Dear Santa, Godzilla Advent Calendar, & Luxor Evolved
About This Episode
We watch the new Netflix holiday movie starring Jack Black, check out a monstrously fun way to count down the days until Christmas, and try out a post-apocalyptic 3D platformer where you play as an inquisitive robot exploring the ruins of a civilization.
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Show Notes
- Jon’s Atari Super Pocket Review » youtu.be/jPYyTTxnwXw
- Atari Super Pocket » www.amazon.com/dp/B0DBLMM94B?tag=genxgrownup-20
- Gladiator II » youtu.be/4rgYUipGJNo?si=5tsvipdF-pZYVg0n
- Dear Santa » youtu.be/3n1GUmAhoTs?si=NafpS4V_rpG1G58p
- The Stanford Prison Experiment » youtu.be/igUQwX6vZRU?si=qNBX3wwnGC7Rl8oH
- Trivial Pursuit Totally ’80s » www.amazon.com/dp/B000BNJITU?tag=genxgrownup-20 (affiliate)
- Luxor Evolved » store.steampowered.com/app/205830/Luxor_Evolved/
- BREAKER: INITIATING » store.steampowered.com/app/3012360/BREAKER_INITIATING & Sir Whoopass
- Marvel Rivals » www.marvelrivals.com/
- Secret Level » youtu.be/SvY9Uq7I30Y?si=MwXz8yBuFDwdE692
- Squid Games Season 2 » youtu.be/Ed1sGgHUo88?si=Nx7NoRnLALDqhnVU
- Email the show » podcast@genxgrownup.com
- Visit us on YouTube » GenXGrownUp.com/yt
Transcript
Speaker | Transcript |
Jon | Welcome back Gen X Grown-Up Podcast listeners to this episode 181 of the Gen X Grown-Up Podcast. |
Jon | I am John, joining me as always, of course, is George. Hey man. |
George | Hey, how’s it going, guys? |
Jon | Of course you know that Moe is here. Hey Moe. |
Mo | Yay, everybody. |
Jon | In this episode, we watch the new Netflix holiday movie starring Jack Black. Check out a monstrously funny way to count down the days until Christmas, and try out a post-apocalyptic 3D platformer where you play as it is. It’s a lot. |
Jon | and try out a post-apocalyptic 3D platformer where you play as an inquisitive robot exploring the ruins of a civilization. We’re getting into those topics and many more in this episode, but first, it is time for some fourth listener email. |
Jon | We have three of us here, we might listen. If anybody else does and choose to tell us about it, you are our fourth listener. And this episode, that is Josh L. And his email subject was Liberator, okay? |
Mo | yeah Okay. |
George | All right. |
Jon | Let’s see what Josh has to say. Hey guys, recently discovered Hey guys, recently discovered y’all and I’m loving the content so far. Well, hang in there, you’ll’ll you’ll grow to hate it soon, just stick with it. |
George | Yeah, it won’t take you long. |
Jon | He says, I’m a late gen Xer who was born early enough to have had my first console experiences on the 2600, but who was primarily weaned on the in NES. |
George | Hmm. |
Jon | And now in my mid 40s, I’m trying to return to the roots and invest in all the Atari stuff I barely missed out on. |
Mo | see Yeah. |
Jon | well What a time to be doing it, right? Holy crap. |
George | Yeah, I mean, he’s got plenty of options now. |
Mo | That’s for sure. |
Jon | No kidding. No kidding. He says this began when I installed an Atari classics game pack on my kids Nintendo switch and began keeping track of which games I’d want to seed my collection with whenever I get around to buying one of the re released Atari consoles. |
Mo | Okay. |
Jon | Yeah, take your pick like Atari’s done the 2600 plus of the 100 plus the game station pro from my arcade the all the stuff from retro games limited credit Jesus. |
Mo | Mm hmm. |
Jon | yeah |
George | Well, and it’s good that he’s leaving from the switch, which some articles I’ve been reading lately for bit by bit have talked about how bad emulation is on the switch for the older systems. |
Jon | Mm hmm. |
Jon | Is that right? |
Mo | o |
Jon | Really? |
George | Yeah, I guess the software stuff is really laggy and whatnot, but ah moving into the consoles might give him a better experience, which is nice. |
Jon | Huh. |
Jon | Ah, yeah good point. Good point. ah He goes on to say, unfortunately, near the top of my list is a game that’s apparently not impossible to play anywhere anymore. Atari Force Liberator. |
Mo | I don’t know that one. |
Jon | You guys know this one? Yeah, yeah. |
Mo | I don’t i don’t know this one. |
Jon | I know you’ve seen it at least once Mo. We saw it together at a show, but it’s easy to, you could have forgotten. |
Mo | and Okay. |
Jon | So anyway, I’ve since caught up on the history of that game and it completely dismayed to learn about its failure in the market. I’m just curious for you guys opinions on the game, its history and what you think about the prospects of Atari ever trying to capitalize on its rarity status by converting it to a cartridge for the 2,600 plus, 700 plus consoles, et cetera. |
Mo | this is |
Mo | Hmm. |
Jon | Thanks for your time guys, Josh L. So, ah yeah, it is fairly rare. |
Mo | Yeah, where does this game? Okay. |
Jon | Right. And Mo, you and I, I don’t know why George was there at that time we were at a, it might have been a free play Florida one year and they had the cabinet, and I thought it was a fan made cabinet because I’d never seen it before. |
Mo | Okay. |
Jon | It is her Atari force was the comic book that would come in a lot of cut Yeah, yeah, well, this is called Liberator, and it’s kind of like a |
Mo | Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah. |
George | Right. |
Jon | Kind of like a, it’s li very missile commandee in a way that like you you have to you know do explosions that will intercept things. But as as the missiles come in, then it zooms in on the planet. |
Mo | okay |
Jon | And then you got to like bomb things on the planet that are shooting. |
Mo | Okay. |
Jon | It’s a pretty creative game. |
George | So so it’s a cabinet, not a 2600 cart, because he’s talking about 2600. |
Jon | It is a cabinet, right? He was saying it’d be nice if they converted it to a cartridge. |
George | Oh, |
Jon | ah So it wouldn’t be a re-release. |
Mo | ah Okay. |
Jon | It would be porting the game to something else. |
Mo | Got it. |
George | Yeah, that would be a whole port thing. you That’s going to have to go through like the through the amateur ranks. |
Mo | Yeah, unlikely. |
Jon | I know, yep. |
George | Atari’s not going to put in time on something like that, I wouldn’t think. |
Jon | They may not. You know, they’ve been drafting a lot of homebrew authors to write stuff lately by Bob DiCresenzo and ah but John Champeau have done some stuff for them, but I wanted to tell Josh that he’s not out of luck. |
Jon | You guys remember the Atari, the super pocket that came out, the one that had Takes Evercade cartridges in the back that I did, the like got the wood grain one? |
Mo | Oh, yeah, yeah. |
George | You’re right, yeah. |
Mo | Yep, yep. |
Jon | Liberator is featured on that handheld. |
Mo | Oh, huh. |
George | Oh, okay. |
Jon | Yeah, so it is getting some love. It’s not forgotten by Atari. It was included on that thing. Now, this game was played with a track ball, and this does not have a track ball. You have to use the D-pad to navigate. but ah So good news, Josh. |
Jon | I’m going to give Mo a couple of links, both to my review of the Super Pocket to take a look at. |
Mo | Yeah. |
Jon | We’re actually a Play Liberator and call it out, as well as a link to where you go go and pick up ah a Atari Super Pocket from Amazon if you decide you like it. ah but It is really cool. |
Jon | If you guys haven’t tried it, Josh is right. It’s really neat. It’s it’s an evolution of missile command in all the good ways. So that’s Liberator. |
Mo | Oh, OK. Cool. |
Jon | ah Josh, thank you for taking the time to write in. Let us know what you think of the show and remind us about Liberator. It it deserves some more love and you’re right. The fourth listener, if you would like your email feature here on the show, like we did, Josh’s, it’s drop dead easy. |
Jon | Just hit us up at podcast at Gen X grown up dot com, where we read every single one and most of them will eventually make this show. And before we jump into the body of the show, another Apple podcast review came in that I wanted to share with you. |
Mo | Oh, wow. |
Jon | Yeah, it’s been a little while. |
Mo | Huh. |
Jon | ah But this one is certainly worth taking a look at. |
Mo | Yeah. |
Mo | Okay. |
Jon | So this is from Vancouver, Tony. |
Mo | Okay. |
Jon | Five star review on Apple podcast. The subject was |
Mo | Good good start. |
Jon | best podcast about the past to listen to while high. |
Mo | Okay. |
Jon | So I’m going to assume that Vancouver Tony wrote this while he was chemically enhanced. I’m hoping so. Good for you, Tony. So here is what his review says. I am a high AF right now. |
Jon | And always listening to this podcast, John Moe and the other guy are the best hosts. |
George | Okay. |
George | Oh, fuck off. |
Mo | Oh. |
George | That’s the end of this goddamn segment. Let’s move on. |
Jon | No, there’s more! Their energy is infectious, their banter is hilarious, and their vibe is the best. After episode one, I subscribed, and you should too. You’ll thank them for it. Highly recommend to listen to while smoking your weed. |
Mo | Is that something you should make a new slogan or. |
George | I mean, |
George | It might open us up to a whole new market, I don’t know. |
Mo | i Hey. |
Jon | It might. I haven’t tried it, but may I’ll give it a shot. Maybe it’s a whole new, whole new show to hear. Tony Vancouver, Tony, I’m assuming Tony’s a real to thank you for taking the time to drop us a review. He’s been very engaged over in on the YouTube channel. He’s been started listening to the podcast and I’ve even seen, I think he’s a recent Patreon edition even. ah Yeah, I think so. I think that’s right. So Tony, thank you so much. ah Leaving there those reviews can be a pain in the butt, but it really does help people find this show. Okay. |
Jon | Now, with all of that good business in the rearview mirror, let’s jump into the body of episode 181 after this quick break. |
Jon | Here we go, starting the show off as we like to do, talking about media we have been enjoying recently. Now, of course, this could be music or film or television or comics or books or whatever you have been enjoying. And we’ll start with you, Mo. |
Jon | What have you been checking out? |
Mo | Sure. Uh, went to the theater and saw yet another sequel. Um, that’s out there. |
Jon | Mm. |
Mo | Gladiator two. |
Jon | Okay. |
George | Oh. |
Mo | Yeah. |
Jon | Oh. |
Mo | So I went in with very low expectations because it’s a sequel, right? I i enjoyed the first move. I thought Gladiator was a really good movie. |
George | A sequel of a story that had a perfect ending and didn’t really need a sequel. |
Mo | Exactly. ah Yeah. |
George | Yeah. |
Mo | you You took the words out of my mouth, George. just That’s exactly what I was saying. There was no reason to do the sequel. Now, as far as a movie, it’s a good movie. I enjoyed seeing it. I enjoyed watching it. Probably won’t watch it again, but it was worth the first watch. |
George | OK. |
Mo | You know what I mean? Like I but didn’t go there thinking, Oh my God, this sucked. No, it was a fun story. It is a direct sequel. Some of the same characters from Gladiator in this one. Um, and basically it’s his son, |
Mo | He gets made into a slave, and it’s a long story, but he gets slave anyway. He winds up being a glad eater. Okay, let’s just cut to the chase here. |
George | The, the former, so the former gladiator, the general who got turned into a gladiator slave, he’s his son or okay. |
Mo | His son. Yes, ru Russell Crowe’s son. so |
George | Gotcha. |
Mo | Um, but they had some cool fight scenes. Uh, you know, of course, cause it’s gladiator, you know, um, they cause you know, really Scott directed it and, uh, I won’t, I won’t spoil it by telling you what the scene is, but there’s one scene in there that’s like little unbelievable. |
Mo | I’ll say very, very little unbelievable. |
Jon | Mm. OK. |
Mo | And somebody commented, Oh my God. He says, this thing was so unbelievable. I’m questioning whether alien happened. Yeah. |
Mo | oh but um But it was a fun movie. It was entertaining. it was i mean Denzel Washington’s in it. ah Great acting all around. It was a fine movie. just I’m not sure why they need to make a sequel. |
Jon | Do you think this is literally a sequel for a Gladiator film that they just bolted onto the Gladiator franchise? By which I mean, as George said, there was no need for a second Gladiator. |
Mo | Mm-hmm. |
Jon | We didn’t need that. Could this have just been a new movie called Arena or something that wasn’t in the Gladiator universe? Or did it depend upon its connections back to the original to make it a good film? |
Mo | you know I’m thinking like I’m thinking about the whole movie and then how it ended and all that stuff and if this was a separate movie I think it could have ended almost exactly the same um the yeah I’m trying to think is there anything that’d be like oh this would be very different I mean yeah for the most part it could have been yeah yeah they said I think it’s just they they bolted on it because they wanted to ah |
Jon | Mm-hmm. |
Jon | There you go. |
George | Mm. |
Jon | Yeah, so leveraging the name pretty much. |
Jon | Mm-hmm. |
Mo | You know, like you said, capitalize on the franchise, I’m sure, which, well, it wasn’t a franchise. |
Jon | Right. |
Mo | Now it is. |
Jon | and Now it is, unfortunately, right? |
Mo | Um, and they said it was, and it was a fine movie. Like it, you know, if you have the free thing, I’d definitely go see it. It’s totally worth the time. Like you don’t feel like you wasted your time or anything. It was a fun movie. |
Mo | It was just, uh, they said I, it was fine. You know, what can I say about it? |
Jon | This is a rousing endorsement. |
Mo | I know it was fine. It was good. Like you said, so how about you, John? What have you been watching? |
Jon | So I ah umm think I might have talked about this and looking forward, if not, there I should have been. But ah the new film on I think it’s on Netflix. No, no, it’s not on Netflix. It’s streaming. I’ll give you a link to the just watch page where you can find out where it’s tradinging it’s like on Apple and Voodoo. |
Mo | Okay. |
Jon | I don’t know some other places. Anyway, Jack Black stars in Dear Santa. perfect timing for the holidays. ah So the premise of this movie is interesting. |
Jon | The trailer was captivating. So there’s a little kid who ah his parents are kind of fighting a lot and he has a little bit of a rough child, they’re not abused or anything. Just his parents are at odds and not paying a lot of attention to him. |
Jon | So he has his friends in his own little fantasy world. And so he writes his letter to Santa Claus, but he is dyslexic. |
Mo | so |
Jon | So when he writes Dear Santa, he writes it Dear Satan. And because of the magic of how letters make it to the North Pole, or however, that letter in the Santa box, you have this animation where it doesn’t go to the North Pole, it goes down underground and it goes to Satan. |
George | Oh. |
Jon | So here, received and Jack Black in horns and red leather costume and brimstone and fire shows up in the kid’s closet and says, here I am, dude. |
Mo | No, good Lord. |
Jon | I’m ready to grant your three wishes. He’s like three wishes. |
Mo | What’s. |
Jon | That’s what genies do. He said, Hey, genie stole that from me. |
Jon | But the deal is with, so he accidentally has summoned Satan and Satan is in the business of taking people’s souls in exchange for delivering something to them. |
Mo | Yeah. |
Jon | And so the way it works in this universe is that you get three wishes and once and only once all three wishes have been granted, then he gets your soul. |
Mo | Hmm. |
Mo | okay |
Jon | So first wish right away it works proves all this magic is real. |
George | Mmm. |
Jon | Then the second wish comes through and it starts to get hectic and not exactly what we thought. And so the kid figures, well, I could just pump the brakes now and not get my third wish. And so most of the movie revolves around Satan, AKA Jack Black, trying to convince this kid to go ahead and do his third wish so that he will finally finish the deal and he can move on. |
Mo | Okay. Right. |
Jon | But the kid is getting smart. He’s a smart kid. And he’s like, no, I’m not going to do that. What you won’t expect in this movie up Maybe you will. I didn’t. Is that there’s actually a little twist in the third act that I didn’t see coming. |
Mo | Oh. |
Jon | This didn’t need a twist. Let me say this. It did need a twist because it’s a pretty light movie. So having a twist makes it a better film. I never expected it in a movie like this because it almost writes itself. |
Jon | OK, joke here, joke here. He’s Santa. This gets in trouble. |
Mo | OK. |
Jon | He’s Satan, you know. ah But it turns out it’s a decently written, directed and produced film. Jack Black is tremendous. but he’s really the only tremendous actor in this movie. |
Mo | okay |
Jon | The child actors are okay. and know they They’re not like on Stranger Things, caliber child actors. You can tell they’re acting, they’re not true. |
Mo | Okay. |
Jon | you know they’re they’re new They’re new at it, but it’s entertaining. So dear Santa is actually dear Satan. So if you go and check it out, you’ll know that it’s confused identity. |
Jon | it wasn’t He wasn’t what he was thought he was getting into, but The juxtaposition with Santa and the holidays and goodwill and how they have the twist at the end makes it definitely worth watching. |
Mo | Okay. |
Jon | Is it a holiday movie? Yeah, I don’t know, maybe not necessarily, but it’s fun to see. |
Mo | Okay. |
Jon | All right, that’s what I have. So George, how about you? What have you been watching? |
George | Yeah, I picked out a documentary. Um, I forgot where it’s airing. Go search the public domain and find it. I’m sure, but, uh, it’s on a subject matter that I’ve always been kind of like moderately fascinated by. |
George | but have never done any real in-depth research or digging into just because it happened the year I was born, 1971, and the documentary to quit burying the lead is the Stanford Prison Experiment. |
Mo | Oh. |
George | so Yeah, so you know the real Stanford Prison Experiment that happened in 1971, this is a documentary all about ah that experience. |
Mo | Mm hmm. |
George | Now there’s been plenty of dramatizations of that event. |
Mo | Yeah. |
George | It’s been um you know like represented in other like drama TV shows. There’s even one of my favorites, Castle, has an episode where these kids are escaping a Stanford Prison-like experience and one of them gets killed and that becomes the murder for the show that day. |
Jon | Mm-hmm. |
George | um But in this case, the unique thing on the documentary, for the first time in, what is that, 50 years? |
Mo | Yeah, |
George | Over 50 years now? |
Mo | 53. |
George | Yeah. ah You’re actually getting to talk to the participants of the experiment. |
Mo | Oh. |
George | Not just Phil Zimbardo, the guy who, quote, ran the experiment, but the actual prison guards, the actual prisoners, |
Mo | Right. |
George | And there are a few other people who in the last decade or so have done some tremendous work to bring to light what really truly happened in the Stanford prison experience. |
Mo | Okay. |
George | And those of us with a and just kind of a glossed overview of that thing based on reporting in the news media and other outlets might have an idea. |
George | Trust me, we were wrong. |
Mo | Oh. Okay. |
Jon | As you started talking about this, I’m thinking, Oh, I’ve seen this documentary, but then you start talking about people that they’re interviewing now. Is this a new documentary on this recent? |
George | No, this is a new documentary. You have not seen this. This just came out. |
Mo | Oh. |
Jon | Oh, that’s cool. |
George | Yeah. |
Jon | Yeah. Cause I’m like, Oh, I’ve seen this before. You know, maybe George finally came across this cause he was researching it, but I remember watching the documentary about it and it’s, it, |
George | You’ve watched a documentary about it. |
Jon | but A documentary. That’s youre right. And it did leave lots of questions unanswered because it was too fresh. |
George | Mm hmm. |
Jon | Maybe maybe the people didn’t want to talk and they couldn’t get access to them. Or maybe it was pre-internet even. I don’t know. Now you’ve got me intrigued. Oh, damn. |
Mo | Yeah. I mean, I’ve listened to a bunch of like podcasts about this thing. Cause this is the whole prisoner one where they make half the students a prisoner. Some are prison or prison guards and there’s abuse and stuff, but I’m going to go over more, but that’s basically, that’s, that’s the experiment. |
George | Yeah, yeah, this is. |
Jon | Hmm. |
Mo | Right. Um, and so yeah, I always, you know, every time I’ve listened to something about it, they always talk about like, I don’t know. |
George | Yeah. |
Mo | It’s, it’s almost like they talk about like at a, so like at a 10,000 foot level, like I haven’t literally heard anything that really gets down to the sea level. |
Jon | Mm hmm. |
George | So there’s. Yeah, there’s a specific reason for that. |
Mo | Here’s what happened. |
Jon | Oh, really? |
George | So I’m just going to lay it out on front street. |
Mo | Oh, okay. |
George | Go watch the documentary because nothing I say here is going to spoil it in a way that you wouldn’t want to watch it or shouldn’t watch it. |
Mo | Okay. |
Jon | Right, yeah. |
George | ah Phil Zimbardo, the guy who ran the prison experiment at Stanford, um he has been the lone voice of that experiment throughout the last 50 years. |
George | Now he recently just passed away right before this documentary was released. |
Jon | Mm. |
Mo | Oh. |
George | However he did participate slightly in this documentary, albeit I don’t think it’s going to hold the legacy that he would like. |
Mo | Okay. |
George | Essentially Everything we were led to believe about this is that these this group of students and people were chosen to be in in this experiment, half prisoners, half guards, and over the six day period of the experiment, the guards got really evil and started treating the prisoners really like shit, and the prisoners really lost their goddamn minds, and some of them you know went insane and all this. |
Mo | Mm hmm. |
Jon | Oh, yeah. |
Mo | Yeah. |
George | All of that is bullshit. |
Mo | Oh. |
Jon | What? |
George | 100% bullshit. It did only last six days. The guards were actually brought in a day before the experiment started and given rules and directives of how to behave, which is something that Zimbardo in every news interview from 74 all the way through to his death claimed never happened. |
Mo | Oh. |
Jon | Interesting. |
George | So how do we know this happened? Well, There’s this researcher in France on behavioral human studies who managed to gather up all of the original documentation of the experiment itself, papers, notes from Zimbardo himself, the original film files that were recorded of the actual experiment, which by the way, took six days. |
Jon | Oh. |
Mo | Nice. Yeah. |
George | There’s only nine hours worth of actual footage. |
Mo | Oh, geez. |
Jon | Really? |
George | because Zimbardo planned on which scenes to film ahead of time. |
Mo | Uh, |
George | What it lays out throughout this documentary is Zimbardo had an agenda, not an idea. He wanted to show how human beings could be evil. |
Jon | oh Okay. |
George | You might know he’s written some books and they talk about the innate evil, one that he wrote after the Abu Ghraib scandals over in Afghanistan called the Lucifer effect was also rooted heavily in his Stanford prison experiment experiences. |
Jon | Mm hmm. |
George | But he has done this whole thing this entire time in service to his own celebrity. |
Mo | Interesting. |
Mo | Okay. |
George | From day one, his entire goal was to get popular and famous and rich based off of this experiment. |
Jon | Wha? |
George | The prison guards were all coached and coerced and told what to do. The prisoners never went insane. One of them just didn’t want to be there anymore. So had to yell and scream a little bit because they were told, Hey, all you have to do if you want to be led out of the experiments, just tell us and we’ll let you out. |
George | And Zimbardo, of course, reneged on that and tried to keep him in there. |
Mo | Didn’t. |
Jon | ah |
George | He’s like, no, fuck you. |
Jon | Yeah. |
George | I’m a yell and scream and everything. All of the humiliation tactics that happened were all pre-arranged and coordinated |
Mo | Interesting. Okay. |
George | This guy was, at least in my opinion, now, after watching this documentary and seeing the evidence that they presented, he definitely comes across as a narcissistic personality, very much in the same vein as some other people that are very popular and well known right now. |
George | And he controlled and manipulated these situations for his own devices, not to have an actual science experiment, |
Jon | Hmm. |
Mo | Wow. |
George | but to just drive forth a theory that he believed in and to get famous from it. |
Jon | So this is, I thought it was gonna be like a retelling of the story. There’s a whole nother story that we didn’t know. |
Mo | Yeah. Yeah. |
Jon | Holy |
Mo | Oh, this is gonna be good. |
George | Yeah. And you see all the prisoners, all the guards, well, not all of them. It’s like six or seven of each side throughout the whole thing. |
Mo | Okay. |
Jon | Wow. |
George | Uh, they go back and they have to recreate scenes from the experiment because they weren’t filmed. So they build this whole set on studio and they bring the original participants into the set to show it to them, to get out this history. |
Jon | Yeah. |
George | And they help coach the actors as to what really happened. |
Mo | Oh, wow. OK. |
George | So it’s, it’s really well done. |
Jon | Must watch. |
Mo | Yeah. |
George | The guy who deserves 90% of the credit is that French researcher. And he’s heavily, uh, used in the documentary because he’s the one who basically kind of blew the lid on the whole thing. |
George | It’s not a holiday movie. This is not anything to do with Christmas, but it was a present for me. |
Mo | to kick off Tekken toys today. So John, I’m let you do it because you have something that’s kind of related to your gift guide, right? |
Jon | Mm hmm. A little bit, I guess somewhat. Yeah. So um We had a backtrack that we did back in November of, I think it was 23, all about trivial pursuit. |
Mo | Yes. |
Jon | You guys remember that? Yeah. |
Mo | Oh, yeah. |
Jon | And in that at the last segment of that episode, we were running through the legacy of Trivial Pursuit and all the special editions that are out there. |
George | Mm hmm. |
Mo | All right. |
Jon | And I was super excited to learn that there was an 80s version of Trivial Pursuit. |
George | ah |
Jon | And what I learned about it, was like at the time I’m like, I got to get this. I even joked I got to run to Amazon. |
Mo | Yeah. |
Jon | Well, I did put it in my cart in Amazon, but didn’t follow through at the time. But there was always in the back of my head, it was something I wanted. um The reasons were first, obviously, the questions are 80s based. |
Jon | And I think I’ve even looked at, but I think you said in I was really listening to the episode, George, and you said like one of the categories was stranger things even. And we didn’t know was that about the show or is that the wildcard it didn’t matter. |
George | Oh, wow. |
Jon | It was all interesting. |
George | Right. |
Jon | So and the other thing was neat about it is that the pieces are 80s iconography. There’s like a Care Bear and a a Trapper Keeper and a CD that are on little pedestals and you put the pie pieces like around the pedestal instead of on the top of a flat disc. |
Mo | Nice. Oh, OK, OK. |
Jon | So everything about it just screamed 80s. |
Mo | Nice. |
Jon | Hadn’t thought about it in about a year, but I was at Goodwill. And I’m like, oh my God, here is Truvial Pursuit totally 80s. |
Mo | Oh, they had one. |
Jon | and I looked and they wanted $1.50 for it. I’m like, well, let’s find out what condition it’s in. |
George | Oh, right. |
Mo | Yeah. |
Jon | So I opened the box. It looked like it was untouched. The board, you know, you open up the board, it’s like it crackles because it had never been uncreased. |
Mo | cre Yeah, that creaky, yeah. |
Jon | Yep. The pieces were still in the shrink wrap in the plastic, had never even popped out of the bubble. |
George | Oh, wow. |
Mo | So was never played. Holy cow. |
Jon | And it was a day, a deal day. So that $1.50, it was half off. So only 75 cents. but there were no questions in the box. |
Mo | oh Oh. |
George | Oh no, they just kept the cards for themselves and didn’t give her about the box or the border. or the piece Oh, the heart is gone. |
Jon | That’s right. |
Mo | Oh, but you could get the cards. |
Jon | So, so that let me finish my story mode. |
Mo | But can’t you get the cards? Like you can buy this that pack, right? Okay, okay. |
Jon | Don’t get ahead of me. |
Mo | All right, I’m just just just trying to find the rainbow here. |
Jon | So for 75 cents, I got this, you’re right. Of course, the 75 cents, I got this almost perfect copy of the trivial pursuit, totally eighties. |
Mo | Wow. |
Jon | So I started looking for cards. I’m like, well, how do I do? And I start, you browse and you look go online. Look, somebody had a set on Etsy delivers going to be like $45. I’m like, are you kidding me? |
Mo | Ooh, jeez. |
Jon | I can’t possibly. |
Mo | Yeah, that’s crazy. |
Jon | So I kept looking, kept looking. I finally found someone that had a used copy on eBay, the whole box, not pristine, but that questions were in there. |
Mo | Okay. |
George | Nice. |
Jon | $20. |
Mo | Okay, okay. |
George | There you go. |
Jon | Snap that thing up. I’ve taken and now merged the two sets. I have double the pieces, double the pie wedges, one full set of cards, two boards in good shape. This is coming with me to SFGE. |
Jon | In 2025, we have got to play some 80s, totally 80s trivial pursuit. |
George | Oh, that’ll be fun. |
Mo | Absolutely. |
George | Yeah. 100%. |
Mo | Wow. |
Jon | It was a followup on something we talked about over a year ago. |
Mo | Nice. |
Jon | And I finally, finally got this toy in my possession and we can all share it the next time we get together. |
Mo | Nice. |
Jon | So that’s my anecdote for tech and toys that I wanted to share with you. |
Mo | Okay. |
Jon | Mo, back to you. What do you got? |
Mo | So on our discord channel, genics.com slash discord, somebody, uh, I know I learned from, I learned from the best. |
Jon | Nice plug. Beautiful. |
George | Everybody’s getting good at my little spits there. |
Jon | Yeah, if we copy the master. We learn. |
Mo | So there’s a couple of things that people mention or show me certain things. I’m going to buy it. I don’t, I’m just stupid that way. And one of the things is Godzilla related. |
Jon | Mm hmm. |
Mo | miscellaneous. |
George | Sure. |
Mo | Let’s just call it that. This is random Godzilla things. |
George | sure |
Mo | So on our discord, somebody tagged me on this. |
Jon | whatever Whatever. |
Mo | um I’m not going to talk about the person yet. You’ll see why in a second. And they said there was a Godzilla advent calendar. |
George | Ah. |
Jon | Aha. Yep. |
Mo | Clicked it, click the link, bought it. Didn’t even go anymore. |
George | he |
Mo | Didn’t dig into any further. |
Jon | I was about to ask how long you thought about it. |
George | Three words, that’s all you needed. |
Mo | I didn’t even there was no thought at all in this process at all. |
Jon | Yeah. Mm hmm. |
Mo | I just bought that thing. um It came in. ah So we’re recording this early December. It came in like a week ago. It’s OK. So I opened it and I said, I’m the way to the first, you know, do them right. |
Mo | um open Opens it up and the little cubey thing, the little space was empty. So I found out now. |
Jon | what |
Mo | So what happened was that I guess it’s it’s It’s basically just a piece of crap. Let me just not bury the lead here. |
Jon | Oh no, oh no, oh no. |
George | Oh. |
Mo | Because all the pieces, because the way the box and the stuff was so badly shaped, that all the pieces kind of fell to the bottom of the box that were in there. |
George | Oh, so you don’t get anything till the 25th. |
Mo | um Yeah, so I said, so I said, fuck this, I opened it. |
George | Just. |
Jon | but ah Merry Christmas, here’s a pile of Godzilla shit. |
Mo | Yeah, I opened it and like I just took them all out. Um, and it had like some, so a couple cute, like Godzilla figures, like, you know, like maybe inch and a half tall, you know, two inch Godzilla had a bunch, like had maybe eight or nine of those, but most of them were like these plastic cutouts of Godzilla and monsters. |
George | Right. |
George | Oh. |
Mo | they were c color They were colored and everything, but they they still had like that paper protection thing on them. |
Jon | Really? Uh huh. |
George | Mm. |
Mo | So I went through and kind of started pulling those things off. But that was like a majority of the stuff that was in there, which I’m like, okay, these are like a penny a piece at best. You know, I don’t remember how much I spent. I’m not looking at it because I know it’ll just upset me. |
Mo | So, but I’m thinking like, what a missed opportunity. That was the thing that got me the most. |
Jon | Oh, I was gonna ask you how much you spent, but I’m not gonna ask you. I’m not gonna ask you. |
Mo | Yeah, please don’t say I spent too much. |
Jon | If you have blocked it out, I don’t want you to research. That’s fine. |
George | he |
Jon | But I do wanna know who recommended it to you. |
Mo | You have to we look on Discord and see I’m not I’m not going to call him out in here. |
George | There you go. |
Jon | the dig it up is You’re not gonna blow them up here? |
Mo | I’m not going to blow him up here and he and for a person. |
Jon | Okay. |
George | No, that’s right. It drives more people to discord. John, leave them alone. |
Jon | Okay. |
George | Damn. |
Jon | So I’m gonna have to go to Discord to search for Godzilla Advent and figure out who did this and then stand up for your honor, defend you. |
Mo | Yes. Now I have no ill will toward that person at all. You know, if, if I ran across this randomly, I would have bought it just the same, you know, it, it, it doesn’t really matter. |
George | Yet. ah |
Mo | But it was like peace. It was pretty crappy. The, uh, yeah. |
George | So I don’t understand one thing Mo, cause I know you love Godzilla. |
Mo | Hmm. |
George | You’re huge Godzilla. I enjoy Godzilla, but you are like dedicated super fan. |
Mo | Yeah. I’m a big fan. Yeah. |
George | You bought this advent calendar, basically sight unseen three words, click, click done. |
Mo | Pretty much. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. |
George | How with what John and I know of your current financial situation and I’m going to call her your sugar mama, but |
Mo | e |
George | How have you not for a Christmas present thought about buying the stern Godzilla pinball machine? |
Jon | Oh, right where you open you open up the last little piece and there’s a key to the pinball machine suddenly fixed. |
George | That would, you could stick that advent calendar up on there and you might like it again. |
Mo | Now, if that was on the 25th day, I would have been very happy. A pinball machine. |
Mo | Yeah. |
George | There you go. |
Mo | And also, I probably built it up too much in my head. In my head, I was thinking, you know what would be cool? It’s like you open this up and by the time you’re done, it’s a whole Godzilla scene. |
Jon | Mm hmm. |
George | Right. |
Mo | That was in my head. |
Jon | That’s what it ought to be. Yeah. Like Lego does. |
Mo | Like a Lego thing. |
Jon | Right. |
Mo | Or a couple small scenes or something like that where you kind of put it all together and you have a thing. |
George | Yeah, like if you got a few Lego pieces in each one, but you didn’t know what the final product was going to be. |
Mo | Yeah, exactly. You know, but they did. And it was just it. Yeah, it probably costs them. If it costs them more than a dollar to produce this, I’d be shocked. |
Jon | They were robbed. |
George | Hmm. |
Mo | But it is what it is. You know, I’m not going to get it next year, but it happened. |
Jon | Yeah. |
Mo | But, you know, that’s OK. |
Jon | That’s too bad. Sorry to hear that. |
Mo | I mean, and if something comes up next year, I’ll probably do it again. So I am. |
Jon | You’re a sucker. We’ll find another way to to to Bilkmo out of some Godzilla money. It’s not tough. |
Mo | There you go. |
Jon | We’re great. |
Mo | Get out there. |
Jon | That was awesome. |
Mo | Mm hmm. |
Jon | That was great. |
George | I really want you to buy the pinball machine and then I want you to love it so much you want to buy one for me. |
Jon | We we can just make anything interesting, can’t we? |
Mo | It gets a pimple is it is a nice pimple machine. |
Jon | Well, what? oh There’s one in town. |
George | I love that. It’s a good fucking pinball machine. |
Jon | It is. |
George | It’s one of my favorite stern pinballs. |
Mo | Yeah. |
Jon | Yeah. And there are kind of the John Wick versions. There’s one that’s in black and white. |
Mo | Yeah, the minus one, yeah, minus minus color one. |
George | Yeah, yeah, it’s yeah, they do pro and hand they do like different levels for stern, but yeah. |
Jon | Yeah, this yeah special edition. Mm hmm. Yeah, it’s gorgeous. |
George | Yeah, the black and white’s the one I get to play. My son has a job there now at flipping grade. So yeah, it just started last week. |
Jon | Oh, really? |
Mo | Oh nice! |
Jon | Yeah. |
George | I’m still hyped up and buzzed over the pinball talk in the last segment. So let’s jump into games with this one. |
Jon | okay |
George | Mo doesn’t have anything here, so John, let’s start with you. What have you been playing? |
Jon | Yeah. Oh yeah. ah Now you guys probably have heard of this game, probably even played it. If you think back, do you remember, I think I first played it on like Xbox live arcade on the Xbox 360. It was one of the first five or 10 games that came out on when live arcade was a thing and you could download games called Luxor. |
Mo | Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. |
Jon | And it was like these balls are making their way from an entrance to an exit and you have to match balls by shooting them at the collection to pop the balls, ah like match three and they go away kind of thing. |
Mo | Yeah. |
Jon | No, Mo remembers it. George, not so much. |
George | Maybe I’d have to see a visual probably. |
Mo | Yeah, it was a phone. |
Jon | Okay. |
Mo | It was a phone game, I think, too. Yeah, it was a phone game. |
Jon | I’m sure with the phone too. |
Mo | Yeah, it was on the phone. |
Jon | Yeah. It was around the time of peggle, like Luxor and peggle were both a thing around the same time. |
Mo | Oh, OK. |
George | Oh, oh, okay. |
Mo | Oh, I. Oh, man. I love Peggy. |
George | I know what you’re talking about now. |
Mo | Wow. forgot Forgot about that one. |
George | Yeah. |
Jon | Okay, yeah, yeah. you You have the little target at the bottom shooting balls to try and match them up and destroy groups of three or more balls, right? |
Mo | Yeah. |
Jon | And you get chains of combos where you, anyway. |
George | Right. |
Jon | So I was, I guess I was doing a live stream. I think I was doing a Bellatro live stream that we’ve all been addicted to lately. |
Mo | ah |
Jon | And someone mentioned to me, as ah generous viewers often do, they’re like, hey, you like this stuff, have you heard of this? And they mentioned Luxor Evolved. |
Mo | Okay. |
Jon | and I had not heard of it. It didn’t mean anything to me. I played Luxor back in the day, but it wasn’t my favorite game. |
Mo | Yeah, it was fun. |
Jon | It was a, it was a, it was a 500 or 400 Microsoft point game or something that I, you know, that I played and I forgot about. |
Mo | Yeah, it was all right. |
Jon | So I took a look at it and all it took was seeing five seconds of gameplay and somewhere a Godzilla advent calendar trigger went off in my brain and went, Oh, I got to play this game. |
Jon | So first, it looks not entirely like um ah Utopia Must Fall, but very vectory looking, very more like like like traced outline neon looking colors. |
Mo | Oh, I love those. |
George | Okay. |
Mo | Okay. |
Jon | So it’s rather than the big shiny, like candy rainbow colors, it’s more of like a neon vector look. |
Mo | Nice. |
Jon | And it is still following the same model that balls will come out of an entrance and work their way along a track, and you have to stop them before they get to the exit and injure level. Rather than just being a little puzzle game though, oh my god, this thing has merged elements of so many games that we enjoy. You first should play a couple rounds of alexx Luxor, and that’s what I played. I went, oh, that’s neat. And I stopped because I knew what it was. It was interesting enough, I came back and I should have kept going one more because the very next level, which by the way, it saves your progress in this ongoing game. |
Mo | Okay, that’s good. |
Jon | I had just unlocked the first challenging stage where things came in in a pattern and had to shoot them and try to get a perfect score like I’m playing a Galaga challenging stage. |
Mo | Okay, okay. |
Jon | It also has like the level intermissions remind me of Galaga 88, where your ship flies up in the middle and used to be like an alien that went waka waka kind of thing and the stars were whipping by so it’s got that flavor in it. Then it has boss battles like big monsters that are shooting the balls at you and they have balls that you have to defeat either on them or on the track. |
Jon | I keep finding cool things in this game. I think it was maybe, I don’t know, $3, $5 or something. it was It was on sale. Normally it’s $9.99. |
Jon | There was a sale going on at Steam. I’m afraid maybe the sale is over now, but I think I pick it up for $2.49, which made it an insta-buy. |
Mo | Okay. |
Jon | But now, having played it, $10 doesn’t sound so bad. |
Mo | Oh. |
Jon | It has a lot of the DNA of classic arcade games that we enjoy the leveling up the different pickups the bonuses every once in a while you pop the things in a like a special power up will come down you got to catch it and suddenly you can shoot lasers for a while instead of thing. It’s really neat. So if you even if you never remembered the original Luxor This Luxor evolved. |
Jon | I played it on Steam. I’m probably on other places. You should definitely look on, is there any deal for deals around there? But at 10 bucks, I would still recommend it. If you get it on sale, you will be enthusiastically jazzed, because it is a lot of fun. |
Mo | Oh, |
Mo | nice. |
Jon | Uh, yeah, that’s what I have been playing. And it’s, it’s, it’s sucked up a lot of my time from other things that I should be doing, unfortunately. |
Mo | and she |
Jon | Now, George, when I saw you put this next game on the list that you want to talk about, it intrigued me. |
George | Mm hmm. |
Jon | So what are you playing? |
George | Yeah, well, so the term playing is a little bit of a misnomer because I already finished it. |
Jon | Okay. |
George | ah |
Mo | Oh, oh, okay. |
Jon | o |
George | Yeah, so this is one of the, i’m I’m trying to just play free games as much as I can because there’s so many avenues out there for us to get free games. |
George | Amazon Prime Gaming gives you usually five or six games a week. |
Jon | Hmm. |
George | There’s a bunch of stuff on Steam, GOG, and Epic Games have their own free releases and whatnot. ah We have on our Discord server, genixrunup.com slash discord, we have a specific ah channel that has a thread in it where one of our users power driven regularly posts the free ah gaming systems that are out there on the different platforms for you to look. |
George | And one of the things that he posted included this game called Breaker Initiating. |
Jon | Mm hmm. |
Mo | breaker initiated. |
George | So just like John said in the tease, and I’m only gonna talk about this for about a minute because |
Mo | Okay. |
George | It’s basically limbo in a pop in an apocalyptic future where your little robot who has a battery on his back that he can use to send out electric bolts to start different apparatuses to help you get across as you run from the little spiders from the Tom Selleck movie runaway. |
George | So that’s what they look like to me. |
Jon | It’s a good description. I saw them. Yep, they do. |
George | Um, I’m not going to talk any more about it because if I do, I will have talked longer than the game last. |
Mo | Oh, really? |
Jon | Okay. |
George | The game only has about 10 minutes worth of total gameplay in it. And that’s if you fuck up. |
Jon | Hmm. |
Mo | Wow. |
George | It’s, it’s just a really short game. |
Jon | Hmm. |
George | I think I would consider it more of a demonstration of what they want to do. And maybe they’ll release something later on that’s more expanded. |
Mo | Okay. |
George | And if they do, I am absolutely going to be a buyer because I like this a lot better than I even did limbo as far as the gameplay and the mechanics and the way they took me through it. |
Jon | Really? |
Mo | Oh, really? Really? Wow. |
George | Well, because Limbo drops you in and makes you figure a bunch of shit out. And sometimes it feels impossible to figure some things out. |
Mo | Yeah. |
George | This, at least as you’re going along, it lets you know, Oh, you have this ability and try this key and that kind of thing. |
Mo | ah Okay, okay. |
George | I, I prefer that style of gameplay in these types of games. So. |
Mo | It looks great. I’m looking at the demo. |
Jon | You know what’s weird is that I went and grabbed it because I saw it was free. I’m like, well, why not grab it? |
George | Right. |
Mo | Yeah. |
Jon | And so I did. |
George | right |
Jon | And I only played it about 10 minutes. i’m go I’m going to stop here. I don’t want to spoil it for myself. I want to wait and hear what George says about it. Maybe I’m almost done. |
George | Now you might, you’re, you might be done. |
Jon | I don’t know. |
George | Like he gets through to a certain place and then I saw credits start to scroll on the screen. And I’m like, is this, was that like the grabber, the tease before the game that I played, you know, the intro level that teaches you stuff. |
Jon | Uh huh. |
Mo | Yeah. |
Jon | But no. |
George | No, that was the end. |
Jon | Oh, maybe it’s meant to be a tease for a bigger game later. |
Mo | OK. |
George | That was it. Uh, so yeah, you know, |
Jon | ah now We can hope. |
George | Maybe, but that made me say, okay, well I need to pick a different game then so I can talk a little bit longer in a game segment this week. So I picked another free game and this is one that power driven recommended highly and it’s called Sir Whoopass. |
Jon | Oh. |
Mo | OK, just the name, come on. |
George | The name is great. And that’s as far as I fucking got power driven. Let me explain. |
Jon | What? |
George | I downloaded this piece of shit, installed it, and it immediately crashed my entire computer. |
Jon | What happened? |
George | I have not touched it since. And I don’t mean like froze stuff up. I mean hard crashed my computer to the point that I thought I was going to have to go to backups to get my goddamn computer back up. |
Mo | Wow. |
Jon | Wow. well well |
George | I don’t know if it’s because of grand old games. I don’t know if it’s because of the executable itself. I don’t know what happened, but I’m not touching it. Power driven says it’s hilarious and funny and a blast to play. |
George | Y’all go watch power driven play this thing on live stream. |
Jon | well |
George | I’m not touching this piece of shit ever again. |
Jon | Well, at least it was free. |
George | Yeah. It was a free way to crash my hard drive. |
Mo | Yeah, he sounds like he paid for it emotionally. |
George | That’s what it was. |
George | Right. |
Jon | That’s right. Hey guys, have you guys played format C colon yet? It’s great. |
Jon | Highly recommended on Steam. |
Mo | ah |
Jon | As we come into the last turn of this episode, you know, we always like to stop here toward the end to talk about the things we’re looking at right now or looking forward to between now and the next time we get together to talk. And I want to start with you, George. What do you have on the horizon? |
George | Well, uh, first off, I’m fucking addicted to this Bellotto bullshit. |
Mo | Oh my God, isn’t it terrible? |
George | So I’m looking forward to more of that. God damn it. |
Mo | It’s awful. |
Jon | Yeah. |
George | Like I finally completed the eight aunties and I was talking with John about it and I’m like, Oh, do I should I do the fuck this game? God damn it. |
Jon | It’s insidious. |
Mo | Yeah. |
George | Anyway, I’ll keep playing that for some more torture. |
Mo | Anywho. |
George | In the meantime, I’m also looking forward to another documentary that’s coming out pretty soon, December 12th on Peacock. Richard Ramirez, the Night Stalker. So yet another documentary about the Night Stalker murders and the character, or the person, not character. |
George | This guy, |
Jon | he was a character |
Mo | Yeah, shit, he was something. |
George | Yeah, he was a character. ah In this particular case, apparently they have a whole bunch of audio recordings of Richard Ramirez while he was in prison. So those documentaries are usually kind of interesting to me. |
Jon | Hmm. Okay. |
George | I’ll check that out. The thing I’m looking forward to the most, though, is a video game that will be free on the PC, Xbox and PS5. |
Jon | Hmm. |
Mo | Oh, OK. |
George | It will have already been released by the time you hear this episode because it comes out on December 6th, but it’s called Marvel Rivals. So this is a squad beat them up game where you’re going around and fighting people, kind of like maybe a Halo team combat type of thing or something like that. |
Mo | Marvel Rivals. |
Jon | Okay. |
George | But it’s all Marvel characters. |
Jon | okay |
George | So Wolverine Hulk. |
Jon | Hmm. |
George | You know, all of those guys are in there. |
Mo | Okay. |
George | ah Different characters on different teams can actually do things together. So like my son was showing me that like, if you have Hulk on your team and Wolverine on your team, Hulk can throw Wolverine with his claws through somebody kind of stuff. |
Jon | Oh, combos. |
Mo | Okay. |
George | It looks to be a fun game. It’s got a lot of um interest out there. It’s totally free, which means there’s going to be a lot of shit to buy in game because you’re not going to have a my Marvel property that’s free completely. |
Mo | Oh yeah, definitely free me in |
George | But at least you get to play something for free to see if you like it. |
Mo | yeah |
George | Marvel Rivals, December 6th, PC, Xbox, PS5. |
Jon | Yeah. |
George | I think you should check it out. John, what are you looking forward to? |
Jon | I got a few things. The first came at me sideways. I had no idea it was coming. Never heard of it. It’s a series coming December 6th, which again, by the time you hear this, it will have started at least, called The Sticky. |
Mo | The sticky. |
Jon | So what could this be about? |
George | Hmm. |
Mo | So I want to know. |
Jon | If you watch the trailer, it’s kind of very much in the vein of a Fargo kind of high crimes by average or below average people with lots of mayhem and lots of craziness. The tagline for the series is mayhem, murder, and maple syrup. |
George | Okay. |
Mo | Okey-dokey. |
George | Sticky. |
Jon | So there’s this there’s this woman who she manages a syrup farm with all these you know trees that she taps and whatever. And there’s a fight over ah land rights or something going on. |
Mo | Oh, yes. |
Jon | And they have to do break-ins and heists. |
Mo | see |
Jon | And it’s the kind of goofy crime stuff that like idiots who aren’t criminals don’t know how to handle. And things get out of hand is what it looks like. It’s on Prime. So if you have Prime, it’s going to be free for you. |
Jon | ah but I hope it’s good from the trailer. It looks good, but you know they can make trailers look like anything, but it’s on my list. |
Mo | Okay. |
Jon | ah Next up is a film that is already in theaters, but on December 10th is hitting video on demand and that’s heretic. Now this is Hugh Grant playing a super creepy guy. |
Jon | Have you guys seen about this movie? |
Mo | I don’t know anything about it. |
George | Mm-mm. |
Jon | Yeah, so like a couple of couple of young girls come to his house and they’re like, I don’t know, Latter-day Saints or something that can be talked to you about religion or whatever. But he has like a labyrinth in his home and he locks the girls in and preaches at them about religion. |
Jon | And he’s like, is he dangerous? Is he gonna hurt them? His performance in this is what has me most interested. I never got to theater to see it, but now it’s gonna be on streaming December 10th. |
Jon | So I’m looking forward to watching that. And finally, the thing I’m looking most forward to, if you haven’t heard about secret level yet, you need to get ready. You guys remember Love, Death, and Robots, right? |
Mo | Oh yeah. |
George | Mmhmm. |
Jon | Those cool like ah anthology series, these animated things. Well, this is on Prime. Secret Level is an anthology series of animated things all based on different video game franchises. |
Jon | And there have people in it like Schwarzenegger and Kevin Hart and Keanu Reeves and Ariana Greenblatt, all the people that you know. And they’re covering different games. Every episode is a different game, like i’m looking through like Armored Core and Mega Man and Pac-Man has his own episode where they won’t even show us Pac-Man. |
Mo | Oh, okay. Nice. |
Jon | People are saying that episode is going to blow you away. But it’s an anthology animated series coming December 9th to Amazon Prime secret level. I cannot wait to watch that one right around the corner. |
Mo | Oh. |
Jon | Moe, how about you? What do you have coming up? |
Mo | Let’s see, there’s a ah ah Lord of the Rings movie coming out, The War of the Rohium. |
Jon | Oh, the animated one, right? |
Mo | Yeah. |
George | Yeah. |
Mo | ah That’s coming out December 13th. |
George | yeah |
Jon | Hmm. |
Mo | That looks really interesting. Um, you know, so that’s, you know, um I love the Lord of rings movie. So hopefully they did it justice. |
Jon | Hmm? |
Mo | So I’m looking forward to that. |
Jon | Sure. |
Mo | Um, there’s a series on Disney, uh, the what if show it’s like the alternate world Marvel stuff. |
George | Uh huh. |
Jon | Oh, yeah. |
George | It’s it’s based on the what if comic books from Marvel back in the 80s. |
Mo | Yep. |
Jon | Mm hmm. |
Mo | Which I love those conflicts as a kid. |
George | Yeah. |
Mo | I thought they were just great. |
Jon | Those are fun. |
Mo | Cause you know, they did stuff that you’re just like, what if, you know, um, but they’re doing a third season of that. So that’s coming out ah December 23rd. So looking forward to that one. And what I’m most looking forward to doesn’t come out to like near Chris or just after Christmas, but it’s squid games season two. |
George | Oh, yeah. |
Jon | Again, do you need it? to George does. |
Mo | I don’t think you need it, but I really enjoyed the first season. |
George | Yep. |
George | Yep. |
Mo | You know, um, if they said they would never make another one, I’ve been like, okay, I get it. But because they are making another one, um, as all the same people doing it as well, that I’m hoping it’s the same level of quality and story and character that they did in the first one. |
Jon | Hmm. Okay. |
Mo | Um, I don’t even deal with the premises, but I know I’m going to watch it as soon as it comes there. I mean, I have no choice. |
Jon | Yeah. Yeah. Is that Netflix again? It was a Netflix show the first place, right? |
Mo | Yes, that’s a Netflix show. |
Jon | Yeah. Okay. Yeah. |
Mo | So, yeah, so Squid Game season two. |
Jon | Yeah. |
Mo | So that’s worth watching. |
Jon | All right. Sure. |
Mo | So that’s great. But, um excuse me, but we also have a Patreon question before we end the show. |
Jon | Oh, right. Mm hmm. |
Mo | um And for those who don’t know, go to jennasgroup.com slash patreon. |
George | and Okay. |
Mo | If you want to join this illustrious group, all you need to do is do as little as a dollar a month and you could pose a question to us and we’ll answer it right here on the show. This week’s question is from an a longtime fan, Stu Baca. |
George | Ah, |
Mo | yeah who we all know and love ah very well. So here’s a question he had for us. He says, he starts off, here’s a question for you guys. A touch topical to be sure, what Thanksgiving traditions or foods do you remember from childhood that may not be common today? I.e. when I was a small, when I was a small stupaca, that’s actually what he put in there, we would always have jello salad at Thanksgiving for some of our older relatives. |
Mo | which luckily for me became ambrosia salad after we moved too far away from those relatives to join us. know So um that’s a great question because he said Thanksgiving just passed. um it’s It’s, you know, close to our heads right now. So ah who wants to go first on this one? |
Jon | Up to you. You pick. We’re ready. |
Mo | but Okay. Uh, George. |
George | Okay. |
Mo | He said pick. |
George | All right. That’s what I get for not volunteering. I get volunteered. Um, you know, I was trying to think about it. We’re pretty traditional at our house. Um, when I was a kid for Thanksgiving, it was, you know, the Turkey and the mashed potatoes and the corn and the green beans and addressing and whatnot. |
Mo | Mm hmm. |
George | I. Something that’s ah common then for us, but definitely not common today, ah is that my father had a tendency to want to invite um either poker buddies or business associate pool hall guys or whatever to the Thanksgiving dinner without telling mom. |
Mo | Oh, I remember you mentioning this. |
Jon | Mm hmm. |
Mo | Yeah. |
Jon | Oh, oh. |
Mo | Oh, ooh. |
George | And so it would be the three of us traditionally. And then next thing you know, there was like four or five other stragglers coming in that, you know, looked like they found like a dirty pair of jeans to throw on 20 minutes before they showed up. |
Jon | Mm hmm. |
George | Um, the reason why it’s different is my dad’s dead now. So that fucker doesn’t get to invite anybody more to Thanksgiving. |
Jon | Wow, goodness. |
George | me Um, |
Mo | Oh terrible. |
George | So yeah, that’s, that’s probably it. We, everything else was pretty standard and the standards haven’t really changed. My kids love the same kind of meal prep that my grandma and she still cooks Thanksgiving for us. So yeah, everything’s pretty much the same except for that. |
Mo | Nice. |
Mo | Okay, okay. |
Jon | Yeah, you know, I was thinking about, I almost was gonna talk about something similar, but with less animosity, which is inviting other strays that had nowhere to go over. But I i think that the the neatest tradition, and it’s ever since I met my wife, |
Mo | Okay. |
Jon | She has a set of china that she inherited from her mom when she passed away. And we only use that china twice a year. Thanksgiving dinner, Christmas dinner, and then it sits in the cabinet for another 10 months and we bring it out again. |
Mo | just okay |
Jon | But the tradition that her mother started that I love that my wife has continued is along with the china, all the dishes, all the plates, all the serving bowls, all the all the special things, there’s also a book that every time that China was ever used, as long as my why my wife’s mother had it, after the meal, after she cleaned up, she would write, this we used this on this date, here’s who was there, such and such just passed away, such and such had a baby. |
Mo | Oh, OK. |
George | Hmm. |
Jon | It’s like a living document of who was served with this China every time it was used. |
Mo | Oh, that’s neat. |
Jon | And there’s a different page for every time that we brought it out and used it. And my wife continued to do that. A couple of times lately, my daughter, who will inherit this China eventually, has helped to write that description. |
Mo | Mm-hmm Sure |
Jon | So we have this little thing that not so much Thanksgiving, but the accoutrement around Thanksgiving this China has become something of huge tradition in our family of Who’s going to write the the the debrief for how it was used to keep a historical record of how families have evolved and people have come in and out of our lives. |
Jon | And that’s a big part of it for us. |
Mo | Wow, that’s awesome because your thing sounds meaningful. |
Jon | It’s kind of neat. Yeah. |
Mo | My things didn’t sound not meaningful at all. |
Jon | Well, that’s all right. |
Mo | ah I should have went first. |
Jon | Most like mashed taters next. |
Mo | no the yeah So when I was a kid, you know Thanksgiving was at my grandmother’s apartment, super, super tiny apartment. |
Jon | Mm hmm. |
Mo | um And we would fit like 20 something people and it was ridiculous. But the tradition that we had was um one, we always ate early, you know which we still do today. |
Jon | Okay. |
Mo | Like dinner was like two or three. Like Thanksgiving dinner started. |
Jon | Oh yeah. Yeah, we do that too. |
George | Yeah. |
Jon | Yeah. Early afternoon. |
Mo | um |
Jon | Sure. |
Mo | But the thing for me was like, we always watched the football game. Like that was always on my family, which actually, which has kind of gone away because I haven’t, I’m not as into NFL as I used to be. |
George | Yeah. |
Mo | And, but when I say it was on, it was like after everyone ate the TV beyond her little tiny, you know, 17 inch TV, whatever she had, you know, lions be playing against somebody. And there’d be just a sea of this passed out bodies from all the Turkey, just all over the literally all over the floor. |
Mo | you know, the couch is full, everything is full. But it’s just that whole just sort of like that downtime after the meal, like it like that, just sort of just stopping for a second, you know, which today the meals, it seems like very hectic, like you just seem like like the whole day and the end of Thanksgiving, I’m exhausted. |
Jon | Yeah. |
Mo | you know, cause there’s no like stopping ever, which that was just like a natural break in the day. |
Jon | yeah |
George | Mmm. |
Mo | It just happened. Like up football’s on, you know, everyone everyone’s already ate one meal. You go in there and just sort of relax for a while. Football game’s over, go eat some more and come back. |
Jon | Mm hmm. |
Mo | So that’s one of the probably, yeah, I mean, I mean, I may try to pull that one back somehow or something like it because, you know, again, I think having that, just that slow down break in the middle of the day was just really helpful. |
Jon | Round three. Fight. |
Jon | Hmm. That’s that’s great. That’s two baka. Thanks for your question. ah We always I always learn stuff about Mo and George that I either only barely heard of or had never heard of in these questions. So it helps us to get to know each other in addition to you getting to know us. So that was great. |
Jon | ah And if you would like to have your question answered, just like we did, Stu Baka’s here, it’s like Mo said, become a patron, support us, head over to patreon dot.com slash Gen X grownup and join the legion of dedicated fans and followers who believe in what we do and want to support us financially for as little as a buck a month. |
Jon | You can get on that roster with a regular monthly pledge and get your question answered right here on the show. |
Mo | That’s right. |
Jon | And I want to quickly thank two more Patreon folks, a brand new Patreon member and DP, |
Mo | Oh. |
Mo | Awesome. |
Jon | And these keep coming upgrades, longtime supporters who chose to upgrade their level, which means support us with a little more funding each month. Chris V. You might remember him as Vern, longtime supporter. |
Mo | Oh, yeah, yeah, yes. |
Jon | He’s written to us many times. He bumped us up from like the two or three dollar tier to the ten dollar tier, I think. |
Mo | Oh, wow, that’s awesome. |
George | Mm. |
Jon | Chris, thank you so much. ah you The generosity of Patreon never ceases to impress and amaze me, and there’s two more examples of it. |
Mo | Hmm. |
Jon | So if you’d like to join them again, patreon dot.com, genexgrownup, follow the instructions, that’s all there is to it. That is going to wrap it up for this edition of the Gen X Grown Up Podcast. Don’t worry, we’ll have another one coming your way in just two weeks. |
Mo | this |
Jon | And next week is our backtrack where we pick a single nostalgic topic and dig in deep. This one is going to be interesting. Mo, would you like to do the honors and tell the fourth listener what’s coming? |
Mo | Oh yeah. Oh, I would love to. Um, you know, I’m the big star Wars geek here and this one’s right up our alley in 1978. |
Jon | OK. |
Mo | It only aired one time. |
Jon | Mm hmm. |
Mo | They did a star Wars holiday special that had the entire cast in it and it only aired once and love it or hate it. Uh, whatever it is. |
Jon | Whatever. |
Mo | We’re talking about absolutely. We’re talking about for sure. |
Jon | It has an infamous history, and I just watch it in its entirety for the first time, and I can’t wait to talk about it. |
Mo | Yes. |
Mo | Oh my God. |
Jon | So that ought to be a good backtrack. |
Mo | I have so much to talk about. |
Jon | We hope you’ll join us for that. |
George | Yes, sir. |
Jon | Until then, I am John. George, thank you so much for being here. |
George | yes sir |
Jon | Mo, you know I appreciate you. |
Mo | Always fun, man. |
Jon | Fourth listener, it’s you we all appreciate most of all, though, and we can’t wait to talk to you again next time. by Bye bye. |
George | See you guys. |
Mo | Take care everybody. |