need a wine that's more acidic or else you're gonna
drown the wine out. It's not gonna be a successful pairing.
So in general rules of thumb, if you're gonna be

(02:41:18):
having something tomato based, get like a high acid wine
like a Sandaves or a nebiolo. Second rule, if you're
gonna be having like red meat, definitely go for something
more tannic. It can help like smooth out the fat
in the wine and the tannins will be softened by
the red meat. It kind of a it's definitely a
complimentary relationship. Third rule, do not be afraid to ask

(02:41:42):
the psalm or the server or like whoever's there. Just
say like, hey, what would you recommend? Like half the
people you ask are gonna be excited to recommend something
to you. Especially in Italy. They take food very seriously,
they take wine very seriously. I wouldn't worry about like
specific kinds of wine because Italy has like five hundred
if the active grapes, So that's a fairly tall order

(02:42:03):
to remember. But like, you can't go wrong with like
a Kianti with tomato. You can't go wrong with like
a barber Esco with some red meat. But in general,
just ask ask the people at the restaurant. They'll they'll
be more than happy to guide you.

Speaker 2 (02:42:18):
I wouldn't go to a place with less than six
hundred active grapes when I travel.

Speaker 3 (02:42:23):
Yeah, it's a good I like that you had a limit.

Speaker 2 (02:42:29):
Look, you just don't wait till you get to week
ten of your courses of courses.

Speaker 1 (02:42:33):
Well, I haven't talked about it much at Firescape, But Mary,
why does it gross you out to snot in the shower?

Speaker 3 (02:42:39):
I mean, I think there's a couple things that I
just personally don't think are shower things that I think
other people do. So you know, if you are standing,
sit down for this, because I think some people will
be like what, But like, I don't think the shower
is the place for you to brush your teeth?

Speaker 1 (02:42:56):
No, right, why what's the benefit save because it's all time,
I guess.

Speaker 3 (02:43:02):
But you're already in there and you're cleaning your body,
so why not clean the teeth?

Speaker 1 (02:43:09):
Right?

Speaker 2 (02:43:09):
But I feel like there's certainly like I shave.

Speaker 5 (02:43:11):
I shaved my head in the shower, you know, I
because like the hair goes into the drain, there's a
there's a use to that. I don't feel like brushing
the teeth like you're gonna spit the shit in the
sink anyway?

Speaker 1 (02:43:23):
Right? Does it?

Speaker 3 (02:43:23):
Does it make it gross for you?

Speaker 1 (02:43:25):
Can?

Speaker 3 (02:43:25):
I just can you elaborate it?

Speaker 1 (02:43:28):
I don't think.

Speaker 5 (02:43:29):
I've just never even considered it, honestly, Like, I just
I don't think i'd be grossed out. I think I
would just be like, why, I feel like the water
would be hitting my face and it would just be
like slobbering.

Speaker 3 (02:43:38):
It's like, yeah, you're like getting toothpaste on yours.

Speaker 2 (02:43:43):
I don't need that.

Speaker 1 (02:43:43):
I don't. I don't like the thought of brushing my
teeth with warm water getting into my mouth. That's gross
to me. Like I need cold water a.

Speaker 3 (02:43:50):
Very different reasons. But I but I'm glad that we
all kind of feel this vibe. There's a lot of
people who brush their teeth in the shower to save time.

Speaker 1 (02:43:57):
I don't think they're saving time. I would I would argue,
and I would ask them to prove to me. I'm
gonna sit in the bathroom next time they brush to
either shower.

Speaker 2 (02:44:04):
Are they like brushing with one hand and soaping with
the Otherwise it's going to take the.

Speaker 1 (02:44:08):
Same taking to the thirty seconds or forty five seconds
it takes a brush your teeth after the shower.

Speaker 4 (02:44:12):
I know into you're wasting more water, if any.

Speaker 3 (02:44:15):
But I don't think it's that rare. I think there's
a good chunk of ours that probably brush their teeth
in the shower. And so that's why I like preface
what people subscribers have plummeted fifteen fifteen?

Speaker 2 (02:44:27):
Do you think fifteen brush your teeth through the shower?

Speaker 3 (02:44:29):
I think I think they are a minority, and I
think it's probably around ten to fifteen. That is my guess.

Speaker 1 (02:44:35):
Maybe there's a benefit I'm missing, like that I'm being
completely callous.

Speaker 4 (02:44:38):
Tell me to ignore, Please tell me.

Speaker 3 (02:44:40):
Okay, So here's my problem with blowing your nose in
the shower. Jacob, you say you think it sounds like
the best time, probably because you're cleaning your body, right,
so like why not clean this because you're blowing snot
on your hands and it's going in between your fingers
and stuff, and you're like, yeah, but I'm cleaning those parts.

(02:45:02):
But it's like, yeah, but blow your nose before you
get in the shower and.

Speaker 1 (02:45:06):
Then wash You're you're it's all the steam, you're.

Speaker 3 (02:45:10):
Loosened the goop, but like it goes into a tissue
and then you can wash your hands. I think there's
just something I don't want snot all over my hands.

Speaker 2 (02:45:22):
That's so gross, And even.

Speaker 3 (02:45:24):
If I rinse them in the shower post blow, I
just feel like I'm a little gross.

Speaker 1 (02:45:29):
I don't know, maybe I'm misremembering something. If that's what
they're doing, then yeah, that's horrendous. I think what he's
saying by snot in the shower is like one of
these over the drain.

Speaker 2 (02:45:40):
I've never I've never tried doing that's want to do that.

Speaker 1 (02:45:44):
That's way less gross than going into your hands for
no reason. They're both weird, and I agree.

Speaker 3 (02:45:49):
I'm just in general, are not are not acceptable?

Speaker 2 (02:45:52):
Uh? I've never done a snot rock I'm not going
to go into.

Speaker 3 (02:45:55):
The privacy of your shower.

Speaker 1 (02:45:56):
So if you, uh, we're talking about it right now,
we're if you blow.

Speaker 3 (02:46:00):
Your nose and you're brushing your teeth in the shower, like,
live your best life, that's your fucking thing. Me, I
just don't think that showers are for like face whole things.
I don't clean my ear holes in the shower. I
don't blow my nose or do snot rockets in the shower,
and I don't brush my teeth in the shower. That's
for pre and post shower. The shower is for the

(02:46:22):
crevices of the body. It's for all the knickknacks, it's
for all the innerds in the outers, just get clean.
But it's not for face holes, like leave your face
holes for sink. Yeah, that's just my that's just my standards.

Speaker 1 (02:46:36):
How I was raised.

Speaker 2 (02:46:37):
Butt hole in the sink.

Speaker 3 (02:46:39):
Oh my god, what do you mean, kid?

Speaker 1 (02:46:43):
I don't know.

Speaker 3 (02:46:45):
That's why I said face holes. I think you can
get your holes in the shower if you need to
clean your holes, which I do encourage, like you can
clean your holes. But again, that's what the shower is
for It's for the body crev and nooks. If you're
like not everybody has like loofahs or whatever. So like,
if you're soaping up your hands and you're getting in

(02:47:06):
your armpits and your butt crack and stuff like that,
you're brushing your teeth, you know what I mean, Like
you and you're getting in your nose and stuff like,
have some separation. Clean your body in the shower, clean
your face holes in the sink.

Speaker 1 (02:47:23):
I we've been talking for the past two and a
half hours whatever, and so I know where I am on.
Like I could tell when Dan's looking at my panel,
and I love how when you just said that I
butt hole in the sink, I could tell you were
looking at me waiting for me to laugh. But I
didn't get it. So you're just like it's like you
were leaning on me to laugh. You don't know me.

Speaker 4 (02:47:42):
I don't get it.

Speaker 3 (02:47:43):
He knows you like the back of his no.

Speaker 5 (02:47:47):
But I fully I make sure you say buttthole for
last in the shower because it's like I don't want
to like but even if you like, you know, wash
your hands and stuff after, Yes, I'm down there cleaning
like once I'm in there and doing all this stuff
in between the stuff in there in there. Yes, once
I'm in there, I'm not touching my face. I'm not
rubbing my hands on my chest. I'm not doing anything actually.

Speaker 3 (02:48:08):
Washing right, like you your your hands are clean post shower.
But I think it's like more of like the mentality
of like you're in all these crevices and stuff, like,
I'm really not putting my hands all up in my
face as I'm cleaning out the body.

Speaker 5 (02:48:20):
Like eventhole is the last thing before I turn the
water off. I'm giving a full soapy hand situation, like
I don't want butt hands going around day to day
that my keyboard.

Speaker 3 (02:48:32):
Let me get out of the shower. I'm steering clear
of you.

Speaker 2 (02:48:35):
You want my butt have nothing to do after the shower.

Speaker 4 (02:48:38):
Yeah, he's got butt all over his beer right now?

Speaker 1 (02:48:42):
Are people?

Speaker 5 (02:48:44):
No, I went into the loop a thing like in
the last year. Yeah, I'm currently loop person. I did
just learn that you're supposed to swap them out.

Speaker 1 (02:48:53):
Yeah, I didn't know that.

Speaker 3 (02:48:54):
Such a funny conversation. Yeah, regularly it's like a sponge
in the right like it's a crewing.

Speaker 2 (02:49:01):
I mean quarter, I'd say use your best judgments.

Speaker 1 (02:49:05):
Yeah, was like it's just I would even say you
could go more than quarterly at least I would say
I'm probably fine.

Speaker 3 (02:49:15):
They're crewing stuff. Again, I think a lot of our
people are like, listen, I'm not going to change out
my loofa every two months. And it's like that's totally fine, Like.

Speaker 1 (02:49:24):
Just get a bunch though. When you go to the
grocery store, they're like two dollars.

Speaker 3 (02:49:29):
Or ye old hand towel, which is what like you know,
like a little wash cloth. You can throw them in
the washing machine. You know.

Speaker 5 (02:49:38):
The reason I like no was like a little wash
I feel like once it's up in there, it's like
that needs to go right into the washer afterwards.

Speaker 3 (02:49:47):
You throw your underwear after every use.

Speaker 5 (02:49:50):
Yeah, but that's not like up in my butthole the
way that like when you put you put your loof
in yours, the cloth into my anus. I like it
is very much making direct contact and rubbing back and
forth as I'm do with my boxers.

Speaker 3 (02:50:06):
I bet your boxers touch your asshole.

Speaker 5 (02:50:10):
They're hanging out down there, but they're not like getting
up in there the way that like you're putting your.

Speaker 3 (02:50:16):
Buttthole touching boxers in your laundry. Where it's touching it is.

Speaker 5 (02:50:21):
It is a grazing of the butthole with the underpants.
I think with a washbrag, you are actively trying to
contact the butthole, which would never happen with boxers.

Speaker 3 (02:50:32):
I think that you can wash something in a washing
machine and it is washing the butthole off of the item,
and then you can use it again, depending on how
badly that experience went. Because yeah, if you like shit
on your loofah, just get a new loofa, just like

(02:50:56):
if you shit your underpants, don't take those to the
dry cleaner. They're done.

Speaker 5 (02:51:00):
I mean, I've never had skid marks the way my
dad says everyone always has them all the time. I
don't subscribe to that. I don't think my butthole is
a very chaotic environment.

Speaker 3 (02:51:11):
I'm glad that you have a really nice and neutral
butthole situation, and I think we're actually on the same page.
And I'm not trying to fight you on how dirty
the things are that touch your butthole. But what I
am just suggesting is is you can wash a washcloth
just like you wash your underwear, and they're clean.

Speaker 5 (02:51:31):
Wash wash you know what the difference is, I'm not
taking my underwear and rubbing it all over the rest
of my body. A washrag next time it's deployed is
going to be going all over my shoulders and chest
and legs and stuff.

Speaker 3 (02:51:45):
So it is your loofa.

Speaker 5 (02:51:47):
No, we're not talking about that way boxers versus like
a boxer like even if it's hanging out by the
butthole a lot. Yeah, I'm not rubbing the boxers all
over my neck and shit.

Speaker 3 (02:51:58):
I understand, But do you is the loofa that you
loofah your butthole with on?

Speaker 5 (02:52:04):
No?

Speaker 2 (02:52:04):
Oh, okay, so this is important.

Speaker 3 (02:52:06):
Do you have a butthole loofa dan?

Speaker 1 (02:52:07):
No?

Speaker 2 (02:52:08):
No, No, here's what I do.

Speaker 3 (02:52:10):
It's like a tiny on a tea chain, like it
just goes in plug. Yeah.

Speaker 5 (02:52:15):
I do all of my head stuff first. I do beard,
I do hair, I do face before butthole is even
on the table top. Yeah, the litteral head is just
done first, and then I do loof up and then
I squirt the body wash on it, and then I
do the big areas and the chest, I do the arms,
I do thighs as well. Uh, I do stomach with

(02:52:38):
the loop, get in the belly button, yeah, yeah, yeah,
I get in there and everything, and then I do
thighs and calves and everything. What about your armpits, I'm
getting there the loop, I squeeze out the loofah, I
put it up on the thing. I do the body
wash in the hands. And then because you want to
get up in the armpit.

Speaker 3 (02:52:57):
So I do just hand hands on the pits and
soap on pits, okay.

Speaker 2 (02:53:02):
And then I go down and I need to know this,
but I'm so interesting. I'm just we're breaking this down.

Speaker 5 (02:53:09):
And then I go down to the guy bits there
and I do the stuff with the soap with my
hands there to make sure that's nice and clean with
my hands. Yes, And then the last I get the
body washed up on my hands. And then you do
your buttole work with your hands with your hands.

Speaker 3 (02:53:26):
Okay, So the loofa never touches your holes.

Speaker 2 (02:53:29):
The loofah doesn't even know I have an asshole. It's
just that is.

Speaker 5 (02:53:34):
The hands go in the crevice there and everything, make
sure that's good. And then you do a separate hand
clean just to make sure all the butthole stuff is offerd.

Speaker 3 (02:53:42):
The last thing you do is clean the hands because
those are butt hands.

Speaker 2 (02:53:45):
Yeah, yes, so nothing.

Speaker 5 (02:53:47):
There's not a single loofa or anything that even has
been in the neighborhood of my asshole.

Speaker 3 (02:53:53):
I mean, I don't see a lot of fault with this.
It sounds very anal like in the sense that it
sounds like you're being very particular with what touches what.

Speaker 4 (02:54:02):
I don't even I mean, I don't think.

Speaker 3 (02:54:04):
I don't even think about that. You know, but you
just started loofaing.

Speaker 2 (02:54:11):
I started loof loofing in the last like year.

Speaker 3 (02:54:14):
Okay, so before that, were you all hands all time?

Speaker 2 (02:54:16):
Bar of soap goes everywhere?

Speaker 3 (02:54:19):
Yeah, okay, I mean I have no problem with bar
of soap or soapy hands getting up in the crevices
and holes. I'm for all of this. I like that
you're a clean person, and I think you're you're doing great,
and so I don't have any notes. I will just
state like, you can also get stuff on your hole
and wash it, and then it's fine, and you can

(02:54:42):
you can also it's all bit and fine. Maybe when
people have a toothbrush on the shower, that's their asshole toothbrush.

Speaker 2 (02:54:51):
Don't put the toothbrush in your asshole.

Speaker 3 (02:54:53):
It's the only way to get a clean hole.

Speaker 5 (02:54:56):
It probably would work, but oh oh, I forgot to
say too. Part of the reason I don't do the
loofa on the guy bits or the butthole is because
it has such a naturally coarse thing, and I feel.

Speaker 3 (02:55:08):
Like that it's like it's rough rough on that skin.

Speaker 5 (02:55:11):
Don't want rough loofa towel or something on your bits
or your butthole. So that's why it's like it's a
nice feather touch on that.

Speaker 3 (02:55:20):
I have a glove. I bought these like exfoliating gloves.

Speaker 2 (02:55:24):
It literally glove for your hat.

Speaker 3 (02:55:26):
It's an of glove for like dead skin. It's not
for your butthole. It's like I use it on my
arms and it gets all the dead skin. It's an exfoliator.
But I definitely you could put it on your button
stuff and have like a smooth, smooth baby butt if
you want. But I wouldn't put rough surface on the
tender stuff. That sounds awful.

Speaker 2 (02:55:48):
Look into these of glove assholevers, Yeah, yeah, it's a
it's nuts.

Speaker 3 (02:55:52):
There's no of glove for the asshole. They are exfoliating
gloves for regular parts.

Speaker 2 (02:55:57):
Of the skin and what with it is your own business.

Speaker 3 (02:56:01):
Jacob from Wichita. I don't think that you should listen
to any of this advice. In fact, most of you,
if you're going to ask us for like really specific
advice on like how to clean your body or like
take care of yourself, use a pseudonym or like fake name.
I don't think you'll want us to like give you
true advice here. But I think ultimately clean your holes,

(02:56:23):
clean the holes. I don't give a ship if you
use a washcloth or a loofa or you poke your
whole you hole through a finger or your finger through
like uh, your toilet paper and just stick it up
your butt. But like, please clean yourselves.

Speaker 1 (02:56:39):
And then wash your hands was and is definitely a
good safe bet with most PASTA.

Speaker 3 (02:56:45):
Thank you, Jacob from Wichita. A so much about Dan
and way too much about Dan.

Speaker 2 (02:56:53):
Ask you a question. I'm going to answer it.

Speaker 3 (02:56:55):
He didn't ask.

Speaker 1 (02:56:58):
Was it named?

Speaker 3 (02:56:58):
In this email?

Speaker 1 (02:56:59):
You?

Speaker 3 (02:57:00):
You weren't even brought.

Speaker 4 (02:57:01):
Up Dan, Mary.

Speaker 1 (02:57:02):
You were egging him on every step of the way.
Don't play like you had nothing to do with this.
I'm reading about movehead over here. I had nothing. I
was trying to distance myself. But anyway, that's fire Escape
Cast at gmail dot com. Thank you Jacob, thank you Jake,
Thank you doc Hensla terrible taste in movies, have fun

(02:57:24):
in Italy and what was Jake Jake enjoy reading? Let
us know what other books you read, and I'm curious
what your book club thinks of in the distance. Well
that's our episode one o one, fire Escape Cast one
o one. I think this was actually a pretty good
one oh one episode because you got the rundown on us. Yeah,

(02:57:45):
we'll be back in a couple of weeks. One more
reminder March third. If you're not a fire Escape Cast
Patreon subscriber and you want to watch that show with
Vinnie Caravella and I Vinnie from Nextlander, you can subscribe
that'll be up on March third. You'll also get video
versions of these episodes if you're normally just a listener. Uh.

(02:58:05):
And then if you're not a subscriber to Next Landers
ten dollars tier on which they put a lot of
bonus content and video content, go subscribe there. You could
see both campaigns Vinie and I are doing. If you
don't subscribe to both, you're not missing episodes of the
show you choose to dive into, so that'll be fun.
We also have a merch store, Firescape merch dot com.

Speaker 2 (02:58:34):
Uh is that it?

Speaker 4 (02:58:35):
Yeah, Firescape cast, Firescape merch dot.

Speaker 2 (02:58:38):
Com, fire Escape Merch. I'm checking, although I think of nope, nope,
deep I go to that.

Speaker 1 (02:58:45):
Noire dot com goes to merch dot com.

Speaker 3 (02:58:51):
Why do we keep buying these?

Speaker 1 (02:58:52):
Uh? So if you want to be if you want
to add free episodes, or you want to get linked
to our store, go to Deep dishpussy dot com.

Speaker 4 (02:59:02):
You can sign up outside of that. Dan, what do
you have going on in the meantime?

Speaker 2 (02:59:08):
Giant Bomb and Twitch and Blue Sky and Instagram? Dan
record on everything, Mary go ah your voice.

Speaker 3 (02:59:18):
I've been pretty good on trying to keep up in
the socials, mostly Instagram. I've been trying to do better
about Blue Sky and Twitch usually on Mondays, usually cool.

Speaker 1 (02:59:31):
I'm mainly here unless you want to follow me on Instagram.
I opened a two thousand and one Kyanti Classico. It's
really interesting story. It's actually the last vintage. But how
do you clean your butthole with a wine decanter?

Speaker 5 (02:59:46):
So all when you were you posted a thing of
you decanting a wine thing recently, and you said for
those asking, one of the things I.

Speaker 1 (02:59:55):
Said were concerned, So I didn't realize how I post,
and I like eight eight people responded asking why what
was wrong with that bottle? No, I don't do it
for those asking unless people are asking. Yeah, if you
don't follow me the Instagram. Amanda and I we've been
opening some like old bottles we have, and one photo
I showed was me pouring out the last dregs of

(03:00:17):
an old wine which had quote unquote thrown a sediment,
which is, you know, like things had settled over the
years and coalesced and it had just given off stuff
so it becomes like a sludge at the bottom. So
I posted just the photo of the wine in two
glasses next to it, but then I posted also the
sledge that came out the end, so I think.

Speaker 4 (03:00:34):
People thought the whole bottle was sludge.

Speaker 2 (03:00:37):
Several people bottom eighth, which is usual with that year
of grape. It's a tanic grape. Yes, yes, Dan, I don't.

Speaker 1 (03:00:43):
I don't need to cater to your lowbrow sensibilities on
my Instagram posts. I don't get what you think. No,
I want you to keep doing it because it's very
funny to me. Yes, but yeah, that wine was really good.
It was not. It was the second oldest wine I've
ever had and it was still the delicious. Uh. It's
twenty four years old, which is not crazy old, but

(03:01:05):
it was really good. I'm gonna I'm going to open
like an old wine for you at some point, Dan,
I think you'd like it a lot.

Speaker 2 (03:01:10):
Not right, Yeah, sure, it's great.

Speaker 4 (03:01:12):
Yeah but anyway. Yeah, I'm im Mahardy over on Instagram.

Speaker 1 (03:01:16):
That's it. That's our episode. We'll be back in two weeks.
In the meantime, Oh, Mary, I'm going to promise it now,
just so we stay accountable. Mary and I are going
to finish Resumel four remake for Knievel Thanks or whatever
we call it, KENI we have.

Speaker 4 (03:01:35):
It's been I think six months since we did the
penultimate episode.

Speaker 3 (03:01:38):
I don't want to know. We're going to finish it.

Speaker 1 (03:01:40):
We're going to finish it. That'll be up. If you're
not subscribed to our YouTube channel, go subscribe to that.
That's where we post those. We will finish it because
that We've got a few other lost chapters of games
that we have you haven't played in residue Evil, but
we'll play those at some point. We'll try to do
revelations too at some point. But yeah, we're also going
to finish resumeelfour remake mary Is. I've been telling.

Speaker 3 (03:02:00):
Her every week we got on, then kill you all right,
let's go all right, see.

Speaker 4 (03:02:06):
Everybody in a couple of weeks.

Speaker 1 (03:02:10):
But