Well, will we be alive for the tri centennial. I might myself.
I've long I've long predicted that I'll die in a fire explosion or I will
live to be like one hundred and twenty. I know I've been talking to
Amanda about it. It's episode seventy five. We're here with the fire Escape
Cast. I'm Mike, your host is always here with Dan, Hello and
Mary. I didn't mean to sound disappointed when I said that was just like
altering my octave. Okay, wait, let me start over. We're here
with Firescape Cast. It's episode seventy five. It's our three quarterennial. I'm
Mike as always here with Dan, Hello and Mary. Thank you. That's
the intro I deserve. Yes, seventy five uppisodes. I got all numbers
for a show that it was only like twice a month. That seems like
a lot of episodes. Yeah, and it's run by a bunch of like,
you know, degenerates, job having dong sure, drinking and just hanging
out and then we hit record because we have we all have shoot gigs as
they call it, during the day and then we we like to hang out
with our brands and have some drinks. At night. This is our relaxation.
It's a podcast, but we're relaxing here. This is my relaxation,
damn it. And I won't do it unless I'm relaxing. But people treat
us really well. Got a lot of good patrons, got a lot of
great emails all the time. We got some good questions for tonight. We
really appreciate fans. We got to do a meet up again. I don't
want to promise anything because we have no idea what the year is going to
bring. Well. I mean, we know there's a lot of travel and
it's busy, but like if we can find opportunities for another meetup. The
one that we did in uh Flat Iron in New York was super fun.
We had like a bunch of people. They showed up, people from the
trist scene area showed up. It was great. Yeah, it's hard to
it seems like all three of us have some pretty insane like March April is
going on with travel and at our calendars, weren't we and we were like
we got GDC's, we've got paxxis, we got WrestleMania's, we got all
sorts of stuff going on, So yeah, between that might get some funky
episodes here in the next month or so, maybe some guests and things like
that, but we'll make sure to make it fun. We just had one.
I wasn't on the last one. You guys had you guys, you're
on the episode. You weren't on the bonus episode that counts. Oh,
the Hell Divers, Yes, yes, we could. We should plug that.
Yeah, if you are a videotier patron, or if you want to
be, you've got an incentive because Jake, Dan, Me and Disney Adult
Mike Minatti jumped into Helldivers for like two hours. I want to say it
was two. I think we were hanging out for like three and a half.
But it's Hell Divers two and servers are still fucked. So Mary,
I could have used you. I could have used you. Mary. The
mics together was a more potent force than I could have predicted. Yeah,
I take him down with mines the entire time. It seems we were busy.
I haven't. I haven't to watch it or listened to it yet.
I just remember during the I don't think this was in the recording, but
no, we were trying to get in the game because I think Dan and
I got into the game, got lucky early on, and then Mike and
Jake were having trouble or was I having trouble? I think it was everyone,
And I mentioned that the night just previously before the recording, I had
been to the two towers at Radio City to watch the movie with the live
orchestra. We talked about I did that with Fellowship last year. But I
started talking about it and then we just kind of had a lull while we
were waiting for people to get into the queue, and Mike Manatti said,
oh, I think I could play it on my my tin whistle here just
sitting at his desk, and then started playing the Shire theme on his tin
whistle, and I, I tell you I'm a married man, but uh
and a Disney adult no less, I know, it's kind of did I
kind of call it this way, that there's a lot like you guys are
weird and similar ways, even if the interests do not, I mean,
there's not outside of the name Mike and video games. I'd like I feel
like they're both the crossover is they're both weird. Yeah right, I think
you phrased it saying we both share like a parallel like a chromosome somewhere there's
but there's a good natured weirdness to both, and you're both very aware of
how weird you are and you both own it, which I think is an
extremely good trait to have for both of you. Someone you I'm not self
aware, but I agree. No, you guys together was very interesting,
And who knows. With shifting things going in the next month or two,
we have no idea what who's going to be on what episodes or which ones
are gonna need guests. I still want to get you two on a proper
fire escape episode together sometimes if the occasion arises, Because Dan, I think
the only correct me if I'm wrong, from your two memories, but I
think the only two person episode we've done was you and Hanson when Mary and
I were I don't know where we were. Yeah, I had him overhere
the in personal one. Yeah, there might be a case where Mike and
I just hang out talk about wine and Disney. That's the thing that everybody
wants to hear. Yeah, that's going to be our number one EPI.
Everyone remember the one with the two mics talking about who gives a ship?
The ratings will be through the roof Mary, you and I are out of
a job. Honestly, if that's what takes me out, you guys deserve
each other. I mean, Mike would have to buy out both of our
individual thirds of the LLC. But if he's willing to do that, if
you can pony up, then it's the mic show. It wouldn't be that
expensive. We should do a succession spoof. And then we're like, wait
a minute, this is only like X thousand the eldest Boy. He's the
Roman. Me no, I think Manati's the Roman. You're the Kindle.
Oh not wait, what are you're the case? Just what the people we're
talking about here? You're talking about the fire Escape regular family of US four
Jake, Oh, I think your Kindle in all warms? Is it sexist
to call Mary the ship? Because I actually do think she is the ship?
Absolutely? Come on. I think it's trying to sexist and accurate because
I don't think I am the ship. Both who's the I think it's both.
Jake is the is Jake the cousin greg or the Tom woms Gam.
He's cousin Craig for sure. But it's not about smartness. It's about his
roll overness, like you just push him into a situation and he'll deal with
it. Am my, Logan, No, who are you? You might
be Tom like like Tom dude, I mean spoiler, No, I'm the
bad guy. I won't I guess I won't spoil it. But like all
back, Tom doesn't really Tom gets his and he didn't happy. No,
yeah, you're to be happy. Show is happy. I can't be part
of the criteria because like you, what about the uncle? What about Logan's
brother James Cromwell, No, you're not at all him. He's like this
extremeist like like, well, we won't get into politics. I know.
Usually that's my whole thing is extremist politics. No, you're not him.
He's like anti sponsorship corporation kind of personal. I love sponsorship, I know,
that's what I'm saying. Okay, if you can do the Tom and
I mean that's a compliment, Like he's way smarter than the family, like
that, he does really smart. Have we given someone to Connor though,
because he's Connor. I'm Connor. I would I would successfully run conn man
Connor Connor. Let me let me explain it before you fight it. Okay,
he's trying to run on celebrity. What does that apply to me?
You really go far based on who you are. You sell to lots of
sponsors for any reason at any time if they give you stuff that you like
and provide. Connor is a rich kid I came from. You can't win
with that. I'm finding parallels here Dan. Dan is too consistently successful that
he could run for president and win. I actually think Dan could win and
Connor never does win anything show I would have a Dan. You do not
have a better shot. That guy was rich for really, I don't think.
I think it's unlikely president weirdos I think I actually do think Dan would
get based on what the show says, because Connor is running in that weird
have another one a really hot partner. It's interesting and people gravitate towards in
the well. Go see what she thinks of that, and then we'll I'm
telling you, I actually complicated factors for that character. The conn man,
I think you would like get farther in a political campaign than Connor did because
he's running on that weird like survivalist. I'm just going to protect our water
and the elite will be able to buy water. My memory might be hazy.
I think that's the general gist of his. Dan would do the opposite.
He would run as a heel and be like, no one needs clean
water. I'm the only person with clean water. Come and get it.
Boson your sky, insult the column dorks. Yeah, you can get to
president by just insulting people, right, Connor thinks, oh, yeah,
you clearly can. It seems to be the case. I've got little brother
energy. I could be the Roman, for sure. I have. I
also have weird like massochist kinks. Yeah, only one of us would probably
be likely to send Dick pics on accident and is still so it's really good.
That was one of the most like shock horrific scenes in any show ever,
including what's this face? Oh? Sorry, will you finish? We're
talking about shows. You guys finished True Detective, Night Country. I haven't
watched it yet. Night Cruncher. You could go for a night cruncher,
bar night, I thought, he said, Night Country, Mary, what
do you think? Okay, can we spoil it? No? No,
I think that's wrong. It just the new episode just went okay, I
don't spoil it, but it's wrong. Don't even ask people to skip,
just do general thoughts because I want to watch it too. All right,
Mary, what do you think? I liked it? Real? Yes,
I think this will be a controversial one because it has an interest way to
wrap and this one, this is not a spoiler. This is like in
the advertising. This one is more like mystical, like it could be right,
and so it's very different than your standard who done it? But the
ending wraps it up very nicely for me, and I was very satisfied with
the ending. But I don't think it's as good as season one, which
one could my god, right, yeah, but I think it is the
most successful since season one in my opinion, And I was a moment to
moment. Yeah. I thought it was the best to watch throughout the season.
But then it like did a more extreme version. I thought of the
Lost thing that I hated about Loss, where it's like we're gonna build all
these mysteries and then at the end it's just like, whoa, No,
here's this thing that like the amount of like massive plot holes and things that
came out of nowhere and things that they didn't even remotely try to explain,
or things that were like super inconsistent with how it was portrayed earlier in the
season, like it was a lot, lot lot of that. It's really
hard to refute you, but I refute you, and I think that it
does actually explain things pretty well. But it does require a little bit of
like imagination because a lot of the things they're explaining throughout the show, and
I wonder, I'm not going to ask you to rewatch it, especially if
you didn't like it, But once we got to the end, I was
like, Oh, that does actually explain a lot of the things that were
happening that led up to this. I will say I thought the performances were
incredible. I thought everything that the direction, the building of the mystery and
everything was fantastic. I just felt at the end, what the fuck was
that? Like just really out of nowhere? But anyway, was this also
Nick Pitzelado from No He has been actively like hating it on social media because
he did he do season three or did he just do one and two?
I don't know. I hate season two is the worst one. I think,
Yeah, it's boring. It's just it's really bored and confusing. Yeah.
Actually, now I'm curious. I'm going to look up if he did
the Marcilla Ali that one was better. At least you could follow it,
but like it was just very much just info dump In the last episode of
season three was like, here's what happened? This so the series created by
Nick pitts Alta. But did he do it? There's the Carrie? Was
that the director of the first one? Carrie something? Carry did? He
did a few? Yeah, Carry did it part one. He's done a
lot of good stuff. Okay, film and television first season, True Detective
second season. Why is it so hard to find you? Guys? Vamp?
While I look? And he did? He did it with he co
wrote with someone. I don't think so no, wait a minute. In
pitts Alta revealed that he had assisted dead Wood creator David Milch in writing the
screenplay for the film adaptation. In return, Mitched helped him with the Milch
helped him a third season of True Detective by co writing the fourth episode,
as well as giving Pittsulado advice on crafting the season. I did not know
David Milch had anything to do with True Detective season three, and Deadwood's one
of the best things ever. I am not watching True Detective Night Country Night
Cruncher because we finished Better Call Saul, Aho are you feeling about it?
Incredible? And I will say, speaking of Deadwood, I did not love
True or Better Call Saul. I didn't hate it, but I was like
confused as to why you guys were over the moon about it until like late
season three. It takes a while. It's a slow burn, which is
why I say it reminded me of dead Wood because Deadwood, I feel like
it is working on you really subtly for many episodes before anything really quote unquote
happens, and by the time it does, you're like, oh wow,
there's a lot of really essential character building going on that I did not expect.
But I also Better Call sauw. When did that end? It was
last year? I believe it was during the pandemic. It was like twenty
twenty two or so, I would say, maybe twenty twenty three. Even
it didn't end though, No last year. I want to say, yeah,
it's done, it's done done. Yeah, yeah, I think yeah,
so I think it. I think it ended last year, so after
the pandemic, but or after Lockdown, I should say, but yeah,
Without spoiling too much, there were there are also certain characters Kim. Like,
for two seasons, Amanda and I were wondering when they were gonna like
make her. I feel like she was just kind of Saul's like a wife
in the fridge. What is the phrase? Like that sounds about right?
For two seasons. Yeah, and then finally I think they started doing really
cool things with her, Like great the way they start mirroring Saul with her
and showing that she's actually not this like just his moral compass, but in
seeing the parts where she kind of slips into stall stuff too, and oh,
she's not this moral white all the time character. Yeah, she's kind
of getting into like fuck this guy over God. Two of the harshest,
most brutal TV deaths I've ever seen. I know the one, there's one
I can definitely there's one other one. There's one toward the end. Who
is you guys know who I'm talking about? Yeah? That was so tragic
when you really think through like how it happens, Like why did they do
this? So I already felt that we're in spoiler territory here obviously, So
I guess if you haven't finished better calls, I'll skip forward like thirty seconds.
Yeah, I'll just say the Howard thing. I was already during that
scene feeling so sorry for him because like, yeah, he is a douchebag.
He's clearly a douchebag, but like they went out to like ruin his
fucking life. And I love his part where he comes to the apartment.
He's like, yeah, you won, you know, but you're still gonna
be shitty people all land on my feet I always do. I'm fine,
Hey, congrats, here's a champagne or whatever. And then he's just like
trying to leave and then that happens. Like Jesus, he's painted as a
douche and yes, he's got some douchey ways about in the first few seasons,
but he's still at heart. Like before shit went down in that meeting
that they set up to ruin him, he was having one helping this random
intern that he didn't know. He was showing him the carbonate in then and
like yeah, he like forgot the guy's name, but he was like imparting
this. Not this wisdom on the intern. Is that evil? No,
not at all. I feel like the solid kind of is the way worse
character. The whole point of like the entire show is that no one is
evil, right, Like everybody is complicated, and there's a lot of nuance
to why we consider someone bad or good and bad bad characters in that show,
though, I think that they try their best because like the point of
that show is to show that there's a lot of reasons that people are bad,
right, that there's like a reason that someone acts the way they are.
It is so such a pain in the butt all the time, except
for the solomonas, I don't see any redeeming good stuff, humanizing charming,
but there's nothing good about him. I'm going to go to Germany to kill
a guy in the woods and seduce a woman and like break into her house
and Okay. So the other brutal death, which I actually like cried very
hard during it was brutal, was the lead engineer, the German dude Werner.
Oh, that one's rough year. Not only not only did he realize
he had Mike had to kill him, he said this great line like when
he knew, he's like he's even then he was trying to like make it
easy on Mike. So he's like, yeah, the stars are so pretty
out here in Albuquerque. I think I'll walk out a while just to get
a better glimpse. That's my German accent. And Mike, of course walks
out shooting. But before that, he had to figure out a way to
get his wife to stay away from New Mexico. So he had to basically
like yell at his wife, who he loved more than anything, and like
tell her shut up, like I don't want you here, and he can
get back in the plane. Yeah. The way he hangs up, he's
like already suppressing tears and like, oh my god, this is the roughest
thing ever. It's really rough. And also he's so friendly. He's trying
to like teach these guys at the dive bar about like engineering and whatnot.
And Mike he's just excited about it. He's like passionate about it. And
Mike's have to kill him. I like went to bed sad that night after
watching that episode. But god, Howard was rough, like Howard, and
then Howard just gets buried next to Lalla believe meet the leg. Yeah,
and of course it's like there's that's one of the cool like retro like it's
funny. I told Amanda's beginning of the show. I think it was good
despite being a prequel, like they weren't banking on that, and then later
in the show it was good in many ways because it was a really clever
prequel, like so many retroactive things. Figuring out that Gus had this secret
tunnel the other side of the road kind of repaints the scene where Walt is
going to his house to like maybe kill him and you might call to me.
He's like, don't do it, Walter, Like presumably they were in
the house across the street with the surveillance already set up because they knew Walter
might do whatever. The fucking wine scene with Gus and the sommelier at the
restaurant, they're just talking about Rowan Valley suras. I love that, of
course, but god, yeah, Werner and the whole subplot with the Germans,
the secret you don't think twice about. I mean maybe others did,
but I didn't think twice about how they made that lab without anybody noticing.
And then that's a whole subplot, which Amanda, being the architect, loved,
but I was like, I guess I didn't think about that is and
then they make a great storyline out of it and introduce more of the Germans
in addition to just the Magic All Corporation. Yeah, the show is phenomenal.
I still don't think it's this is reductive apples to oranges, but not
really. I don't think it's better than Breaking Bad, having rewatched Breaking Bad
recently, but it's really fucking good. And it's different too, It's a
different product, and I think there's such complimentary shows to each other obviously.
And the last thing I'll say, because we're watching The Sopranos again, I
think too, Yeah, I think first time. Oh shit, I want
to ask about that. The thing I like about Better Call Saul, And
I'm curious if you guys would agree or if you wouldn't. I think they
let go of the likable anti hero much earlier. I think mad Men,
I think Breaking Bad, and I think The Sopranos take a while to I
mean, you should not. You should not think these people are good people
most of the show, if not all of it, and you can recognize
it. But they're still likable in spite of their terrible deeds. Yeah,
Better Call Saul. I think like and Bob Odenkirk's a very likable dude,
so like to get for the show to like, for you to be like,
oh man, I'm rooting against him. I think was impressive because I
think a lot of shows hold on to that anti hero thing too long.
And they actually were like admitted that he was a villain like halfway through the
show, which was refreshing. I don't know if that was just me though,
Yeah, glad to finish it. It's it's really really fantastic. It's
a good show. Have you both Mary, have you watched the Sopranos.
No, I keep falling off of it. Yeah, I've heard people say
that, Jake, It's just yeah, you know, it's just a little
slow for me. And I'm not saying there's anything wrong with it. I
just keep dropping off. I heard there's a thing where like I don't know
if it's just like a bro guy thing or a frack guy thing or whatever
it is, but when they rewatch Sopranos, they skip or they want like
cuts where it's like without all of the doctor Melfie scenes. It's like,
is the dumbest shit like that? So the core part of that show is
that like seeing this guy try to like like like actually analyze himself and his
decisions. Like I can't imagine watching that show without those scenes. Now,
David Chase said once that the elevator pitch not the elevator pitch, but like
the initial idea for the show was just a New Jersey mob boss walks into
a therapist's office. That was true the court colonel of the show at first,
And yeah, I can't imagine that either. I think growing up,
I thought it was a comedy because like the uh it was before like serialized
TV was a huge thing. I know he had Oz and the couple before
it or whatever around there, but like the cut, like the key art
or whatever, the post you all we see is like Tony with his arms
crossed in the front like he's the fucking King of Queens and it's like mob
guys over here, and I got my family at home, Now, am
I ever gonna have this wacky situation? Like I thought it was gonna be
like wacky and then I didn't realize until much much later, like oh no,
this is like the definition of prestige TV. I still think it's like
the funniest show ever, like the ship that they say, oh, which
hilarious, I will say rewatching it. I don't know how many times this
has been now, but we're rewatching it, and every time I rewatch it.
The first Siege season ages a lot between rewatches, a lot of bad
acting in the first season, there's some great up. I still think it's
a very strong first season, but like compared to Breaking Bad, mad Men,
even like Missus masl first seasons, I'm like, wow, it's weaker.
But they just everybody who left that show to go do like Boardwalk,
Empire and mad Men. You can see how much better they got it.
Casting good child actors specifically, Oh sure, yea Prano's child acting and their
kids. I want to give him a pass, but like there are a
lot of good child actors out there. I watched him play Mario sixty four
of this kid just right hand. Yeah. Yeah. One of the grossest
items in my father's house, which is saying something, is he wore for
Time Warner when The Sopranos was airing, and they would occasionally give out like
promo items, and one of them was like an HBO made uh Sopranos salad
dressing and it was in just like a salad dressing. Jar I don't it
was like an Italian or like Italian seasoning or something. Yeah, it's like
Italian seasonings pretty hanging much. But it's like officially branded Sopranos salad dressing with
Tony and the family on it, the logo and all that. And so
my dad hangs on to stuff all the time in case he can eBay it
for five dollars twenty years later or whatever. So we still got it.
But it's just green and lumpy. Oh that's it. And so it's just
the grossest fucking thing in the world. And he's just like, somebody's gotta
buy this, right, I've been looked like he's been looking it up and
he can't find any other instances of this existing. So we might have the
only gross, rotten Sopranos Italian season I am close friends with several people who
would pay like halfway decent money for that. If you need a picture,
I'll ask my dad. It's still sealed and everything it's sealed. That is
a very funny collector's item. It is sealed. Can you imagine the advertising
company like meeting where they were like, we have to advertise the Sopranos.
We want like a physical item gift. Should we give them this prego sauce
that has like the sopranos on it. Should it be Italian seasoning in jar
or should it be a nine millimeter gun? What will be the grossest thing
in twenty years? Oh man, that's funny. I'll ask him for a
picture, but I'll send it to you. It's it's no good. There's
been some like weird merch. I remember, Mary, you and I were
together when Resident Evil seven capcom teams sent out that candle that you were supposed
to light while you were playing the game. Yes, like it smelled like
dirty boxers. Like there was something like gross and kind of musky, and
like I don't know if mildew like just not something you want to smell,
and also smoke, like heavy smoke. Yeah, and I couldn't I stop
giving me shit smelling candles as a gag. I hate it. I've gotten
them before. I got them one after that too, either for like Dead
by Daylight or some fucking game. And they keep sending me candles that smell
like ass and I just what are you doing? I'm gonna throw it in
the trash. I don't want my house to smell like that. I mean,
I got about your raw meat with teeth and hair in it for bullet
storm. Yeah, there's pictures on game infom dot com with me digging through
that is disgusting. I was just when you said teeth and meat and hair,
I thought you meant there's another package I got that had meat and teeth
and hair in it. And it was for the horror game where you're an
artist. It's called like layers of Hair, Layers of beir. Okay,
it came with it's still in the game Spot office. I bet it came
with like jars, like little vials filled with teeth and hair. And I
remember when we got it being like, this is fucked up. I don't
want to own this. I'm glad I work at this company because it will
stay at game Spot. I don't want it. Like you just get like
so much funny. I literally just got when we were talking about before we
went live, like I just got like a weird little package in the look
at this. Yeah, I was that for Pacific Drive. Yes, on
the dashboard yea yeah, oh just for our audio listeners. It is a
wobble duck for your dashboard with as he's wearing a hat. Days of the
Dildo bat promo items are over. I think we'll see I forget that.
No. Same for the third big Purple Dildo bat. I didn't personally,
but I know it. Yeah, do you put that out into the world,
Dan, and we'll see what happens to you and what you acquire.
What was the one that send was it Dead Island Riptide? That was the
Collector's edition, which was just a woman's torso with severed head and arms and
legs bleeding. With the beginning they cancel that they put out there, like
here's our collector's edition, and everyone's like, what the fuck? Never mind,
and then the woman in the fridge trip just sending like literally like severed
parts of bodies. Yeah, good move, definitely, we sent you a
pig's heart. Enjoy Resident Evil nine stup. Oh, is this the Dead
Island Riptide zombie bait Collector's Edition. Yeah, it's just a woman severed torso
and it's supposed to be zombie zombie bait. That's not smart. No,
there's an art to sending out like a package that's nice to receive and there's
maybe something of value in it that you can enjoy later. I was,
uh, what was it? It was the last of US two for HBO
specifically sent goodie boxes and I got one and it had like a really nice
Cartwright jacket, like those really durable jackets. And I was like, I
will wear this jacket. And it didn't have a bunch of crap on it
didn't say like don't kill me zombies, you didn't say anything stupid on it,
so I could like wear it like a regular person. People are the
real enemy. That's what it says. Like it's like embroidered in the arm.
People are the real ones. That was my jacket for freshman year college.
Was again when dad worked at Time Warner and he got promo HBO stuff.
He got me this leather jacket and I opened it up and I was
like, oh, this is awesome. Wow, this leather jacket cool.
And then I had just giant band of Brothers patches on it. It was
like, God, damn it. You just gave this to me because it
was free. Never even seen this show, I no, no. I
bought it several times and have not. How well does the first season hold
up? Mike? It's only one season. It's still really good. I
said what I said? What was I going to say? The uh?
What was the game with the fox Zelda? Uh? Two? Years ago,
Tunic had a good like there, I got that one one. Yeah,
it's a really good Their press package also fed into the instruction manual like
puzzles kind of. Yeah, they have the physical instruction thing that they're like,
yeah, I got that. What did we do with those? We're
supposed to put it together with other people, but we're supposed to talk to
other press people and figure it out. But I don't talk to the press
people. Giving each of us puzzle pieces, what are we supposed to do?
Mail them to each other. We could talk on me on the internet,
mingle, socialize our Facebook group. I'm not going to do that.
No, I guess we'll never know. Dan. We can put ours together
and it'll be a mystery. I'm break into Mary's place and get hers.
I burnt it. If I can't solve the puzzle, none of you will.
I'm getting it. If it's it's very obvious what it is, Like
we put together a photo with twelve pieces and it's a naked man and the
only guy with the boner. I was gonna say, the only missing piece
is clearly going to be the dick. So we know Mary got a peep
oh yeah, or but you'll never know if it's like I'm being buried with
my penis puzzle beef. It's the Fox character doing goatsy and we like,
it's just the whole. What is this a little universe? This is fun.
What everybody else's puzzle is. It's like a portal or something. Wow,
that's interesting. It's like a sarlac pit. Oh god. Oh.
Speaking of packages that were sent to us, I think I want to we
do want to thank Michael from High Bank Distillery Co. In Ohio, Columbus,
Ohio. U so cool. We had a this is not a sponsorship
or anything. They did not ask us to say anything, but we all
had a uh. They sent us a care package in their words, after
we talked about the difference between bourbon and whiskey and whatnot, and they were
like, hey, you guys were right about a lot. Here's some other
notes. And they also sent a little back. Actually, it didn't just
say you are right a lot. It starts with Mike was right. I
didn't want to a one. Yeah, that's what it started with, which
I thought was very cute. And we talked about six flask size samples.
Yeah. They took the letter, talked about the process of how the whiskey
is made and kind of explained a little bit about why Mike was right.
And I think one of the things I learned from that letter was that it
doesn't have to be from Kentucky, but there is a very specific way in
which it's made with certain barrels, and they pay attention to the proof and
all that stuff. So these are not technically bourbon, which is cool because
it doesn't fall within those requirements. But I mean, it's still good whiskey.
And I'm from Columbus, Ohio, so I really appreciate this, So
thank you for sending this my way. This is like the whiskey of my
hometown. I went to kill Darby, so this is like really close to
where I graduated. Nice. Yeah, I've made several cocktails with it already.
I'm drinking an old fashioned out of their whiskey war right now and it
is super delicious. So thank you so much, Mike. I'm usually not
for like experimental one. I don't I don't know if that's the right word.
I'm there's They send us one called Midnight Cask, which is a i'll
read the bottle cask strength blend of straight whiskys and port wine. I didn't
think I would like that because I've had bourbon that was aged in pino noir
barrels before, and it's as a novelty. It's it's nice to taste it
first, but then it gets cloying. I'd rather just have bourbon. This
was really good, and also I think I might be butchering it. They
also had one that aged in Amburana barrels, which is a Brazilian wood,
and it's got this like really subtle banana hint to the whiskey. Oh,
it's really good. I like this stuff. And for like if for those
who don't superno geography in that area, they're not far outside of Kentucky,
even though an Ohio, so you know, I'm sure they're absorbing a lot
of a there's a lot of give and take between that area. But yeah,
bourbon does have to be American, but it does not have to be
from Kentucky. Yeah, thank you, Michael, thank you. Factos good
facts that we could learn a little bit, and lots of tasting whiskeys,
so it was really nice. It's also nice they like literally draw the percentage
on the little whiskey bottles and I wonder if a lot of that is because
because it's blends, you know, you don't really know one hundred percent until
it comes out. And so it comes out and they test it and then
they write it on the bottle. It feels very like like a like a
like a person did it. It's got that nice person touched to it,
which I really appreciate it. That's great, Thank you very much from It's
not a sponsorship and they didn't ask us to say anything. They just enjoyed
our bourbon conversation and it's really good. Send it. We'll drink it and
talk about it. I think it's good. You can don't send us that.
Do you go to High Bank. Look, just look up High Bank
Distillery Co. You can buy their bottles remotely and have it sent to you.
I mean there might be some states that don't let you, but I
don't know that for sure. So go try it out. It's really good
stuff. Thanks Thanks High Bank Distillery. Yeah, thanks High Bank and Michael.
We'll probably we'll mention it again toward the end of the episode, but
for now, do you guys want to talk about video games? Yes?
Dan, Yes, you've been playing Final Fantasy seven rebirth. Yeah, this
is a weird spot for me because as someone who's never been a JRPG guy
or a Final Fantasy guy, I believe I'm the only one who's played this
right, uh correct? Rebirth. Yeah, I played forty hours in the
last week or so of it. I played the whole three day weekend.
Boy, It's interesting coming in as not a newcomer. But I'm someone who
tried to play Final Fantasy seven a couple times back in the day. I
never really got too much pass Like I got a little bit into the second
disc of three. I don't really have a ton of reverence for it.
I think the music was really good. I like the material system, but
again, never beat it. Don't really know where the story goes. And
I feel like from people that freaked out about remake and really loved it,
like the ben Hanson's of the world, are the ones that were obsessed with
the story and are very intrigued with how it kind of plays with things that
happen there, so obviously big questions about like, oh what happens. You
know, everyone knows about Earth and everything like that, and the death and
you know how this game handles it, and to be fair. I don't
know yet. I'm forty hours in from what I've heard, I think.
I think I'm on like chapter nine of fourteen, so I can't speak to
that. I can't speak to the story stuff a lot because I have to
like look up a lot of things, so like things will happen where there's
like a big it's like, oh, this guy pulls a hood back.
It's like I'm Glenn, who. I don't know who the fuck Glenn is.
I've never heard of Glenn. Like, I've played the game, I
know the party, I know the main characters and villains. Who the fuck
is Glenn? They're making them seem like a big deal and this whole thing
with like ever, yeah, this is gonna be like vaguely spoiler stuff and
I don't even know if I could spoil stuff, well if I tried to,
But like, I think a big part of this one is this Zaz
character that's still alive and I guess he died in the original. Well,
yeah, Zach, I guess died in the original, and that was the
big reveal at the end of remake. Is like, oh, God,
Zach's alive and that changes everything. But yeah, it's I can. I
can feel it heading towards the nonsensical, Like I've talked to people about where
the story goes if I don't know where it goes. But even like big
Final Fantasy fans I've heard be like, oh, it's incomprehensible by the end,
and like, I think somebody told me that, Like I think the
Kingdom Hearts guy made this. I was under the impression that the original team,
whoever made the original games, was at least heavily involved in this.
But I guess it's the Kingdom Hearts guy. I could be totally wrong on
that. I don't really know, but that would explain that if it gets
crazy because I heard Kingdom Hearts doesn't make any goddamn sense either. But to
speak to the things I can actually speak to and know, well, the
open world stuff is really really good. That's something that didn't really grab me
about Remake is that it's all set in mid Guar, so it's all pretty
linear, pretty damn linear, and it's all kind of like dark, shitty
city, industrial city and ruins and stuff like that. It's just like very
kind of samey. And I liked the combat of Remake, but I fell
off a few hours before the end, just because like I don't know,
I didn't care about the story and the setting was just kind of woring me
this one. There is so much variety in the settings, in the gameplay,
like the pasting is so much better between going from these huge open world
areas where it's like I was, I was one hundred percent of every one
of these huge open hub worlds before I moved on to the next one,
to like these hubtowns like this Coasta del Soul or like the Golden Saucer where
there's just a million fun minigames, weird little like carnival games, or like
kind of fleshed out like almost like Clash Royale style, like strategy games.
There's a whole card game in there called Queen's Blood, which is maybe my
favorite thing in the entire game. It's just this, it's like a five
x three grid and you're getting these decks. I don't it's like magic cards
or Pokemon cards where different ones have different abilities and things like that, and
it's all about positioning and things like that, and I fucking love it.
I mean, I would play I would buy a physical version of Queens Blod.
I would play a full game that's just Queen's Blood. That is one
of my favorite things. That introduced a bunch of like gimmick matches and tournaments.
It plays into the story at times. By the way, it's funny.
This game is very, very funny. I usually think games don't do
humor, well this one does. There's a part where there's a Queen's Blood
tournament and my dog Red thirteen got mad because he couldn't be in the card
tournament because they don't allow dogs, and so he stole a bunch of soldier
gear from like Shenra soldiers and showed up at the tournament and did a bunch
of Michael Jackson dance moves in a soldier suit to try to pass himself off
as a human, and everyone's like, yeah, that checks out. You
can play a dog, and the dog plays and like as he's walking around,
it's this dog clearly uncomfortably trying to like walk like a human on a
time legs. Like I'm laughing out loud playing this game. It's fucking weird.
That's like Yaku's like a dragon humor, Yes, which you know what
I thought about Yakaza several times playing this because yes, Yakaza like this is
very very intentionally funny as well. But the big thing for me is the
thing that always drove me away from j RPG's growing up, was I hated
not having direct control of my characters. I hated going into a battle and
then being like, all right, pick your shit from a menu and watch
stuff happen. Like I was so kind of Mario brained an action game brain
that like the idea of just like picking ooh, magic attack and then watching
it happen. I fucking hated that. And this year already, between Infinite
Wealth and Rebirth, they are both straight up RPGs. These are big,
long, fucking JRPGs. But and it's don't I don't want to say this
is turnbased, but they are JRPG combat systems that they've done in a way
that it's very deep, but it's very very snappy and engaging in the way
like Infinite Wealth will do this stuff with all the positioning and things like that.
Infinite Wealth is more kind of turn based, but like it. It
doesn't feel like I'm just picking something from a menu. I feel like I'm
positioning and having more fun with it. I love the combat in both of
those games. Is the combat super different in Rebirth from remakemake like action RPG
ish? Yeah, I really that was my favorite part about Remake was the
combat and this kind of way. I think this goes harder on like synergy
attacks and things like that, where it's like, oh, if you have
Barret and teetha together, they'll do this thing, and they're like, it
adds some things for sure. It's more there's more different about this game than
I expected. I kind of expected like when this was first and now it's
the whole remake thing. I think they said the word episodic or people assumed
it was episodic for a while, and so I thought it was just going
to be like a continuation more than like sequels. This does feel like a
sequel. There's enough things about the UI and the combat system and just the
open world stuff where it's like, this does not feel like chapter two of
Remake. This feels like a sequel to Remake. But yeah, I really
am loving it. I honestly I got I got the code a week or
two ago, and I was like, I wonder if I'm gonna get to
this. I got other someth still working on Infant well, then you know,
I want to play this stuff. And I started it and I was
like, God, damn, this is like really really good and it makes
me so excited for big fans a Final Fantasy seven. I think about Ben
Hanson a lot, and I got a lot of friends that are really in
the Final Fantasy seven. And like, imagine if your favorite game of all
time, something you grew up fucking loving, got a person of just a
remix. If somebody just remade Metal your Solid or Ockerne of Time for me,
that would be a huge deal. But imagine if they just blew it
out to three games that each one of those is like longer than the initial
game, and they go so much more on a is it macro level?
Is that what I'm trying to say? You know, like it really like
digs deeper into every element of it and micro yeah, and it just makes
it both it's so much more fleshed out, and add somebody who makes it
so much more modern. This does not feel This is not an HD upgrade
or a graphical remake of a PS one game. This is a modern ass
JRPG that feels great. It appeals to people like me who traditionally have not
been into the series or the genre. I think it's really really tremendously well
done, and I'm going to keep going with it. I am expecting to
not know what the fuck is going on at the ending, but I've made
peace of that ahead of time. I actually do like the story leading up
to it. It's interesting, I like the characters, the writing's funny,
the side stuff is really great. But I do expect a bunch of stuff
that will probably be very important and crazy to fans of the series. But
I'm just gonna be like, I don't know what the fuck happened, but
that game was fun, so yeah, I don't. I mean, I
think of US three historically, I've been the one that's most into that genre,
and I liked remake a lot, but I didn't have the reference for
Final Fantasy seven. I never played any Final Fantasy to completion, but I
loved remake of what I played because I thought the combat was great, the
pacing was good. Yeah, it was more linear. It was kind of
gated open world at certain points, but I love how it felt like a
completely different action game when you switched from Cloud to Tifa, for instance.
Yes, and I went to start this one, and I just could not
bring myself to do two parallel big open world JRPGs because I'm I turned around
on Infinite Wealth last episode, and I don't need to say much, just
a quick tangent to talk more about Infinite Wealth before talk more about Rebirth.
But I'm loving Infinite Wealth. It's it's funny. It is reminding me pacing
wise oddly enough of like spider Man, Marvel spider Man in the center.
It's this open world, but there are so many random little mini games and
side activities, and I know, like Yakuza has always done this, but
I think Infinite Wealth does it so well. I don't think the first few
hours are paced all that well. But once you get into like okay,
you can do a Dundoku island, and then you can do the labyrinth,
and then you can do all these like delivery side missions. You can just
every certain characters you meet on that social where you can like befriend them on
the social media app have different little side missions unlocking new jobs that are just
fucking ridiculous, where you end up like just wielding a surfboard as a scuba
diver. This character who was a Cabby is now all of a sudden a
pyro dancer. It's just it's also I think A figured out why I truly
love Infinite Wealth, and I wish they got to it sooner, but they
I'm fully into it and how it is like I think on the spectrum of
games that like let's say Naughty Dog, Last of Us Part two, that
feel like they really don't want to be a video game. They would rather
be just press these team, I think Yakuza or like a Dragon, Infinite
Wealth is the opposite end, where it is like reveling in the fact that
it's a video game and it's embracing it, and there are certain characters that
are like, I don't have time for this. What am I a video
game? NPC? And then they're like, oh, man, in a
video game, this is how this next mission would happen. And then of
course that's exactly how it happens. It's just like it gets so much more
joyful and I love what they're doing. I mean, I'm still chapter nine.
I want to say Memory Serves. I kind of have lost track of
what chapter it is. But like the way they start to split things and
it becomes two games in a way is that just like when I was starting
to lose steam in terms of energy to keep playing, that happened, and
now I'm just rejuvenated all over again. It's it's great. I love it.
That that actually kind of ties into where I'm at with Rebirth is because
I had the same thing where I was like, I think I'm like forty
hours into Infant Wealth and it's like, fuck, I don't know if I
want to start this other big game in the middle of Infinite Wells because I'm
still loving that, but I was just a little past the part where you
go back to Japan with Krryu, and that kind of felt like a good
break point where it's like, you know what, I love this game.
I'm going to make a point to go back to it, but let me
at least dip my toe in Rebirth and see if I like it. So
my plan is I have just been trucking through Rebirth, but I do want
to go back to Infinite Wealth afterwards. Man, I like a lot,
but yeah, but also real quick yeah yeah. So also, like the
open world stuff is like it's really substantial. It is big, and all
the stuff you're doing it doesn't feel like just Matt barf boring stuff like everything
is. It leads to things like getting new Titan summons and combat challenges and
stuff like that. The chocobos are adorable. That's the minimum that we expect
from chocobus. What else There's always been adorable these and the sound I make
and everything. There's these little baby like you'll see it be chocobo in the
wild, Like you'll be running around you'll see they're just patting Hey, quiet
qua que and they're like they want to show you a chocobo stop. It's
like a bus stop, but come check it out. And It's like,
you don't need these baby chokobos to show you, like you're gonna find him
anyway. But I always humor them. I'm like, all right, buddy,
show me where your chocobo stop is. And it shows you and it's
not active until like the sign, the bus stop sign basically you pull it
up, and as you're pulling it up by holding a triangle, the baby
chokeo was like, yes, yes, he's just so fucking jazzed about it.
But then if you let go a triangle and it falls, he's just
like, oh man, this baby chocobo seems so bummed out. I don't
know. That's been fantastic. You get a buggy later on in the desert.
I assume you get an airship at some point, because I think you
did in the original. But yeah, it's these open worlds are pretty damn
large, and also the game is just gorgeous, the variety in the just
kind of vistas and everything versus just like the blue Blap Midguard at night stuff
in the last one. He said, so much better. So again,
I don't I know the broad strokes of the first or the original game.
Golden Saucer is like a casino town, right, It's like a casino amusement
park's ferris wheel, the choke boat racing, there's like motorcycle racing, queens
blood tournaments. Yeah, all sorts of just like games and things like that.
There's like a three D fighter thing where you're controlling like the old polygonal
versions of like the Final Fantasy characters and it's like a punch out type thing.
There. There's a whole stretches of this game where it's like a lot,
lot lot of mini games, but I think they're all really really good.
There's a full on like Rocket League thing where it's like it's like Hungry
Hungry Hippos Rocket League where you're playing as a dog knocking balls into a goal.
There's one where it's like a carnival like gun challenge thing, like a
target gallery thing, and you can turn on the motion aiming, which is
really fun. I like, I did not leave any of these many games
until I got like the top rank in each one. There's piano playing,
there's it's just unique stuff. Like we played a million open world games now
that have a million different like Okay, here's their darts game, here's this
game or whatever. This is very very unique, all the different stuff it
has you doing, and I really think it hits way like I don't think
it misses much. Most all of the minigames are very fleshed out. It's
exciting. I want to play it. I'm eager. It's great. It's
great. I really I love it a lot more than I expected. I
think I think I will finish infinite wealth. And part of me wants to
go back and replay remake. I know that's not necessary. I could just
watch like a YouTube recap, but I liked remake. I just got sidetracked.
I got all the way to the end. And I just fell off
like three hours early. I never can make them the idea that you were
like forty hours in it's pretty good. I think I'm gonna keep going and
it's like forty hours in. Yeah, I know, and I more hours?
Is it? I'm guessing sixty to eighty is my guest. Yeah,
And for the for the fairness for that fan base, that is what they
want, and that probably is a good time of play. But for me,
that's an exceptional amount of time that I would only play if I'm like,
this game is the best. I'm obsessed. I cannot put it down.
It was a good time for three day weekend where I didn't have any
plans because then it's like, holy shit, I'm just going to sit here
and just play this game with some breaks for other games, which I think
we'll probably talk. Yeah, I think so. I'm asking. I've been
putting off this game for a long flight I have coming up next week.
But both of you have come out swinging about Bilatro on Switch. You're doing
switch versus switch versions. Great? Is that what you're doing? Mary.
I'm playing it on PC and I'm loving it. I might play it on
Steam and Steam Deck. Yeah, it's total Steam deck game. This is
a this is a portable game. This is a play it on your PC
game, and I can explain why I play. You can play it anywhere.
This is a card game that is very similar to standard poker rules,
but it's like poker on crack. It keeps changing the cards and letting you
level them up, and every card has a value just like regular poker.
Think like you know, the two is worth two, the four is worth
four, the ace is worth I think the most, right, because it's
the highest. And every time you make a hand, let's say you make
a three of a kind, not only are the cards added up in value,
but because you've made three of a kind, that's worth I'm just going
to say a twenty times multiplayer. It's probably not exactly right, but let's
say it's a twenty time multiplier, and so it's giving you the value of
the cards plus the multiplier, plus any cards that you've like happened to get
that are just bonuses or extras, and it kind of like juices up your
total to this number. Now, when you're playing this game, you have
to be able to hit a certain minimum, and if you can make that
minimum, you're rewarded with a new currency, which I think is just called
dollars. What a good currency name. And then the dollars is how you
buy more level up cards like joke and these will give you like really interesting
level up Uh there's so many. And this is where the game's replayability gets
really addictive, because at the end of the day, you're just playing poker,
right like, you're just like looking for good hands, you're getting rid
of cards, you're finding new hands, and you're getting this like delicious total
number because baby, you actually did get a straight flush, which is worth
a shit ton of points. It's really fun, and then you get your
money. The cards that you're buying is kind of what makes each run distinct
and fun. Yeah, and you'll start like you'll get one joker that's really
good, and then you'll craft a whole deck around that. Like, for
example, the first I've beaten it three times now. The first time I
beat it, I started with a joker that made all hearts that I play
get a multiplier and I was like, okay, great, so I'll go
for flushes. I'm gonna go for herts mostly. Then I got a joker
that made it so hearts and diamonds are treated as the same suit, and
clubs and spades are treated as the same suit, so all right cards that
all black cards are the same. Then I kept leveling up the value because
you level up each hand, so like a flush, a pair is straight,
you can make each one of those individuals. So like I kept picking
the card, the planet card that would make the flush super duper valuable.
Then I was doing these tarot cards where you can delete cards from your deck,
and I start deleting all the clubs and spades, so all of a
sudden, it's all fucking reds, They're all flushes, and I'm getting super
duper multipliers and everything. Every hand is gonna be like hundreds of thousands of
chips, Mary and anyone listening. Here's a tip I learned literally a couple
hours ago from watching Bonk play and her mentioning it. You can drag so
it scores the jokers from left to right, and a lot of them will
say like, okay, this one's going to give you plus four molt if
this you know, plus four molt for each charge, or this one's plus
three molt for each whatever. But then there's ones that say times something molt,
and I didn't realize the difference there, but it's critical because let's say
you have three cards that are plus molt at the beginning, so that's making
it okay the multiplayers times four, then it's times six, then it's times
eight. But then if you put the times one on the end on the
far right, it'll multiply the ones you add it up, so you're adding
up the multiplier and then multiplying it, which will make it so much more
valuable. So you can get this point. I was watching Bonk. She
was doing individual hands that were like two million plus, which is insane crazy.
Yeah, it's like war frame territory. I want to I definitely want
to play this. It's super addictive, but it's also like really simple to
play. You could play this with any person who understands the basics of poker,
and they will pick it up and say like, oh, this is
really nice. It's also it's just a little tweaked of poker. So you
don't get a hand of five cards. You get a hand of eight cards
and that's the minimum. Because you can actually get bonuses that add cards to
your deck less, you can get less troo you can, you can get
hurt, but generally I think it's eight. I'm pretty sure that sounds about
right. Yeah, I think that's right. And so you're making the best
hands you can out of eight cards, and you're constantly like getting rid of
cards, adding to your dead and then utilizing the knowledge of your multiplayers.
And some of the jokers or these multiplayers are really fascinating. I got one
dan that was you get a one point two multiplier every time you don't use
the most used uh oh wow, your like favorite, your most used hand.
And so I was always doing flush because it's easy to get uh,
you can usually get a flush uh, And so I was just constantly pushing
myself to get something else. But the multiplier was like combining over time,
and it was really valuable to just not do flush even though it's my favorite
hand. And it was a really fun push to get me to play poker
in a different way and and think about the cards differently. Well. Yeah,
and for anyone who's intimidated by like if you don't know poker, yeah,
like you don't actually need to know poker, You just kind of like
you kind of just need to know the hands, like you need know,
pair three of a kind, you know, because you're not actually playing against
anyone, you're just kind of like competing against yourself and getting a score.
And yeah, it explained it. It's pretty straightforwards, like okay, two
pairs three of so like you don't even really need to know poker, but
if you do know poker, it's fun because you can make fucked up hands
that don't exist. Like at a certain point, you can get like five
of a kind, which doesn't happen because there's four of each, you know,
but you can buy cards and add them to your deck. So I
bought multiple aces, and so I just kept getting four aces because I'd so
many goddamn aces in the deck. It was easy for me to get four
aces, which is very satisfying when you can get four of a kind.
Or you can get a tarot card that's like, hey, pick two cards
from your current hand and you can upgrade them by one and so like,
if I have kings, if I have two kings in my hand, I
can play that and now they're two aces. Now I have six aces of
my deck, yes, like, and then I get a spectral card that
turns all of the cards in my hand into hearts and it's like, oh
shit, now it's gonna be real easy to get a flush that's all aces
of hearts or whatever. It's just really fucked up hands, or it turns
a regular straight into uh what's it called? Well, you do yes,
straight plushesshes. It's just worth so much money, right, So, like
it's a really nice thing to get those. And at first I was like,
why what, I want to turn everything into hearts and it's like,
because, dummy, you can turn anything into like the best hand in the
game. And I again, I also don't like think I know poker super
well, but I understand the basics. And it goes over the basics.
There's always a list of the hands and in the order they are, so
you're never questioning your whether or not a flush or a full house is more
valuable. It's a full house. But the point is is like it's it's
explained to you. The fun part is discovering when you manipulate the cards and
the multipliers what kind of score you can get. Also, they do restrictions,
so in the are they boss fights? Yeah, there's big blind boss
fight for every anti, which is like a level basic just playing poker,
right, Like it's not an actual boss fight, but like the boss fight
might be U. Diamonds are debuffed. Uh, cards are deal to face
down. That's so crazy. That's such a mean de buff. But then
you can do you can do things too, because you can sort the cards
in your by rank and by suit, so you can kind of like you
know, surmise what you've got by kind of looking at it, like,
okay, this is between the ace and the ten, all right, Yeah,
it's like Mike, you can do stuff like if you want to run
like a straight focused deck, you can get a joker that is like it'll
let you skip a card, so you can do two, three, five,
six, seven. Then you can get another one on top of that,
because you can hold five jokers by default. You can kind of change
that with other stuff. But like, let's say you get one that also
lets you do a straight with just four cards, so then you can skip
a card and get a straight with four cards, and then you can keep
using the planet cards to upgrade the value of a straight. So it's just
there's so many ways to just craft this deck exactly the way you want,
and it's so fucking rewarding when it's it's like the Ultimate numbers Go Up game
when it's like all these multiplayers like slot machine gambling, all of your like
addiction levers. It's very addictive. It's also there's no pressure, right,
you can take as long as you want to make your decisions. The UI
is really seamless, it's colorful. It feels really good when you make the
click and the decisions. What was that other card? There's any like you
know card games where like this isn't tripe, but it just has that vibe
to it where this is really well crafted. It feels juicy. Oh,
it's juiced up, like when you click the cards and you get the multipliers.
When you get a good hand, fire happens in the coins and then
you hear like fire going off because it's just like you have a fucking hot
hand. Makes you feel really good when you get it. Yeah, it
sounds like Monster Train in that regard, which is one of my favorite like
deck builder games and Monster Train was you know, the joy of that was
like, oh, I finally figured out this faction. If I like,
I can be extremely overpowered if I use this card in such a way that
interacts with that one and you know the synergies start popping off. Yeah,
it's because I've heard Monster Trains Grade. I love Slay the Spire. Like
those types of games are awesome, but like there is something about the fact
that this just cuts out any of the fluff, any pretensive story, and
it's just like go go go another hand, another hand, nether hand.
You're just seeing the numbers go Dewey of the Year. Oh my god,
they are in playing game of the Year. Absolutely. Like I'm sit there
doing eating breakfast in the morning and I've got my switch propped up and I'm
doing it like touch screen like video poker style. Like I'm the person who
see it like Circus Circus at four in the morning at the video poker machine
that's been up all night, and it's like I'm just like, keep going,
keep going. Dad. When we were calling into this call to do
this recording, I had Balatro in the background and so like while we were
talking and like setting up, i was like, uh huh uh huh uhuh,
And I'm like, literally, I'm playing poker while we're doing this thing.
It just reminds you of like, uh, the egg Clicker. You're
a rockstar and I'm just like not fully present. I'm still playing Blatro at
any time. Yeah, I'm getting on the treadmill. I take my joy
cons off, my switch, I put the wrist traps on, and I'm
like on the treadmill with a joy gun in each hand, just looking at
the screens like yeah, okay, I mean it is addictive, and it
poker is addictive, right, Like the idea of getting a good hand feels
great. And when you're able to get a really incredible hand in poker,
there's something inside of you that gets really excited. This game gives you that
vibe, and you will get good hands because the way the game is designed,
it's designed to get you the hands that you wish you could get when
you regularly play poker with your buds or like online, and then you just
get all this like really fun kind of juicy money that comes out of the
whole game because it makes you feel really good anytime you get a good a
good hand. It's very well designed to make it addictive and fun and enjoyable.
Something in the best way gets really excited when I get a good hand.
Uh huh, oh my god. Oh you dirty dog, Dan,
Sorry, a dirty dog. I know we're raving about this and all these
things, but I want to play. There's so much more off on purpose
because I have that several flights coming up in March. Yeah, it's gonna
be perfect for that. And like each fucking card you can get, like
it's like an enhancement, a seal, and there's like a type or addition
or something, so like you can every card could be a boil card where
it's like each one of those, you know, it adds fifty to each
hand that you play with, or it could have a seal where it's like
it's got a purple seal on it, like a wax seal. And anytime
you discard this you get a Tarot card. There's one work glass ones and
they're valuable, but it has a one and fourth chance of breaking when you
play it, which is so crul And then they want to give this don't
break? Yeah, yeah, So do I want to give a glass card?
If I get a Tarot card? That's like make a card a glass
card. It's like do I want to give this my Ace of Spades which
is worth a lot or it might break? Or do I give it to
a two? And it's fine if it breaks. Yeah, the holographic cards,
spoil cards, yeah exactly. Yeah, gold cards, they're worth money
when you keep them in your hand. I had an Ace of Spades that
was gold, right, but you want to play it, but it can
keep it in your hand. It gives you cash money, so I wasn't
playing it so I could get the cash prize. It's it's very well made.
They knew what they were doing when they cooked this one up. This
is gonna be one I think people talk about. This is a very very
interesting game. You know. Also, I think my dad would like this
game. I don't know why that's important, but I just think this is
like a dad's game too. It's like if my dad tried it, I
bet he would, but I guarantee if showed him. You can't do five
a kind. That's great that you can't just get rid of a card.
You can't just can't make a flash out of heart sand diamonds like I forget.
There's four suits, always has been, always will be. I'll be
dead in the ground before I recognize five of a cond. This isn't it's
not poker. I can't destroy a card. I'll call the cops on you.
You can call it poker, but it's still a cow. Yeah,
I want to play this looking forward to it. It's it's it's fucking crazy
that it's like six weeks, seven weeks into the year, and I feel
like you could make a top ten list, Like there are ten games out
you can make a top ten list. Well, okay, okay, ones
that would be like a viable great year. Look at already you got Prince
of Persia, Infinite Wealth, Final Fantasy, bilatro Hell Divers, which we'll
get to. God, I feel like there are already a couple others that
Tech and eight. I mean, it's a fucking crazy year already. It's
like mid to late February right now. Sorry, it's just funny that you
got to like six or like there there are a few others. No,
I'll agree, they've been some good games, and I know, I think
for all intense purposes, looking at the future of the year right now,
it looks like it might be a slower year all told, compared to recent
ones. But yeah, I'm glad that like the good games coming out are
not you know, easing up on the throttle. Well, I mean,
I could use some downtime because there's a lot of shit I still need to
play that's already come out. But yeah, Hell divers to two server problems
aside whatever you know, like Arrowheads working to address those. The Swedish studio
very significant problems. Me and Bank were trying to play around earlier and just
an hour is sitting at the screen and there are people that just stay in
the game overnight when they're not playing so they don't have to deal with that,
which is annoying. But man, such a good co op game,
extraction shooter, session based multiplayer. They're doing so many things great. It's
it's also funny, Like are we getting Is this the year where games figured
out how to be funny? They've been I mean between like hit them,
yeah, but I mean like this year when you like talking about Attle,
Fantasy, Infinite Wealth and this are all like, oh, these are all
intentionally funny games. Yeah, you were talking about Rebirth. I think games
in general are getting better at comedy because you know, writers are actually understanding
how not to be just like referencing memes every five seconds and actually being funny
in and of their own rights. But uh yeah, Hell Diverge is very
funny. Yeah, I mean just the dive into Prone is very much this
like three Stooges type, like wow or whatever they do just a salute button
is very funny. Yeah, all the like interstitial stuff, the flavor text
and everything is very good. It's a good social game, which I usually
don't seek out these days. I don't tend to use games for socializing,
but this is great for it once you're in with your friends. But it's
it encourages communication. It's still it can snap in one second from just a
leisurely all right, that objective was easy and to oh my god, all
of a sudden, shit has just hit the fan and you all have to
kind of snap into serious mode for like two minutes while two people go prone
in front with machine guns and the other two like have the explosives out for
the automatons. It's a million minds out, hey, watch out for those
Sorry about that coordinating where you put minefields, who's gonna call in the airstrike?
How you want to paste them out? It's it nails that balance,
or rather, it runs the entire gamut between very funny dumb social game Breezy.
You gain some XP for your next before your next mission too. Oh
shit, legitimately demanding, challenging, good co op game. There's a lot
more to it than, like, you know, I've done a few like
co op Fortnite sessions and stuff, and it's like that's just purely social You're
just running around, who gives a shit shooting stuff. This one is,
like you said, the perfect mix of like, no, you're playing a
relast game, but also you have time to like kind of catch up with
your friends. I think my two favorite things in like every match are,
you know, Mary, you were talking about this last week, the moment
when the extraction is happening and it's just like fuck, you're just shooting and
trying to survive. That's my favorite. And then also when you approach like
a base of sorts that you have to like go in and like you know,
rescue civilians or something, but you just know there's a ton of bullshit
in there, like enemies and stuff, and so everyone's like all right,
everyone just throw everything you got, and it's just orbital strikes and cluster bombs
and mines and just fucking every gatling guns, mortar turrets and everything, and
you just see every like the explosions are incredible. The ones where you launched
the ICBM and you see it explode in the fucking huge shockwave. Look's amazing.
Yeah, they've done this is not like random. This is good design
when you have built something so that you have these epic showdowns with monsters that
are coming at you from different directions. Like if you ever recognized, like
right as you're about to finish some task, whatever task they give you,
they'll have an additional wave of monsters typically come from behind you, right when
you're at the finish line. Yeah, it's really well made where they're thinking
about where to spawn the enemies to ensure that you're always checking your six and
that if you're alone or you don't have buds with you checking your back,
you're in serious danger of going down. It's very enjoyable to be maybe the
last person standing and be able to revive your team and take advantage, but
they've made it difficult enough that if you're not cooperating, you're not gonna make
it. Yeah, it's got like the maybe not the best elements of Left
for Dead, but maybe the best elements of Left for Dead in that sense.
Or Yeah, if you go off by yourself, you can get fucked
easily but there is I like it more than Left for Dead. I you
know, I respect Left Forardad. It's a good game, but like maybe
it's just the setting. I think the idea of this, like you know,
yeah sarcastic, you know, Barohoven, Starship Gropers, I setting with
sci fi and bombs and everything, I definitely like more than the zombie stuff.
Yeah, I person there are very few games I like more than Left
four Dead, so I would go that far. But I think it's the
same secret sauce for sure. But yeah, you're Aside from like a few
missions I've played, this game wants you to be using your stratagems and when
if you can call in a fucking orbital rocket or bomb or in napalm or
rein like calling a machine gun or some like anti tank mission like, they
want you to be using these constantly. There are certain missions where you really
do need to parse them out because that cool down is way too fucking long
for how difficult this mission is. A minute and a half is too long
for you to wait for your next anti tank missile launch or whatever. But
by and large, this they really do, like you said, you see
a base, fuck it, I have the strategem we've we've got, we
can de with that cool down on the way to the next objective, just
blow shit up. And it's so satisfying. But also, like Mary said,
it's like, even in its most social, laid back moments, you're
still sort of on edge because a wave could come and you're thinking about the
next objective that you've got to trek across half the map for. It's just
a really it's so hard to pace multiplayer games. It's I mean, single
player you have so much more control, but when you have four people in
the same mission and so much of the mission is seemingly random or maybe not
random, but like in the sense that the Left for Dead director was kind
of pulling strings, it's so much harder to make missions like that consistently interesting.
And it's so good at that. I don't think there's been There are
certain missions that felt more like exp farming, but you kind of do need
those breathers and just like the equivalent of like comedic relief in a movie.
But man, I like it a lot. But again, that's not to
ignore the fact that Arrowheads still has a long ways to go to make getting
into this game an easy thing they'll get there. I don't think anyone expected
it to be the like unbelievable hit it was. No, I don't think
so. It's funny when I first loaded in I sometimes I still do miss
the overhead twin stick shooter of elements of the first game. There's absolutely no
way that this game would be as popular if it wasn't a third over the
shoulder third person like. So I'm willing to bet way fewer people would be
playing it and they wouldn't have these problems. But good for them, but
they deserve it with the game designs, just like, you know, get
that stability there, and then all of a sudden, it's like, like
you said, it's going to come up in our conversations in December. It's
like the the GTA two to GTA three leap, where it's like, well,
it's you know, on paper, it's kind of the same stuff you're
doing, but that perspective shift makes it so much more palatable like a mainstream
audience. And yeah, I would say a good comparison is it's supersonic acrobatic
rocket powered battle cars to rocket Oh, Like they basically took a really good
formula and said how do we fucking turn it up to eleven? And they
did. They fixed a lot of the things and the first game that would
take people maybe just turn them off or make them not interested. They also
upgraded it from a you know, like looking down game to looking down game
to a first my favorite looking down game. Do you know what I mean?
Great looking down? Good looking down? Yeah, linked to the past,
sim cities, cities up there and looking down. Fucking Lemmings was great
too. Or is that Lemmings is a looking side oh ship, I'm embarrasseds
is looking sideways? Fucking x com to Civilization. Good looking down game,
great looking down game, good examples of my really good point. Bashi's are
really good looking down and kind of to the side game. The different genre
to the Breach. I don't know, kind of it's like a genre mashup.
I'd say of looking down Taxtics to go down to the side game.
Yeah, yeah, it's a lot of angle. Arkham Asylum kind of could
be a looking down game if you move the camera the right way. A
lot of games can be yeah yeah, yeah yeah. VR porn can be
a looking down game. I mean, v R anything. I guess you
was looking down at your feet. Yeah, no, just really vur porn.
So that's Mike. Sorry you were saying, Mary back to video game
expert Mary kish you made fun of yourself before we jumped in on it.
I knew it was dumb. I'm the first person to recognize that I'm an
idiot. Is a great looking down refuses to move away from this bit.
Yeah, I'm trying to boggle. Boggle is a good looking down. I
tried to help you. Look down is a good looking down. Puzzles,
Digital dig Othello and Mancala and Backgammon Boker. Boker is a good looking if
you're just if you're just playing checker, okay with your family and you stand
up above the board and kind of just do one of these different genres.
You're right, You're right. That was that was unfair. I'm sorry they
upgraded it. I missed the looking down Zelda era. Yeah, well they
did a throwback. Between Worlds is a looking down throwback. You look sideway
as a decent amount in that game, though, a little bit. Yeah,
it was bullshit. It's not a pure looking down. Yeah. Someone
someone just literally popped up on my Steam friends saying they're playing Hell Divers too.
And I'm willing to bet no, they're not someone on your steam list,
someone on my like it just my I had a notification that says x
so and so is playing hell Evers too, and I'm willing to bet they're
not going to a server thing. Yeah, yeah, that makes sense anyway,
Sorry, do you remember what you were saying? No, Dan,
I heard you're playing Go Meca Ball. Tell me about I did. I
I was gonna play a bit before the next podcast, and I'm a man
of my word, and I did. I streamed a little bit of Go
Mecha Ball. I will say, true to what you said, it immediately
feels good. It is a game that takes no time at all to get
into it. It's like, oh, that's what I'm doing. Okate drops
me in. All that feels good. Okay, holding the trigger and then
I turned into a ball. I can more fall immediately. That's great.
There's things I think I gotta get used to because I only played, like
i'd say, I played like an hour or so. I gotta get used
to kind of that, like do maternal thing of like getting Ammo by like
doing this specific attack, like doing the charge into characters to get Ammo.
Cause a lot of times I'll go through all my stuff and I forget that
I can get more AMMO by by charging. I do want to play it
as a Steam deck game. I think that would be a really good plain
Steam deck game. I bet it would run great on that. I'm trying
it yet, but like I cannot imagine it not running well on the Steam
deck. I guess the thing I am waiting on is seeing kind of like
that loop the Rogue Light elements, and seeing like I did see the thing
where it's like I'm starting to unlocked different, like Okay, I got this
duck gun. I got this thing. Okay, that's good. I got
it like a contra spread gun and stuff. So like I want to see
like how that loop goes and like currency type stuff and if that kind of
keeps me going the way a great Rogue Light does, because I don't think
i've played enough to know that yet. But everything you say, oh,
I think just one. I think I just did the one. Yeah.
Yeah, like I said, I played like an hour, so not a
lot. Yeah. Yeah, it's like a bug spider I remember, just
a chunky thing with legs, yes, I think I yeah, yeah,
that's her yeah, you know, it feels fantastic. It is very It
has a good feel to it. I like the bouncy the bouncing around and
killing stuff with your body is pretty fun. Yeah, they like boost rams,
the like half pipes and stuff like. That's really fun. So yeah,
yep, I definitely want to play more of that for sure. Good.
I hope you enjoy it. It's really fun. This is actually not
to any rogue light. When you get the right materials and you know you're
gonna go far, it's a good feeling. This is kind of what happens
in Baleltro as well, where you're like, oh, with this multiplier,
I am godlike, I am unstoppable. This does that too. With the
right gun and the right power up, you'll be like, come fucking get
me, losers like I have everything I need. I have a sniper rifle
in one hand, I have a shoddy in the left hand. I'm also
a ball, Like, come get me. I think it's great. I
want to try. You said it's on game pass, right, Mary,
Yes, it's on game Pass. That's uh why I played it on PC
because I did not kiss it. We actually had an email. I'll just
read it now. It's relevant that Alexander from Norway asked, Hi, guys,
I was wondering, does account as kissing it? When you buy a
game and you never play it because of course you don't. You're a disaster
person with an eight hundred game deep backlog, but then later it comes out
on game Pass and the announcement reminds you and you think, maybe now is
the time to play it. You haven't played it yet? That still kissing
it? Yes, negligent kishing. It's like retroactive spirit of kishing. Yeah,
yeah, I kissing because we've Also, it's the opposite of what I
was saying to you, which was one time I wanted to buy a game,
or I i it was on game Pass, and I purchased it anyway
because I wanted cross play in another reason. So I was willingly acknowledging that
I had done it, which I think is the opposite of what this this.
I don't think this is kissing it. This is like you spent money
when you had to because it wasn't game pass. But it's still still funny
that person purchased money, or sorry, they purchased money. What's wrong with
my brain? You can buy money damn it. They pressure the game count
conversion, never played it, and then it turns out they never had to
spend the money. It's the same in essence, what are we doing this?
What are we doing with our jobs? We could just be buying money
somewhere. If you go like a flea market, you can get a good
deal out of money. Okay, Mary, you also played something called Ultros.
Yes, Dan, this is this is a pitch for you. Okay,
never pitch me anything. I always pitched. Okay, when I'm playing
some like strategy game that takes eighty hours before I see the first iron Clad
Flyer, I'll let you know. This one is fair a metroid vania.
I hate those that is made. I think it's a I think this is
very small team or like a few people, very small team. It looks
like it's on shrooms. Oh, I just visual style shocking. It does
look like it's hand animated, right, you can see that the animation style
is it's very like a handmade and then the upgrade system is quite fascinating.
So when you kill anything, depending on what you're killing, it gives you
a certain I'll call it a currency for the sake of it. But it's
like a certain type of upgrade, and then when you go to safety chambers,
you get to choose. It'll say, oh, if you want a
double jump, which is obviously something you're gonna want, it requires maybe like
three of the six upgrade currencies, and maybe like some of the food that
you've been given gave you four of the six upgrade And so now you're you're
eating the food in order to upgrade to these very specific upgrade portions. But
you can waste food if you're eating it, but it's actually not leading up
to the upgrades you want, and so you're like trying to eat the right
things in order to upgrade the right pieces of yourself. I know that sounds
weird. Also, everything's like weird brain esque and mildly sexual. It's very
it is kind of for Micah, it's super goofy. It's the upgrade thing
is crazy because like you'll look at it and it's just kind of like conveyed
through bar graphs, kind of like different colored bar graphs. It seems more
complicated than it is. At the end of the day, you're eating food
that hopefully correlates to the right things that you need. But if you're eating
the wrong thing, you're not gonna upgrade. Plus you're just like wasting the
food, so you want to eat the right thing to get to the right
upgrade, and certain animals are the ones you're gonna need to get the good
upgrades, so you're like hunting for the correct animals that you can upgrade the
right piece of yourself. Yeah, it has a really interesting story. It's
not often that you want to ever play a metroidvania that when you get to
the boss fight and you kill it, it takes away your powers. But
that's one of the hooks of this game. So you beat your first boss
fight and it has you start again. It's almost like the universe recycles,
and so you like wake up and you have no powers, but it's very
quick for you to acquire your powers again now that you know where everything is
and what you need to do. And then you get to a different area
of the game there's a new boss fight, you're getting a new power,
and then it kind of like sucks it all away from you again. It's
an interesting loop dynamic. I found it quite fascinating and visually it's just an
interesting take on the genre. Metroid vanias are often rinse and repeat. I
found this to be a very different take. I will say, like,
I don't think it's for everyone. The fact that you lose your powers every
boss fight can be grating. And the upgrade system because you have to kill
certain animals to be able to upgrade certain powers, that's also could be frustrating.
But I think if you look at it as an exploration game that's like
on a lot of mushrooms, I think you would have a lot of fun
with it. It's quite appealing visually and audibly as well. I didn't realize
it was a el warevo the artist who did a hotline Miami has that vibe
does very satch uh Nickelodeon meets Grateful Dead meats tool album or tool music or
something. It's also it's very I think you were saying, like it's goofy
and kind of everything. The double jump, the grapling hook, that's good
and I just got killed by that boss and my powers now it turns out
flash I'm a woman, and it's pretty good. It's good. Oh man,
you really earned your spot this week. This is a love good bit.
It looks good. I are you playing it on PlayStation PC. Again,
a lot of the games right now I'm playing on PC. I like,
it looks good as hell, it runs great, but like on the
OLEAD, it is that saturated. Look is it pops on that screen?
Yeah. I was worried that the saturation would make it difficult to play,
and that I wouldn't. You know, when games are too saturated, it's
like the bullet hellness of it is overwhelming. I did not feel that with
this. It is very saturated, but they did a good job not overwhelming
my eyes. It's less the saturation that kind of bothered me at the gameplay.
It was more the like I kind of struggled to discern between like foreground
and background, Like what's an enemy, what's a platform? It's just like
there's so much detail everywhere that it's kind of like is that a platform or
is that just something in the background. So that's something I'm sure you used
to as you play, but gave me an initial like, eh, weird.
Yeah, this was not a Metroidvania. This was a sort of a
looking down game. Remember uncited from two years ago. I'm cited that sounds
very satch like you were a cyborg who you had a countdown to when you
died permanently, but you were going kind of across this Metroidvania Zelda esque world.
Oh right, but that was a problem there a lot of those.
I love the game, but I was thinking about that from an artistic standpoint,
and then you mentioned the platform problem. That was my problem with uncited
or just came. Yeah, but they never but like I often could not
differentiate between what was an interactable object and what was just environment, which like
something with resnivilfre Remake just spray paints interactable things yellow. But yeah, no,
I want to Final Fantasy. It's like major yellow, Like here's where
you climb on the side. So like the people who complain about that,
I'm like, would you rather be put the video game pouring over every inch
seeing what you could press a button on? I don't know. Yeah,
it's a IDEO, I'm kind of It doesn't actually bother me. It's just
a very video game. Yeah. Like Infinite Well, it's just like there's
a glowing thing over there, go for it. Or it's bright pink on
your map, go do something. I love what you said about Infinite Wealth.
It's just like it knows it's the fucking video game in that very like
kind of way where it's like, yeah, we're telling a story that we're
proud of and everything, but also it's a fucking video game, so like,
deal with it. We're gonna say video game stuff and do video game
signposting and shit, yeah yeah, do you guys play anything else? Or
I briefly played Mario Verus Donkey Kong. You know, I'm the biggest I
mean Nintendo mark on any podcast I'm on pretty much. Uh that said,
I all say when something sucks, and this doesn't suck. It's just boring.
It was boring before the GBA games, the puzzle platform or stuff like
it, like Donkey Kong Niny four is great, but this kind of like
half assed lemmings merch of the minis type GBA games, Like I never liked
them back then, and it turns out I don't don't love it on Switch
either. They're not bad by any means, but every time I start a
level, I look at it, I get a sense of like, Okay,
I got to do that to go up there, and then I go
over there, I got to dodge that guy, and goes like you just
see what you have to do, and I feel like it's a chore.
Like every second I'm playing, I'm like, all right, okay, I'm
almost some of this one. Okay, fine, I'm done. I never
have to do that one again. It's just it's not a good feeling while
you're playing a video game. I wish I liked it. I do not.
Yeah, I don't even I have no intention of trying it out.
Unfortunately. I feel like you can an honest assessment. Yeah, I feel
like more than any other game, you could look at a screenshot of any
Mario versus Donkey Kong level and be like, I get it. Yeah,
it's like looking at the now even looking at the cover of like a puzzle
box and then the jigsaw puzzle still fun putting it together? Yeah, yeah,
this is just like fun. This is like all the peoples are already
aligned. You just need to literally push the Yeah, this is painted by
numbers, but of a boring numbers is a better way to put it,
just without the therapeutic aspect. Well, all right, that game sounds awesome.
Do you guys got terrible? I don't mean to tell I know what
I'm negative on it. It's not a bad game, it's just Dan,
you got to stop being negative about Nintendo games. It's getting older. No,
I know, you really just are. Now I'm beginning to suspect that
you don't have the integrity we thought. You're always down on Nintendo games.
That's my thing. I'm biased. Got some sort of vendetta. All right,
you guys want to do emails? Yeah, all right? As usual,
you can rune into fire Escape cast at gmail dot com for questions,
comments, cerns, feedback which I read all that. Uh I did ask
last episode before we get to tonight's questions, or rather, we all brainstorm
ideas for a hot tub based finance advice podcast. How did we get there?
What were we talking about? You were talking about you and Mary sitting
in the hot Yes, but we got a bunch. I'll get through as
many as I can. But there were a lot. Stock Tub my name
is Stocktub. That's from Ryan. That's a good one, like elimiting to
just stocks. But you know, dock tub is pretty good. It is
good. But then you can't talk about like in anyway. Uh. Trevor
Trevor from Pennsylvania rode in a few bubbles in the bank. Relax, it's
pretty good. Relaxed count stacks, hot tub retirement machine. That's really good.
A lot of syllables going on, but it's it's clever. I think
it's a play on hot tub time machine. But the bank is nice.
I would I would remove, I would remove in the bubble bank, bubble
bank, bubble bank, bubbles in the bank or bubble bank, bubble bank,
bubble bank is fun to say, welcome to the bubble bank bank.
Yeah, that's fun to say, bubble bank, bubble bank. May need
that bubble bank bathing and bathe and save wet and getting pruney while we talk
about the moon, ay goddammit, or the hotly pool. I don't get
that one. Is that like a pool fool? Yeah? Only rhyme one?
Yeah, a bunch of them? You got a bunch more? Let
me find them banks good? How about taking a bath? Oh okay,
you lose a lot of money. Yeah, but we would honestly probably lose
people a lot of money, so it's uh, it's appropriate we would,
but we want them to feel that we're going to make them a lot of
money as they and then they losing them, We're like, that's not our
we actually gave you the there was a little line saying it's all gambling.
We have no idea what we're doing and neither do you, and then legally
not responsible for anything. Yeah, that was from Daniel. It was going
from izzyg writing the bubble PARENTHESI s at the end bubbles financial podcast name.
This is okay. This is from Fenrier, who has Roberto who has written
it a few times. You were so close to greatness with your mention of
tub thumping by Chumbawamba. However, I think the most appropriate pun related to
the same song deals with the background vocal pissing the night away. Since I
can only assume the financial advice giving would be bad and ultimately a waste of
money, I'd like to propose the following title Kishing the Night Away. Fishing
the night Aways pretty good. It covers partying in the hot tub while referencing
Mary's oncanny ability to waste money by forgetting to check game pass. That's from
Fener. That's good, pretty good. Andrew wrote in saying Andrew from San
Antonio in Investing Circles fire stands for financial independence retire early says you all already
have the fire Escape cast. Maybe you can work this acronym into the title,
but I don't know how you'd spell out what it means without making the
title way too long. It's usually good at naming things, but I'm drawing
a blank right now. Loll. Maybe it'll come to me a dream or
something, so it would be what financial independence retire early cast. I mean,
I love the sentiment, but yeah, it doesn't exactly roll off the
tongue. Oh, this one's good from David Head your jets or Wall Street
Jets. Well, this is good, like that jets is good, that's
great. Mark Harrison had a similar sentiment as earlier economic bubbles. It's Mark
from England. That's good. I love. I love this. When you
ask people to like use their creative juice, is bubble bank? You just
I love how you just complimented your your own idea. It's based off of
that person like you tweeted, just tweaked it just now, I don't owe
you money And that's bubble bank from from Pennsylvania. Prunin and Financial Ruin making
it negative. No one's going to listen to it. I want people to
give us their money and trust I want to lose your money podcast. I
would rather like listen to a mon like a podcast where they're in a hot
tub and giving terrible advice. That would be a worse podcast. Order back
to dead in a Ditch your Money podcast advice Center, the rock Bottom Podcast,
They're gonna marry, You'll have nothing in your wallet and you'll want to
die. Let's take our first caller. This one is, Oh, that
would be fun. We got to do that. This is quite a stretch,
and they admit, but like Jack, Jack wrote in saying this probably
sucks, but had to share it. For the hypothetical hot tub financial discussion
podcast roth Tub like wroth I RA but also hot Tub roth Tub, There's
gonna be more. The subject line is roth Tub question mark Jack, This
question mark is part of the podcast. I don't know you personally, but
you've probably got something better. I trusted right back. Really like rock tub
is the name? Oh man, we got so many. Let me a
few more before I get to the Wait was that the last one? That
might have been the last one I could I find? Now? Yeah,
that was it, Jack. You ended on a great note. I thought
there was going to be more after ropped up. Yep. Well thank you
everybody who wrote in, Well we'll be sure to source some ideas from all
of your creative minds in the future. Very good, Oh my goodness,
that was very enjoyable. All right, onto the more traditional, as it
were. Email questions, Mary, do you want to do this? First
one from Rachel? Sure? What is all your all? Wait? What
is your all's? That's what it is. There's no y'all, it's all's.
Yeah. I don't like y'all. What is your all's? Social batteries
like mine runs out so quick. I'd rather be at home chillin' and having
a cat in my lap and a dog curled up next to me. Also,
if there's kids there, I'm not often going. I don't have much
in common with parents. Thoughts, concerns, questions. Don't read this verbato,
shout out the pets, cats and context. I got you, Duayne,
dog makes sense verbatim, and then he read a B. Yeah,
that's why I by bolded it in our script. She just sent in gorgeous.
I just read a photo of a gorgeous pit bull named Dwayne and a
gorgeous like I think it's either a ragamuffin or a main coon stray cat named
Taco that made itself at her home. Is that I got you? Uh
her saying that? Or is everything except for the bolded which I read,
don't read verbatim, but shout out the pets. I feel like we got
it through. So she's got some pets there. Yeah, the photos are
gorgeous. Uhh, Rachel. My social battery is pretty well charged most of
the time. I will say. I say this as like a counter to
I think my wife and I balance each other out really well. We've been
living together for going on two years now. Amanda's definitely more an introvert,
and I have always considered myself an introvert, but I think what I'm learning
the last few years is I am actually an extrovert. And you know,
like one doesn't mean you're shy, and the other means you're not shy.
Extrovert you recharge by being around people and then you come home and then you
spend that energy, whereas you know, the introvert's like Amanda recharges it home
and then we go out and that's where she spends it. We're kind of
reverse. You think it wouldn't work well, but like we're good at like
encouraging the other to stay home and relax when they might think it's like they
might feel guilty about it otherwise, and then I think I'm more like,
no, let's get out and go do something and then we'll, you know,
we'll come back. So it was a learning curve at first, but
I think, you know, I have learned that I'm definitely more the extrovert,
but I do love staying home with my cats as well. Mine's weird
because like, until college, I was very much introvert. Didn't go to
a single party, never really drank, never really you know, I'd have
a couple of friends i'd you know, play video games with or whatever,
but it's mostly staying at home watch and wrestling, playing video games. And
yeah, college changed it all when I realized that, like, oh man,
going out and drinking just like a part of me comes out that I
wasn't familiar with before. And nowadays it's like the social battery element is like
almost like troublingly like infinite in that I have to stop myself from like every
day of the week I would love to either not like nowadays it's not going
out to the bars every day of the week, but like, especially now
that I'm living around a bunch of friends again, it's like it's so hard
to stop myself from obviously like podcasts and stuff, you know, you know,
doing various things like that at night, but then having friends over from
movie nights or on the weekends going out and doing stuff or just planning like
you know, there's a wrestling paper view on Saturday, I'm gonna host a
party. I'm gonna do this. So it's like I kind of have to
stop myself from every day of the week. It's putting something at night where
it's like it's gonna be drinking and hanging out and social and like, and
I don't the battery thing is like I feel like when I'm out or if
I'm socializing and drinking and stuff, it just goes and doors and doors.
You always hear about like, you know, alcohols a depressant and some people
have a couple of beers and get hired. I've always been the absolute opposite
where it's like, I mean you you both have probably experienced this before,
where it's like be at a bar and then like it'll be like last call
and I've been like what the hell, No, we just got started,
and it's like I'm trying to like rally people to come back to watch mcgroober
or something like let's get this train roll and let's let's what we gotta stop
and we're gonna buy even buy a twelve pack, and we're gonna watch a
movie. We're gonna go play a game. I got an idea, let's
go watch Wrestlemaniam seventeen in my players, Let's go do this. Like I
don't, like I would just keep going if people around me didn't peter out
at a certain point. And uh, it's a lot. So like I
do have to kind of stop myself from like constantly doing stuff, and so
like I do try to, like on a rare night that I don't have
any kind of plans like no podcast, no friend stuff or whatever, I
do try to just enjoy it. It's like, oh man, I can
just like Okay, I'm gonna sit here like this last weekend three days,
I didn't have any plans. I just played Final Fantasy for three days.
And like there is a part of me that's like, oh man, what
am I doing? I got a three day week and I'm like not leaving
the house. I'm not doing anything. I don't have any plans. But
then I try to like stop myself, be like no, this is a
nice thing. Like I just get to like I'm just gonna be comfortable at
home. I'll you know, work out, I'll you know, play Final
Fantasy. Ill it's you know, it's it's a good thing. It's a
healthy thing, because otherwise I would just go all the time, every time
and never get tired of it. Yeah. Yeah, I like I sometimes
get annoyed with how my energy works. It's like I will not realize how
much I need a break from social stuff until all of a sudden, Holy
shit, I just realized how much I need a break because like to your
point, Dan, it's like three and a half week straight or something.
It's like I enjoyed going to the office to break shake off the cobwebs.
Like hey, like we've been meaning to try this new restaurant. Let's book
that for Friday, and then you know, like, oh, Saturday,
these we haven't seen these people in a while. Let's go over to Queen's
or invite them over, and like I have energy up until the morning or
the night. I don't. I wish I could, Like I wish my
body. I like it's not a circadium rhythm, but like whatever that is
for energy. It's like I wish I it was more natural for me.
It's like it's all of a sudden and like again, like I think Amanda's
very good at listening to her body in that way, whereas me, I'm
like, oh fuck, I need a break. Yeah, I wish I
could wean into it a little bit more. And it's not like it's not
like bad. I enjoy, you know, like our social life a lot,
but you know I do sometimes wish, and like the winter weather is
helping in this regard, like I do enjoy more. Like how much easier
it is to get a bit burnt out, not burnt out that's the wrong
phrase. How much easier it is to get a bit more like content with
staying in and playing video games and like do it like playing board games and
watching and catching up on the Sopranos or whatever. But yeah, I'm hoping
in like a few years, I'm just like I can like wind down as
opposed to all of a sudden be like, oh wow, let's do a
I agree, let's stay in today, please please please. I have a
bit of a manic back and forth. I go really hard with wanting to
socialize and have a lot of fun, and then I will crash and then
I can't see anybody. I don't know if that's healthy. It's probably not,
but that's just the way I'm designed. What I've found is that if
I do a big event, like I just did the Streamer Awards, and
I met like a hundred people in the course of three hours and did this
like nice show, and we all hung out and had dinner and then drinks,
and then at like ten pm, I was like, I'm going home,
and then just went back to my hotel and sat by myself for a
few hours and enjoyed myself. So I went really hard and then I was
done. It happens to me almost every con. You might see me the
first night or two at PAX. On the third night, I'm not fucking
there. I have burnt my social battery and it's gone. I don't know
exactly how it happens like that, but I think when I am in a
social situation, I like to be very talkative and you know, be involved
in the conversation. I'm not a wallflower. I am in there. I'm
active, and I'm taking photos of everybody and we're having jokes and I'm buying
drinks. We're having a good time, and then at some point I will
say, oh, you're done, and then I don't want to see anybody
anymore because I've I've spent it. Yeah, I know that feeling like I'm
really bad at saying no where. It's like, let's say it's like a
PAS or a summer games fest or something where you're on a four or five
day trip or something, and you know, in my head it's just like
even if I'm super fucking exhausted by that last day and I got to fly
the next morning or something like that, in my head there is that kind
of guilt of like, man, how often am I around all these people?
All these people like in the industry I love, and I don't get
to see them maybe once a year if I'm lucky. I'd feel like such
a goob if like I just went to bed at ten o'clock and didn't go
to the hotel bar and to this party, into that thing and and say
hi to everyone and then be out till two four in the morning. Whatever.
Yeah, Like there, it's just a weird I don't know if it's
like some part of me is like trying to like it if some subconscious thing
is like, oh, I didn't do anything in high school. In junior
high I didn't you know, if I'm making up for lost time, but
like I don't know at a certain point, like I shouldn't worry about that.
I'm forty. I think I've done enough. I don't. I shouldn't
feel like I have to go out every fucking night or feel guilty. You
know. No, I would definitely say you, of all people, make
your presence known when you're there and it lasts, so I don't think you
need to be constantly re upping your like presence in your friend's lives. It's
there no matter what I'm I think similarly where I'm a firm believer in the
fact that like strong relationships require, you know, work, not like not
like arduous work, but if you want to like maintain strong relationships, especially
as people move away. And sometimes it's just texting someone about like a Warhammer
three update or something Steph Curry did, but like other times it's like,
man, we haven't seen them in like three weeks. You never text me
Warhammer three updates anymore. We catch up on a podcast every two weeks and
also talk what and friendship we text. I text you a decent amount likes.
Okay, shadows of change is getting into I want to know how you're
feeling all the time. You do. No, you don't, I promise
you. I yeah. I Sometimes I'll be in that mindset. I'm like,
oh, we haven't seen these people in like three weeks. They're all
the way over in like far Brooklyn. If we don't see them tomorrow,
when will we see them? I feel like our friendship will just flounder.
Like that's not true unless you're really like very casual friends like that, the
friendships that matter will persist. I still think you need to put in work
to have close relationships, but I definitely need to get better at acknowledging that,
like saying no this one weekend or these two weekends when we both the
men and I need recharges, like it's not the end of the world,
Like fucking Joe's still going to be friends with us in three weeks. And
of course you get together these people and all of a sudden, it's like
you never you It's oh, you catch up right away, and it's like
you never even left each other's side. So like I need to remind myself
of that sometimes. Something that I'm really valuing a lot lately is you know
because as you know, very way way less like bar nights and stuff like
that. Everyone's older, you know, half my friends have kids and stuff
now, like we're not going out and shutting down bars the way we used
to. But like Ben Hansen, you know, several times since I moved
back, it's like it'll just come over, I'll make a couple of cocktails,
we'll watch a silly movie, hang out, chat and like all right,
see it's not a super late night or anything. We're just kind of
hanging out watching a fun movie together nice and like that that's enough where it's
just like, man, that that's a really fun way to just kind of
catch up, do something silly, hang out and it's not like doesn't have
to be a whole night, don't have to be like shit the whole next
day. And like you know, I you know, with me with wrestling
and stuff like paper views are a great way to do like watch parties and
stuff. So if there's like an exciting show coming up, it's like,
okay, Roy Rumble's coming up, I'll invite fifteen people over. We'll all
kind of hang out the thing, order some pizza. It's just like doesn't
have to be you know, everyone meets up at a bar and you know,
closes it down everything like that, but but specifically like the just kind
of hangout nights where it's like, all right, let's have a friend or
two over. You know, a few of my friends and I are planning
at mcgoover night where we realize some of us haven't seen some the Friday.
Yes, they haven't seen the macgover's show. Friday watches mcgoober. So we're
gonna watch the entire Peacock Show and one run one now on the show,
and probably just play a bunch like any s games and watch the entire run
of the mcgover show. And it's like that just sounds like a great night
me and like three friends hanging out and just watch mcgoverer. Like, I
like that stuff a lot. So you still haven't lost your taste for boogers.
It's the best line of the show. It's from Sam Elliott Nole.
Yeah, it's those nights in are great. I agree, Sorry, man,
I think it's good to also, you know, burn it down when
you have the opportunity, right, Like, if you're getting that, obviously,
listen to your mental health. But if you're at a wedding or you're
at like a thing with friends you haven't seen in a long time, burn
it down. Enjoy yourself, like push yourself. I think it's worth it
to go for it. It's just so it's possible that the next day you
may be able to want headphones on at the airport so no one talks to
you. Like, I think that's fine. I think you can do both.
I think you can have it all. But like, enjoy the precious
moments that you have, especially if they're rare, right, You'll, you'll
it's worth it, I think to go and have have those moments with your
buds before you sit in your hotel room. That's what makes it tough with
like packs and stuff like that or anything like video like you know, Marianna,
you do Twitch con Like there's you know, any any convention, summer
games, festing that stuff where it's like you have to balance the like everyone's
here a lot of open bar situations things like that, like you know,
you want to drink and be out late and stuff like that. But also
we usually have to work these next days or produce shows and things like that.
So like that, I haven't done a PAS since pre pandemic. Uh,
and I'm going to packs East, and so I can't do it the
way I used to. I can't just like close down the bar every night
at the hotel and then do a live show the next day. Is something
that I'm already anxious about and then I'm like hungover anxiety, and I just
can't do that to that degree anymore. So, like you gotta pact all
that stuff in for sure, but it's hard to say no, especially in
those circumstances. Just listen to your body. Don't feel guilty if you say
no. Yeah. Yeah, I don't think she asked for advice, but
we gave it anyway. Yeah, it is he gets up for free get
it well. Thank you, Rachel, appreciate you reading in. And also
I can assess Dwayne. I think he's a pit bull maybe maybe a mix,
but looks super like a pit bull and Taco, a very fluffy gray
cat, are both gorgeous and Rachel sent in photos. Dan, do you
want to read this one from Morgan? Sure? Hey, Mary, Dan,
and Mike. I hope you all had a wonderful New Year's. As
I was swatting at mosquitoes during the middle of New Orleans winter, it made
me think of a question for the Escape cast. If given the opportunity,
what one creature would you just eliminate from the planet without hesitation. I'd get
rid of mosquitoes, even if the environmental impact meant the end of the Earth.
I'd go knowing that at least I got them first. For argument's sake,
Mike, you cannot choose to eliminate women, even though we know how
you feel about them. Also, I don't like that bit. Look,
we all know that. Also feel to discuss Mary would say that about liberals
of course. Also feel free to discuss getting rid of something that would impact
Yeah, you can't say liberals or whoever fucking Reagan's running Aponia was Yeah,
yeah, don't get Mary started. Also feel free to discuss how getting rid
of something would impact the environment, or just pretend everything else would go along
as normal. Thanks for the great game of your episode was incredible to watch.
More. Some of this is dated from New Year's but it's still relevant.
I think it's a big list bugs all Disney at all, Yeah,
Disney fans in general. Let's say, can we just at a role where
we're not just eliminating humans? That seems troublesome. Yeah, yeah, I
could say, uh, bugs all fun, bugs, parentheses all I really
don't like most reptiles. No, areol what we don't have to agree?
Well, I'll give them like candy and popcorn and cool ship win when I
don't have. We don't have to agree on these this individual Okay, okay,
justies, just deal with it. Salamanders, Oh yeah, I'm sure,
sure, I'm okay with these fucking predatory dinosaurs slithering around the water.
This big crocodiles and like HeLa monsters and komodo dragons. Sharks are scary,
but they're cool too, so I think they get a pass. But they've
been documented enough where I can like look back on their legacy and play shark
Nato or whatever the fuck it is. Possums, why would you powesome,
you bullyeve free? They're creepy possums eat bugs your worst enemy, But there's
no bugs in this world that I have. You can't wait wait, I
thought it was one. Are you getting rid of multiple things that you have?
Let's just do the whole list here a all bugs for me plus other
things. Possums get rid of bugs, they don't have rabies, they're actually
good for the environment, they eat trash, and they're cute. I don't
think any of that's I don't think they're cute at all. I don't like
it. I don't see any raccoons, the crazy faces. They're scary.
No, So bugs and possums are gone in my world. I mean,
Morgan was pretty on the money with mosquitoes regardless. That's bugs. Yeah,
I got that covered. Yeah, I don't. And mosquitoes. Mosquitos tend
to ignore me for the most part. I'm lucky in that regard. I
don't know what it is about my like heat signature or whatever, but they
still are annoying. But I would probably get rid of like most parasites,
like, I don't want something that's you know, you know, like the
ones that like apparently beaches, any tape worms stuff, Oh no, I
got taps, you gotta have, I gotta. I got to have my
tapeworms vibrate wine from champagne. The grapes are infested with tapeworms to suck out
all the hops or whatever. Yep, that's all. That's all remotely accurate.
I don't, okay if I want to pick one, because there's a
lot of things that annoy me, but I do want to pick one.
Prioritize bugs. No, one species, one species. Bugs is a species.
Google. No, I think bug is just slang for uh okay,
insects. That's only six legged, which is a lot. I want spiders
gone. They're not insects. Well whatever, you know what I mean.
No, I don't know a tiny gross thing with a bunch of sure bugs,
yes, all of them that would. Butterflies are fine. Butterflies are
fine. See this. That's why I don't want to what about flies?
Yeah, I get rid of them that. I don't know enough about science
to specify how I feel like that would definitely end the Earth within weeks if
we didn't like put it out like in like a press release or something.
I don't think anybody would notice. Isn't it like something about if bees went
extinct, like Earth would fall apart in like two weeks or something. There's
no way. I'm just I'm so important not getting to get them out of
here the pandas to say, anyways, except for adorable they don't want to
be here. They're trying. They're all suicidal. They're trying to go.
They're trying to do the Matthew mcconne from True Detective Season one, like walk
arm in arm toward oblivion. But we're not letting them. We're putting them
in. Zoos are like, God fucking damn it. We tried to I
give you the message and you're just not listening. So Dan's just saying bugs
except for butterflies. Yeah, bugs except for buttercuts like the buzzy caterpillars and
stuff. They probably turn in butterflies, so that's in the same category.
What would mine be? I wish I wish I liked I wish I liked
reptiles, but I don't get rid of them, specifically snakes. I really
just don't like snakes at all. I agree with mosquitoes. Do I have
to be got to pick a new It's genuinely what I want. I know,
man, I really kind of hate woodpeckers right now because they really fucking
love my house. But I they're just every fucking day the woodpeckers go nuts,
and then the dogs freak out because I think someone's knocking on the door,
and but I can't have a problem with woodpeckers. They're just cute birds.
They don't know any better, you know, like it's just a Tom
and Jerry episode. But I am running on the deck sometimes I get out
of here beggars shaking, But I don't want to get rid of them shaking.
They mixed uh less ware cocktail. Yeah. Where the side of the
house, So the wall directly that I'm facing right now, are there's holes?
I got holes? Yeah, okay, you're going to break into the
house sometimes pecking in my skull. My dad also had a woodpecker and he
got rid of it a neutral system that doesn't hurt the woodpecker. Tell me
more, okay it is. I don't want to hurt them. You can
look these up. They're like beach balls, and they they're like balls that
have like an eye on them, and it scares the woodpecker because they they
look at it like it's a uh what do you call it? An enemy
needs predator? Oh, I see predator's thing hanging it on the side of
your house, and they'll get scared, and they won't they won't peck anymore.
See I've tried that, so I have put a buch of long mylar
strips, the flashy reflective ones. I've also put fake woodpeckers on the side
of my house. Like this is all like very precarious. I'm leaning out
windows and like trying to nail my lar in fake birds to my house and
they don't give a shit. Why is it taking so long for this like
saga of woodpeckery to come up? I mean, woodpeckers don't come up off,
no, but like you talk about things that are like taking up your
time in this it's not that podcast. It's called like a here, I'll
show you. It's I'll put it in the Discuss Food. Okay, so
I'll buy this and I'll report back like it's the saga. Oh what the
fuck are those? It's a ball with eyeballs. They don't like it.
That looks like something from me. I like it. They don't like the
scare balloons, Okay, okay. Woodpeckers scare my dad. My dad fought
woodpeckers on his house for like a year. He would not stop talking about
it. And the thing that finally did it were these balls. And he
was like, the balls are all ugly, but at least they don't.
I'm fine with that. They don't knock and make my dogs. They eventually
balls there will you be able to take them down after a while, Like
if the woodpecker is just associated, because then they'll know that you're weak.
You have to keep him up forever. It would not bother me at all.
I've got my lar strips and fake birds all over the side of my
house and I don't care at all. I can't wait till next time we
visit, and I just your house just looks like a fucking clown house.
There was one yesterday, yesterday. I'm used to I'm used to that,
And all of a sudden, I got a text from Bunk yesterday that just
said noise question mark, and I paused Final Fantasy, and I was like,
and I heard it just sounded like somebody was on the side of my
house with the hammers, Like, what the fuck is that? There's no
way that's the woodpecker. I run out on the deck and I look over
and it's just got this bright redhead, this black and white body looked like
a the size of a bald He looked like a pterodactyl on the side of
my house. And I yelled at it and it flew away. But like,
there's no fucking way woodpeckers get that bit. So these birds all know
that my house is just ripe for like breaking through this wall to kill me
or something. I'm gonna buy these fucking eye balloons and I'll report Why does
this take someone to come up problems to the birds in your neighborhood? And
you're just now telling me why you get harm Mary, I can't buy.
These are three point three out of five. Wait, you can't buy by
standards. Look, I'm looking at something that are three point eight not great,
two thousand ratings at three count a bird ex Se pack visual decoys yellow
Eye, white Eye, black Eye. I'll buy. I'll buy this one
one day shipping. I'll nail this inside my house tomorrow. Every day you
stray closer to your father's style. No, no, no, no,
no no no. He would do absolutely nothing, he fucking that motherfucker.
There is a nail above his bed that he said every morning for years he
would wake up and freak out because he thought it was a spider. And
instead of taking the nail out, which he didn't even have to get a
ladder, he just take it out of the wall. He just didn't do
anything, and every morning was like, like, that's how we woke up
every day instead of taking a nail out of a wall. So I'm not
taking action. I'm a man of action. Do you need a hammer to
claw? Then hang up these? Okay, I just placed an order.
It'll be here. You did, all right? Give me their spokesman.
It's a three pack. I got a three pack. Is there like a
specific side of the house they're going toward. Oh yeah, no, there's
a very specific spot and they are about to break through and kill me.
They're not going to break through. I wanted to know it there. The
hole is pretty significant. We were warned about it when we bought the house.
Oh yeah, Oh they're aggressive. This is a specific it's been a
specific spot that you knew about since you moved in. Oh yeah, it's
like and it's our bedroom. They're trying to kill me. Wait did the
previous owners. It's like a known issue that like you look at the side
of the house and there are numerous holes that they've clearly shoved like steel wool
and stuff in trying to be like to stop the encroachment of the woodpeckers,
but they're finding more. They are. They're desperate to break in and kill
me. I don't know a ton about birds, but wouldn't that suggest that
they're getting food from it? AKA? Like, are you sure there's not
termites there? Woodpeckers do that to get bugs out of the wood. I
assume they just beat wood. I don't think. I actually don't know for
sure. I'm pretty sure they dig for bugs in trees or is it?
Okay? I have no sign to termites, but they definitely fucking love my
house. Mary, I'm excited about these eyeball balls. Try the balls.
Tell me what you think. My dad swore by them. He was like,
I hate nothing worked, Jesus. They are bigger that I. When
I think of woodpeckers, I associate them with hummingbirds, which are tiny and
cute. But they peck it to established territory, find a mate, excavate
a nesting hole, or find insects, and sometimes that wood is attached to
a building. Yeah, they're dicks. But you I'm assuming you've checked for
termites. Uh, I mean we had the inspect I think after this long
the termites would have done some noticeable damage. Yeah, we're gonna it's the
woodpeckers that are doing the fucking damage. It's really funny to me. I
know it's annoying. You've seen the backyard, just the pond, and every
night we go to bed and it's the crazy like last night, just coyotes
constantly doing weird wailing. And now it's turning in the spring, so the
turkeys are out. Now there's a turkey named Claudette that nests on the side
of our house in the spring. And just in the middle of the night,
you'll wake up and you'll here here like coyotes and then the turkey's just
like and then the owls doing crazy stuff. It is like it sounds insane
out there, and that's what I wake up to a lot of nights.
Ah, this is so fun for me. I wish here's a living in
the cities. Yeah, no, it's nice. I've had I've had coyotes
near me. I've had bullfrogs are very loud in a pond behind our house,
Like I don't know how to do it, but this is just scream
like like they sound like women being stabbed. I have to that noise happens
in Mary's house a lot creature sec No, they don't you know any of
the noises that happen in this house. Oh really, I have two raccoons
that definitely sleep under my front porch when it's raining. I know that that's
the reason, because when it's raining randomly when I'm watching TV, my dog
will freak out, jump off the couch and start scratching at the air vents.
And it's because the air vents suck air from under my front porch,
and if the raccoons are there, farten it up. Their scent is going
into the air vent and then my dog is like sniffing them and being like,
oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, they're here.
You guys are right here. And it happens every time it rains.
Weird. It's a very specific thing. And we've tried to hie. We've
tried to stop them from being able to get under there, and I've seen
the digging areas where they're clearly digging to get into my front porch. I've
tried, uh, bars of soap and like different neutral ways to get rid
of the raccoons because I don't want them hurt. But uh, they're all
I don't think they're doing any damage. But every every time it rains,
my dog breaks out and is like, they're here. He knows. It's
interesting dogs because like dogs are so there's such creatures. I have it dogs
are and so when they are doing something that is so out of the ordinary,
it's so notice and it's like, wait, why are you all of
a sudden smelling like that part of the floor or the wall, like something's
up here. Like they're pretty good at, like, you know, sussing
that stuff out. I growing up at dogs. I one thousand percent agree
cats are the opposite. They do weird shit on a routine basis. So
like they just pick a new place to like creep up to and smell something
like under our stove for ins. I'm like, is there something under there?
And then I check and there's not. They're just being weird, Mike,
you know cats that This is something happened to me today. I was
walking around the neighborhood and uh, I didn't know what to do about this.
I've noticed this cat several times when our walk around the neighborhood. I
mean it's always like on the street, like walking it's it looks like a
house cat's like a greyhouse cat with a collar. It's got like a tag,
but it's not near a house. I'll always see it like near kind
of woods in the road and stuff, and it's friendly, like it'll look
at me and like kind of come up to me, and like today I
leaned down. I was like, okay, really friendly. I started petting
it and it rolled on its back and I was, you know, revendence
tummy and stuff like a very very friendly cat and everything. And I was
wondering, like should I, like there's a tag like information, should I
contact someone? Or like have I seen it several times? I've seen it
several times over like weeks. It doesn't seem like emaciated or anything. I'm
willing to bet that's an outdoor cat who goes home at night in the evening
for food and then goes out in the woods. And that's like my brother
has an outdoor cat that comes back paws at their door like when the sun's
going out to sleep inside their house. It's food there, but also can
catch mice. Because I didn't know if I should like contact someone, because
I was like, hey, are you okay, buddy, Like you know,
it's uh, it seemed happy though, so I'm very friendly. No,
that sounds like an outdoor cat. I mean people listening might disagree,
and please write in if you don't. I honestly like laid on its back
in the middle of the road and it was like revedence tummy and I was
like, oh, what a sweet cat. Yeah, I would think something
that's starving would not be so like trusting in that, you know, I
mean, something that is hungry could be coming up to you to try to
get food. But like I think you would know if it was like it's
got tags, and if you've seen it numerous occasions, then I think it's
fine. Okay, that's good to hear again, right in if you disagree
with me. But I've never had an outdoor cat. But like again,
my brother has one, and I've seen it come up back to the sliding
door at like eight pm in the summer and like paw come in to sleep
for a bit and then go out in the morning and then like finds its
way home no problem. Yeah, it's not like miles from houses. It's
you know, it's like neighborhood ish areas. It's probably like certain houses that
leave out food for it, and it has this routine more often than not.
I know, like neighborhood outdoor cats. There are a few, not
many, mind you, but a few here in Hoboken, which is crazy
because it's very urban like. Even here, it's like I've seen a few
apartments that leave out food, which you're not supposed to for I don't fully
understand. I know it like encourages them to come back there, but it's
like, well, they're very smart, they know not they know how to
cross the street and move around, but they just become like an installations in
the neighborhood. Okay, but yeah, in the woods cats are Cats are
way better survivors. Domesticated cats are way better survivors than domesticated dogs. I
feel like could last a couple of minutes in a while, a couple yeah,
I agree. Think your dog would last longer than my dogs. I
think your dogs would immediately have a heart attack as soon as they can video
gizmo, like not knowing how to bring his back legs outside. Very stupid,
very pampered little dogs. At least got some like like Simone could win
a fight against other animals cockroach. I feel the problemless Simon is that he
would pick a fight with something that would kill, like a car or something
like he's a ding dong, but he has a will to live. I
don't think that your dogs do well to give up. They just are afraid
of everything, and well actually gives me loves everyone. The Razor would Yeah,
Razor would preak out about everything you. Mary, I know that we
talked about in here. Mary actively antagonized my dog for an entire weason.
She's she's like because Razor, Gizmo is all over Mary on her lap,
was the nicest dog lived. Mary was saying how her strategy with dogs that
don't like her, she like doesn't waste time trying to earn their appreciation.
She'll just be like, we're not gonna be friends, let's enemies. And
then she sprinted at can you chasing him around the house or like making like
growling sounds. And he was not into that. He hated you on a
level. I've never seen him hate anyone doing myself such a dog person,
and Gizmo was like all up on me the whole time, Like I was
constantly petting Gizmo. But because Razor and I didn't get along, it got
to this weird degree where even if I saw the corner of like Razor's eye
from across the room, he would start barking at me, and so I
was like, fuck it, I'll just kill you, and then I started
running at him. For the record, he did nothing wrong. He's a
complete psychopath, like you. I defended myself. Yeah, yeah, your
dog will either love me or die. There's nothing between. Yeah, you're
not wasting time on the ones you're never gonna win over regardless, absolutely not.
Razor and I weren't meant to be, So he's getting he did.
I did chase that dude around a lot, Like at the end. I
think there was a mutual respect, which was I hate you, but I
respect you. God damn it, I don't. I don't think Razor likes
anyone, but he hates you. Well, well, I can't win them
all, thank you, Dan is bugs except for butterflies and woodpeckers. I'm
reptiles and Mary is Razor, Razor, Let's kill him, worry, my
choice, my choice. We're talking about animal abuse. Animal abuse. This
is why I don't listen anymore. Well, I mean, aside from the
last six episodes, but this is why I don't listen. They do animal
abuse. I like how you're you're impression of like an internet guy is like
a bro voice because I'm masculine. That what internet people are like. Yeah,
we have all the time, dude, so much sex. Like three
babes just texted me just now, Well three babes totally street babes. Well,
thank you Morgan from New Orleans. All right, that's our episode.
Yeah, I get if you want to last thing you ever said, babe,
what was that? Honey? If you want three Babes. If you
want to run into the podcast is firescape cast at gmail dot com. Uh
Mary, tell them how to get some sick thrias. Get our merch.
Go check out the merch line. You can find it on fire escape cast
dot com. Our social channels merchfire escape merch dot com. Do the comms.
You can figure it out. You can slew thro your way to some
six sweaters, mugs, we have mousepads, We have everything that you could
imagine that you'll need to live. If you can't find it there, we'll
put it on there. Dan tell them what they can do on Spotify and
Apple and all those things on the five Guess Business. Give it the five
stars if you review a podcast, Get in there, do a quick thing.
Also the Patreon, the just Search fire Escape Cast Patreon. At this
point we have been building up a you know, it's not every week,
it's not on a set schedule, but we've got a pretty good backlog that
you'll get access to immediately if you subscribe to the video tier of the Patreon,
the most recent being the hell Divers episode with me, Mike Manatti and
Mahardi and Jake Decker. We got good seven then all the fun old in
person stuff and everything. So check it out. Join the Patreon, and
then you can find me at a Giant bomb and on my own Twitch channel
at Dan Ryker Mary. What else do you have going on? I'm also
on Twitch and Mary Kish and I stream on Mondays as long as I'm in
the house. Sometimes I'm traveling. And if you're not following our YouTube channel
already, Mary and I on our own schedule have been doing resume before remake
for Resident can Eevil. I counted, Mary, I think it's season eighteen.
Oh wow, yeah, we've been pretty too long. We did h
We've been active. We did the elevator scene on the last episode, Oh
my god, and it was just as fucking nail biting, and it it
a little bit, It was a little it was oh man, the fucking
pause with the arrow. I don't want to spoil it. People. If
you watch the original resnual four Canieval four, you know there's the infamous Mary
was at like so her health was so low that you couldn't even see red.
It was just not on Leon's health bar. And it was the elevator
up the castle tower and uh, Mary had paused the game, or rather
opened her at the shay case and had a flash bang for a bunch of
ganados that had just transformed. And I was like, okay, just throw
it right at your feet. You'll kill a bunch of them and then you
could hopefully they drop healing, and she, of course unpaused, threw it
over the edge, so it did nothing. Uh there's there's a moment in
the remade version of that episode, as it were, where something very funny
happens as well. But yeah, go watch that. It's again there's no
set schedule, but we've been putting up on Firescapes YouTube channel, which if
you're a videotier patron you already follow probably. Yeah, that was episode seventy
five, try three cores, three core anal quarter aennial. Yeah, it's
been I'm not going to be here next episode almost positive, So we'll have
we'll we'll reveal the plan per guests. Yeah, we'll announce it once it's
going up and yeah, just the next I would say month, you know,
once we get into like mid April again, it's like three Wrestomania,
GDC other stuff. Uh, it might be a little walkye, and we
don't quite know what the plan is yet, but we will put out episodes
with at least one of us on it and some guests, so stay tuned.
Yeah, let's say next three episodes. Maybe four should be some fun
combos, maybe three should should do it. But uh, as always,
we appreciate it by listening in watching come to hang out. We will see
you well, Mary and Dan will see you in a couple of weeks on
apisode seventy six. See you then bye,