I remember watched back the video version to see what that looks like. Getting
when we're getting the room noise in like black and white with Tom Mondo's music
playing, we're probably just all like frozen sitting. Oh yeah, yeah,
yeah, Well I think something that I learned editing it without Jake, which,
my god, I'm so glad we have Jake because it was not easy
sinking everything. Is that I forget that in the video version we are actually
talking and it's muted, right, and then we start the show. Oh
right, yeah, and so like right now, we could be in the
black and white part right now. Yeah, it's happening right now. And
then and then Mike does his intro. Yeah right, Hello, everybody,
welcome back to fire Escape Cast. It is episode seventy four. I'm Mike
Maharty here as always with Mary Kish. Hello. Got caught you off guard,
didn't I? You're taking miss drinking? I usually got it. Dan
first, I go alphabetical first name. He's my last name this time.
Dan. Oh god, I want to ready to start? Yes, how's
it going good? We're well into February. Do you guys have Valentine's Day
plans? Your perves do pervs, pervs, A nice dinner. Nice mm
pre pitch. I think you're going out dinner too. This classic you gotta
do some kind of some kind of thing. I don't think it has to
be an out. I also think sometimes people take advantage of that, where
they're like, we're doing a Valentine special. It's only one hundred and fifty
dollars. Like, I don't think all that fanfare is necessary, but I
do think it's delightful to have an excuse to say we're gonna go and get
chicken, and then we're doing it twice, you know. I think it's
nice to give yourself the reason. Yeah, we're actually going out on the
day this year, which we almost never do. Yeah, we did a
place where we have to get like reservations the first day of the month prior,
so like not not just for like for any month. You have to
do it like at midnight the first day of the month prior to the reservations
you have to get in. It fills up immediately. So we got in
there. Yeah, James Beard places, probably, Yeah, I probably,
yeah, probably should wear a suit or something. Maybe it's one of those
prefixed things where there's like twelve people there the whole night, and uh,
you got to get in there. So yeah, white tablecloths should be good.
It's very I'm gonna be trying a lot of food for you wear shoes.
Yeah, there's no peanuts on the ground, no peanuts anywhere, No
one's from the dirt. I specified white tablecloth. All Mary heard was tablecloth
for all we know that could be like the red and white checker and a
pizza place they got tablecloths. Holy shit. I got my dad's coming up
tomorrow as we record this, and it's like normally when anyone's coming to visit,
I would want to like take him, like, you know, we
went and got Juicy Lucy's and you know, like we went to a nice
dinner before earth thing. Yeah, well that's the usual thing, is like
you bring people out and it's like, let's show you the nice places that
my current city has to offer. With my dad, I know it's he
would just like I mean, honestly McDonald's every time, he'd be totally fine
with that, like no interest whatsoever, and like trying anything. I think
I got him in Juicy Lucy once and he was just like probably concerned about
how much it costs or whatever. So uh so, I guess I'm just
gonna get bullshit food with him. We'll go to some tavern, get some
bar food that should be good for him. Good for him that could be
not health wise, but for you know, his connection with you and his
enjoyment. It's stupid because we got to find out where he comes up.
Every year when I lived in Minnesota, before every Super Bowl, he would
come up, which is weird for a couple of reasons. One is because
it's early February in Minnesota, which is traditionally a very cold time to be
here. Second of all, yeah, all I've never given a shit about
sports really, Like well, as a kid, I did, but like
I do, I clearly don't follow sports nowadays. So like he has a
sports related thing coming at the most inconvenient time in Minnesota, it's always very
very fun. But yeah, I gotta find a bar around here to watch
it at. You like the sports his thing is, I can I could
probably predict who he wants to win based on stories you've told me. Yeah,
you probably could. Yeah, he does not want the Chiefs doing right.
He likes to go to Barns. But I don't think he would have
as much fun going to a bar in Minnesota and rooting against the Chiefs.
Part of it is he likes to go see the misery of his hometown as
the hometown team loses. He likes to like cheer against the Chiefs and then
see people get mad. Yeah. I don't know why you'd ever just be
a heel intentionally like that, but yeah, so he just hates the never
on Fire escape ever. Yeah yeah, okay, so oh sorry, no,
no, no, I was gonna say. It's where many people are
listening to this the morning after the super Bowl. We can let's predict right
now who won twenty one seventeen, Chiefs forty one seventeen twenty one seventeen forty
No. I I think the Chiefs are gonna win too, and it annoys
me because they annoy me. But I think you got all your conspiracy theories
about Taylor Swift, so that makes sense. Yeah, I'm hardcore conspiracy theorists.
I've been in my prime lately. I think I think the Chiefs will
win too. I'm gonna go twenty eight twenty four. Okay, I'm gonna
go with the upset chief go with forty nine ers with a high scoring game.
I'm gonna say they're both going crazy. Uh twenty eight thirty one?
Okay, yeah, because that's that's the weird thing. Like I think I
know what you mean. But like, technically the forty nine ers are not
the underdog, but the Chiefs just win almost swift exactly, Yeah, the
under dog. Yeah, they've let's just say that the forty nine ers have
a blank space in their defense and the Chiefs are gonna exploit it. Oh
my god, your writing days are over. Stop it. I don't get
it. Wait, the forty nine ers have a blank space in their defense?
Is that like a Taylor Swift lyric? The Teylorerswift song is called you've
heard blank Space? I'm sure I think I think they will. I didn't
tell you incredible things, something something like, oh my god, look at
that. It looks like my next mistake. Darling. You're a day dream,
just like a tom nightmare, dressed like a daydream. Don't tell me
when it's over. Gotta go to this torture. This a song that scene
in Homolonge The Home Alone Too, where the guys like singing in the shower.
This is can I talk? Who should it be? H Well,
I guess now is as good a time as any. I swear to God
this tangent or segue will make sense in like ten minutes. But I start
a new job, I could talk about it now. Congratulations. Not an
editorial, not forward facing anymore. I think we talked a bit about that
throughout Buyer Escapes run that sometimes forward facing stuff as fun as it could be,
in as great as it could be. As you know, we're rewarding
as it has been for me for the last dozen years my whole career.
Basically, I was just like, I want to take a step back and
go behind the scenes. So I joined MAGGID. They are a headquartered in
Minneapolis, but they have New York and LA branches as well, and they
travel a lot their consulting research strategy firm. But we'll be working on the
games team, as you might imagine anybody listening who knows Matt Bertz from the
game and former days he went to maggod. He's the vice president there.
But yeah, we'll be working with developers and publishers at like various points throughout
projects they're working on. So see some cool stuff, you know, a
while before it comes out. We'll see some other stuff like right before it
comes out, but by and large, just like developer and publisher facing as
opposed to the audience facing, which is exciting. Not not saying it's better
per se. I'm just like excited to see more behind the scenes and like
not be the journalist in the room. Like as much as you get on
good terms with a lot of developers and publishers, you're still at the end
of the day, your relationship it's a one of a journalist and subject.
Man, it's surprising to see you do this because I know you've historically,
you know, lived and died by what Twitter thinks of you and what you
know, just your engagement online and social media, so like, without that,
I don't know how you're going to survive. Man, I don't know
what are you going to do without an online presence. At least you get
to stay on fire Escape where you can be changed. It's not changing.
I'm going to be here every other week as normal. Sorry to those of
you who sorry, we'll get to that later. But we were talking about
home alone too, and I work with an incredible team. Yeah, but
you mentioned Hummel on two and it reminds me of your and my favorite scene.
Mary. Uh. You know, it's like you've been smooching with everybody
cheeks bony Bob Cliff. I work with a guy named Cliff who's awesome,
like like a great dude, but like every time I see him, I
just hear his name in my head is Cliff Cliff. I'll tell him.
I'll tell him in a couple of weeks. I don't think he listens to
a fire escape such a good line. They could be sitting around a boardroom
right now, like all like you know, with a speaker in the middle,
just like you know, gauging whether or not you can keep doing this.
Yeah, I hope not. Week he told me that's the plan,
So okay, great. I don't care for when people tell me that,
Like people that I have I'm meeting are like I'm gonna listen to that fire
escape, and I'm always like, oh no, oh no, I mean
as like we don't do it around. I definitely like sent them stuff to
listen to, like the higher ups head to listen to make sure which which
episode did you send him? Because there's once I would not send anyway.
The Game of the Year is probably the most like on topic, right,
I sent them conversation where we almost puked from eating too much puke beans.
I said, well, last year was a little more classy. I sent
them last Yeah, I sent them last week's up or last Episodes seventy three
when I railed on Disney adults for a while. This gaming media entertainment consulting
company loved that. I went off about that. They loved it. Well,
I mean, you work for adults, so I assume they would understand
every single adults perspective on Disney Adults. Gave me a bonus right there when
they heard how fair the fair criticisms I was spouting about Disney adults. We'll
get to that. We got some emails I'll read, but no, it's
going great. It's already. It's nice to step back from the getting my
byline on sites and whatnot. But yeah, I'm excited to be working on
projects and then seeing those come to fruition once I'm like playing a game,
which is super cool to think about. I'm not saying I'm in development,
but I'll be working like partnering with developers and publishers. So that's great because
instead of critiquing it for the public, you're critiquing it for them so they
can have a better product, which is really exciting. And it's also in
the underbelly, so nobody really gets to probably see your work. Will you
get credits in a game or not? No, we all of our stuff
is NDA for the most part. For sure, some places will do that,
like Alan Wake had had consultants in the credit. It's rare, but
I've seen it happen. Yeah. Cool, maybe that's funny. Like come
Game of the Year time, if my names are in a credit for a
game, I'll have to recuse myself. Oh yeah, I basically I imagine
X game comes up and it's like in the Game of the Aear Commistry,
It's like, oh, actually I was. I basically directed this, so
I have to recuse myself. Basically I toted this whole game, kind of
like I said hi to one coder when we visit the studio. So I'm
out of here. I gotta They're probably gonna need me to help with some
cables, so I'll probably be showing up and just making sure everything runs proper.
Really for every game slip Jake Benjamin on the way out of the room.
It does work. Yeah, Jake's easily bought. I don't know if
people for our little jokes we could we could buy Jake pretty easily money.
As the first week of work, I'm very present and not tired. Now.
Yeah, it's going great. I uh, I'm excited. I'm glad
that it's going well for you, and it's always very exciting. I was
telling you before I started recording, it's if if nothing else, it takes
a lot of guts to start a new job when you have been doing something
similar for over a decade. Your job has not always been it's just straight
up games journalism, but it has been in the same family for most of
your career, if not all. And the idea to see do you jump?
Like sure, it's in games. This is a totally different wheelhouse,
different expectations. You probably have to like completely relearn job function and how to
succeed. Is scary, and I think you should get credit for that because
it takes takes a lot of guts and you're you're doing it so good for
you. I was terrified to jump, you know, even just to twitch,
and that was still very similar to what I did before. But it's
very scary. Yeah, no, I'm looking forward to see you Moore.
It's funny when I visit Minneapolis, I'll probably have more workwise to talk about
with Bianca now than Dan. Oh sure, not shared projects, but like
just the job. Yeah, I can't wait to learn all those secret nda
exclusive things you're not allowed to talk about. And oh god, would be
that's part of the deal, right, people would be repelling from the roof
and choke holding me. Are you know those like little canes that like yank
people off of the stage when their dance is bad like that? You like
vaudeville thing, right? Yeah? Yeah, but you also get fire and
then killed. And then they like seventeen lawyers appear at my parents' house for
some reason crash in. Are you going to be You're gone? With them
being based in Minneapolis, are you going to be out here for work much?
I don't think Minneapolis will be somewhere I go often, Like it's very
much like that's the headquarters, the original headquarters, but there's very much a
New York presence. Okay, So I think like for my job often,
but there's also like other travel involved, So that's exciting. I'm excited to
be traveling for work again. But it's not like, yeah, there's a
higher chance I'll be out there than there was before this job for sure.
Sure. Yeah, nice. Yeah. Do you know anybodys in Minneapolis?
Yeah no, not too much. Yeah, sorry, I appreciate it.
Thank you. Yeah, it's exciting. I'm glad that we had another job
change during the history of this podcast and we made sure that we can keep
doing this podcast. How many have there been job changes? I think it
was me and you. Mary has been consistent. I we're calling Mary when
I changed, and I do remember that. And when you called me,
I had that like why are you calling me? Don't call me or somebody
like calling is usually negative, Like usually if you text me, it's like,
hey, we're all going to get together x y Z. You should
calm, or like, hey, this cool thing happened. Check out this
link to something dumb that I ate. But like calling me, don't Yeah,
Grandpappy die, that's creepy. Yeah, don't ever call someone. Mike
m that's what you have me in your phone as what do you want me
to do? Call you? Fucking Mike Matthews calls you and suddenly whole last
names there. Jake is in my phone as an intern favorite because he was
my favorite in turn and I never changed. Oh, I'll change your name.
Alex Newhouse listens to this podcast. Do you want him to know that?
Does he know that already? Yeah? Everybody knows. I love Alex
Newhouse. I want him to know how much I love him. Jake is
my favorite intern. He just is. You're allowed to have favorites, Okay.
Mike was our favorite a game informer, and you can. You can
have lots of people that you like, really like a lot of people.
Alex Newhouse was my favorite. Alex was my favorite. I don't know about
Jake, right, I'm not I'm not a fan. I'm just joking.
I love Jake. I'm just joking, God joking. Jake's uh well,
we probably actually can't talk about Jake's going away night from Game Spot as an
intern we went out. Was that there, No, I would have been
gone at that point, right, This was early on when he left as
an intern with me before he was okay, yeah, yeah, yeah,
it was fun talk about that after we're not recording. Yeah. Other than
that, like looking forward to I got a bunch of travel coming up,
being Puerto Rico for the first time ever. For a wedding in March,
in and out. We're going two weeks flights are it's March and Puerto Rico
from New York is like high demand? Is it expensive? Or? I
was like wondering what they're called destination weddings? Right, Like, I was
wondering what the pluses and minuses of a destination wedding is. Actually here's a
question. So she is Puerto Rican but they her and her fiance live in
Seattle. Is it still a destination wedding if you're going back to like where
you're from, and I believe she has family there still, so it's a
destination wedding for all of us. But like it's going home? Is at
a house? Uh No, it's it's in like old town San Juan.
I would say if it's at like a resort, that's still a destination wedding
because you have to go to like a holiday destination in order to observe the
wedding experience. Something about like an island screams destination wedding to me, you
know. But yeah, yeah, going back home that does kind of mudy
the waters. But yeah, oh my gosh, what a cool experience.
It's only we're in two nights. But yeah, like March being the worst
weather in New York all year is everybody wants to go to places like that,
so tickets are nuts. So coming back, I like going like Thursday
to a Saturday. But then we've got France in June. We have a
Pennsylvania wedding in May, but then we're going to Hawaii. I'm going for
the first time in October for a wedding that's a destination wedding, beating the
you guys have met Brad, my friend the Australian super easy for his family
to get to Hawaii, so they're doing the destination wedding there. But yeah,
I've never been in Hawaii either. So then I'm also traveling a couple
places for work that I've never been, So like this year, I think
I will be busy well throughout the year. I'll probably buy this. By
the end of this year, I will have been to at least four places
I've never set foot before in the world, which is cool. I don't
think I know four is not that many for a lot of people, but
I haven't traveled for work in a whiles are always like either like, okay,
we're just flying the West coast or we're going upstate or something. Yeah,
that's so memorable and exciting to be able to I don't know if you
really get to always cram in a holiday in somebody else's destination wedding, but
it doesn't mean it's not extremely special, So I think that's probably a really
cool experience for you. I have a friend who got invited to a bachelorette
party and they're having it in Hawaii, and half of me was like,
how cool that you have an excuse to go to Hawaii so that you can
like do this bachelorette party. And the other half of me is like,
how dare she make everyone pay for a Hawaii trip for her bachelorette I actually
couldn't decide if I liked it or hated it. Is it separate from the
wedding or is it like part of the city the bat Yeah, it's a
lot. Where's the wedding that I said, where's the wedding going to be
Russia? No, let's just say California. Let's just say new to California.
It's like really just going opposite poles with the bachelorette party in the wedding
that is quite an expensive ask. I'd say, it's not mine, right,
like I'm not even I'm not involved. Friend of my name? We
nice, I mean, I'll name myself. We asked you to fly to
New York and then drive out too long as it was great. It was
great, but it was there at the time though, that wasn't you wast
an average friend, I would have been like, this is a huge ask,
Like you are like such an important part of my life, Like it
would be crazy to not go to New York to see you. Plus you
got to show me like your favorite bars, like we got to see uh
the Statue of Liberty, made a huge event out of it. I mean
everything was worth Yeah I'm talking about the Bachelor Bachelorette in Long Island. Oh
that was worth it too. It was fun. It was great, Like
I wouldn't train and change for the world. But like also, like you
know, we're like, hey, just crash with us and then we'll drive
just get to New York and then we'll take care of the rest. That
was very nice of you. Your logistics are on point. I think about
these things now as an adult who has to like make decisions about how we
get people places and whether or not the party is worth it. I got
invited to this was like four years ago. I gotten invited to a wedding
in England. It was a huge deal, Like I would have loved to
go, but they they didn't have shuttles and stuff like that, so I
would have had to rent a car and drive a car from like the airport,
London airport whatever to like a cottage that I would have had, I
don't know, And I would have had to rent a cottage and then go
to this wedding. And I just thought to myself, that's a lot of
this can be like eight thousand. Like by the time I was done,
I was like, this is gonna be like probably not eight probably like five
thousand dollars for me to show up and be there for three days. And
I didn't go. I kind of still feel guilty about it. But you
have to make really tough decisions about people's weddings, Like you can't go to
all of them. It's expense. You have to go to weddings. Yeah,
especially in that like that period of like it's generally like your thirties where
everyone's getting married and doing it. Yeah, twenties, it's rare, Like
I wonder if it's generational, because like my parents, like everyone was getting
married in their twenties, and now I think our gen it's mostly thirties,
Like you're like going a little further before you're getting taken that big dip.
I'm a little bit more financially stable than I was in my twenties, but
in your thirties, most of the time you're either saving up for a mortgage
or now you have a mortgage, and that's like pretty legit too. So
in my twenties, I vividly remember when I was living in San Francisco,
I always had a little stockpile, like a tiny stockpile of like eight hundred
dollars so that if I got invited to a wedding or one of my family
members died, I could go. And this is like dark, but it
was always like I can only pick one, So if someone's getting married,
I'm not going to that funeral, and if someone dies, I can't go
to the wedding. And I did abide by that, Like I had a
very strict like I got like one trip in me per year type situation.
You just have to ask people to please schedule their weddings and deaths. I
always do. Yeah, I'm always like, listen, Grandpa. Yeah,
I know you're feeling a little rough. Just hang on, give it a
couple of months. I gotta go to Hawaii. Party is in Hawaiian I
gots to go. I got to be there. Whatever, Just hang on.
Debbie says, I gots to go to Honolulu. She also says,
you got to hold off on that stroke that Really I don't get that.
It is true that that is what I did, and I don't think that's
crazy. I think that is like the types of decisions you make in your
life in order to, I don't know, protect your tiny little nest egg
that you hopefully grow over a decade of working or whatever. But it took
me, took me years to be able to have a more solid nest egg
that now I don't have to decide between terrible tragedy and joyous union. Now
I can have both. But I I just couldn't have that for years.
And I still think about that as like a bummer choice, but just a
total reality of like my situation, especially like all of us that live well,
I mean, Mike's pretty close, but like you know, Mary,
you and I live far away from where we're up, So yeah, that's
right, especially when you're trying to figure out, like, Okay, do
I go back for Thanksgiving and Christmas like a few weeks apart, and you
know, flights are six hundred dollars for each one, and it's like you
gotta And then there's deaths or surprise things that happened, or there's a graduation
or something you gotta go back for, and it makes it tough. You
gotta pick and choose. You also have to think about like other things that
could happen in your life that you just might want to see, you know,
Dan, Like for us who don't live near our hometowns. I have
nieces now and they're growing up and like eventually, not immediately, but eventually
they're going to graduate from like high school and stuff. I want to go
to that high school graduation, like I want to be there for like they're
my One of my nieces plays hockey and she's quite good, and she went
to reals and I was like, I want to see this girl score a
goal and hockey and like root for her. I was super excited for that.
And so now I'm making I'm saving money for just fun family events to
cheer on my loved ones. But that's a huge trip all the way to
North Carolina just to see Oh god, I don't know what they are.
Let's just say it's the Wildcats versus Wildcats in the final and I want to
do it. So now I have like different goals and ambitions, but I'll
always want to like save up money for that cross country trip to be there.
Yeah, I'm trying to figure out, like my sister is going to
have a daughter, and so I'm going to have a niece on I've got
nephews on Bonk side, but this is gonna be my first niece or nephew.
It's a big deal. Yeah, So it's like I'm trying to figure
out. You know, the kid's probably gonna come the summer, and it's
like, well do I when the kid's born? Do I come down?
Or it's gonna be like a fucking blob right like like blob. If you
did it, it would not be for the blob. It would be for
your sister who actually might really appreciate like seeing a friendly face. You could
help support in some way. But if you're a burden in any way,
you're not doing anyone any favors, but if you're there to like emotionally assist
and be there to help her relax, I think that it would be meaningful
for her. Well, mainly she'll get to get drunk again and play Mario
party. So we didn't get to do that over the holidays, So I
think you know the important family stuff. I think so yes, because also
like in that part, and I can't speak for any mother because I am
not one, and I don't know, but it would be my assumption that
it would be very nice to remember things that were really valuable to you before
that. Right after having a kid, you can sometimes struggle remembering what it
was like to feel like before and have that sense of humanity back. So
I bet that'd be really nice for you to do that for her. I
think that would be meaningful. I got a fun bit I'm doing with her
now when I go home, is I act like I can. Like she
talks about how you know, it's like I got thrown up and all this
stuff and oh boy, you know, and I'm like, hey, I
get it, I get it. It's gonna be nine months of this invisil
line and it's like I after I eat, I gotta brush my teeth after
every meal. I totally get what you're going through right now. It's a
fun bit. I do that with my sister in law, deal with you.
My sister in law finds hilarious when I do it to my brother when
I compare having cats to raising kids. Yeah, God, totally get it.
Responsibility. Scratch the bed for like a few seconds at three am.
Oh my god, same thing. It's Daisy screams at me for cookies at
like four pm when I'm just settling in for my like late lunch, Yaku's
session. You have no idea, you you have it easy. Oh you're
You're fucking My niece pooped her pants seven times, has raging diarrhea, and
you have to create it up because she's not capable grow up. I don't
have my eighth party member yet, and Daisy just wants cookies. Welcome ran
in from the outside, and I didn't have a chance to wipe his pities,
and he tracked mud all over the fourier. It is a mess in
there. We like when you tell them how they should raise kids and how
they should parent when you don't have kids. That's a crowd pleaser. Just
give him a beer, he'll be quiet. You gotta do. Just tell
them to be quiet and just to go to bed. Yeah, what's the
hard thing. Oh yeah, I learned very early to just shut up when
I was young, or not even try. Well. I never like suggested
how to raise them because I'm a psychopath. I would not tell anybody how
to raise anybody. But yeah, I remember, yeah, when they're when
the kids are doing like crazy psycho stuff that I find hilarious, and I'm
like, laugh, I that's what I'm trying to say. I laugh at
so much the ship they do. But like it's I find out later it's
something that they've been doing that their parents are trying to get them to stand
Oh yeah, yeah, like you're encouraging it. Yeah, And then I
get I get a look from like my sister, she's like no. I
was like, oh, no, stop, that's bad. I think back,
my mom must wanted to fucking kill me because she was a single mom
with uh well, I guess she was a single mom with me, and
then she got married again and had two kids, but she was the whole
time she was a waitress, so she worked with Chili's Macaroni grill and like
the PlayStation would come out and it's like ninety five and it costs two ninety
nine and be like, Mom, I really want to PlayStation. I really
want to say. Look this, it's not kinda like I don't know,
most lawns do whatever. It's like, hold on, mom, how much
how much money do you make in a night on tips? And she'd be
she could see where this is going and she'd be like, well, and
I don't remember if it was a one hundred, one hundred and fifty or
whatever. I'd be like, Mom, you could just work three nights,
just three nights and then I'm gonna be so but then I'm set. Then
I'm good. I've got the PlayStation forever, like motherfucker. Yes, I
mean yeah. When I was young, I definitely like probably said stuff like
that. I'm like dad, like a like, Dad's got a decent job,
right, And they're like, yeah, but you have four other siblings,
some of whom are in college. I'm like, how expensive is college?
It's not that expensive, right, And they're like they should have been
smarter. I was like seven when I said this, Yeah, they should
have been smarter or better athletes. All our parents should have killed us.
I would have punched the shit out of me. I all deserve some kind
of award just for not you know, yeah yet you know, and shaking
you around a little bit. I I I know parents get in a lot
of trouble for shaking, but I think that every once in a while,
a little shake of the kid is you know, warranted. The family calls
are fun when it's like, yeah, there's this bully at school and we
don't really know how to handle it. We're not going to like go to
this is hypothetical for the record, It's like we don't want to go to
the parents because then, like you don't want to like them to see that
your kid is like a snitch or whatever. And then I'm like, I
get it. I've been trying to perfect this my tie I've been working on
I can't the oor shot right. It's just not it's overwhelming. And I'm
right there with you too much, ice, But yeah, no, I
like parents are the most impressive thing ever. I like being a good aunt.
I think that there's value in not for the record, and I don't
know what will happen to me, but like I feel like there's also value
in not having children and having the emotional energy for kids, if that makes
sense. So like parents can struggle and need breaks, like any freaking person
who is twenty four to seven protecting and taking care of a human being that's
young, and having a person who doesn't do that in their lives. An
aunt and uncle that has no children and has more energy than they need to
handle a kid for like twenty four to forty eight hours is good for both
of them. I'm the best freaking aunt did see for forty eight hours.
I got the time to have all the conversations. I will lift her up
and like run around the house. I will, I will chase her until
she is tired. I have that time, I have the energy, I
have everything. I can give her advice and then I'm out, baby,
And it's great for both of us. It really pushes me and like my
ability to hang out with her, But I think it's also really good for
her to be like, why did that person give me so much attention for
forty eight hours? And it's because I don't see you all the time,
so I can do it. I have a clock in like in the back
of my head, and every time I'm like, oh, this is a
lot. I'm like whatever, I'm out in twenty four hours. This is
all I have, So I will I did like the other day, Oh,
I hope my sister dosn't listen to this podcast. Last time I visited,
my sweet little niece was up way too late on her phone at like
three in the morning, and I was coming home from a bar because I'm
a piece of shit, and I saw her on the phone, like texting
her friends. She was supposed to be asleep, and I was like yeah,
and I was like, let's look at TikTok together. And we looked
at tiktoks for like two more hours together. And she was so dead the
next day and so was I. But I had this really good excuse because
like I was at the bar all night and they were like, why she's
so tired, and we both looked at each other and we were like,
tiktime. We had the emotional energy for each other. And I think that's
really special because you can't do that with your mom. You can't you can't
stay up until five in the morning look at tiktoks and then be bad,
you know, like I had that. Maybe I'm looking back at this story,
like, I'm not a very good person in it, but I think
we bonded over that and I stick to it. Yeah, I give me
if my sister, you know, if the kids being a bit too much
and just needs to my sister needs to just have a calm days. Just
put the baby on a Greyhound. Seven hours later, it's going to be
here. I will watch the baby until it shits its pants or something.
I'll put it and then wrap it up pretty. You know, there's lots
of stay belts and stuff. It's fine, Fulton Recovery system. The baby
back to Kansas. Yeah, yeah, it's fine. Greyhound is cheaper.
Let's let's go ground. I could not imagine. Have you ever watched a
child unsupported for a period of time, Dan, Like, you know,
a baby unsupported, no friends, no family helping you, You're alone.
Yeah, I watched baby. I was alone all the time. I baby
sent my sisters. But I was eight years older than them. No.
So yeah, but they weren't infants when I was watching them. You know
I know that. I Yeah, So the answer is no, did I
every time that when I got fired as a babysitter? No? Eight fuck?
Okay, this is a two parter. One was probably much worse than
the other. So our next door neighbors growing up when I was like probably
fourteen fifteen, our next door neighbors were like three kids, and they were
like two years apart. So let's say they were like six or seven,
nine and eleven. Let's say, Kaylee, you'll know the story. And
the youngest kid, you know, he was a little kid, and he
was just kind of like a scared kid, you know, as they are,
and they're all scared. The first thing the mom didn't like about me,
this is before she fired me, was that I always ate the entire
box of cheese its. So whatever cheese its were like in the cabinet,
they were fucking gone by the time she got back from work. The other
one was this is probably way worse. I'm probably like fourteen or so,
so uh yeah, probably old enough to know I shouldn't do this. But
whatever. The kid, the youngest kid, was like terrified of bees,
and so this is I don't sound good in this story. Gone. We
go to walk to the pool. There was like a neighborhood pool, and
we're walking down there and I just start going, I'm walking behind the three
of them, we got our towels and stuff, and there's a bee on
your neck. There's a on your neck. And he freaked the fuck out,
screaming, crying, running, just full, you know, just the
whole money. Yeah, And we didn't wind up going to the pool because
he was so freaked out and he told his mom and his mom was like,
what are you doing, Like, so I'm gonna get them. Yeah,
just getting him adjusted to it as a babysitter a lot. I remember
I was always kind of uh, I think I was too soft, you
know. And I remember like having a baby. I remember baby seeing kids
after school, a boy and a girl, and they had friends over and
the friends were like, your house is so cool and you have like this
really cool roof. You could even get out on that roof. And I
was like, you could. And I took out the screen and got out
on the roof and I was like, you can get out here. And
I invited all the kids to get out on the roof and then I said
eight mm, hey, we probably shouldn't have kids. And then I said
all right, everybody get back in the house. I monitored them on the
roof and then I said get in the house. And I put the screen
back on and I said, don't tell your parents, and they were like,
you got it. And we all had a good time. And then
the next day mom that we put us on the wolf. My mom took
me aside and said, so, my neighbors saw all of the children on
the roof yesterday. It was an army of children of the room. And
I was like, but I was also on the roof. And she was
like, don't ever let the children on the roof. And I was like,
got it, Yes, understood. I still babysat them for like another
two years. I got away with murder. Oh well, yeah, we
No, I didn't actually murder them, but yeah, I think I got
away with a lot. I was babysitting is a scam. I don't think
it paid really well now for it? Oh yeah no, if I well,
there's like like fifty dollars an hour or something. I got paid seven
dollars an hour after school to watch them for about two hours, and I
basically watched Pokemon and we would make milkshakes and I just feel like I had
fun and watch TV. And then I got paid, Like it's way better
than like we're a cash register. I think they had five dollars for an
hour for babysitting. But I was also making five to fifteen an hour working
my minimum wage jobs at the time, So it's like it's one of you
might sit on a couch and watch TV. Yeah, you're playing with like
slock cars. Yeah, it's not a hard job and as long as you
can like deal with them. Sometimes I had to help them with their homework,
but other than that, I feel like I didn't exercise one brain cell.
No, yeah, which is ideal. Fifteen sixteen years. We're like
we try to be the cool aunt uncle from Afar. We have a lot
of nieces and nephews, so end cards. That's the cards, money cards,
oh with money. Yeah, Like, well we've been trying to get
the money for their birthdays. I don't want to do that. There are
a money a dozen of them, so like literally twelve. So we're like
telling you cash is king, Well they're not. I think some of them
are getting old enough I can give them cash, but like I still enjoy
gift giving. So I'm like, all right, I got her a gift.
Oh shit, there are three more birthdays coming up, and I like
we were like I was like all right, I'm gonna commit to getting mall.
I put all their birthdays on my calendar, like I'm gonna start remembering
all of them because I always got super excited when I saw, like my
uncle Dick's emails got work in the mailbox or sorry, let cards were in
the mailbox. But yeah, it cascades because like there's a shit ton of
March birthdays and then a lot of September birthdays. It all clumps up.
I'm like, wow, how many this is? The nephews? Do you
have? Like a no, a literal dozen with twelve? There are eleven
on my shide, one on Amanda's. I had an ant who gave me
the amount of cash at age I was, and I remember always being irritated
by that because it's like, what am I gonna do with nine dollars?
You're going to be fucking flush when you're ninety, though, you're gonna be
flat cash. Wait, I can't wait for my ninetieth that's gonna be sick.
I'm gonna be there. Let's go buy some fucking jaegermeister. Put it
in your that bag on your hip, however it works, you're in your
catheter. Get some in your reverse catheter. I'll show you how. It's
like a little switch and all of a sudden it's gone from into your Penis's
awful. God, ye try it, yeah, you know, just like
accidentally, like flip the switch. No, don't do it. That's the
sound. Yeah, he's Drowning's drowning in his own yeager, piss sorry hen
you were saying, Oh, I was gonna say, I think my grandpa
was trying to teach me a lesson, Like I think he like I was
a little little kid, and he was always big on the money lessons.
And he had me do something that I'll pay you five dollars. Danny helped
me with this driveway thing or whatever, and I would do it and you'd
give me the five dollars, and he goes, you know what you do
now, Danny, you take this. And I can't remember if his first
advice it was one of the two, because he gave me both pieces of
advice constantly. You put this in a savings account, you don't touch it.
By the time you're you know, twenty five, you know that's gonna
be worth fifty dollars. Ords you go get a certificate of deposit you're gonna
go to the bank and you get a CD and you can't take it out,
and but you know it's gonna be worth nine dollars when you're twenty and
when you're a like eight year old, the idea of like, I have
this money, I would like to go get bubble gum and X Men cards,
and he's like, oh no, put it away for twenty years.
What the hell are you talking? Absolutely not, I'm going to blow this
on licorice and like one of those sticky hands that will annoy the shit out
of it. Yeah, the best invention. And you're one of those giant
gobstoppers at the bowling alley that like you can can't eat in one sitting,
and you put it in your pocket and geinst the lint all over it,
the white ones with the primary color flex all over them. Uh huh.
I mean that's a better investment than regular gum, which is literally no good
after thirty seconds. Yeah, those giant jaw breakers mm hmm. I think,
yeah, those were investments you could have. You could I oh yeah,
because like you couldn't finish one in one sitting, so we had like
put in a ziploc bag in between us. I mean appreciating assets, joy
it multiple times. I don't think they make those anymore. I can't imagine
they do. Think we're stupid. Then when it's small enough to clog someone's
throat, wouldn't that be any candy? Those? But those you can't just
like they're not going to dissolve like gummy candy or I guess a lot of
hard skittle, small enough chok on skittle? You you were just meant to
go? Yeah, you might as well be eating like a rock with a
cop stopper. Someone's probably died by skittle. This sick hitman assassination. James
Bond put it in in the game You guys want talk about video games?
Sure, you guys. It's so nice getting some wine shipped right to your
There's something about being able to expand the tastes that you have instead of ordering
the same thing over and over and over again. I love getting different types
of wine sent to me, Mike, what have you been drinking? So
first leaf after several shipments, But if you want to sign up for a
new one, it'll ask your taste. It'll say, like, hey,
do you like coffee? Do you like mushrooms? Do you like some like
almonds. Do you like bitter stuff and you can give a thumbs up or
thumbs down. It'll curate your box. Lately, I've been trying more Chilean
wines, so I got a Carmonair and then I also got a Pino noire
from Chili, which is not as acidic as you might be getting from France,
which is new to me, but it was great because we had some
with a steak we made and I would not normally pare a pinour at steak,
but it was like really full bodied. It was nice. I would
not have gotten that wine if it weren't for First Leaf sending it straight to
me. So it helps me be adventurous. And also fire Escape listeners can
try it out too, Dan tell them how that's right, Mike, try
something new to this year with first Leaf. Go to try first leaf dot
com slash fire Escape to sign up and you'll get your first six hand curated
bottles for just forty four dollars and ninety five cents. That's t R y
F I R S t l e A F dot com slash fire Escape.
Try first leave dot com slash fire Escape. What have you guys been playing
I think it looks like we've all been at least attempting, uh to get
to try Hell Divers, which is pretty cool. I played the tutorial today.
I played one hour. I played about an hour, maybe a little
more. I played a utorial and then another bug mission and then a robot
automaton mission. No solo or because I don't really I didn't play a lot
of the first one. I didn't know if that was an option. Okay,
I do think it's it's worth prefacing if anyone hasn't played Hell Divers one
that came out. We were at game Spot and it was a moment.
It's this game so much fun to play with other people. And I played
the ever living shit at a Hell Divers one with like this was like Chris
Waters era, this was Eric Tay. We were like living it up playing
Hell Divers, like barely scraping by bugs, clamoring at your feet, you're
shooting them, You're walking backwards, shooting as fast as you can, You're
throwing grenades, you're screaming because the ship is like still thirty seconds away.
And it says it's like ship is thirty seconds in counting, and you're like,
I'm not gonna make it. There's too many fucking bugs and it's it
was so much fun. We absolutely adored this game and had a really cool
concept. I assume this one does it too, where like the bugs on
the map are encroaching on Super Earth and you have to fight them back,
and it's not just about you. What's cool about the Hell Diver's concept is
it takes into account all the players all over the world, and every time
you win a mission, it helps push the bugs back. Asynchronous multiple is
the word, and so like all these people that are doing their own missions
on their own time in like other countries all over the world are all helping
push the bugs back. But is there an end state? Like to what
end? Yeah, actually win against the bugs? Well doesn't existity, Yeah,
so to zoom out really quick. The twenty fifteen game was a top
down twin stick shooter, different extraction shooter, which that's like becoming this big
thing the different studios trying to do. So it was kind of ahead of
its time in that way. This one has come down to a third person
over the shoulder, but everything else is pretty similar. Yeah, Mary,
like Marys, You're on the bridge of your ship and you're looking at the
fronts in the war against the bugs and the robots, and yeah, you're
trying to set up this array to keep them out. But yeah, it's
like this collective multiplayer where yeah, you're jumping into a mission with friends,
but you can also send an SOS flare if you're like, holy shit,
I have a lot of resources and I just I'm about to complete a mission
that one person should not have been able to complete. I'm going to send
an SOS player to hopefully get some random to it. Prioritizes your mission,
so a random could be like search SOS is or whatever. I don't know
how that works yet. I've only been on the receiving end. I've thrown
an SOS player. Someone joined me. It was really cool. I don't
know who they were. They jump in or they fall down. If you
played Halo two, you know, like what hell the ODST troopers are or
ODST to dedicate a game, they drop in and yeah, like Titan Fall
two, even you're you know, you're heading the drop ship at the very
end, but there's various objectives you can be doing the whole time. But
yeah, once you finish a mission, will say you contributed zero percent to
the war effort on this front. And then yeah, the idea being that
people are collectively fighting them back across and you can win and you can lose.
That's what I think is really neat is like overtime. Yeah, what
happened in the first game when that ended? Didn't they just like reset the
world every single months? Yeah, but like it was every few months,
so like, yeah, you and so like if the if the robots win,
we die, and then it's like you fucking failed. You should have
fought harder for America, bitch, And then it like resets and the war
is back on. But it's really exciting to be on the brink of defeat
or on the brink of success. And it's not just about your mission.
It's about collectively all the different players all across the world, all collectively putting
in and and I also think it goes with their vibe. I think something
that's really interesting about this game that's worth talking about is it's what is it
called starfield like that, uh, Starships Starship Troopers vibe. The first thing
I thought of, oh yeah, yeah, the first one was light Starship
Troopers. This they're leaning in. I was going to ask that because before
the tutorial they air that thing and it is the most it's like propaganda,
like you know, saluting the souldier walking down the street. Like it's extremely
Starship Trooper. The first game aesthetically was fairly uh it wasn't cel shaded,
but it was kind of cartoonish, but there was definitely Starship Trooper vibes there.
But oh yeah, this one fuck they said it's I laughed pretty loudly
at several points in the first hour, but yeah, it's very like patriotism.
Oh, she's like, suck on some liberty and then on liberty.
They keep using like those like iconic terms, uh to to just remind you
that this is all for the nation. In fact, there's a quick button
to salute. And I think that's really funny because what I was like,
Yeah, when I was doing my very first mission and we killed a bug,
the person who joined me on the mission just went right up to the
bug and went, suck it for liberty. And it's just like a really
funny it's comedic, but it really is littered throughout the entire game that you
are upon in a machine that is essentially saying like go out there and kill
these bugs for freedom, and it can rile you up. It's cheeky,
but it does work, and it makes me want to do my part and
be a part of something greater for uh, you know, for my nation.
And it's just a it's a funny, tongue in cheek thing. But
yeah, anyone who watches when you get this game and you watch the opening
sequence, it's just so it's so funny to like watch your whole family die
and be like, no liberty. I found like a little money. I
found a journal entry on a planet that's like, completing this mission will drastically
decrease the chance of child dismemberment. So get out there, get out there.
I don't it's I'm liking it so far, and it generally feels good.
I've found that like it's got one of those input I can't remember.
The first game controlled so smoothly, but again, I might just be looking
at through rose tinted glasses. But this game has that thing where it's like,
if I'm sprinting at all, they'll like parkour over an edge. I
went to a planet with robots where it was all craggy and ravines and whatnot.
So like I kept jumping up, robots shoot at you. The whole
part with robots is like the more you shoot them, the less accurate They'll
become kind of like suppressing fire in a way. But like you'll be taking
cover sometimes against the robots. And if I was like sprinting into cover and
then went to duck, it would first register that I was sprinting, and
I would just climb up on top of the cover and they shot me more.
I'm like, this is kind of like Assassin's Creed three era stickiness.
I also, it's also worth noting if it wasn't obviously people hadn't been paying
attention, like I hadn't very much a live service part of when you go
back to the ship, you go into this like marketplace and there's three or
four different kinds of currencies. Not to like sound like the old grumpy guy
that is a bit of a bummer. I don't know, ire the warframe
guy. I know, yeah that's true. Well wow, it's very true,
but that you can all I think. Maybe I'm just looking at it
as compared to the first game, which is so Arcade twin Stick, and
I get it, Like what was the house mark when they made Alienation next.
Monking was the last one. The one before that was kind of like
hell Divers, like Twin six Shooter Diablo esque, but they were like,
you make these arcade esque like double A games, people don't buy them as
much. So I get what they're doing with this, and I'm having fun
so far, but like it's the minutia. I keep like again, I'm
getting stuck to objects I want to climb. What else is going on?
The aiming mechanic is I don't think I've played anything like it before. You
have a radical which is like two white lines and a circle in the middle,
but then to simulate your character getting like jostled around, the laser site
will also have a circle around it, and the laser sight, from what
I gather, is the true where the bullet's gonna hit. Okay, so
you have the dical to shoot in the general direction of an enemy, but
all the while, if you're like ducking and then standing up, the laser
sights kind of bouncing around, And so I get again what it's doing.
I have not gotten used to it yet, but it's got the red X
when you kill something. Yeah, I want to keep playing it. I
also love. You get thrown right into the action. It's a fun fairy
dewey. Yeah, they want you to go out there. I think it's
wonderful for co op. Something that's important is that I think it's usually three,
three people playing together. It wasn't the first game. Is that The
way it is this time too is usually? Oh yes, I should know
this because I think we're planning a four player co ops stream of this on
drying Bombed Brow. It was really fun. But it's three. I need
to I'm looking it up. Go up four? Now, well it's four.
The first game was three, so that's great. That's a good increase.
Playing with your buds to defeat bugs is really fun and it does require
good co op, and they put you in situations where co op is necessary.
First sample, first game also was four, but maybe you just played
with oh plaid with three. I swear it was three, but maybe it's
because I'm thinking of Alienations people. Alienation was three and it looked a lot
like the first game. All right, I mean, I believe you my
uh my memory of this, but I in in this one. It's really
nice to essentially have computer moments where you have someone has to be on the
terminal. And you probably saw this in the tutorial and this was just like
this in the first game, but you operating a terminal is using the D
pad. It that's great. Hey, you really got to put in the
code here and the code is up down, left, right, right,
right, sixth you know whatever, and I like that. It's fun.
You have to concentrate on the terminal, but there's bugs swarming the area,
which means your friends have to protect your body. And then sometimes whilst you're
doing something with a terminal, little say the pipes are stuck or there there's
something wrong with the interior. We need you to clear it out before we
can finish. And so it requires teamwork for you to be able to do
these missions. And then once you do the mission, you have to hit
the extraction zone. The extraction zone, you get to the zone and then
you say pick me up. Takes two minutes for you to get picked up,
and that's when the bugs come crazy at you and you have to basically,
like last stand for two minutes. It's really exciting because like if one
of your friends falls, if the ship comes, which is very left for
dead, right, if the ship comes, you have to pick them up
or they die on that planet with all the aliens. So it's like like
the pickman dying as you leave. Oh yeah, the soul leaves the body
as they as the monsters like suck up their guts. No I know I
did. Actually I never left a man behind, so I wouldn't know.
Oh yeah, I'm a really good soldier. But I suspect it would pull
you to ensure that you are getting everybody on that ship because it feels bad
to allow one of your fellow soldiers to die. And I think that adds
the camaraderie and the fun and the ability to salute and all that stuff.
It kind of just cohesively works for it. So I really liked the first
game. I am very excited to continue playing the new one. But yeah,
we'll have to see how it goes. Yeah, it's a I feel
like we're just going to keep seeing more and more extraction shooters. Deep Rock
Aalactic is still really fucking good. I don't know if anybody's played that in
a while, but oh my god, I still go back to that game.
That's incredible. Do you play because I feel like at least me and
you, Mike, I know Marror, you play multiplayer more than we do.
But like Mike, I don't remember you ever talking about like playing a
lot of multiplayer stuff. Are you doing that? With deep Rock? They
have added substantial updates to deep Rock to make Solo very viable. So I
play by myself. Uh, I play occasionally with other people. No,
I played solo, but if people want to play, I have a I've
made. The more I played that game, the more I'm like, Okay.
This is like, honestly one of the pinnacles of Live Service right now.
The way that you can keep you basically can prestige your character. Then
you keep getting so much like funny, like charming, colorful gear. But
there's so many different activities that all feel like their own game mode, as
opposed to just like, oh right, I gotta go grind out a daily.
It's like, no, like I'm in the mood to do some like
the Horde defense. I'm just I want to do something slightly more boring and
autopilot to not boring autopilot today, that's just more satisfying. They add new
events. It's like, oh, these bugs have invaded this biome type,
so you're gonna have to fight them every while, and there's a new objective
type that not all of them are super well designed, but it's always just
usually a lot of thought put into it. But yeah, that's just my
deep rochalactic plug. That game is great. But Lethal Company is an extraction
game. It's not a shooter, but it might as well be extraction game.
I just feel like, you know, Marathon, what Bungee's working on
is. I feel like that will trigger even more extraction shooters. I get
why they're appealing. Rainbow six Extraction was an extraction shooter. I wonder if
I've ever played one, Like all these ones are naming, I don't think
I ever played. Was there like a really famous one that maybe I didn't
realize was an extraction shooter? Titan Fall two. You run to the drop
ship. I love I love him. That's that's not you're not like I
guess that's sort of an early incarnation, but you're not like controlling that.
The drop ship just comes when one team has won, right, so I
feel like you've had the whole round and then yeah, here's the honest thing
at the end, Yeah, if you die, you have to watch everybody
else. But trying to think what else. Uh, it seems like it
was like lend itself to multiplayer more, which I don't really do. Yeah,
we should. We should play Hell Divers too. Maybe that's a good
video At some point it's not, as it's not as funny of a game,
but I could see some humor arising out of it when like, we
leave so funny. The funnier rises from one of you fucking up on a
mission and dying. Friend, I'm going to die. The thing about the
first game that was really unique, I will kill you. The thing that
about the first game that was unique was the friendly Fire because you it's a
twin stick shooter, so if you're all standing, you're on the same plane.
But often you'd get such a big group in front of you that someone
have to go prone, you have to shoot over them. That's still a
thing here. And they make a big deal about running and diving into your
prone stance in this game Dolphin Dive. Yeah, I think it could be
fun out it's cross the platform. I'm playing on PS five, but it's
cross it's on a cross platform. I already said that it's fun. Check
it out, Jake on Yeah, I also played oh Man. Speaking of
Live service games I really wanted. I was trying to like Suicide Squad for
a bit about game. There's like I want to like this. It was
rock Study. I came to it because it's at the end of the day,
it was rock Steady, and I know, I know that there have
been problems at that studio over the years, and this game was I was
just maybe morbidly curious. Yeah, I I don't want to say it's a
terrible game. It's not a complete mess, Like I didn't have any any
server issues. For the record, I played PS five maybe like four days
after it was officially released. But you know, I used to play a
lot of Warframe. I like Live service when it's done well. I like
the traversial in that traversal in that game. I don't love the writing,
but that's no surprise people. I wasn't going to it for the writing,
like DC jokes and humor, but I love that. I could be talking
bipedal Shark, who is the kind of the tank of the crew Joe right,
I think it's just King Shark is his name? No, I think
it's Smoe. Joe does the voice. I think oh it Mojoe does the
voice. That makes sense. But yeah, his name is King Shark in
the game. That makes sense a lot of sense. Okay, I thought
I recognized it, but it Wow, it's a slow opening, but you
would not think for that kind of game. But uh, I want to
say, the first two hours are pretty slow, and I played like three
total. Because the first two hours are slow, you don't even start really
getting loot until you do like three long missions. You confront Evil Batman,
you confront Evil Green Lantern, you help out the Flash a bit. For
those who don't know, if the name doesn't imply it, you are trying
to kill evil versions of the or like the Suicide or the Justice League that
has been taken over by Brainy Acts Invasion. But it just was boring.
The combat. There's all these like certain maneuvers you can do in combat.
If you shoot an enemy in the legs enough, it'll get this blue glow,
which means if you may lee, it'll recharge your shield, which is
helpful. But then there are certain attacks you could do a counter shot with,
but that really just like breaks their shields. There's not really a good
flow to combat outside of like occasionally jumping up onto the roof of a building
and then shooting at four guys with a very boring kind of machine gun that's
not that much different than your assault right, which is not that much different
from your submachine gun. Much like Gotham Nights. I like all the different
characters, how they have different flavors of traversal, Like Harley Quinn uses they
break they it's not a spoiler, it's pretty early on they get their they
break into the Justice League's museum, so they like Harley Quinn gets Batman's grappling
hook and then dead Shot gets a jet pack from somebody. I don't know.
I think moving around that world is fun, but I just as soon
play like Sunset Overdrive, which came out how many years ago, it's twenty
thirteen or so. Yeah, I mean I just got so bored. And
they didn't introduce the loot system or upgrades early enough in this, and it
just was a bit I got bored. I expected to either really dislike it
or like, I'm actually having a lot of fun. Did not expect to
be bored, and I was a shame because like seriously, Arkham trilogy,
I'll even include Night. I know people did not like it. I enjoyed
it, and I luckily did not have performance issues with it, so like,
I know that was kind of a dreaded launch or whatever, but those
are incredible fucking games, especially Asylum. Asylum I think is one of the
best games of the three six era, which was like one of my favorite
eras, and City was fantastic. And this be the thing that they've disappeared
for so long and everybody wondering, like, oh, are they making a
Ninja Turtles game? What are they working on now? And like I'm pulling
up there Wikipedia now has it literally been Arkham Knight twenty fifteen almost a decade
later if you don't count that Ark and b R thing. Holy shit.
This is again to be clear, maybe it gets better later on. I
think it's just like there is a foundation for something fun in the live service
realm. I just don't think they lay that out soon enough. And I
mean, I'm about to talk about more about like a Dragon Infinite Wealth,
which I did not find the opening to be that compelling, and now I'm
loving that game, but like, augh, I don't know you need to
in my opinion, if you're trying to make a compelling live service game,
not everybody wants to play them. I get that, but I think all
of us three, I am the most excited when a good live service game
comes around. I think you really need to lay out that progression roadmap in
the game as soon as you can. And this game, I had no
idea what the future was going to be like for my character or characters,
and it was just boring right up until I was like, oh man,
these mission the mission variety is not great yet. It's a live service game
that can improve. But like, the first three hours in those kind of
games are like, I mean, the first three hours rather the first hour
of any video game, I maintain is like the most important part of a
video game and live service I feel like that's doubly true. And I don't
know, I feel like the game just came out and I'm already skeptical of
its new player onboarding, which is not great. That sucks, yeah,
I mean, but like Traversal feels great, Like rock Steady still makes good
feeling games, but man, the combat with guns and whatnot. I was
just like, there's probably some other road that could have taken at some point
that I wish they had, but I'm not going to go back to it.
I don't think unless something drastic changes, but at that point I'd rather
play Hell Divers two or something. Yeah, I can't imagine starting it after
everything I'm hearing, Yeah, what have what have you guys been playing?
What else you can talk about that other things? I feel like I'm constantly
in this thing of playing something I can't talk about for now. I'm still
working on the acazette and still loving it. I'd say I'm I'm like getting
into like chapter nine right now, so because the limitations. I think there's
fourteen fourteen something like that. Yeah, so I'm over halfway. No major
story spoilers or anything here. It's more like mechanics and stuff. But I
finished Dundoko Island. I don't know if either of you have done or seen
much of that. I have gotten to Dundoko Island, Okay, I love
Dundoko Island. It's just the animal crossing inside the ya because that shit sound
kind of yeah, it's such a fucking yach is the thing that you spend
hours. I don't know if I spent five, seven, eight hours,
you know, one of those building up this island and doing this animal crossing
mini game, just clearing out junk and building nice houses and like then it's
like, okay, I'm gonna build it. Here's a bunch of pornos stores
and there catching bugs, and then your reward at the end of that they
give you a golden eye laser can give you an orbital laser. So this
is quint like, we gotta get our little resort island back up. You
get it up. Yeah, So I think someone Polygon mentioned that in slack
like on accident before I left, Like wait what Yeah, it's this quaint
and weird thing for so long where it's like, oh, I got these
operas, then I put a bondage chair in the middle of this field or
whatever. It's just so fucking weird, and all of a sudden, like
everyone gets together in these mascots and here's your gaft and you get a shit
ton of money and a literal orbital laser you can call in for the rest
of the game. That just murders everybody. Any fight. You just spend
one hundred andp and it cuts to like outside the planet of a laser hitting
the Earth. It's fucking incredible. It is. I love it. I
I was definitely down on it last episode but I did tell you I want
to keep playing. I want to like it. Oh my god, I'm
fully hooked. Now how far are you? Chapter six? Okay, so
it's it's open, open, opened up, which is what I was waiting,
not waiting for, which is what I was working toward. I still
maintain and I liked Yakuzo like a Dragon the previous game. I still maintained
that the game was not for me doing Itchiban any favors. I think.
I was like, Okay, I get it. He's a great dude,
he's a great friend. He can about these taken away from you. But
like, no, the first few hours really just do not like the writing
was Okay, he's a dumb oaf, he's naive, but he's a good
dude. I get it. Do something else. I know, I'm a
terrible for one video game character I've ever related to crucify me. But then
they start they do better things than them, Like i'd say, once he
gets a little bit into his Hawaii trip, he I'm like, okay,
you're doing more with him. I get it now. And also other characters
that get introduced into the mix are good foils to him, Like you get
some pretty badass characters who come in. I'm like, Okay, I don't
love all the broading, but I like brooding brooding. I don't like the
brooding, but I like what you're doing here and there, and like you
get other characters and other characters are introduced. But so often in this game,
I'm laughing because, for instance, i'm fighting, you run into people
on the street. I'm not going to spoil anything. You run into people
on the street and they transform once you fight into like these demonic thugs criminals,
and you're fighting. This is earlier on like chapter three, I want
to say, maybe two. You're fighting a taxicab driver and it's like his
attack seems sort of normal, and then all of a sudden he crouches down,
pulls out a car battery and then like elect shoots electric bolts that you
with the clamps. What other attack for those tires? And yeah, there's
just like and then I've been oh, I've been unlocking, yes, more
mini games. So the pacing, the pacing overall, it took like four
hours, and you all you both know that. I think four hours too
long for a game to get good to still call it a good game.
I think that's very reasonable to ask. Four hours is a lot of my
time? Yeah, or something is good, And again I was like,
this is one of those times. I'm like, I have seen a yak
I know how good yaku is it like a dragon got When you unlock all
the mini games, you jump between them and you're getting new party members and
new jobs. I was like, I knew what, I knew how good
that was. If I had not played that game, I would not have
kept going. Like despite all the recommendations, I'm like, I have other
games to play, other stuff to do. I pushed through it a bit,
and now I'm liking more characters. I'm in a better mindset because the
pacing is just great now and getting new jobs in combat has really opened it
up in different synergies. And like the fact that like, oh, one
is a hero for instance, and then there's a bar made and then there's
a pyro dancer, Like, what the fuck is going on? Yeah,
it's uh the game. I think maybe in the early hours it was.
I don't think it was. In fact, I really don't think it was,
but it's leaning into the goofiness much more later, and it's mechanics in
the combat and I like that. It's nice to hear that this grind,
fun grind of an animal crossing kind of minigame has this dumb reward at the
end because it's a fun and grind in its own right. And I play
a lot of RPGs, specifically from Japan that have that kind of gameplay loop,
so I'm not a verse to it. But yeah, I'm liking it
a bunch. Do you mind if I tell you something that happens in chapter
eight? In terms of just like structure of the game, you can spoil
as much as you want with this game. Oh, I know, are
you talking about it? What? Sorry? How big of a soil?
I don't think I wouldn't call it story as much as like structure. Can
I say like one word and see if that's curio it? Okay? Okay?
Dbones are up. Yeah, so for anyone, take your headphones off.
You don't want to hear it. Yeah, you just go back to
Japan. You're playing to krry you. Yeah, all of the fucking shit
in Japan is different than the way it's all structured. And in uh Hawaii,
you're going around to all these spots from previous games and reminiscing about like
that's like a mini game. It's like Awakening Cure You, and like he's
basically making his like he says he's dying and so he's just kind of going
through all these places he's been in his life and seeing kind of these flash
to old games and like all of the mini stuff, like there's no Aloha
Link thing. It's replaced with this like Hero for Higher thing. You've got
new new jobs, new party members and everything. It's just like I did
not expect thirty five hours into the game to be like what the fuck.
It's a completely different group of people in location and structure. It's a god
damn it. It's a big game. So he I've had him as the
actual like protagonists for maybe a chapter because what they introduce him in chapter three
ish, yeah into the story as a party member, correct me, I'm
wrong? Yeah yeah, but then yes, after when he is back in
Japan, I think it's chapter in an eight or nine when he became like
there no, no, no, no, so he's still a party member
for me. Oh but you're aware of this then yes? Oh yeah,
okay, yeah, all this just from editing stuff at Polygon and I don't.
Oh, okay, one of those games. I was like, you
can spoil whatever you want. I'm still going to be enjoying seeing how they
get there, so I don't mind, but I'm looking forward to the fact
like he's already he was who I was referencing as, like, okay,
KIRIU, I like, well, and then you're fucking you unlock the old
fightings like it turns into real time fighting, which is saying it turn based
RBG, and then you just unlock the old fighting system, which facing even
more. I just I still wish the game got there sooner, but I
get I get how the build up works. I personally am liking Cure You
much more than it Chibond, but like I'm still, oh, I bet
he would know the best Murlow. Yeah, yeah, Okay, you're good,
You're good, But yeah, I guess I'll cap it. Mary,
how far are you like what chapter two? Ish? I'm with all the
turns out, all the people recommending to push through are like there was a
reason it. I have no problems with pushing through. I just played like
a couple of silly games instead with my time, and so I haven't had
as much time with Yakuza, but it is my intention to keep I'm not
upset about it. I just haven't had the time to actually get into it
because I've been playing some other weird stuff. What have you been playing?
Okay? Actually, or you can continue to go to finish up. I
tell you about a game I actually think Dan you would like, called Go
Mecha Ball. I somebody else is talking about this on a podcast recently and
telling me I would like it. I have to play pretty good, so
I'm gonna try and sell you on it. I think this is a Dan
game. It's extremely dowey. You are in many ways you're a cat,
but think of yourself as like a gerbil ball you can tend every day.
I've always asked myself when you were a kid, didn you have always been
like, oh my god, I would kill it in a Gerbi Ball.
I'd like run around the whole tube system. I wanted all that one to
drink my water that way. Yeah, I agree, And you have that,
and then you have like old games in our systems that kind of made
you enjoy uh, like Sonic Spinball, Marble Madness, and you're like ball
form and you're like, this is fucking awesome. I wish we explored this
concept more. Mecha ball really does a lot with the idea of half ball
form where you're zipping around. You're hitting pinball like uh corners, and they
make the noise and the titting that real fun like noise that shoots you left
and right. You go into tubes and zip up tube systems into different areas
and when you're not Oh, and you can also hit enemies in ball form
and it does damage against them, so that's really fun. So you're just
kind of like zip zapping around, bouncing off walls in different points. It's
going into tubes, jumping on bad guys heads. That's really fun. But
you can always pop out of ball form. Out of ball form your cat
with a gun. And I like the look of it to go mecha all.
It's almost kind of like a kind of like look to it where it's
like everything's kind of shiny and round and it's it's appealing. Dude, it's
drugs, it's skintle party. It's really wild. I've never seen such a
saturated music, Like the music is like high intensity. It's good music too.
I was shocked to uh find out that I loved the music for this
game high intensity beats where you are zip zapping as a ball to kill all
these enemies in the area. That's how you win, is that you you
have to kill everything in the space in three waves, so you might kill
everything and then another wave hits in that same area, you kill everything.
Another wave hits and you kill everything, and then when you beat that wave,
go on to the next system. This is Rogue Light. If you
die, you start from the beginning of the game, but you're unlocking multiple
types of currencies, so similar to like Haites. When you finish an area,
you get to pick maybe something you want to upgrade. Maybe it's the
guns that you're carrying. You get two guns, and it's awesome to get
a really dope like like a sniper rifle gun or maybe something that's a grenade
launcher, which is way better than a pea shooter. You can also unlock
defenses, health upgrades, and things like just getting health back is a huge
win in that game because, like I said, it's Rogue Lights, so
your health is precious, so if you lose your health, you're in deep
shit. So those upgrades are really valuable to you. The second type of
upgrade is a currency that you're getting when you're playing through the game, and
when you die, you get to spe end that currency on perma upgrades that
are worth a lot, and they're in the form of gotchapons, you know
what I'm talking about, where you like put coins in a machine and you
press a button like claw machine or is that like that, It's like it
kind of like falls out of the gotchapon cale, yes, and so you
get ok, and it'll be like now in your rolodex of guns, you
can get this brand new gun that's really good, or you get this new
upgrade uh that was never in Uh, it was never it was never something
you could even have before, and now maybe you can unlock it as you
play the game, and that's worth a lot to get. So there's always
valued even if you're dying, there's always value in collecting that currencies. You
can get those gotchapons and increase the value of your character. But it is
extremely addictive to finish these waves. And then after I want to say three
areas three like spaces of waves, you get a boss and the bosses are
pretty cool. They stretch your abilities as a player. One is the first
one I think is an ant. I thought it was a spider, but
it turns out it did not have the legs of a spider. It was
an ant. You really have to you have to count those body parts and
uh, the second one is more aerial and you have to learn how to
maybe jump on their heads in order to keep past that boss. I haven't
had this much fun on a game Pass game. I did not kiss it.
I did not it's on game I found it on game Pass. I
wouldn't. I don't think I would have played this game if it wasn't for
game Pass. This is a classic example of Mary being like what am I
going to play tonight? I don't want to spend any money and going to
game Pass and seeing what they had. That's the only reason I played Go
Go Mecca Ball. It's it's freaking fun. Is absolutely worth the price even
if you are not to game Pass, but on game Pass, it is
like a no brainer to pick up this game. I have enjoyed my time
with this game. It scratches the haites itch quite frankly, of like just
that real light of like I'm going to do a couple of rounds before I
go to bed. The music is really dope. It visually looks great.
The combat is super fun. You're a freaking Durbil ball and you get gotcha,
Pond's it's great. Okay, Well I downloaded it while you're describing.
I got on Steam because it sounds like a hell of a plane game from
what you were described. You cash it. Oh, it's intentional, I
got it. Yeah, yeah, so but it seems like it could be
a really good Steam det game. It's I think it's going to be a
great Steam deck game. I am curious if I should intentionally purchase it again
just that I can play it. I think it's going to be a really
fun travel style game. But yeah, I mean, I I adore this
game. I think it's super fun and it's really fun to go into ball
form and then pop out with a gun. Every piece of this is like
pure juice. It's the designers knew what they had and they min max the
shit out of it. I guarantee you by next episode, I will play
it a healthy amount of this because I'm only playing two long RPGs right now,
and I really like you describing this made me realize, like, ooh,
I need something I can just play for like ten minutes and just get
a full session out of Like, Okay, I will play this significantly before
next time. You don't have to be smart or think about it. At
fall, it's like kill everything in the space and bounce around stupid and I'm
like, you got it? Like it's sometimes I mean a lot of times,
especially after a long day of work. Oh, I play something that's
talking to me and I think a lot and make important decisions about whether or
not someone should live or die. I and deal with that shit goal and
make a ball is just chaos incarnate. It reminds me of like classic arcade
games where you're just bouncing around, kill everything, obtain items, you make
really simple decisions about whether or not you want to increase your health or your
damage, and you kill aunt bosses. It's fun and it does it really
well. It is uh what's that called when games designers add just like sparkles
and like shine to a game at the very end just to make it plish,
polish, Like they just polish the shit out of this game. It's
filled with screenshake and background noise that makes you really excited, and the enemies
are really funny kill It's so exciting I want to play the game too.
It sounds great. I was obsessed. I was maybe I might be over
selling it, only in a sense that like, I expected nothing from this
game, and it wowed me. I was thrilled by it. I think
now that I've made this big stink about it, you might play and be
like, it's just a ballgame, married but like, it's it's the ballgame
I needed. Like at a time where all these games are asking so much
of me, this game asks nothing, Shoot me a ball. Where does
this come from? Whale Peak games? I'm looking them up here to see
if they don't know Peak game. Yeah, I've never seen it, but
I know it exists. Okay, I'm I'm into it. I will play
it. Great. I'm glad I sold it. The other one. I
have to be careful because I did not know anything about this, so I
will preface that I'm going to talk about turn Up Boy, which apparently has
spoilers. And when I streamed this game, a lot of people came into
my chat and said, sorry, I can't watch because I'm also playing.
Listen. I don't want to be spoiled, to which that surprised me.
I did not know this is not the first turn Up Boy. I believe
the first. Oh, I'm probably gonna taxivation. Tax Evasion is the first
turn Up Boy, and I suspect there are fans of Turnup Boy that will
say that I am butchering this. I did not know this. I played
this blind. I played Turnip Boy robs a bank also on game Pass right
now, the concept of Turnip Boys, as far as I'm aware from the
hours that I've played with it, is that you get a certain amount of
time to rob this bank and then you take the money as long as you
successfully rob the bank. If you get caught by the police, if you
die, you get nothing, So you want to make sure you get back
to your car in time. But if you get the money, you go
back to your base and it allows you to buy upgrades for your character,
more health. Another one that I like is more time, Like I think
you start the game with a two minute timer, Like what can you do
in two minutes? So adding a minute your timer is pretty clutch, better
weapons, et cetera. But what I found really interesting is I think they
have an area called the dark Web, and you buy stuff off the dark
Web, which I just think is really interesting and so I'll be playing the
game in the bank, and the bank will maybe have an area where they'll
be like, sorry, you can't go in this area. You need to
be able to have a laser pointer to get through the giant bank door.
And on the dark Web, I can buy a laser for five hundred dollars.
So I robbed the bank a couple times make enough money to buy the
laser pointer. When I get into the door, it's an entirely new area
of the game. And so this type of game I was not aware of.
This is the type of game where as you play it, you buy
stuff from the dark Web that allows you to unlock new spaces in the bank,
and the game expands tenfold because now you're in a new area that requires
maybe a blue key card that you buy off the dark Web, or maybe
you get it from a boss fight that you discover, and you go deeper
and deeper and deeper into this bank, and now you're not even in a
bank anymore. I'm in a forest. I'm in an entire area that's just
made of web cabinets. I bought a cardboard box and went into the cardboard
box like back area of the bank. These are large areas. You can
spend hours in them. You meet lots of characters who all need something,
and the writing is really cheeky too. I feel like I didn't mention that,
but the writing is actually quite funny. I met a who was like,
you got to help me. I've been married for twenty years. My
husband, you have to find him. He owes me divorce papers and I
need him to sign them immediately. And I'm like, all right, lady,
like little freak, and so I find the husband later on in the
game, I get him to sign the papers, and I go back to
her and she gives me like a hat. It's irrelevant, but the point
is it's but yeah, you're doing all these like little it's a little yakaza.
Honestly, you're like doing all these little unnecessary side quests for really unnecessary
benefits. But it's cheeky and funny and you enjoy doing them, and so
you do them all within the three minute timer of making sure you're robbing this
bank and then getting your ass back to your home base that you can live.
I like the idea of it expanding as you go, too, Like
is it just the thing where it teaches you the basics how it works,
and then it gets bigger and more complex. Did it goes? Show me?
Shit? Dan? I was so confused the whole, like first hour
of this game. I was like, why are you asking me to do
these things? Why do these people keep giving me side quests? And what
the fuck am I doing with all my money? I think I made really
poor decisions, probably for the first ninety minutes, because I didn't understand.
I will be honest with you that there was tritorial and I was like,
I'm not reading all that. Thanks for whatever. So maybe it tried to
teach me. But this game is a very dewey game that did not do
a good job of just explaining to me how to get started. And I
think it's possible it wanted me to have played the first game. The game
encourages you to have played the very first game to understand what to do.
I did not, so I went into it not fully understanding it. It
is a fascinating world, and I think if someone is looking for a dewey
game where you just go in and rob a bank and then you learn all
the facets of the space, this might be for you. I found it
overwhelming and not it was no Michable, but I really did like Turnip Boys.
It's a really cool world and it has all these vast secrets, and
I think that's what people are drawn to when they play this game, is
you have no idea where this game is going to take you, and all
the different characters you're going to meet, and they're all spoilery, so I
won't spoil them. I thought it was quite interesting. I beat about three
bosses so far in the game, and I'm in like six worlds past the
original bank Now, which is a funny thing to say, but yeah,
I'm like way past like bank now. But you always start at the bank
and then you get like three or four minutes to like get as far as
you can, so you just go. If you had to throw into a
genre, though, you'd say like Rogue Light, yes, because you have
a life and if you die you get nothing, and if you live,
you take the money back and you buy stuff with it that are permanent upgrades.
So oka, Yes, it's such a weird way to look at it
like that sounds like a weird game. It's super weird. Yeah, And
I think it subverts your expectations. I think it has like witty writing that
kind of sometimes breaks the fourth wall. I think it's cheeky and modern take
on a rogue light for sure. And I bet fans of the game would
be like, Mary, you're not explaining it right, And it's just like
this game is complicated, and fans of this game are weird, like the
fact that they are like, I can't hear about this game because it's spoilery.
I didn't know that this game had so many nuances to it and it
had such a strong fan base. People feel very strongly about Turnip Boy apparently
apparently, But I think it's a really cool concept. If I can,
I think I will spend the time to go back and play the original Turnip
Boy and tax Evasion and understand the basics of this game. Cool. It
looks like Barren Breakfast, yeah, or I think a good way to compare
it is enter the gungeon. Yeah, into the gun You can see that
too, because you're like going into this weird world that you don't understand any
of the rules of, and they'll be like finding Isaac, yes, or
like face these weird bosses that are laughing at you, and the and the
writing is really witty and you feel like you're in a completely different universe.
It is charming and it is fun and oh man, if you get the
right gun, you feel fucking unstoppable. I had the best sniper and I
was killing it. But then I got into a boss fight and you can't
leave the boss fight like you're in it. And the boss killed me.
So I lost my really good gun and that was that was hard on me,
Like, once you lose that good gun, you get sucks. I
have never got over it. Still. Do you guys want to do emails?
Yeah or okay? As usually, you can run into fire Escape Casts
at gmail dot com with any questions, comments, concerns. Holy shit,
our inbox was quite the eclectic array of responses after last episode. It was
like a third people threatening me because of my Disney adult views, a third
who actually really enjoyed our conversation about bourbon. Turns out we have a lot
of listeners who like work distilleries. I like this yeah, and then the
other I see where this is going. Third was people just sending very weird
questions, which we always appreciate. But Mike, I like you. I
think you are the heel of this podcast, and I think I usually sloped
myself into that and podcasts. I'm on but I like, I like you
being the heel here. So we got we got an email on the every
man yeah, exactly, on the white baby face here, you're the heel.
Yeah, I'm I'm mister pretentious. We got an email from one mister
Mike Manatti, which I feel like I need to read because it's kind of
addressed to my god. Yeah. He by the way, he messaged me
after the episode went up last week and he was like, oh my god,
I'm dying at the fire escape. You guys talking about me, And
I was like, oh fuck, I don't remember what we said. It
all. I was like, was that making fun of you? Or was
that He's like, no, you'd be really nice. Okay, Okay,
I remember differently. You definitely were not like I'll I'll read his email and
then I'll we'll get to it. So can for those who the very few
people that listen to this podcast, Dan, can you really quickly summary of
who Mike Manaughty is fastest rising star in the games media industry. Guy.
I never heard him to the point where I had a running bit where actually
I still call him the wrong name. Never heard of him like a year
and a half ago, two years ago, and he's just a guy that
grub knows, I guess, And no, it turns out he's one of
the most knowledgeable and funny and nice and easy to work with and just uh
oh man. He's been a real shining point force on your giant content.
And I just think he is a breath of fresh air and downright good dude.
But that's not what we're here to discuss. Crucially, he's also a
Disney adult, which no, never, no one's perfect. Okay, wait,
so I got okay, my wrote in high from Mike a Disney Adult.
Dear Dan, Mary and Mike. Hello from Mike Manatti, Gamy Media's
Sorry, Daisy just knocked over my sleep. No more masks, all right,
let me start over. Dear Dan, Mary and Mike. Hello from
Mike Manatti, Gamy Media's premiere Disney Adult. I have to say I loved
hearing Dan come to the defense parentheses, well, a mild defense, but
I'll take it of Disney adults. As Mike expressed his displeasure, I think
you also were joining me a bit, but no, sure, I think
we all were in there. But I am a Disney adult. I've always
said that. Not too long ago, someone shared a video with me of
Dan on an old Giant Bomb show where he himself expressed disgust toward Disney adults.
Look how far he has come. I'm sure Mike will also come around.
Once we are able to meet. Maybe we can hash things out over
some wine in Walt Disney World at the restaurant Jico and the Animal Kingdom Lodge
Hotel, which has an amazing collection of South African wines. I don't think
you'll be allowed to fuck the trees there, though. Love the show,
continue kicking butt, Hakuna Matata Manati. So I would kill for that travelogue
of him teaching you like, oh, here's the wine that the lady in
the tramp ate or whatever. You know, she ate a lot of wine.
Lady in the tramp at Disney. I don't know you can eat wine
drinking probably yeah, Oh, Mike's pretendious. You just talk about how you
drink wine. What a fucking you still get off your high horse, dick.
I appreciate that Mike is meeting me halfway because he knows I enjoy wine,
which he might not be super into. I need to reflect that back
to him and say, I am up for this trip. If we can
make it happen, maybe we'll expand my world. I I don't Here's the
difference with a lot of things. When I don't like a game that I
feel like I should, I really want to like it. When I have
like food that I don't like, I feel like it's a challenge I need
to like it for some reason. With Disney, I don't have any desire
to overcome that that barrier. But because Mike Manatti was so so amicable and
inviting and met me halfway with a South African wine pole, which he must
either he must either like South African winds or know that I am really into
South African wines to call them out specifically. But that sounds great. I
would love to do that. I need to fight him first. Why these
mics are are are good ones because you both have interests that you go really
hard into that some might find inseparable. Mike's got the very you know,
wine and sail boats and whatever. Uh you know, Manati's got the Disney
adult and you know spends his days thinking about Goofy or whatever, And like,
I feel like those fandoms, any fandom, frankly, any fandom,
pop culture of fandom, or just wine, whatever, there's gonna be weird
assholes and weird woleslee with them exactly. And Mike, you're really into wine,
manat he's really into Goofy or whatever, and but you're not weird assholes
about it. You're both weird, but you're not assholes about it, like
you would totally both game to like, let's go and do a fun thing.
We're gonna do a little video together, and oh, you know,
op substract, we're gonna teach each other these things for Mike's knowledge. I
think I absolutely should be open to the fact that I might actually have fun
with it at Disney World, and I'm I am at this point. I'm
glad, he wrote in I also think if I'm ever expressing extreme disgust for
something, odds are I'm picturing one specific person in my head, which happens
often with me. Instead of like being able to come out and say I
really don't like this fucking person, I will say I'll be like, here's
the annoying thing about them. Let me just talk generally about people, which
of course is just a very fair way to talk about people, Like you
should just group them all together and instead of just talking about one person.
Yeah, so I'm up for it. I would we talked like like,
I've sure put people through warframe, Mike can shirp us through Disney World.
I wonder though, like if he would actually be gamed for the wine thing.
But you know, he's got like a legitimate like fruitful Yeah, Like
he'll leave a room if you bring in a plate of grapes. So,
like, would he drink wine? I think? I mean, I don't
know what his phobia is like, but I imagine wine is far enough removed
from the original grape that he wouldn't. It's like when I like, I
would eat sour cream flavored jellybillies, but I wouldn't eat sour cream. Is
that if it doesn't take the form factor of like fruit, if maybe he's
okay with it? M I might write in again, do you drink wine?
Would you drink wine? Yeah? That is curious. I don't know.
I'm curious about that, soud because you might not know this it's fruit.
I'm learning. I also had a friend from I had a friend from
college after the episode who was like a jockey guy, not an actual jock
like he He sometimes would talk like a jock and you would not know it.
But he texted me he's I just got a random text from him,
first texting like a year, and he I hope. I look at the
text and says, I'm going to beat the shit out of you. Like
wait, what he's like? You do know I go to Disney World every
year, and like, I did not know that. He's just threatening to
kick my ass next time he sees me. He's also threatening to drag me
down to Disney World to show me the error of my ways. So I
don't know. Flash forward to three years from now. Maybe I'm pilled.
I don't think so. But I let me let me tap into your wine
stuff here because I had I had an incident this weekend. Yeah I heard
about this. Yeah, you heard about this because your coworker you referenced earlier
Matt Birds. I went out to dinner with him and his wife, and
then Bonk and I went out and had a nice dinner and you know,
I had some drinks, had some nice food, and at the end we're
looking at the dessert menu and it was flying out to Fargo. The next
day, so I wanted to be able to like sleep when I got home.
So I was like, I'm looking at it because I still have like
dessert cocktails and stuff on things. Yeah, and I'm looking for something that
has alcohol in it but no caffeine because I had like espresso martinis and stuff
like that, and I was like, no, no, I don't want
I don't want caffeine. And then I saw sherry, just the word sherry
on there, and I was like, oh, that's like wine, right,
and it must be like a there's just be a wine that people have
with dessert or whatever. And so they go around the table and everyone's ordering
their stuff or whatever, and I order it and like, I don't know
who, like, I just felt the sense of as soon as I said
I'll take the sherry, everyone at the table and the waiter I felt it.
I felt everybody like then they bring it out, nobody said anything,
and then they bring it out. They handed to me, and then another
guy comes out and he was like who was it? And I was like,
what, who ordered the sherry? I said me, and he goes,
I've been working here since we opened. I'm always here, like no
one has ever you're the guy. You're the one. You're the one.
He finally ordered the sherry and was like, what the But then I drank
it and it was kind of gross. What what's the fucking what is sherry
known for? Why is that a weird thing to order? Why was that
on the menu if it's a weird thing to order? Uh it, You're
right, it's a dessert wine. It's fortified span dessert wine. Have you
had port? Have you heard of port? Like at the doc? Now
you've heard of port at some point? Really dark. It's like it's a
dessert wine, which means it's fortified. There's a lot of residual sugar in
there. Put yeah knowledge in him and said, you know what port is?
Like a usb Yeah. Rather than rant about it, I'll just say
it's Spanish dessert wine and it's supposed to it probamt Did it tastes like?
Was it raised any? I don't even know? It was just gross,
not only something I shouldn't be drinking, created juice? What do people not
order it? Like? Is it considered? So? No? What kind
of restaurant was it? Italian place? I will say I would be it's
definitely I think less frequent that someone would order sherry than port or like's not
port. Yeah, it's odd that they had not odd, but it's it's
Yeah, it's a bit unusual that they had sherry on the dessert menu instead
of port because it think port is more widely recognized. But like, I
like sherry as a dessert wine. But you, if I'm generalizing, you
do not at all look like the kind of person who would order sherry.
To generalize, who is the type of person that would order sherry wine snobs
or like older? I think I actually don't know. I know certain like
in certain Spanish circles, it's a it's a dessert wine. Uh is it
the Riberta del Duero area region. I'm thinking yeah, it's it's adjacent.
Yeah, it's like the kind of thing that like Fraser would order. Okay,
like it's I think it has this this connotation of stuffiness for sure.
Okay, I see anything. I just belt it as soon as I said
Sherry was known for liking a sherry, like it was Fraser is a sherry
person. I can see that. Really. Okay, they're also like stereotypes,
right, like him and his brother for being snobby, for sure.
Yeah, that's the whole kind of joke of that show. I wonder if
a lot of what took people back, Dan is that you just don't look
like the type of person that would care enough to order a very small amount
of dessert wine in which you would sip and be like, yes, this
is a good sherry. Just the I just want to booze is not pretentious.
I mean, I mean, yeah, they can be, and they're
like they're like hyper flavorful, so like aal thing that people do with sherry
as they cook with it. It's like very common to cook with sherry.
I actually wonder if it's more common for people to put sherry in their food
and like as a cooking wine than it is for them to just drink it
straight for I don't know why you just order a beer. It's not illegal
to order a beer for dessert. I could have done that, that's true.
I don't know. Sometimes the sugar at the end of the meal is
nice. Helps digestion, helps capertif right, like there's like before all right,
I'm going to correct you if you're wrong. I know I'm the heeling
heret it you low life pieces of ship you eat sometimes a little bit of
alcohol and maybe that's why it's small. Like and have you ever heard of
ice wine, which is also like ice wine is like really sweet and you
don't get a lot of it. You get like a little bit. And
I think the whole point of it is like, this is a little bit
that you have at the end of your meal, and it's to replace dessert.
Sometimes. This was a large glass, like I had trouble getting through
it, Like this tastes gross. Yeah, it's maybe because nobody ordered it.
They just gave you a big, fucking huge glass of ship. Can't
get through this fucking bottle? Just give them all of it. Yeah.
The back was like watch this dickhead try and drink this entire glass of sherry.
I knew it was weird when the fucking guy came out of the kitchen,
was like, who was it? Like, that's such a weird.
But let me, uh, let me see what did he say? Okay,
I'll paraphrase from that. Oh my god, I would say, you
can drink a beer at the end of your meal. For the record,
cocktail, what's the equal of a sherry? Of beers? It would be
like a sweet, not a sweet, but like a make you like a
sweet coffee stout almost whole meal. Now that your meal is done, you
have like a little, a little snick snack of a drink as your dessert.
Yeah or sorry? Dan Berts is like, he said, remind me
to tell you the story about Dan ordering a glass of sherry at dinner tonight.
I was like, no, you need to tell me immediately right now.
He was looking at the dessert. He's looking at dessert menu while the
restress ordering coffee. In his head, he was thinking he didn't want a
caffe beverage because he's flying tomorrow, so he randomly ordered sherry after confirming that
it didn't have kaffy did I ask, does have any? I don't know.
That sounds like I would have come out of the back as well.
And then like, who is this person? I should specify a decaf sherry
please, But he's like, no one ever orders. So the sommelier came
out to see who is a like minded individual who wanted dry sherry? Way?
Wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait bar back. It was
okay, I didn't realize you ordered a dry sherry. That's what's that is
that weirder? It's it's not as sweet and it's going to taste more like
like funky. Yeah it was gross. Yeah, I mean it's an acquired
didn't like this at Glass of its restaurant. Why are they serving this gross
thing? It's a yeah, that's a dry sherry can be. But he
said you powered through it like a champ. Yeah is it? But uh,
here anytime, both of you. I'll move on after this, just
so people can stop fifteen second forwarding that don't want to listen to this.
I don't give a shit. I don't give a fuck. Next time you're
here, I'm going to bring you to a wine bar that's gonna become your
favorite place ever. It's okay down at Tribeca. Their menu is spelled out
behind the bar with fridge magnets. It's punk music playing. They project like
great British bakeoff on the projector on the wall. The head saw him there.
His name is Paul Grico. If you look him up, he's actually
like a local New York celebrity within the wine steat. He comes over,
he's like, what are you guys in the mood for? He's got this
like uh pharaoh ish go tea trying to think of what the style would be
called. But he comes over and he's wearing like kind of skater clothes.
He's like, what do you guys want? What are you guys looking for?
What are you in the mood for? I was like, uh,
just like this and that. He's like, I got a recommendation kick gas
of cdity it's gonna fuck you up with like it's how this cannon Steel's like,
all right, that sounds great. I think you guys would like this
place a lot. I you know what, maybe you can suggest this for
me with my dad coming in, I'm liking making cocktails a lot now.
I like the idea of making cocktails for people. Knowing my dad, who
you know, has tried to order you know, Red Bull vodkas at Don
Lee's bars. What should I make him? You know, you can find
he likes your dryest cherry please, you cherry please, as long as it's
uncaffeinated. He cannot tell the difference. He can't tell the difference between a
seven and seven and a Red Bull vodka. Like he literally can't tell.
He's the least discerning palate ever. Can you think of something that is maybe
a strong enough flavor or whiskey, like a good whiskey cocktail or something I
could make him. He might like a whiskey sour, which is fairly simple.
I've got Madori sour is that we use. No sour uses mai.
Okay, whiskey sour uses whiskey. I have a vodka sour. What do
you think about? I don't know what is. I just don't have a
green bottle. It's it's like melon melon flavor. Yeah, okay, it's
goods are like guilty pine apple. That sounds good too, tastes like the
beach. I have pineapple juice. I could probably make pineapple and it's it's
easy ship to make. Oh you know what I do at Halloween. I
do Madori pineapples and I get dry ice and it looks like uh like green
witches brew. That's awesome. That's great. Way I get. You can
buy dry ice from like any regular store. I know he doesn't have a
discerning palate, but if you want to wow him, get some dry ice.
Did you drink smoked? This has been an easy thing to get into
the cocktail stuff, because like I text Mike a lot about up there,
you know, give me advice and stuff like that. And also Don Lee,
who Mike I took it at his bar. He's legit, like Mike
you probably know this morning. He's like one of the world's best mixologists.
Right. Uh, that's putting it lightly. He's like he is sought after
at like the nicest restaurants to be their cocktail bar builder, to like design
their cocktail mineys. Yes, he's like written about in cocktail books. And
he was a beast cast fan who like he was the one who set me
and my add up with like his different bars where my dad would order,
like Don would have the people there like plan you know, we're gonna name
this this is the Kansas City or something, and my dad would be like,
Ah, I'm good, I'm just gonna get a Red Bull vodka.
We don't have that serviuce. It's like the the best in the world is
just like a texta way has been helping me so much with that stuff.
And Mike, you've been act sweet stuff though, right Like if he likes
red Bull vodka because is very sweet, he just wants that so he stays
up. It's just purely a utilitarian thing. Rum and coke guy. He
wouldn't say no try it. You might like, honestly, you're having a
my tie right now, or you had my tie that's what I made earlier.
Yeah, that was really I think he'd like my tie. That's lemon
and boozy. And I mean I told you this earlier. You asking me
like what what kind of ice to use? And I was telling you is
like, you're making the perfect cocktail. For the record time, I would
try a whiskey sour, a whiskey soower. I don't even tell him what
it is, or a paper plane, which is similar to a whiskey sour
in a way, and it's that it's probably in that app you use.
Maybe I'll I'm hosting a poker game for our night. Maybe I'll make a
round for everyone. The paper plane has bourbon and scotch in it. For
the record, if he likes scotch but the scotch is light, he doesn't
know the difference or care said that, I might have been mixing that up.
A penicillin has scotch in it, I don't know whether a paper plane
does. But yeah, and he like bourbon based like I think he liked
those. Just look those up. I can't tell how many times we've been
in the bar and the bartender has been like, what do you want,
and he'll be like, I don't care, just put something brown in the
glass. That makes me go ah, okay, classic, incredible. Does
he like old fashions? He would, It's just he would think it's fancy
and pretentious. You don't have to tell him what it is. Just make
something like a whiskey. He wouldn't. Honestly, he wouldn't even think about
it, wouldn't sour. A whiskey sour does not, at a glance look
pretentious like a whiskey sour has the foam on top from the egg white but
brown, and it also makes you go off like it. You know,
it ticks the boxes. Okay, whiskey sour is just I think a very
default one is just bourbon, lemon juice, egg white. You do a
dry shake without ice, so the egg say that was the basic. That's
yeah, this is why people write in about you. Look, I'm not
making eggs I have to look up how to make egg sour is sour mix
and whiskey. No it's not marry, I'm listening. Okay. This is
this is me knowing that there's a better world in which is just as easy
to make a real one that you don't buy bullshit. This is one when
Bonk was like, make me something easy drinking and I made the did drink
ever and like this is what this is the disconnect? He was like,
what's a simple drink that he won't think is pretentious? And you were like
a whiskey sour whiskey egg white in there. You shake it like a whiskey
mak. Yeah, fucking Mary called I made. I made those fish sharels
that let in Minneapolis. And Bonk is like, this is fucking delicious,
So fuck you d it up for it? Fuck you go fuck yourself.
Fuck I will learned that you would like literally sniff your own farts every episode
consistently, and people write in about it, and you're like, it's the
world that's wrong. Okay, that's that's okay. Well I agree with both
of you. Uh let's bring Okayla another friends slash Dan, you want to
read this one? Yes, Hey, fire Escapers, big fan of the
podcast. Just listen to your most recent episode and loved hearing about everyone's nostalgic
moments with video games as a kid. And my question relates to that.
What is your favorite video game memory as a kid that you had with the
sibling or friend. I have many memories from my childhood with Dan, but
the one that I remember most is when my sister Katie and I would watch
Dan play Mario sixty four. He would play the level where you defeate Bowser,
and the star would float silently in the middle of the platform. Dan
would crank the TV to maximum volume, put Mario a good three feet away
from the start, and start crawling as slow as he could towards the star.
Katie and I were at the edge of our seats waiting for Mario to
reach the star, and when he did, Holy hell, was it loud
again? You guys have a fantastic podcast. And thanks Mike and Mary for
being such great friends with my brother Dan. That's Kayla, Kayla, thank
you for writing and Kayla love Aaron from you. Yes, that was that.
That was a highlight. They always watched me play games, Kayla,
especially Kayla really constantly was watching me play games. But yeah, I would
like turn that CRT up as loud as possible, because like when you beat
Bowser, after you throw another thing three times, it's completely silent and the
only thing you hear is like I would analog sticks, just the tiniest bit
and you would just hear, Oh yeah, Papa. I cranked the volume
all the way and then I would backlipit at the star and as loud as
possible to scare the shit out of him. Yeah. Oddly enough, she
was asking, like, what's our favorite video game memories with a sibling or
a friend. I some of my most fondest memories of games are watching my
siblings play. To stand out, one is Majora's Mask. I watched my
brother play through that the entirety of it. We both had pneumonia one week,
so we were both home from school. He had just gotten Majora's Mask,
and I was watching him play the whole thing. And then we also
were roommates in the same room, so when we went to bed like sick,
I would like we would quiz each other on the game. Be like
all right, I'd like, how do you get cafes mask? I was
like, oh, you gotta do this and that, and then I was
like all right, where I was like, how do you get the dancing
mask? And he's like, you got to talk to this guy in the
second day or whatever, And it was like one of the best weeks ever.
I watched him play the whole thing before I ever touched that game,
and then the second one was I with Rainbow six. Rogue Spear was one
of the last ones to still be that hardcore, like pick your team,
map out the squad, the squad commands on the overworld map before you send
them in and execute commands before it went to more Arcadie style, both of
which I like, but it was too complex for me as a kid.
So I'd watched my other brother play rope Spear a lot in the basement,
like on our old Gateway computer or whatever it was, and that was like
the most intense thing ever. It was like the opposite. It wasn't calming,
and I was like, oh, it's a Zelda game. It was
like, this is nuts. It's like I was watching a Tom Clancy movie.
It was great. But yeah, It's funny how some of my most
vivid game memories are watching people play in the same room. That's such a
sibling thing though, right, Like, it's not always about you doing that's
the memory. It's that you shared it with another person. And now it's
like kind of this bond that you have with another person. My favorite childhood
memories are not me beating a game. It is me hanging out with my
sister, discovering something about a game, or playing a weird game for the
first time. I remember when I was really young, my sister and I
had a Sega and Sonic Entails. There was the game, and I mean
I couldn't play games at all very well, but my sister could beat them,
and I was extremely impressed with her abilities, and she could always do
better than me, and I thought she was the coolest kid on the block
because she could beat every game and I couldn't. I couldn't get past like
most levels. So I remember like being really impressed by her. But I
also remember this was also around the same time that I felt like it was
pretty rare to have a computer in your household, and it was coveted to
be able to have a computer. And my dad sent our family our very
first computer, and it came installed with several games, Missed Lemmings, Seventh
Guest, just these kind of I know the first two obviously. I think
Seventh seventh Guests is very weird. It like kind of has like Missed esque,
like it's puzzy and there's ghosts and you're in a house. You're oh,
holy shit, I remember this now. I have not thought about this
name years. Stuff going on, like like, you know, I got
to get out of this house. I was like a wrinkle in my brain
I have not accessed in decades. They were all on CD robs right,
like we were putting these CDs in and I could not fathom solving a puzzle
like this. And I think some of my best memories and I don't know
if I have like a vivid memory of like I was at this level in
Seventh Guests. The point is is like I have these vivid memories of my
sister being able to solve puzzles in mist that I would never have thought of,
and thinking she was the smartest girl in the world, and she was
the coolest person I knew. There was like this moment in time when like
younger siblings think their older sibling is so cool, so smart, and so
important, and the older sibling is like, I don't like you or care
about you, but you can stand here and watch me be very good at
this game. And I remember thinking like, damn, what a what an
amazing person you are. But I don't actually remember like a lot about the
game. I just remember that she was way smarter than me and could could
do it. Yeah. I was always intimidated by a lot of games because
they were playing like Okerina of Time when I was so complicated for a time
was ninety eight, Yeah that was seven. It's like it was I was
too young to really grasp how to get I think I was too young to
get really through that game. Then when I finally started playing it, I
got to Jabu Jabu's belly and something about Jabu Jabu's belly, and then that
freaked me out. So I'd had my brother beat that for me. As
an adult, I could do the forest and fire temples, but the Water
Temple. I mean, in my defense, the water time is a bit
complicated, notorious. Yeah, but then I was fine with the shadow.
I finish the water Temple. It's not that hard. Eight years old.
Now, I'm just fucking idiot figure it out just so left each time.
I have better things to do than play Okarina Time. These days, I
have many many soires to attend. Oh sherry to sip, that's thing,
the water balloons to fill with champagne before I hurl them at Disney adults.
I have other things to do, but the Shadow Temple, for some reason,
never creep me out, even though now as an adult, the Shadow
Temple creeps me out. The hands are fucked up, yep, yeah,
what else redeads down there? Yeah, it's been a while. The bottom
of the well of that boss where you get the lendustry, that thing is
uh, what the hell is that thing called? I wrote a whole Polygon
post about it. This year. I didn't play that again. It's been
too long. I played twenty twenties for last time I played through it.
It's it's still versions great. Yeah. I played an upper as version of
that on PC, the three DS one with like texture packs and everything,
and looked awesome. I'm charging my three DS. Well, it's charged,
but it's plugged in right now. I'm going to do a new Fire Emblem
Awakening playthrough. Oh that's that's my favorite one. I was gonna say that's
probably my favorite. And then three Houses Oh shit, yeah, I'm looking
at this mike. When I was talking about streaming that three DS one with
the texture packs, I was like, wait, what's the mike on that?
And yeah, I just search it's on YouTube The Legend of Zel dan
Oka Record of Time three d HD with Mike Maharty. Yes, you're on
these. You couldn't figure out how to get me into the pun How you
joined in? I think yeah because part one. You know you're on per
one party. Yeah, with Mike Harty and guests. Wow, I had
hair. This is early pandemic here, Dan. Yeah. Okay, how
you can tell you? Was I at your place? No, you're on
camera here. You might have joined for a little bit. It looks like
you're in the first couple of hours and then I go for like four more
hours. Okay, okay, interesting. Yeah, I can always replay that.
I'm gonna Yeah, I don't know what what's appealing. I was like,
I for some reason, I want to get away from my Steam back
and I switch because I've used them so much. I'm like, all right,
I got my own three DS. I got the Monster Hunter Edition three
DS, the big one. I'll just play some Fire Awakening because I love
those games, and I loved Engage, but that didn't scratch the same etch
as the best ones. Awakening is the one that I really stuck with because
then once you see speaking of like a game, whose structure changes once you
see what it's building toward in the latter half with the family members, children
and whatnot. Stuff's awesome. Well, thank you, Kayla. Yeah,
it's good to go back to the originals like those, those like timeless moments.
I also, I'll add this is not like the most important, but
I'll never forget going over to my cousins and seeing them play Doom and I
had never seen a violin before and being like, oh my god. First
of all, I didn't know these existed because my mom would never let me
get like a game where you're in hell, but also like heads on spikes
and you're shooting demons and you're going through corridors, and I was like,
this is blowing my fucking mind. And my older cousin was like, should
she even be in the room, And I'm like, oh my god,
this is puting my mind. That's exactly me with my older cousin, Matt.
He was Doom, Mortal Kombat, South Park, gave me my first
beers Like that was totally me and Matt like watching him play this. He
had a gaming PC and I never had that, and so he would show
me all the like Wolf and Stein and do. This is fuck awesome,
ruining your innocence. You gotta see this, like watch me do this fatality
and you're like, oh my god, do you squeeze their eyeballs out?
And he's like fuck yeah, And that cousin is like unbelievably cool to you
for that. Yeah, yeah, percent Yeah. I had a bunch of
those two. I was like, because my siblings for a part of my
life were not super I think they were just like afraid to get in trouble
enough where they weren't doing that kind of stuff. But then after a while
they're like fuck it. But I had cousins who did not give a ship.
M m all right, well thank you, Kayla. Yeah. As
usually, you can run into fire Escape Cast at gmail dot com with questions,
comments, reactions, do it beat criticism, which I usually just throw
right in the trash, But Mike Manatti gets a pass next time. I
next time, I can't be on this. Let's call it right now,
minates replacing me. Yeah, we can also just do uh why would why
wouldn't he replace either one of us? I specifically on so if me or
Mary are gone? Yeah, because I want what if you both were not
here and I just had Manti on. You know what, if that ever
happens, that's what's happening. But I think if either me or Mary can't
make an episode, we're getting Anati. We can also just bring him on
as a fourth I think that as president four edition. No, we've done
two, we've done three. I think three is a good number. Yeah,
we did that. We did a couple two, Well did me and
Hanson when both of you were out one time, So the only two might
have been I think so because Vinnie's been on. Three is manageable. Four
works definitely more than four gets a little Harry. Yeah. Two, you
got to have the right two people like I, someone like a Hanson or
either of you. You know, I could do a two person with and
if you find us, like one person in a hot tub is fine,
but it's like, I don't know, you're alone. There's not a lot
to talk about or do. Two people in a hot tub this is great.
There's a lot of partying going on. It could get three people in
a hot tub, all right. The water's getting pretty high. We're having
a good time. Four people. I'm on your feet. It's getting weird,
it's getting sexy and Mary, weren't me and you in a hot tub
for like six hours at Maharty's bachelor at the finances? Yeah, or like
drunk talking about the craziest thing is that like nobody's outside, Ok, this
is this is Mike Maharty's like bachelor party. Everybody's rainy, partying and having
a good time and like taking shots Daniel Frunk in a hot tub just talking
about like our retirement plans and our four oh one k's and we get like
hours talking about many hours. It was fun. I missed that I should
have come outside. It was good. Yeah, I know exactly, but
I knew where me and my fiance were. Come on, wait where we
what do you mean? Yes? Why could hear you? Oh we're laughing.
We get noise complaints here? It's uh, we're gonna we're just in
a We're on the top floor of a building. They it's either noise complaints
or they're concerned. They're like, what's happening up there? It's like,
oh, that's just pure joy. We're like, can you guys keep it
down out in there please? Dan? So you're gonna want to do a
match for at least four percent, Well, you're gonna want to put the
other five percent. You get the wroth gotta get the roths going yeah,
yeah, row row, Well the index funds, mutual funds. That's important,
you know, going there with the b O O the QQQ. The
text actor is doing great, triple Q. Dude, talk to me,
keep going, baby boy. QQQ is good. I like QQQ keep it
down in there. Oh god, what if? What's what if? That's
our first big spin off from fire Escape as a finance podcast. We're talking
we were talking about like shares vesting and just the most adult boring ship,
drunken out concision and I don't even know if it was like making sense like
a be if we heard it now would be like, that's not good advice.
Let's start a finance podcast. But we record every episode remotely, and
we're both in hot tubs and different. I want a really good fun for
the name though. Oh okay, we'll have to work on that. Bubble
bubbles. There's bubbles and it would be a hot tub term and a and
a money term, yeah, something and something. I think jets, no
jets. There's like the jets, there's the water, there's the what else
you associate with hot tubs one hundred and three degrees of I need give me
well, I just sit on marinate for a while. We have to marinate
at the end of these episodes. Yes, uh, hot tub, tip
tub, no tubs, something machine, there's something there stocks and SuDS and
ticks and I don't have money machine to know we need on next episode we
come up with the name of it'll be great, I'll get some upset that
we can't do it. I know we should be better than this. Theoretically,
very hypothetically, if one of our spinoff podcasts was just me by myself
talking about wine, how many listeners do you think it would get per episode?
I think you'd get by fifty after the novelty wears off of like for
the first episode. After two months, you'd be down to about forty.
I think it'd be more than five fifty for the first one because people will
be like morbidly curious, Yeah, what is going to bed? I might
have like a dozen It's just me, no guests and me, and I'm
frequently just stating incorrect facts that sounds great for everywhere and mispronouncing French ones.
So it's like a podcast literally for no one. The people who don't like
wine think you're pretentious. The people that do think you don't know what you're
talking about. Yep, there's someone in the middle. It's like he's all
right. Sometimes would a band I listen to it? No? Okay,
she here's it enough? When we're out, it's like too specific. It's
like such a niche that no one cares and it immediately fails. But we,
for a moment in time, are like funny. Remember when we sat
in a hot tub and talked about this talk march? Okay, okay,
wait, does this work for the name of our hot tub financing bulls?
Bears and bubbles? Yeah, that's good. Where is that too wordy?
Is that too well? Yeah? But that that would be included in the
finance both bears and bubbles m h bear market, bubble market. Maybe we'll
keep working on it. It's only two syllables more than this show. That's
true. That's true. I gotta get a hot tub. I got I
have hot tubs. It's nice. It's nice to have. I would say,
I love my freaking hot tub. My issue with it is like they're
very expensive to keep up and it becomes like a gym membership. Where it's
like that hot tub is expensive, we should get in that hot tub.
And then you know, like I love being in the hot tub, but
it's this thing that looms over me that I need to be a hot tub
because it's expensive to like all the chemicals. Also, I have a wooden
tub, which is rad It's like one of those like old like perfect circle
Japanese tubs. So it's like really fun to look at getting a bugy nights.
More maintenance, more effort. You got to sand the wood down,
you got to keep up those chemis. Everything's gotta be perfect all the time.
Hot liquidity, Oh h that's good. Hot. It's all hot.
There's something hot would be a good word for it. Hot tub. You
want market is your cash? Liquid is like an important thing? All right,
this is what our emails for. Stop complaining about me criticizing Disney dolt.
Start writing in your puns about finance based podcast. It take place in
a hot tub. Yes, remote hot tub. We're gonna crowd We're going
to crowd source our hot tub finance podcast. We will read the best tub
trading is that trading is good? Kind of sounds like top thumping that song.
And we can make the theme song a play on that. There's a
song called tub Okay, get up, Adam, the socks go up again
and then go down again and never got to keep me down? Okay,
okay, No, that's got no top thumping is the name of the song.
That's the name of the song. Is it to yeah tumble one?
Yeah? Right in. I'll have another thing. Write in your puns.
We'll read the best ones, and by that I mean all of them.
Tough traders. That's fire Escape Cast at gmail dot com. That's episode seventy
four. Episode seventy five is half weeks. What is that? There a
word for that? Yeah, it has been No, it's been fun.
Three fourth centennial. Yeah, we've been doing this for one hundred years.
Almost not long enough. Mary, tell them about merch. We have some.
We haven't updated it in a minute, but we did make a custom
T shirt of us in space, which I think is pretty cool. We
also have, just like our logo, on a variety of items, mugs,
mouse pads, beanies, beanies. There's a sweaters. We have a
crop sweater which is really cute and comes to a tiety of pastel colors.
We both wear around the apartment. The crop. I'd love to see you
in a crop sweater, Mike, everybody would. I have to pick my
spots when I work because I like the fires game. The shirts are actually
really good material. But I kind of in my head. No one's told
me to do this, but I I don't like the idea of wearing fire
Escape stuff during the week because I'm on giant bomb stuff all the time,
and I just feel like it would be weird. I'd feel like I'd be
plugging a side thing during my day job. So, like, I got
to pick my spots. I gotta be like, I want to wear this
shirt. Okay, I'm not not gonna be Okay, what are they?
So? Yeah, it's it's tough, is what I'm saying. Send me
you guys wearing photos of the T shirts. I keep them, I have
them on our Instagram. I have hot people wearing her merch. I want
more hot wearing our merch. That stuff is all you can just show me
that. You can all just go to Firescape merch dot com for most of
that. If you want Firescape in space, that's on Bonfire with the Bonfire
one. Yeah, go to Bonfire. It's on our Instagram. You could
find the link. Dan's trying to breathe in space, Mary's trying to save
him. I'm trying to cut Mary's oxygen supply. It's a good start.
It was so funny, like talking to the artist as well, and I
was like, can you actually kind of like really hammer home that Mike is
trying to murder me? And they added two lines, you know, like
animated lines a little more. Yeah, they were like, how do we
show that he's more murdery. Yeah, but it's in the eyes. But
yeah. You can also go to our Patreon. If you're not already a
member, you can just uh treat it as a tip jar donate whatever you
want. But there's also ad free audio episodes and video tier, with which
we also put bonus episodes when we get time. The Lethal Company one recently
that was great. Litle Company was great. We did a few tier lists
of candy and fast food. We should fast track another one. We should
get another one up in the next month or so. We got between hell
divers tier ideas. We got ideas for sure, we just can't find time
and record one. Heyday three literally didn't work for a few weeks, so
we couldn't do that. I mean, we could, but now held evers
two is more and another one soon. But yeah, go to Patreon.
You can just go to fire state pass dot com for that and then subscribe
you're not already, and then I think that's about it. I'll be back
in a couple of weeks. Dan, what do you have going on in
the meantime? Giant bomb dot com specifically that to catch me if you Dan
video on YouTube if you look on there, that was a fun Fargo trip.
And that said, I need to get back onto some twitch stuff.
It's been very, very busy at the beginning of the year. But Twitch,
Dan Reichert is where I'm at there. I'd like to get on there
soon. Mary, what about you just twitch for now? That's where you
can find me and I post on Instagram. I feel like I've completely abandoned
Twitter. The same Instagram for me too great. And then one last thing,
speaking of I guess Mary and I playing games together or watching someone play
games. Yeah, if you're not subscribed to ary YouTube channel, go to
Firescape cast on YouTube. Mary and I are putting our Canevil episodes there.
Long running show, I think sixteenth seventeenth season. There are a lot of
Residentevil games. There's a lot of Resident Evil games, and I've enjoyed them.
It's been a joy to do them. So yeah, we don't have
a schedule for that. We do that literally whenever we can find time,
which is not often these days. But yeah, we're what'd you just do?
You just you got through the caves below the castle. Now you killed
a regenerator? Yeah, I haven't. So there were the last big boss
fight where those two giant guys that can't Oh, you fought the giants and
one didn't. And I didn't know that I could have them fall into the
lava. You know you did, but you didn't know you had to hold
the button, so you kept tapping in Leon's like no, not now,
and then Louise is like, what the fuck are you doing? But anyway,
that's on our YouTube panel. Go go go follow that after you haven't
already. All right, we will be back in a couple of weeks.
Thanks as always for joining us. We love you, some of you.
We'll see you. I'll see you an episode seventy five. You know who
you are? Yeah, you know, if you have to, if you
have to ask, probably aren't wig Okay, bye,