HomePodcastsGenXGrownUp PodcastPresence, Gamer Power, & Arcade Mania

Presence, Gamer Power, & Arcade Mania

GenXGrownUp PodcastMediaPodcasts
By Mo
0 Comments

 

About This Episode

We watch a new action horror film in which a supermoon event is turning people into werewolves, log onto a website that lets you find, track, and collect the best giveaways in gaming, and check out a vintage tabletop game that combines board and arcade games for a singular retro experience.

Patreon » patreon.com/genxgrownup
Discord » GenXGrownUp.com/discord
Facebook » fb.me/GenXGrownUp
Twitter » GenXGrownUp.com/twitter
Website » GenXGrownUp.com
Podcast » GenXGrownUp.com/pod
Merchandise » GenXGrownUp.com/merch
Theme: “Grown Up” by Beefy » beefyness.com

Apple » itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/genxgrownup-podcast/id1268365641
CastBox » castbox.fm/channel/GenXGrownUp-Podcast-id2943471?country=us
Pocket Casts » pca.st/8iuL
Audible » amz.run/6yhR
TuneIn » tunein.com/radio/GenXGrownUp-Podcast-p1020342/
Spotify » spoti.fi/2TB4LR7
iHeart » www.iheart.com/podcast…
Amazon Music » amzn.to/33IKfEK

Show Notes

 

Transcript

SpeakerTranscript
JonWelcome back, Gen X Grown Up Podcast listeners to this episode 184 of the Gen X Grown Up Podcast. I am John. Joining me as always, of course, is Mo.
JonHey man.
MoHey, how’s it going?
JonWouldn’t be a show without George. How you doing, George?
GeorgeHey, how’s it going guys?
JonIn this episode, we watch a new action horror film in which a supermoon event is turning people into werewolves, log on to a website that lets you find, track, and collect the best giveaways in gaming, and check out a vintage tabletop game that combines board and arcade games for a singular retro experience. Those topics and many more are coming your way in this episode. First though,
JonLook, there’s three of us. There’s myself, there’s Mo, there’s George. Some of us listen to the show. If anybody else does though, you are our fourth listener. And the fourth listener for this episode is Brian J.
JonSo he dropped us a line with this subject. Binge listening never gets old. Hmm.
MoLike that.
JonOkay.
Georgeand Okay.
JonSo let that be a lesson to you, George. you Binge listening never gets old. You can just listen.
GeorgeI don’t know.
JonYou can binge if you want.
GeorgeI don’t think I qualify since I don’t listen at all. There’s no binging.
JonRight, you guys listen to one first to then begin the binge.
GeorgeYeah.
JonThat’s the problem. Here’s what Brian says. Hey guys, I am a Gen X guy who really loves your content. Thank you, Brian. Besides being a member of the YouTube channel, I have purchased some shirts for your website and lately have been binge listening to the podcasts.
GeorgeYay.
MoNice.
JonAll right.
MoOh, this is like our favorite kind of listener.
Georgeright
JonThat’s right, it’s a holistic consumer, I like it, yes.
MoRight.
Jonah He goes on to say, I don’t know how, but there is a therapy to listening to three longtime friends talk about shared interests. I have a lot of the frustrations and challenges, and not of the I have a lot of frustrations and challenges in my life these days, but I can always count on the three of you to make me laugh at least once per show.
MoOh yeah.
Jonbut so Thank you for the low bar, Brian.
Mookay yeah exactly we’ it we’ll have to figure out which
JonWe appreciate it.
GeorgeRight.
JonJust, that’s all we have to do. Just get the one and we’re good.
GeorgeI just want to take issue with the three friends part.
JonYeah.
GeorgeAre we friends? I don’t know if we really are.
JonWell, like the listeners, two out of three of us are friends. Yes.
GeorgeTwo out of three of us. Fair enough.
Jonah On any given day, we don’t know which two, but yes, yeah.
Moah
Jonah Hey, baby, that was Brian’s one laugh in this episode. We might be off the hook for the rest of the show.
GeorgeThere you go.
Jonah he He wraps it up by saying, anyway, thank you, and I will share Gen X growing up with others, Brian in Cincinnati. Oh, thank you, Brian.
MoNice.
GeorgeCool.
JonYeah, we feel you. We all have. Look, we’re old now. We have those frustrations and challenges you talk about. And um whether it’s us or whatever you find that brings you joy, you got to latch onto that and and ring the joy out of it that you can find. So we’re happy that Gen X grown up brings some of that levity to you. Certainly, certainly makes us feel good to know that.
JonBrian, thank you so much for taking the time to drop us a line. Fourth listener, if you would like your email featured here on the show, you know it is drop dead easy. All you have to do is hit us up at podcast at genxgrownup.com. We read every single email, and most of them, just like Brian’s, will eventually make the show. All right, good in business in the rearview a mirror. Let’s jump into the body of episode 184 after this quick break.
JonWe’re gonna get the ball rolling the same way we always do talking about media. We have been checking out this could be a television or comics or books or music or movies or whatever you’ve been enjoying and mo.
MoYeah.
JonYou have something on the list here that I was looking forward to, watched some of, and couldn’t keep going.
MoOh.
JonSo would you share with us what you’ve been watching?
GeorgeWow.
MoOh, my God.
GeorgeEndorsements aplenty here at Gen X grownup.
MoLet me tell you.
JonMm-hmm, yeah, really.
Moum Yeah, I can say right now is the movie is werewolves, plural werewolves.
JonMm-hmm, fragrillo.
Moum This movie, if there’s a movie that hit every point that I don’t like about these movies, this movie hit it like.
JonMm.
GeorgeWow. Really? And it’s Frank Grillo, right?
MoI. Oh, yeah, absolutely.
JonIt’s a lot.
MoWhich is awesome.
GeorgeDamn it.
JonYeah.
GeorgeI love him.
MoYou know, I know he’s he’s great. Just the whole well, OK, so the plot is that there is a super moon.
JonYeah. Give me one second before you jump into the plot. I’m sorry.
MoYeah.
JonThe timber, would you tap your mic and make sure you’re on that mic? and Okay. That’s good. It’s good. It was a little low. I think it’s fine. I want to make sure it wasn’t your head’s headphone because just the timber sounded different.
MoOkay.
JonI’m sorry.
MoActually the mic on my headphones don’t, it doesn’t work.
JonSo it doesn’t work.
MoSo all right.
JonOkay. That’s what a double check. All right. Uh, so the the premise or whatever you’re jumping into.
Moah okay Yeah. So, okay.
JonSorry. Thanks.
MoSo let’s start. The premise of the movie is that there was a supermoon and that’s apparently when the moon is like really close to the earth and it’s a full moon bubble up that turns anybody who was exposed to it into a werewolf. And basically so.
GeorgeThe, so the fucking planet.
JonYeah, if you’re outside.
MoSo this was basically you had to be outside.
GeorgeOh, you had to be outside. I was i was like, what is exposure constitute here?
MoYeah, you had to be like you had to be in the moonlight. But anyway, so like a billion people died that night. um And now it’s a year later.
JonMm hmm.
MoSo this movie actually takes place a year.
GeorgeOkay.
MoThere’s another super moon coming. And they are now like trying to prepare for it. So people are barricading their homes, you know, doing security, getting guns. And of course, there’s a group of scientists that are trying to study and figure out a way of stopping it and stopping people turning into werewolves. And you get, of course, the crazy people that enjoy the fact that they turned into werewolves and they’re, ah you know, they’re totally thrilled about it and stuff. But OK, I could I could totally suspend belief.
Moin a movie like no one’s business, all right? I mean, I totally can. The only thing I ask is that you stay consistent with whatever it is you’re doing, you know?
Jonyeah
GeorgeRight with your rules.
MoYeah, exactly. Whatever your rules are, just stay consistent. This movie did not do that at all.
GeorgeHmm.
MoEverybody, if there was a stupid thing that somebody could do, they did it. Not not one person, every single freaking person in this movie did the wrong thing.
MoYou know, which you think if they’re prepared and there’s supposed to be intelligent people. Oh my God. It’s just it it was it was actually like making me upset. I was like yelling at the screen like as I was watching this thing.
MoI wait for the riff tracks.
JonThat’d be good.
MoYeah.
JonYeah. The beginning part you were talking about reminded me kind of of the purge, how everybody was ready for whatever, whatever is going to, was that what you were going to say to George, the purge prep?
MoYeah.
Georgeah
MoYeah.
GeorgeSo I was going to say, should we just retitle this movie to an American werewolf in the purge and be done with it?
JonYeah, kind of. That’s about what it was like. Yeah. Yeah. It was, they’re you know, barricading and getting weapons and that kind of thing. And let’s see how it goes.
MoYeah, security systems and yeah.
JonRight. Yeah.
Georgeand it’s a year later ah
JonMm hmm.
MoMm hmm.
Georgei just wanted to know you said you know it’s a year later new isn’t there a superm moon every fucking year because in isn’ that there a time and every year when the moon is close to the earth
MoYeah. I guess because this is a year the next super moon’s coming and they’re assuming the same thing is going to happen, so they’re preparing for it.
GeorgeI’m not the NASA guy. I know you, you’re like Mr.
MoYeah.
GeorgePlanetary space guy and everything. So I don’t, I’m just guessing. Seems to me like there’s always a point where the sun and the earth are furthest away. That’s winter for us. And when they’re close together at summer, I was thinking might be a similar the thing with the moon, which by the way, you know, being trapped in the super moon moonlight, it’s just reflected sunlight.
Moyeah Yeah.
GeorgeSo. all of a sudden the sun creates werewolves or some shit and is it shouldn’t it be vampires not werewolves I don’t fuck whatever
JonDon’t wreck the movie any more than it’s already wrecked.
MoYeah. Yeah. Don’t don’t. Yeah.
Moah
MoOkay, so ah example of how ridiculous this movie is a person goes over and they sets up this Okay, this his brother died the last year. So he’s protecting his brother’s wife and kid, right? So he sets up the whole house really security systems and barbed wire not all the nine yards Okay, so if you’re the person in that house with your child, where would you be the entire night?
GeorgeBasement?
MoI ah Well, I would be in front of the fucking security monitors I would be
GeorgeWell, yeah, I’d put the security monitors in the basement, but yeah.
Moi Yeah, I would probably put him in the basement, but I would be I would be staring at those things the entire night No, no, she’s in the living room Talking to her hugging your daughter and talking I’m like your daughter will be get over this eventually But and of course while she’s doing that the werewolves are smarter to figure out how to take out the cameras And she doesn’t notice that they’re going out I mean it was just I wasn’t sitting there like oh my god if there was a movie where I
JonWith your child, stay together. yeah
GeorgeRight.
GeorgeThe werewolves are taking pictures and putting them up in front of the camera lenses to make it look like nobody.
Jonah
MoAnd I’m like, if there was a movie where I was actually rooting for the bad guy, this one, I’m like, God, I hope these werewolves win because this just, it just drove me crazy.
MoAnd I said, the riff tracks will be hilarious.
Georgeand And you said this was Frank Grillo is the star.
JonYeah.
JonYeah.
GeorgeIs he human or is he werewolf?
MoYep. Yep.
MoHuman.
GeorgeOkay.
MoNow, don’t forget that people turn back to human after the event, they turn back daybreak.
GeorgeSo he’s human.
GeorgeFair enough, but he’s he’s the hero of the story?
Jonyeah
MoBut he never turned. Yes. Yes.
GeorgeOkay, so he’s the hero of this.
MoWho’s also a scientist, of course.
GeorgeWe’re talking about a movie that we all agree sounds very similar to a Purge storyline.
JonMm hmm.
MoYeah.
GeorgeFrank Grillo was in two of the damn Purge movies himself!
JonThat’s how I got cast.
MoYou think he? Yeah.
GeorgeI guess!
Mohe’s Yeah. It was crazy.
GeorgeLike I just imagine on the second film of the purge, he was sitting on set one day talking with some of his people or something said, you know, it’d be funny if there were werewolves in this fucking movie. And now years later, he’s doing this.
JonLike, that’s how I’m gonna write that down. I’ll call you next year.
Mobut that’s whatre That’s exactly what I’m going to do. Oh, it’s terrible. So if you want to laugh like is when if if you’re a bunch of friends and you’re drinking heavily and want to watch something funny, put it on.
GeorgeHmm.
JonYeah.
MoYou know, because it’d be hilarious because you’ll be probably throwing these at the screen. But as just it was just a dumb movie.
JonMm hmm. I didn’t finish it.
GeorgeHmm.
JonI told you. Couldn’t. couldn’t
MoSo George. You have something better, right?
GeorgeOh, well, shit. Now I gotta go watch werewolves. I’m not gonna talk about the thing. i want I want to go watch werewolves and see this piece of shit just to have it in my holster in my back pocket of like, Oh, I watched this terrible movie in 2025.
JonCouldn’t.
JonThings to make fun of, of course.
GeorgeRight? Uh, no, I do.
JonLet’s go a quick timeout.
GeorgeI it’s, it’s just frozen.
JonLet’s figure out what’s up with Mo’s camera and stuff.
MoYeah. Oh, my camera stopped.
JonYeah. Yeah. I keep getting popups. I just want to make sure everything is okay.
GeorgeOh, you’re getting popups.
Moah
GeorgeGotcha.
MoI can…
JonI’m getting popups. Yeah. And George, can can you give me about 20% down on your mic?
MoDo you want me to…
JonAs you get enthusiastic, it’s getting a little warmer. Just make sure you don’t clip.
GeorgeYep.
MoYou want me to bounce out back in or?
JonThank you. ah well Well, if if we want to do that, I just need to do her a restart. I just want to have a nice clean spot to do it. So ah it’s not ah it’s not affecting your audio.
MoMay I can, it’s up to you guys.
JonSo let’s do one quick restart. That’s a nice clean spot for George to get back in. And so George, hold that thought. i’m go
JonA little.
GeorgeI mean, yeah, I think the thing that I wanted to talk about is a little bit ah better than werewolves. um Well, you know, it all depends on your tastes, I suppose, right?
GeorgeBeauty’s in the eye of the beholder and all that. But season four of Mythic Quest finally ah debuted.
MoYes, much better, much better. OK, yeah.
GeorgeI’ve watched the first two episodes of it. And how do I describe it? It’s kind of like falling back into an old, warm, comfortable chair that you’ve always loved.
JonMm hmm. Get it.
Georgeah We’ve been roughly two years almost from the time we had the last episode.
MoYeah, it’s been a while, hasn’t it?
GeorgeIt was 2023 till now.
JonYeah.
GeorgeAnd it’s it’s just a really fun series. It’s so well put together. Rob McElhenney is one of the original show creators along with a couple other people from his, it’s always sunny in Philadelphia past.
MoMm-hmm Yeah
Georgeum The cast is pretty much all back together, of course, except for if Mary Abrahams, which, you know, we understand why. Um, but they’re all back outside of, uh, they’re, they’re not in quarantine, you know, COVID is over.
GeorgeSo they’re all back in the office.
JonMm hmm.
GeorgeUh, Ian and Poppy, the two lead characters who also created the game together originally are back in charge kinda of the game.
GeorgeAlthough the, the people up in Canada still own the company that they sold it to and everything. And, uh, Uh, so all these characters are doing others, they’re, they’ve moved on in their lives in what feels like a normal amount of progression for the time that we’ve had in real time between the last series and this series.
GeorgeI think my only big concern is I know there’s only going to be like eight or 10 episodes and then it’s going to be over. And I just don’t know if we’re going to get a fifth season or not.
MoOh, yeah, I hope so.
Georgebecause it took so long just to get to this one. Now I know there were rider strikes in the meantime, and of course we were coming back from COVID, but they did a season during COVID.
JonRight.
Mohe Yeah.
GeorgeSo I don’t know if it’s because McElhenney has a lot of other projects that he works on outside of this and maybe his time is far more constrained.
JonI remember.
GeorgeBut you know, this is an Apple series and you would think they probably shoot the bulk of their episodes back to back to back all like in a movie format and then edit and release them when they want to.
Georgei I just don’t want it to be the end. Now the first two episodes don’t indicate anything that makes me think it’s going to be an end. It’s just the timing of how long we had to wait between seasons and how little fanfare Apple TV has put on this really good series coming back.
MoYeah, it just sort of came back, right?
GeorgeIt’s like they barely announced it or anything.
MoYeah.
JonOh yeah yeah, that’s an interesting, I didn’t notice that, but you’re right.
MoYeah.
JonIf we weren’t talking about it, I would know it was a new season.
MoYeah, yeah i I’m worried about that too, because I love this series. you know The characters are all just quirky as hell, you know in fun ways and stuff.
GeorgeMm hmm.
MoAnd they totally lean into those quirks, which I really like. you know um it’s Yeah, I hope they do another season. it’s The only thing that kind of confused me is like the fact that Poppy, those guys are back kind of is it’s like it almost like it’s sort of like picked up like in the middle of like a chapter sort of, you know, it felt in a way like I was like, OK, I just went with it, of course.
MoBut I was like, OK, I wonder how all this stuff happened. But it made sense after a while.
JonHmm.
MoBut it was like I say, it’s it’s just ah funny.
JonHmm. Hmm.
MoAnd Charlie Day also is one of the creators of the show.
GeorgeHe is yeah from sunny at Philadelphia.
Moum And so who’s funny?
GeorgeYeah.
MoSo, you know, but again, yeah, I don’t know why it took him so long to make this season, but, you know,
GeorgeI mean, I did a, I tried to do a little bit of research. I can’t find anything that points to why there was a reason. Now, of course we know. In the midst of mythic quest and sunny in Philadelphia and all the other stuff he has going on.
MoMm hmm.
GeorgeHe’s obviously running a professional soccer team now because he is one of the co-owners of Rexham.
MoYeah.
JonMm hmm. Right. Right.
MoYep, yep, yep.
GeorgeUm, so maybe all of his interests are, we’re just competing for time.
JonYeah.
GeorgeAnd this was the thing that took a back seat because, you know, arguably of all the things he does, it’s probably the smallest thing that he’s involved in.
MoYeah, it’s always sunny Rexamir.
GeorgeUm, but it it just. feels like a little ah little spot that tickles my humor bone every time I get to watch one of the episodes. There’s not a scene in a single episode that isn’t funny or progressing towards a funny moment.
GeorgeEvery scene is just top-notch.
MoYeah.
GeorgeThe writing is stellar. It’s some of the best writing I’ve ever seen. The actors and actresses so commit to their characters that you almost wonder are they kind of like that in real life in some place they are so believable in what they do that you’re like yeah i could see that would be a a really needy clingy mean girlfriend type of person i can see this one be a devious money grubbing kind of thing i can see this guy just being a dupe and gets run over in an office you can see
MoYeah, exactly. You wonder, right?
JonHmm.
MoYeah.
Georgeall their characteristics in their characters. and it almost They’re doing such a good job. You feel like it’s them in real life. But if you haven’t caught Mythic Quest at all, I highly recommend going back to season one to binge it up through now.
MoYeah.
GeorgeAnd then continue with it, of course, which I hope you’ll enjoy it. If you don’t enjoy it, we obviously don’t share the same sense of humor and that’s your fault, not mine, but it’s, it’s a great series.
GeorgeThey’re fun little 20 minute episodes or something like that.
MoYeah.
GeorgeSo it’s like potato chip TV viewing it. You can watch several of them in a row and not feel like you’re just sitting in your chair waiting for Oppenheimer to be over. This is some good light, fair, fun stuff.
JonSure.
GeorgeAnd quite frankly, I need this time of year.
MoYeah, I don’t blame you. Yep, great show.
JonYep.
GeorgeWhat about you, John? You got anything that’s as fun as Mythic Quest or as crazy batshit, blah, blah, blah, as werewolves or something completely different?
JonUm, ah something probably somewhere in the middle. And I had never heard of this film until Mo mentioned looking forward to it the last time we spoke for the last episode.
Georgeand Okay.
MoYeah.
JonSo this is a new film that I guess you would categorize it in the horror genre, but I’ll quickly contradict that in a moment, but it’s called presence. And when Moe said he was looking forward to it, I’m like, oh, I gotta put that on the list because, oh, it’s some kind of a genre changing haunted house, spooky, something going on.
GeorgeMm.
JonAnd I went to watch the trailer and I didn’t learn jack shit about the movie from the trailer, which is a good sign.
MoMm hmm. Yeah.
JonAnd then, you know, they do the final trailer, cause it was release week. I went, oh, well now let me go watch this and see what it’s about. And I still didn’t know what it was about. So I’m like, okay. So there must be something so, Radical in this movie that they can’t give it away in the trailer So they just show scenes of people walking around a house and being confused is all they’re showing so Got a ticket went to see it I’ve now been back to the theater to see it again because it’s so damn good this movie
JonI’ve recommended it to so many people. And unfortunately, the only thing you can say is you’ve got to go see it.
MoSo have I.
JonI can’t tell you about it. I’m gonna try to talk about the parts that I can tell you about because don’t let anyone spoil it for you. You need to see this. It is it won’t be for everyone.
JonIt’s a relatively short movie. It’s like 83 minutes, like hour 20 or something.
MoYeah. Hour and a half, something like that. Yeah.
JonYep. um And you might think you’ve heard the twist already and ruined it. So I’m gonna give you the twist you think was ruined. The point of view from the movie, you are the ghost. Okay, if you’ve heard that or you say, oh, I already had it ruined for me.
MoYeah.
JonNo, you haven’t. that’s You figure that out in the first five minutes of the movie.
MoIf that.
JonYou are, in fact, the point of view, like this long steady cam shot, you are the spirit in this home and a new family moves in and you’re observing their lives.
Jonthey’ve had trauma in their life, they don’t get along. The only real big name you’re gonna notice from this probably is Lucy Liu, who does a great job as a, I would say a, yeah
MoA tiger mom?
JonYeah, you’ve heard the henpecked husband. She’s the henpecker.
MoYeah.
GeorgeHmm.
JonShe is the one who’s kind of running the house, wears the pants, she’s the bully and the boss, a bit.
GeorgeOkay.
MoOh, yeah.
JonI mean, they have a decent marriage, but it’s it’s strained, ah had challenges in their life. They move in this house and the story progresses. The mechanism in the story is that you watch this long scene that I think many of them have no cuts or cuts that are hidden.
MoYeah.
JonAnd it just cuts to black. And when it comes back up, maybe in a minute it’s passed, maybe a day or three days has passed, and you see what’s happened next and what’s happened next. i I’m afraid to talk much longer about this movie.
JonAnd so I’m not going to say much more about the film other than to say, if you like, they call they call it horror. There’s nothing scary in this movie.
MoNo.
JonThere is stuff that’s haunting in this movie, intellectually frightening to ponder.
MoMm hmm.
JonIt’s also the kind of movie that when you watch it the second time, it’s gonna be a different movie for you, but it’s not a perfect film.
MoNo.
JonIt is so different though. It is, and and not not that different on its own would make it good, but we’ve talked about different movies recently. Like, oh, they did something unique and different here. And you know, George is one of the first to chime in.
JonThat is a making a good movie. And you’re right, but what they did different here, not only is it something I’ve ever seen done before, but it’s done in such a way that, I think mo you said last time about a motor movie you saw when you left and you’re still thinking about it days and weeks later.
MoRight.
JonThat movie has done that to me and it’s I cannot recommend it’s that my favorite movie of the year probably of the last three months and I’ve seen so good.
MoYeah.
MoYeah, I mean, I saw it with John, actually, and I had no idea what it was about.
JonMm hmm.
MoI just knew it was ah people moving into a haunted house. That’s pretty much all I knew.
JonThere you go.
MoRight.
JonYep, that’s all you need to know.
MoAnd and I don’t want to give it away either. Just that they did such a good job that I said you’re at a point of view of this ghost of spirit, whatever you want to call it. And
JonYeah.
MoThere’s something weirdly creepy about when a person who’s not you notices you.
JonYeah, cool. What was that? Am I seeing something?
MoYou know, because they had to happen where like we move into the house and then one of the people like just looks right at the camera.
JonYeah.
MoAnd like like with the questioning look, what was that?
JonYeah.
MoDid I see something there? yeah And you realize that, oh my god, they saw me. like in a way I mean, i you really feel like, like oh my god. I don’t know what to think about this now. They saw me, or they think they saw me, or whatever.
Jone
MoAnd he said, the twist. And I wasn’t going to call it really a twist. I think it is just, it made sense. like And when you you go back and they said, ja I can’t wait to see this again, because I think it will make the whole movie put it into context a lot better.
JonYeah.
JonMm hmm.
MoBut it was just very well done.
JonYeah.
MoThey do a lot of I guess they call him like Hitchcock. I’m like my guffins or something like a lot of side story things that you’re not sure what’s important.
JonYeah.
MoWhat’s not like you try, but the ghost sees everything, right?
JonMm hmm.
MoThe spirit sees everything that’s going on in this house and they and they were consistent. They never broke from that point of view.
JonMm hmm.
MoWhich I they just did an excellent job.
JonYeah.
Mobut It could have easily have been a terrible movie and it wasn’t.
JonYeah, yeah. I think it’s easily been a better movie too, but at this point, yeah there’s not much, you can’t do that again, really.
MoYeah.
JonSomeone does at the time to do that again, it’s like it’s not gonna be the same thing, even close because it was such an interesting twist and surprise. So, yeah. Presents, it’s in theaters right now. I mean, you know how streaming works.
JonProbably in a few weeks it’s gonna be on streaming. If somebody tries to talk to you about it, tell them to shut up. Don’t let anybody ruin this for you. You’ll be glad you waited to see it for yourself because For me, twice in a row.
JonI’d already seen it. And the second time I saw it, I went, whoa. Then when did the reveal happens?
MoCool.
JonIt’s just so impactful. It’s just so well done. So go check out presence. Okay. Stick around. We’ll be right back.
JonBoy, getting married has really wrecked your playful side, Mo.
Moum You’re not kidding.
JonGet practical junk.
Georgeyeah
MoLet me tell you, this is directly related to the fact that I got married too.
JonWhen he’s single, he gets a full-size cupid cabinet. When he’s married, he gets a warming coffee cup.
MoYeah. No.
JonWhat are you doing over there?
MoYeah. I know exactly. So, you know, so again, I got married, you know, wife is now living in our home. And because now it’s our home, she’s, she’s making changes, which I totally behind 100% because they’re all have been awesome when it changed.
JonAs they do.
JonAnd also because she listens to the show, so you have to say that.
MoSo.
MoI love you, honey. um But they um but we we did our backyard and one thing she always want to do is put up, you know, the lights, the kind of the counted low, like the kind of golden color lights you put in your patios and stuff in the outdoors, the extreme lights, basically.
JonHmm.
Moum So I was like okay putting them up, but then I was like, where the hell you plug them in?
JonHmm.
MoRight. That’s kind of like the issue.
JonRight.
MoLike, you know, I didn’t want to like put another outlet out there or something like that. So I was looking for options and I found these things on Amazon, of course. Um, they’re called and Brighton wifi add on outlet adapter.
MoSo if you have an external light, like a floodlight or something like that, you pull that out, put this in its place and it gives you a place to put your floodlight and outlets are built into it.
Jonokay okay
MoSo right into my soft it where you know my floodlight was because they were old I get room anyway. I now have outlets that, and the best thing for me, you know, is that I control a Wi Fi, so it satisfies that techie, dirty, itching me to do this.
Moum And I was surprised. I put it in, just wired it like you would wire a light, basically. like There’s no real difference in it.
JonOkay.
Moum And it worked. like It just worked.
JonOkay.
MoWe put the lights up, plugged them in. They turned on. I was like, holy crap. I was like, I like it when something just works the way it’s supposed to. You don’t have to worry about it. And each one comes with two outlets that you control independently through a Wi-Fi app, or you just you know leave them on.
MoJust use a regular switch for it if you want. But for a problem that I thought was going to be extremely complicated to figure out, it made it stupidly easy to do.
JonWhat about a price point? I hear you mentioned what this so you have an adapter now that saves you going to an electrician and getting something installed and who said it gives you a bulb if you still want to plug in a floodlight there.
MoYep.
JonBut Wi Fi control, I’m guessing like, ah you know, Amazon and ah Google says everything.
MoYeah.
JonWhat’s the price point?
MoIt was 60 bucks.
JonHmm, that’s Mm hmm.
MoSo a little pricey, but not awful. You know, I mean, considering the effort it would take in me to figure out another solution for it, I was like, it was worth the 60 bucks, quite honestly.
Georgeit’s It’s still cheaper than an electrician coming out. That’s a 125 minimum, so.
JonOh, oh yeah. He won’t roll the truck for under a hundred.
Moyeah Yeah. Yeah, yeah, he won’t open the door.
GeorgeYeah.
Moum But like I said, the thing is that it just it just works, you know, and I just love things that just work the way it’s supposed to.
JonOkay.
MoFirst time the wiring was like I said, it was like wiring a new light like if you ever if you could handle that, then you can handle this ah super low tech.
JonHmm.
MoIt came with all the pieces and parts you need also, which is really nice. I didn’t have to go to hardware store for really anything to to add to this or take away from this.
JonHmm.
MoAnd it said it was a, it saved me a bunch of time and a bunch of money. So I’m not going to complain.
JonAnd did the wife approve?
Moone hundred percent 100%.
JonOkay. Well, there we go. That that’s the, that’s the golden seal.
MoYes.
JonAll right.
MoYeah. She got the light. She is extremely happy, which of course that’s the whole point of my life now. So it’s, it’s awesome.
JonThere you go.
MoSo that’s my, what about you George? What do you have?
Georgeah Yeah. So I guess it’s a little technological. It’s a little toyish. It’s basically a website that helps you to find free to play games.
GeorgeAnd I don’t mean the kind of free to play games where you can download it for free all the time. And then you have a bunch of in-app purchase bullshit or anything like that.
MoOh, yeah.
GeorgeThis is games that normally cost you an amount of money, like 10, 20, $60. But for a specific period of time in a specific place like Steam or Grandel Games or any of those other sites, this particular game is free.
MoEpic kills us.
GeorgeThe way I stumbled upon this is a little bit weird and unique. So over on our Discord server, genicsgrownup.com slash discord, we have been trying to integrate some new bots that would um
JonBoom.
Georgelike just put out an announcement every time a game was made for free on one of these platforms.
Momm hmm.
GeorgeAnd we were doing that because one of our members over there on Discord asked us for it and they found a bot that they liked and that bot was called Carlbot, I believe.
GeorgeAnd I tested around on one of our test servers just to get used to it a little bit. It ended up not working out for us because all of our deals and stuff are in a forum ah type of channel as opposed to a regular text channel and Karlbot can’t post inside a forum.
Moe
Mooh
GeorgeSo I found a different bot for our Discord server that would do it and we’ve been running that one for a little while but I still have Karlbot on the test server. And so it’s still posting announcements. And I was looking at it the other day and the little button that says you can claim that game for yourself, which all these bots do, which is a nice little feature.
Georgeah I noticed that it was going to the same website every time when I hovered over the button. That website is called gamerpower dot.com.
MoOh, that’s what’s getting the data from.
GeorgeNow,
GeorgeThat’s how I found this website. So I don’t know if the gamer power people built Carlbot or if the Carlbot people built gamer power or if they’re just unrelated and that one’s using the API of another.
MoOh.
MoMm hmm.
JonHmm.
GeorgeBut the gamer power website has a lot more than what the bot has been putting in our ah server so far.
MoOh.
JonOh, really?
Moah
GeorgeSo Not only does it show you games, it can show you by platform. So, Steam, Epic, itch.io, GOG, Xbox One, PS4, Nintendo, so on and so forth.
JonMm hmm.
GeorgeIt also has sections that are just the DLC types of things that you could grab. It has some kind of a of but an account system where you could go on and somehow add these games or favorite them or something to your bookmark.
Georgeum It’s just, it’s a really well put together site that has a lot of stuff on it that’s totally free. So as much as I um advertise and advocate for humble bundle, you know, is a great way to get a bunch of games for free or for really cheap.
MoMm hmm. Oh, yeah.
GeorgeThis is a great way to get a bunch of games for free. Now I’m going to talk about one of those games in the gaming segment that I got through this system a little bit later on, but I am very happy that there is something out there that’s a little bit like, is there any deal?
GeorgeIt’s a little bit like humble bundle, but it’s specifically geared for free games only.
MoNice.
Jonlike, is there any freebie? It’s like beyond is there any deals?
MoYeah.
JonIt’s a huge deal.
GeorgeRight.
JonYeah, I’ve been the beneficiary of your beta testing. So in our private server, where we’ve been doing the testing.
GeorgeMhmm.
Jonand And I can’t wait for you to get around to approving it to go live on the main server, because I have downloaded more free games in the last two or three weeks that you’ve been testing it.
JonNot that not that they’re not
GeorgeSo you may not realize it’s already live in our server.
JonWell, I haven’t seen it there. So I’ve only seen it this one. So that that’s good.
GeorgeOkay.
JonMaybe I’ve seen it both places and didn’t realize the new one, the new one.
GeorgeNot Carl bot, but free bot is live. Yeah.
JonOkay. So what, when the notifications would hit, like, I know there are free games out there. I know you talk about on a Twitch stream that, Hey, go check Amazon when you’re there.
MoMm hmm.
JonAnd i it’s just, I don’t think of going out to look for them. And I love that this gamer power exists. but I won’t ever remember to go and look for it because sure that will change a new ones will come each week and whatever. And I’m gonna say that’s awesome. And then three weeks from now, I won’t remember to do it on a regular basis. So having that notification in the server,
JonHe’s like, it pops up. It’s almost like, it’s like somebody coming to your door and going, knock, knock, knock, here’s something free. Do you want it?
Moyeah
JonAnd you go, Oh, not today.
GeorgeYeah.
JonNot today. Oh yeah. Gimme. You’re reminded that something is free.
MoMm hmm.
JonThat’s usually the problem with freebies is that you have, that’s the incentive for you to go be on that platform, but I’m not already. And so this is the other way around. It’s like, we’ll monitor for you.
JonYou just let us know when you want something and boom, it’s yours. I love that.
MoYeah, I really like it, too, just because one, it gives you a link. You just hit the link and it just takes you right to it.
GeorgeMm hmm.
Moor So it makes it painless. And also, you know, a lot of these free games, they’re only on for a limited time. All of them are only on for like a week or two weeks or something. And if you miss it, it’s gone, you know. And like a lot of times I pretty much will always get the key and get it installed.
MoI just may not install them all. You know, but I figured one day I might, you know, so might as well have it.
JonSame.
MoSo, you know, why not?
JonTake it while it’s free.
GeorgeYeah, it’s it’s a great system. I love that all these platforms are having to compete with each other to offer us these free things.
Mom
GeorgeI love that it’s also giving people an opportunity to go find some games that they might’ve missed when they were first released, start talking about them, and then encouraging their friends possibly to go buy the games after the fact.
JonYep.
Georgelike So imagine a game is $40. Well, you didn’t wanna pay for it when it was $40 because you didn’t know if it was gonna be worth it or not, right?
JonFor
GeorgeThat’s always the Catch-22.
MoRight.
GeorgeIt’s not like back in the day when there used to be demo CDs that you could go and play like 10 minutes worth of a game or three, you don’t know jack questions before it yelled at you to go to Walmart to go buy the game.
Joneverything.
MoYeah.
JonAnd you do.
GeorgeSo this is a good way for a small amount of people to get to play the games for free that can then influence a larger amount of people to go pay for the games that will then support the creators of those games.
GeorgeBecause a lot of these games are from smaller you know gaming publishers, right?
MoYeah, a lot of independence and yeah.
JonMm hmm.
GeorgeThey’re not the big EA sports type of stuff.
JonHmm.
GeorgeEvery now and then you’ll see one of those pop up, but very rarely.
MoHmm.
Georgeah The thing I like about this this ah gamer power website, though, you mentioned, Mo, about how they they expire after a week or two.
Moand
GeorgeWell, this site seems to keep a list of these games for basically ever.
MoOh.
GeorgeYou can scroll down and it’s funny because as I was scrolling through the free games, I was like, Oh, those are free.
Mooh
GeorgeAnd then I started getting into the section that had already expired and I’m like, damn it. I hate that. I miss that one. I wanted to try that one. But as I kept scrolling, a game that I think had previously expired had been put back into a free system on another platform.
Jona
MoOh.
GeorgeSo as I scrolled through the list, I started seeing these little games in the list of expired games that were now available again.
Moah
GeorgeAnd I think maybe that’s what the bookmarking part of the profile thing might be that if you create an account on there, and I think if you add it to your favorites or something, maybe if the game becomes free later,
Georgeyou’ll get some kind of a notification from it somehow.
Jonfresh notification. No, that’s cool. Yep
GeorgeI haven’t tested that part yet, but to what John was talking about earlier, we do have a bot right now in our live discord server that is ah alerting us to games that are free.
GeorgeNow it’s on a limited amount of platforms, but it does work. I know for sure it’s doing the Epic stuff. We can’t do the Amazon ones, which is, crazily enough, the largest amount of free games I get in a week, Epic usually gives you one, GOG usually gives you one, Amazon gives you like six every week.
MoMm hmm.
Georgeah But the Amazon one is behind a paywall. So we haven’t done that part yet because you know we’re still testing things out.
MoOh, right. You have to be in Amazon. Yeah.
Georgeum ah Well, it’s nobody seems to be able to get that Amazon API to get to the free games list.
JonYeah.
MoGotcha.
GeorgeThis is the first bot that I found that has it. so Anyway, gamerpower dot.com, if you want to dig deep and go take a look, it’s well worth it, I think.
MoCool.
GeorgeAll right, ladies and gentlemen, I mentioned earlier that I was going to talk about one of those free games that I picked up through one of those free gaming websites. And this one happened to be through Epic and it’s called Undying. And I’m sorry to say, I think this game should just die.
JonOh, no.
GeorgeYeah. Um, yeah so essentially it’s a point and click survival gathering type of game. Like you’ve seen a million times before.
JonOkay.
GeorgeThe animation style is nice. It’s kind of that slight motion graphic comic book, one single frame kind of stuff while it’s telling the story.
MoYeah.
GeorgeAnd then when you go into the game mode, it’s like cell shaded still in that same style. Um, I started off falling in love with it for the first 30 seconds, the voice acting that was in it.
GeorgeNumber one, it wasn’t the generic American voice. It was somebody from a Latin country. It sounded like I couldn’t quite place the accent, but it was nice ah to see some diversity in the voice acting.
JonMm hmm.
GeorgeAnd, uh, the character was drawn, uh, accordingly. And it looked like it was going to be your typical. There’s zombie outbreak. The government is trying to help people, you know, in these places and this mother and her child are trying to survive kind of storylines. Mother gets bitten during the whole preliminary thing and then her and her son escape. And, you know, she’s trying to help him survive while you can tell she’s been bitten and she’s got to heal herself, blah, blah, blah. Anyway.
Georgeum I started noticing toward the end of the, of the previous stuff before the gameplay, the voices weren’t matching the captions that were being displayed on the screen.
GeorgeAnd I don’t mean like a word off. I mean like whole sentences off.
MoOh, interesting.
GeorgeAnd then they weren’t timed properly.
JonHmm.
GeorgeAnd then they were just gone and it was just captions.
MoOh.
Jonwhat
Georgeah When it got to the game mode, there was a couple of times where somebody would go, ergh, ergh, and then there would be a whole caption dialogue text line, but the character would say nothing.
JonHmm.
GeorgeIt’s almost as though they didn’t pay their voice actors all the way or something, and so they didn’t finish the recording.
MoOh, geez. Ooh.
GeorgeAnd that that made me sad. The gameplay itself, the mechanics are pedestrian. They’re not difficult to figure out. They’re not great. ah There’s a lot of um randomness, like bugs and things like that.
JonHmm.
GeorgeSo the game feels very unfinished. Maybe that’s why it’s unfree. Maybe they’re going to do more with it in the future. And I kind of hope they do because, like I said, I was really drawn in from the very first part of the game.
MoMm hmm.
Georgeso I played it for five minutes and then I immediately switched over to the new Google game that’s through their browser called Blockbuster. If you guys haven’t played that yet, I’m just briefly going to mention, go to Google in your search bar, type in block breaker, and you’ll get a Arkanoid type of game in a little square box. And it’s got a lot of fun little features. It’s a tough game. I’m having a hard time with it, but I’m loving it. So go check that out if you like.
MoYeah. And so I grabbed on dying because I saw it for free.
JonMm hmm.
Moit and And I looked at it. Oh, this looks interesting. and Let me actually install it and play it, you know, because I figured, you know, and I’m with you, George, like it it was it was boring. um It was just sort of dull.
MoAnd at first I thought the story was kind of interesting. It’s like, oh, you’re a mom, but you got bit.
GeorgeMm hmm.
MoSo there’s a time limit. And part of the game is you’re trying to teach your son skills to.
GeorgeRight.
MoYou know, so say, oh, I said, that’s really interesting. It’s really not. I mean, the way they did it was just not interesting. And I i find I’m like, yeah, I’m thinking I’m going to install this one and, you know, not worry about it.
JonI also claimed the key. I haven’t installed it yet. Maybe you saved me the trouble.
MoThere you go.
JonSo improvement.
GeorgeYeah, it might not be worth a hundred gigs. It takes up of hard drive space yet.
MoYeah.
GeorgeMaybe they’ll do an update and it’ll become worth it for right now.
JonRight.
GeorgeThe bugs and the dialogue throw me so far outside of the mindset of the game that it makes me frustrated. And I just don’t want to play it when I’m frustrated at the game.
JonIt pulls you out of the game. Yeah.
MoYeah.
GeorgeSo anyway, like I said, if you’re not down with undying, go check out block breaker through Google, John,
JonYeah.
JonYeah.
GeorgeThe thing you want to talk about is something that you’ve recently published a video about and I’m very interested to understand what your experience is with this game device.
JonYes.
JonYeah, yeah. So ah the game you’re talking about is a board game. And it’s a traditional board game. It came out in 1983. It was the time when, I mean, this is the time of Dark Tower, right? This is the time of Stop Thief. This is the time of, oh, let’s put electronics into board games. And more importantly, it was the time when arcades were nearing their peak as they, you know, of course the crash 83 took a couple more years to impact arcades, meaning, you know, out at the mall kind of arcades.
MoYeah.
JonSo the game is called arcade mania. I went and watched a TV commercial for it. In fact, and it’s, it’s like the front of a house ripped in like the ripped in half, they slides apart is your family divided half playing video games and half playing board games, bring the family together.
JonSo the idea is it is a ah board game. that has an arcade game component. And the arcade game is kind of like Merlin.
JonIf Merlin had like in television style overlays and I go on the television controllers, those overlays. So there’s there’s a the handheld toy that has like nine lights on it.
JonI think Merlin had nine or 12, how many lights it had.
MoAt 910, I think very.
JonYeah, and then then you would slide, but there are four different games you can play that use a keypad and those lights, you slide the yeah overlay in, and it might be kind of a centipede inspired game, it might be kind of a combat inspired game. Now, is it an arcade game? No, not technically, it’s a Merlin game, but you’re holding a toy and playing a video game, very much like the late 70s, early 80s style of handheld games. But then in around it,
JonAs I read the instructions, and I’ll give them a link to the video to go and look you want to actually see this thing. Mine doesn’t fully work. The electronics work, but the keypad has a problem.
GeorgeHmm.
JonBut I was able to read the instructions and read some online stuff and understand how it works.
GeorgeHmm.
MoHmm.
JonThat makes me so much want to get the last little, the last yard and get this thing fixed because There’s a gambling component in this game. So they know you’re gonna play it with you know little Billy and little Sally and mom and dad.
MoOh.
GeorgeAh.
JonAnd maybe mom and dad aren’t so great at video games. Maybe Billy and Sally are, right? So first each game has handicapping. So level one, two, and three that you play on. But further, you don’t just gain these little chips based on how well you do at games.
Jonwhen someone takes a turn, you can wager how well you think they’re gonna do with the game. So if you’re like, oh, this is George’s best game, this little centipede inspired thing, I’m gonna bet like 10 ships that he completes it.
MoOh.
JonSo even the people that don’t play well are able to put a wager on you doing well.
GeorgeAhh!
JonAnd with that kind of strategy, you don’t have to be a wizard at the game at the video game or a wizard at the board game, either will serve you. The mechanics of it, the design of it were such that
Mothat’s interesting.
JonCouple of years ago, might’ve been even three, four years ago. Remember, there was a digital Pac-Man version of Monopoly, and it had a little arcade toy game, which I talked about on the show.
MoYeah.
JonBut playing it, my wife and I played it together, and she was very frustrated because she wasn’t that good at the game and couldn’t get, is how much money you got when you passed Go or something, was how well you did at the game. So she was broke as hell, and I had loads of money, because I was better at the video game.
Jonhow this 2020s Pac-Man game didn’t learn from this ancient arcade mania, I don’t know, but the design is such that you don’t have to be a wizard at the little toy if you know how good your son or buddy or whatever are at these little games. So, yeah.
JonThe one I got is in impeccable condition. It was missing one little poker chip thing. Basically a tiddlywink tiny thing.
GeorgeOh yeah.
JonThose could be pennies or you know real poker chips or whatever to replace those. All the other stuff was there. I think the damage it has is just age. I’ve actually reached out to a couple of other YouTube channels that do fixing of things like this on their channel, see if maybe we can collaborate.
MoOh, cool.
JonHey, you wanna work with us? We’ll ship it to you, you fix it, do a video on that, ship it back to me, because often I’ll do a video like this and that doesn’t work. And maybe I’ll get back to it, maybe I won’t.
JonI’m actually focused on getting this to work because I think it’s going to be really cool. It’s one of those like I want to bring to SFGE. I want to sit around those big tables and play this with you guys, with other people, with our fans who visit.
Jonah good Apart from being an 80s board game, a toy. ah It’s just it’s and it’s not what I saw a lot. Like, you know, I’ve seen a lot of Dark Tower and Stop Thief. This one, I think, was out for a few months and then he stopped shipping it.
JonSo they’re hard to come by brand new working like 80, 90 bucks. I paid 25 bucks for mine. So.
MoOh, wow.
JonLittle extra work. Looks like all it’s gonna take to fix it.
JonBefore I wrap up, you said, will you just tee me up? You had a question about your experience with it or did I cover anything you were gonna ask me? George.
GeorgeMe?
JonYeah, will you tee me up? Because I’m curious about your experience with it. Maybe that was just your tee up.
GeorgeOh yeah, no, it was just, I didn’t have it.
Jonand that’s a That’s fine.
GeorgeI don’t, I’ve never seen it before.
JonOkay, that’s cool. That’s fine. All right. Okay, so I have a wrap up then. So yeah, check out the video. We’ll link it down in the description. More importantly, keep an eye out for an update.
JonOnce I get around and figure out how to get it fixed ah with any luck, we’ll be playing it in a few months at SFG.
Mosince
JonSo stay tuned.
JonAll right, as we round out the show, we like to take a few minutes here to talk about the things we’re looking at now. We’re looking forward to between now and the next time we get together to speak. And I want to start with you this time, George, and hear what you have on the horizon.
GeorgeYou know, it was difficult to fill this list out um because I don’t know if I’m really looking forward to anything right now.
JonOkay.
JonHmm.
GeorgeI’m kind of enjoying the stuff that I’m watching. There’s a lot of stuff that I got to catch up on that I haven’t watched, but I went ahead and put a couple of things on the list.
JonFair.
GeorgeJust. Because, I guess, um so I basically put them all on.
MoFinish the homework assignment.
GeorgeI’m looking forward to all these with a question mark. First one, Invincible Season 3 comes out February 6th on Amazon Prime.
MoMm hmm.
Georgeum I am so far behind that I’ve watched one episode of Season 2, so I’ve got a lot of catching up to do.
MoOh.
Georgeah I’ve read a few articles.
JonYou’re looking forward to season two still.
GeorgeYeah, I got a few articles that say it was a great season. Another one say it was a horrible season too, so I don’t know. um Another one that I’m looking forward to, and this is mainly because my wife, my mother, and my son all like watching this, so I like watching it with them.
JonHmm.
GeorgeIt’s a game show called The Floor.
JonHmm.
Georgeah It’s on Fox, and it come the new season, which is season three, starts on February 9th. This is hosted by Rob Lowe, and it takes a neat, interesting spin on the trivia game contest kind of video TV thing.
MoHmm.
Georgeah it’s It’s really fun. um it’s Imagine if you had RISC combined with a trivia game. where you have to dominate areas of a map kind of thing.
JonHmm.
MoRisk. Oh, all right.
JonOK.
GeorgeAnyway, uh, Fox February 9th, the thing that I’m most looking forward to, uh, I guess.
JonEnthusiastically.
GeorgeYeah, is ah a new documentary series coming out on Netflix February 10th called Surviving Black Hawk Down.
JonHmm.
GeorgeNow you guys probably remember the super famous movie from the was it late 90s, early 2000s, whenever that movie came out, Black Hawk Down, about the real world thing that happened in Somalia where we lost a Black Hawk helicopter in the middle of like this horrible war torn city ah there.
MoMm hmm. Oh, sure. Something like that. Yeah.
JonYeah, yeah, early 2000s.
MoMm hmm.
GeorgeAnd um The thing that interested me the most about the documentary is apparently they speak on camera to military survivors of that incident.
MoOh, oh, sounds heavy.
JonOh, oh, really?
GeorgeSo this is not pundits who were experts in what was going on in Somalia at the time. These are the guys who lived that shitty experience and survived. So I think that’ll be a really interesting documentary. It looks like they’re calling it season one. I can’t imagine there’s going to be a season two, but it looks like it’s going to be an episodic probably.
Georgethree or four episodes. You know how Netflix does their documentaries when they do that.
MoYeah.
Georgeum So anyway, ah February 10th Netflix. That’s what I’m most looking forward to. We’ll see. ah John, how about you?
JonYeah, so I have some I’m a little more enthusiastic about, so so it’d be tough to be less enthusiastic, but I think it would be all right.
Georgehe
Jonah First, an audio book. Now, um this is an audio book based on Colchack the Night Stalker.
MoIt’s
JonYou might remember this series from the late 70s, early 80s.
GeorgeOkay.
Moso Okay.
JonDarren McGavin, it was kind of like a proto X-Files. He was a a newspaper reporter who went after paranormal weird things, vampire-y kind of stuff. Anyway, It was based on an unpublished novel who I think the author was Jeff Rice.
JonAnyway, the point is the series was based on that. It was never published. well It’s since been published. But now there’s a new audio book being published.
GeorgeMm hmm.
JonIt’s coming out February 11.
GeorgeHmm.
JonThe reason I heard about it is the man reading the audio book is none other than William Catt, the greatest American hero.
MoOkay.
MoOh, there’s the hero.
Georgeoh wow
JonYeah, so I follow him, so of course he’s publicizing that he was in the recording studio. I’m like, oh, Coltrac the Night Stalker and William Catt? Well, that’s fantastic. cause That’s February 11th. It’s gonna be on Audible or probably anywhere you get audiobooks, but that’s Audible’s one I have a subscription to.
Jonah The next one, now February is ah now a new season of Survivor is coming at the end of the month, but February 17th begins Australian Survivor.
GeorgeOh, wow.
JonNow, if you watch Survivor and kinda like it, Australian Survivor is that on steroids. it is so it’s It’s somehow better, it’s more strategic, it’s less petty, it’s better gameplay.
JonI think they have fewer safety rules maybe, so it’s a little more dangerous.
MoI absolutely.
JonI’ve been looking forward to more Australian Survivor. It’s been two years since they had one, but that’s coming February 17th. The thing I’m looking most forward to, and admittedly, it’s a little bit of a stretch. It’s toward the end of the month.
JonWe’ll probably talk one more time before then, but by God, it’s on my list. February 21st in theaters is a new interpretation of Stephen King’s short story, The Monkey, that was originally in Night Shift, I think.
MoHmm.
GeorgeHmm.
JonIt might’ve been the cover of Night Shift.
MoYeah, but the yeah.
JonAnyway. Yeah. I’ve listened to the audio book of this. I’ve read the short story multiple times. The concept of the monkey, if you don’t know, is there’s like one of those monkeys, the windup monkeys that have like ah the the symbols in the movie.
JonIt’s actually a drum. And when the monkey plays them, someone dies and they’re always, I don’t know if it was based on that or not.
GeorgeWas the original movie or the movie that came out before called Monkey Shines?
JonI didn’t see that one.
MoIt might be something different, I’m not sure though.
JonIs that similar?
GeorgeI think that’s because if I remember right, the poster for Monkey Shines is a windup symbol monkey.
JonYeah.
Moo
JonIs that the premise too? It is, yeah, yeah, yeah. I don’t know if it’s based on Stephen King’s or not, but at any rate, if you see the trailer for this thing, and mo I hope you can find it to put it in the the show notes, because some of the most bizarre imagery, the craziest scenarios when this little windup monkey plays, it looks, so I’ve already got tickets.
MoOh yeah.
JonI’ve already got tickets for opening night, even though it’s like three weeks away. So Stephen King’s short story, The Monkey, made into a new film coming your way February 21st, the 20th, early releases. That’s what I’m really looking forward to.
MoNice.
JonMo, how about you? What do you got coming up?
MoLet’s see. Uh, I also looking forward to the invisible season three little more than George cause I watch season two, so I’m ready for it.
GeorgeFair.
MoThat’s come up.
JonIt helps.
MoYeah. And it comes out February six. Um, yellow jackets, the series about the girls, uh, soccer team that they crashed into play.
JonYeah.
GeorgeOh, yeah, my son wants us to start watching that.
MoYeah.
GeorgeYeah.
MoYeah. It’s, it’s intense is really good. It’s a season three is coming out February 14th.
JonHmm.
MoAnd what I’m most looking at looking forward to, strangely enough, is Captain America Brave New World.
GeorgeHmm.
JonHmm.
Moum I don’t know, I like what they’ve done with that kind of progression of the story as I watched the Winter Soldier, the Falcon and Winter Soldier ah series.
GeorgeRight.
Moon And I really i enjoyed that one actually. And so this one’s kind of like a continuation of that and it kind of goes into like Like, you know, it’s Captain America, like politics versus what’s right and all that kind of stuff.
MoSo I, I’m hoping it’ll be a little bit deeper than just like a regular fighting superhero movie. I hope it actually does cover some interesting topics. We’ll see. Maybe not. Yeah.
JonYeah. Yeah. I’m having trouble getting excited for that one.
MoYeah.
JonI think it just might be like the only Marvel movie that came out last year was just Deadpool Wolverine. They’ve had nothing for a couple of years now.
Moyeah
JonAnd you’d think I’d be hungry for more, but I’m like, Oh, it was nice to have to keep up with all the homework. yeah
Moyeah yeah Well, we’ll see how it goes again. Like it may be great.
JonYeah.
MoIt may suck, who knows, but I’m gonna go see it.
JonYeah.
MoSo that’s one of those, one of those things, right?
JonFair enough. All right.
MoSo, so with that, um one of the benefits of being a patron member ah or say a Patreon member is that you get to ask us a question that we will answer right here on our show.
JonMm hmm.
MoAnd today’s question is from Kevin. And this one, I really kind of like this one because I had an answer right in my head when I read it. So that’s why I like this one is,
JonOkay.
MoWhat movie from your childhood do you think is the most overrated? And I’m going to lead off on this one because I hit came in my head as soon as I heard this one.
JonOh,
MoFor me, it’s E.T. When I was a kid, that movie was, you could not, it was the biggest movie of that summer, by far.
GeorgeHm.
Jonyeah.
Jonand yeah
MoEvery actor who was in it was on every talk show. It was on every new nightly news thing. They were doing interviews everywhere. In New York, there was just lines, every single showing, to get in to see this movie.
JonYep.
MoSo finally we braved the line, got super excited, want to see it. And I left, I’m like, really? You know, it, it was like, it has some good moments for sure. But to me, I was like, it just seemed kind of like cute.
MoYou know, like it seemed like it was just too cutie kind of a movie for me. And I’m thinking like, well, if he can make all these kids fly, why don’t he just fly himself out there and just be done with it?
MoYou know, I mean, so, you know, even back then as a kid, my kids like, you know, my brain was like, why would he even bother? You know, but to me, that’s, I think that was over.
JonMm hmm.
MoI know people love that movie. They talk about how great it is, all this stuff, but to me, it wasn’t as good as what I think everyone kind of made it out to be.
JonYeah, it was like the highest grossing movie until until Jurassic Park broke it.
GeorgeHmm.
MoOh, yeah, it was huge.
JonAnother Spielberg film.
MoYeah.
JonIt took forever, like 11 years to break the streak.
GeorgeYeah.
MoYeah.
Jonand Yeah.
Moand And that’s just me. That’s just my opinion. I could be wrong.
JonThat’s fine.
MoSo how about you John? What’s your.
Jonah Yeah, I. um
JonIt’s weird, I mean, you guys make fun of me a lot because there are so many seminal 80s films like The Goonies, for example, that I either missed out on or just haven’t gone back to circle back to. And so a funny quippy would have been, oh, The Goonies is overrated because I’d never seen it, but clearly I wanna pick something that I actually have a basis and and knowledge for.
JonAnd especially it’s when going back and rewatching. um and And for me, it’s porkies. Now, when I was a kid,
MoMm hmm.
JonKids in my school wouldn’t stop talking about porkies.
MoYep.
JonThey loved it. They thought it was the funniest thing ever. They thought it was hilarious. they wouldn’t But looking back, it’s it’s not that like the just salacious and nudity for its sake is bad or that the stuff that didn’t age well bothers me like I still think revenge of the nerds is great and it has those uncomfortable moments that didn’t age well but it feels like now when I go back and look at seldom when I go back and look at porkies there’s no structure underneath the filth. like it’s just It’s almost like a stag film for tweens. It’s like, well, it’s not hardcore porn, but it’s as close as you can get, be in the movie theater, and that’s gonna get us the tickets. When I go back and watch it, I don’t see anything in it from a film standpoint that earned it the popularity that it got that I saw other kids enjoy. so
MoYeah.
JonYeah, that’s that’s the one that and there are others out there, of course, but for me, that’s the one that just has no redeeming value when I try to watch it again. and I mean, I can see boobs for free on the Internet now. I don’t need to watch porkies to see that without having to walk slog through the, you know, the bullies and the jocks and the nerds and everything.
JonSo I don’t know. So George, I saw you chuckle when I said porkies that I steal yours or what’s yours?
GeorgeHe did, so I’m mad as fuck because Moe immediately went to John, and so I get stuck with the shit end of the stick having to come up with something else.
JonOh, no, really?
MoOh, oh no.
JonOh, no.
JonWell, you always want to be saved to last for your panache, you know, so we were…
GeorgeYeah, and no panache this time, I’m in the deep.
MoYeah, yeah.
Jonah
GeorgeSo now, Porky’s was gonna be my choice, but I honestly don’t like the question, and I’m not saying this because I i don’t want our patrons to send us questions.
GeorgeI love our questions that our patrons send us, but I mean, just the, The general idea that people say, look back at something in a period of time and tell me why it’s overrated. Well, I don’t think that’s fair because when that thing was created in the time that it was and it became popular.
GeorgeIt was rated appropriately for how popular it was back then and it’s unfair to judge it through a lens of today. Now, if you want to say, does it not hold up?
MoThat’s a different question.
GeorgeThat’s a different question.
MoYeah, absolutely.
GeorgeIf you want to say, is it appropriate in today’s modern society? That’s a completely different question.
JonBlazy saddles.
GeorgeBut to say something is overrated denotes that the rating continues throughout history. And I think we’ve gotten into that mindset a little bit because Rotten Tomatoes is out there and cataloging all these different ah people’s ratings and tomatoes and split whatever.
JonMm hmm.
GeorgeI and just don’t like to say with something underrated or overrated in its time.
JonHmm. Hmm.
GeorgeI It was rated appropriately for the what the masses felt for it. Now, does that mean that everybody got everything right? No, of course not. There were things that people missed, Firefly being chief among them, right?
Moi agree hundred percent
GeorgeLike in the day, Firefly was grotesquely underrated, both Nielsen-wise and in how good it was, and we lost out on something great.
JonMm hmm.
GeorgeBut Porky’s doesn’t hold up. I will agree with that. It’s not even very salacious by today’s standards at all.
MoI agree.
JonNo, no, not really.
MoNow.
JonNo, just uncomfortable.
Georgeah it’s it’s It’s almost tame a little bit. There’s some uncomfortable moments, like you said, you know with you know some of the some of the things that would be readily accepted by a male-dominated white society at that time versus today.
JonYeah.
GeorgeBut it was hard for me to think of a movie that’s overrated because every movie that I saw, whether I loved or hated it, It was at that time and I’m a different person now and the movie didn’t have a chance to change.
GeorgeSo that’s why I don’t think that’s fair.
JonAnd we did interesting point.
MoYeah.
JonOK.
MoI mean, no, I guess I would count it is that I thought E.T. was overrated when I saw it the first time in 1986 or whatever it came out.
JonYou already didn’t like it, you know.
Moninety eight three I thought it was overrated then I because everyone was hyping about it and I went to see and I was like. I don’t get it. You know.
GeorgeRight.
JonHmm.
GeorgeYou didn’t like it at the time.
MoI still don’t.
GeorgeRight. And you, and you still don’t. So, so you disagreed with the mass of people who loved it.
JonMm hmm.
MoSo.
MoRight.
GeorgeAnd you were on the smaller spectrum of people who hated it.
Moyeah
GeorgeThat’s, that’s fine. I got no problem with that. And for you, that movie was overrated.
MoWell, we I mean, all these questions are for, yeah, but this is all personal opinions, right? I mean, we’re not asking like from the masses standpoint, what was overrated or saying just from your personal experience.
GeorgeRight. No, it’s just. But the question is what movie from your childhood do you think is the most overrated? It almost like in implies that it’s a movie that you liked when you were young, that you wished you didn’t, that you don’t think you like now.
JonHmm.
MoOK, I didn’t take it that way, but I get what you’re saying.
JonHmm. Yeah. Well, I couldn’t do that because I didn’t get to see porkies when I was young. Nobody let me watch it. So I didn’t watch it until I was older.
GeorgeHow did you not get to see porkies when you were young?
MoYeah.
JonAnd then I was so disappointed that it wasn’t what I thought it was going to be. You know, I was like, Oh, I
MoYeah. Yeah, really?
GeorgeI saw it and I was two years younger than you.
Jondon’t know.
GeorgeYou just weren’t inventive enough, I guess.
MoYeah, I guess not.
JonI guess so. I guess not. Anyway, it’s a good question. We appreciate it. Thank you so much. Who asked the question?
MoOh, it’s Kevin.
JonI didn’t see it here. Okay.
MoOh, I didn’t write down. Sorry.
JonYeah, I was like, I thought you said that I went to check it. So but we certainly appreciate the question. Well, two of us appreciate the question. I’m kidding. I’m kidding. I’ll get to Georgia. No, thank you.
JonThank you, Kevin, for your patronage and for supporting us and for dropping us a line. ah so Funny that we picked the same movie independently. We did not coordinate that at all. In fact, I was.
GeorgeWe did not coordinate that at all, no.
JonYeah. Yeah. ah we Thank you for your patronage, as I said. And before we get out of the show, I wanna thank a couple more patrons who joined Kevin in supporting us over at genexgrownup.com slash Patreon.
JonI’m gonna thank Jose V and Patrick M. Two more.
MoCool.
Jonfiercely generous folks who headed over to patreon at patreon dot.com slash gen x grown up and signed up for a regular monthly pledge to help support what we do we have bills to pay we have wages with salaries to put out we have subscriptions to handle we have all the even the platform we’re recording on right now charges every month to do it and patrons help us do that.
JonSo Jose, Patrick, thank you for joining this roster of amazing folks.
MoAwesome.
JonWe are so grateful for you and we couldn’t keep doing it without you. So please consider joining them. If you haven’t already, we would certainly love to have your support. That is gonna wrap it up for this edition of the show. But don’t worry, we’ll be back in two weeks with another one. But next week is our backtrack. That’s where we pick a single nostalgic topic and dig in deep. And George, would you be so kind as to let our force listener know what is in coming their way in store next week in the backtrack?
GeorgeWell, I think we’re all going to be in detention the next Saturday when we decide to talk about this one. It’s going to be the breakfast club, the seminal John Hughes coming of age high school classic from the eighties.
JonYep. Mm-hmm.
GeorgeWe’re going to dive deep into this episode, talk all about the characters, the writing and the John Hughes universe that it born out.
JonYeah.
GeorgeSo I’m very much looking forward to this podcast.
JonYeah, same here. Fourth listener, I think you’re gonna dig it. Hope you will join us for that one. Until then, I am John George. Thank you so much for being here, man.
GeorgeYes, sir.
JonMo, you know, I appreciate you.
MoAlways fun, man.
JonFourth listener, it’s you. We all three appreciate most of all, though, we can’t wait to talk to you again next time. Bye bye.
GeorgeSee you guys.
MoTake care, everybody.
(Visited 116 times, 1 visits today)
GenXGrownUppodcast

About The Author

Mo As someone who barely manages to squeeze in as a GenXer my memories include more of the 70's than those younger GenXers. Reading and movies are my passions with some video gaming thrown in there for good measure!

You might be interested in

LEAVE YOUR COMMENT

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

© GenXGrownUp LLC 2018-2024
CLOSE
×