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Irish Blood, DJI Mic Mini, & Gears of War: Reloaded

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About This Episode

We watch a new dramatic series where an American attorney visits Ireland to unravel a family mystery, check out some tech to help alleviate some of those all-too-familiar GenX aches & pains, and play the new remastered version of a legendary Xbox original now available on all major platforms!

(May contain some explicit language.)

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Show Notes

TRANSCRIPT

Jon Welcome back, Gen X Grown Up Podcast listener to this episode 196 of the Gen X Grown Up Podcast. I’m John. Joining me as always, of course, is George. Hey, man.
George Hey, how’s it going, guys?
Jon Good. You know that Mo is here?
Mo hey everybody
Jon In this episode, we watch a new dramatic series where an American attorney visits Ireland, unravel a family mystery, check out some tech to alleviate some of those all too familiar Gen X aches and pains, and play the new remastered version of a legendary Xbox original, now available on all major platforms. We’re going have those topics and many more, plus a pretty exciting update on the game Mo played last time that I can’t wait to hear about, so…
Jon Before we get into any of that, though, and it is time for the fourth listener email. Look, we know that three of us are liable to listen, but anyone else does and takes the time to drop us a line. You are the fourth listener. and The fourth listener this time around comes from And the fourth listener this time around is Tom.
Jon Now, Tom watched the podcast over on YouTube and dropped us a YouTube comment. And here’s what he said. Hey, guys, I am listening to your backtrack about kids rides. All right.
Mo Okay.
Jon ah When I was 10, my friend showed up to my house with a new dirt bike. After admiring his new ride, he told me that he caught his dad in bed with another woman.
Mo Ooh.
Jon And this was his bribe to STFO.
Mo What?
Mo Oh my god.
George Wow.
Mo Sorry.
Mo sorry
Jon And this is not editorializing. He then put a crying, laughing emoji right there after that comment in his message. He goes on to say his parents got a divorce soon afterward, but it was Christmas 365 for him for a while.
Mo Wow.
Jon Now, I had had friends whose parents were divorced, and they had the, like my my buddy across the street, he got so much Star Wars stuff, because he got stuff from mom and dad, two families at the same time.
Mo Right.
Jon But I hadn’t considered having one of your parents, like, blackmail them for gifts leading up to a divorce. I never had that problem, luckily, but…
Mo Isn’t blackmail?
Jon is
Mo but he’s more It’s more of a bribe, isn’t it, than blackmail?
George I didn’t, it it didn’t sound like he blackmailed him. It sounded like it was offered up.
Mo Yeah, it’s a bribe.
Jon no Yeah, it does. It does.
Mo Definitely a bribe.
Jon Like, hey, hey, hey, shut up, kid. Here’s a dirt bike and more is coming.
Mo Yep. You like that dirt bike?
Jon Keep your mouth shut.
Mo There’s more.
Jon Oh, ri more dirt bikes coming or whatever. Yeah. ah Tom, thanks for the story. Thank you for listening. We appreciate it Every time one of the fourth listeners drops us a line, tell us about memories that we stoke up for you.
Jon Listener, if you’d like to have your email feature here on the show, you know, it’s dropped dead easy. All you have to do is hit us up at podcast at genxgrownup.com. We read every single one of most of them like Tom’s will eventually make the show.
Jon All right. Well, that good business in the rear view of mirrors. Time to jump into the body of episode 196 right after this break.
Jon Here we go. Kicking off the ball, talking about media that we’ve been checking out since we last spoke. Now, of course, this could be television or books or comics or film or music or whatever you have been a enjoying in the world of media.
Mo Yeah.
Jon Mo, why don’t we start with you? What have you been checking out lately?
Mo Sure. So it’s a show actually spin out for a little bit. um I just discovered it. It’s called interior Chinatown. I don’t know if either of you guys heard of this show before.
Jon Mm-mm.
Mo It’s, it’s odd. It’s an odd show.
Jon okay
Mo So the basic premise is that there’s this main character, Willis Wu. um Sorry. And I think he’s Jimmy Yang is the actor. And if you see him, you’ve seen him in a bunch of stuff. if Once you see his face, you’ll know who he is. Anyway.
Mo It turns out that he is a background character in a police procedural TV show, but he doesn’t know that. So he he thinks he’s just living his life unbeknownst that he’s actually a background character in the TV show.
Mo So what happens that whenever, like, so his life, like, goes on, it’s like, it’s just weird things.
Jon but Okay.
Mo Like, every was time he’s in a fight, he says, he talks to his dad, he says, every time there’s a fight, I start really, really good, and then I just, like, lose horribly. And his dad’s like, because your purpose is to make them look good.
Mo You know? Yeah.
Jon but but So his parent dad knows he’s in ah show?
Mo Well, it’s like they kind of like the characters have sort of know like, OK, like some people accept that this is my life is to do this, whatever it is. Like my life is to always be a waiter. My life is always to do this.
Jon Oh.
Mo But he starts like trying to investigate his brother’s death from 12 years earlier, who was like the Kung Fu guy, as he was known.
Jon Oh. Oh.
Mo And it’s basically he starts to break out of his minor character role and the show’s almost trying to stop him from doing it.
Jon Hmm.
Mo Like, he can’t walk into the police station because he doesn’t belong there. So every time he tries to walk in, something happens and stops him.
Jon Hmm.
Mo And you see a janitor’s like, you don’t belong there. You know, you can’t go in there. You know, it’s it’s a weird show, but it’s intriguing, like, the way they kind of built it. You see a lot of allegories like, life and stuff.
Jon Right, right.
George This sounds an awful lot like a cross between Free Guy and The Truman Show.
Jon I was thinking free guy.
Mo Yeah, it’s kind of except, yeah and the thing is that you don’t really know, like, is this, I mean, I guess this is his life or proceeds police procedural or is he, you know, like it’s, it’s weird. Like the way it is like behind it, but it’s funny. Cause remember the two main character and the name of the police procedural is I kid you not black and white.
Mo Cause it’s a black cop and a white cop.
Jon Oh, I was thinking the police car, but yeah, okay. All right.
Mo Nope. that’s that’s not why And whenever they walk into a room, the lighting changes. Yeah. Like, all a all the lights are really bright around them, and things sort of change.
Mo And people just sort accept it. You know, as a series, a TV series, so there’s like eight episodes.
Jon Huh.
Mo I’m like three episodes in. It’s clever. Like, it’s based on a book that won a Natural Book Award and stuff. But obviously, it’s like a lot of algorithms, like people just live their lives sort of accepting things and not changing, but blah, blah, blah. You know, that’s the kind of stuff. But to see the frustration of this character who wants to be more than he is…
Mo but just can’t, and everyone around him is telling me can’t.
Jon Mm-hmm.
Jon Yeah. Yeah, like George said, reminds me of Free Guy because that’s because he was the Free Guy.
Mo Mm-hmm.
Jon That’s basically, he was his own thing and tried to transcend that.
Mo Right.
Jon I had no idea. Do you know what network this is on? Who’s doing this? Like an FX thing or something?
Mo It was on um ah Hulu.
Jon Sorry to put you on the spot. I don’t know.
Mo It’s a Hulu show.
Jon Hulu, that sounds Hulu-y. Yeah.
Mo Yeah, it actually came out November of last year.
Jon that’s I like meta shows like that. was like, we’ve done everything. Let’s do what it’s like to be in a TV show. And that’s interesting. I might have to check that out.
Mo Yeah, and Teiko Watiki? I can’t pronounce his name correctly.
Jon Taika Waititi. Is he in it or part of it?
Mo Teiko Watiki. Thank you. He directs some of them.
Jon That makes sense.
Mo ah So, you know that kind of tracks.
Jon Mm-hmm. Yeah. That checks out.
Mo um It’s got like Roddy Chang in it.
Jon Mm-hmm.
Mo i don’t know if you know him, but he’s he basically has… He pretty much has his character. He plays in pretty much every movie or TV show he’s in, and he plays that one here, too.
Jon All right.
Mo you know But it’s it’s it’s really funny just seeing the kind of the scenarios and stuff, and the fact that… like And there’s also like a cop who’s like… The secondary cop, like there’s the two main characters and these she’s brought in because she’s an expert on Chinatown, you know.
Jon Mm-hmm.
Mo But when you look at it, everything looks like a TV set. Like even the street scenes look like a stage, you know, that kind of stuff.
Jon Yeah.
Mo It’s a really, really clever show. It’s it’s kind of deep. We start looking like really understanding it.
Jon Okay. Interesting.
Mo Super entertaining, really funny.
Jon Yep.
Mo So if you haven’t seen yet, it’s definitely something worth checking out.
Jon Okay.
Mo you know, it’s it’s different it’s a different kind of show, which I like.
Jon Okay. Interior Chinatown.
Mo Yeah, if you know, in a um and script, they start with like, see, interior Chinatown.
Jon an odd name, too. Oh, right. Oh, like exterior building, whatever. Oh, it’s like a script note.
Mo Yeah, it’s like a script note.
Jon Interior Chinatown.
Mo So that’s where it comes from.
Jon I get it. Huh. Okay.
Mo Yeah, so if you have a chance to check it out, I absolutely think you should.
Jon All right. Yeah.
Mo so And John, so you’re going to bring up something that we’ve been watching, right?
Jon Oh, man. Yeah. Well, I tell you, I’ve been watching it. I know you have. Everybody I talk to who knows this franchise is either watching it or about to.
Mo Yep.
Jon On the podcast, you can’t see George shaking his head, but that’s okay. i’m ah um Look, you know what? if If you don’t want to watch it just to be ah stubborn, you’re missing out on some amazing television.
George No, it’s, ah you’ve talked about Dexter for years.
Jon Yeah.
George I’ve never picked up on it.
Jon yeah
George You said everybody who knows about the show watches it. I know about the show. I just don’t watch it.
Jon Okay. All right. All right. Well, you’ll know more about it in a second and maybe you’ll change your mind, but I’m talking about Dexter resurrection, which is the current series. Now Dexter ran, I think it ended like in 2013, it ran eight seasons.
Mo Which I
Jon It was okay. Toward the end. It kind of, it kind of jumped the shark. The last couple of seasons had kind of a ah week ending. They tried to fix that with a recent, a few years ago, they did Dexter new blood where they came back and you, his son shows up.
Jon Then they did this really cool prequel series called Dexter Original Sin that was him as a as a young man, which was not too bad.
Mo which i liked
Jon But the current series that’s running, and it’s been running for the last eight or nine weeks. I could have talked about this at any point, but it’s gotten to the fever pitch where I wanted to bring it up for anyone that might not know about it or might know about it and aren’t watching it.
Mo Yeah.
Jon Like George, who’s out there because you might want to know that it’s a good show. Oh, my goodness. I always thought the Dexter franchise was amazing. But if you this series and they’re going to another season, I think.
Jon And I don’t know how, because they’re doing things in this series. This new it’s it’s a new series, 10 episodes and a season of it. It reminds me of that last season of Breaking Bad where they’re like, well, the show is over.
Jon Let’s just run the wheels off of it and see what it’s how it explodes at the bottom of the hill.
Mo Thank you.
Jon There are people who should never know what’s going on, know what’s going on. There are people colliding with law enforcement that should not ever be involved. There are there’s a community of serial killers in New York City that moved it out of Miami to New York.
Jon It’s all-star cast. We have Peter Dinklage in it. We have Uma Thurman in it. Of course, Michael C. Hall and all these other guest stars. ah can’t even think of all the guest stars. There’s so many great people who are in it.
Jon And I can’t tell you, I’ve watched lot of Dexter and I’ve always enjoyed it. But this season… I end up having to pause it and go, whoa, oh my God, holy crap, damn, it’s really amazing stuff that’s happening.
Jon Whatever these current showrunners have done, they have caught the zeitgeist of this show and not only said, let’s do a new Dexter series, but said, let’s take everything that we ever have done and would like to see on screen and make it happen in this series.
Jon And it’s some of the most satisfying television I’ve seen in a long time. It’s one of those now that I got to watch the moment it comes out, unlike I’ll get to it this week. It’s so good.
George All right, so I’m going to start asking some questions now that you’ve taken a breath after that 20-minute soliloquy all about this Dexter a relationship that you’ve built up over time.
Jon I’m ready.
Jon I’m trying to convince you. yeah
George So, a long time ago, I think I remember you saying that in the original series, Dexter, the main character that the series is named for, died.
Jon Yes, sir.
Jon Yep. Mm-hmm.
George Do I have that right?
Mo In the main series, he didn’t.
Jon Yep.
Mo No, not in the main series.
George Okay, so basically… So basically what we’re talking about is Friday the 13th, Jason just keeps coming back and back and back and back and all that kind of bullshit. Which I’m just pointing out because people often lambast Friday the 13th because how many times is Jason going to come back?
Jon Not exactly.
George Well, Jesus Christ is what, the fourth series for this Dexter guy now?
Jon Well, he only died once and he died in the last frame of the show.
Mo Yeah.
Jon And this series starts with, turns out they were, because it was cold where he got shot, it was zero degrees. It lowered his blood rate and they were able to save him.
George No.
Jon He never died on screen.
George Wait, so they saved a serial killer? What the fuck was that for?
Jon They didn’t know he was air killer killer.
Mo Well, they didn’t know that. They didn’t know he was serial killer.
Jon They didn’t know he was.
George They still don’t know he’s serial killer.
Jon They didn’t know. He was a gunshot victim.
George These are some dumb fucking people after 8, 12 years, however long it’s been, they can’t figure out he’s the killer?
Mo Yeah.
Jon Mm-mm.
George Okay.
Jon He’s just that smart.
Mo Yeah, I’m watching this too. And I’m really, because you know, the last season of Dexter was really disappointing of the main series.
Jon Yeah.
Mo You it just, it just did not end well, really.
Jon Yeah, yeah.
Mo And then these last couple series, I think it really helped make it better.
Jon Mm-hmm.
Mo um But this one, I, I am really enjoying it just because it’s, there’s just so much story, like the background they brought, his dad is now back again as like his voice, like, you know, talks to him on the side and that kind of stuff.
Jon Mm-hmm.
Jon ah Georgia loved this. It’s his dead dad that talks him.
George Of course it’s his dead dad that talks to him because they just met like at the end of the first series.
Mo Yeah, but but his…
Jon ah Well, they were both dead.
Mo No, and the main Dexter series, his dad’s always talking to him also.
Jon Yeah.
Mo So it’s like his dad’s reminding him of stuff.
Jon Yeah.
Mo but um And just the the cast and these serial… like Again, like said, this this whole band of serial killers. And you know it is it’s Dexter, but not Dexter.
Jon Mm-hmm.
Mo I don’t know. It’s kind of hard to explain, but it’s it’s a really but it’s done really well.
George Dexter Light.
Jon yeah
Mo but Actually, should I say Dexter Plus, actually.
Jon Right, Dexter Plus, right, right.
Mo No. Yeah. So,
Jon Well, to your point, Mo, and and you kind turned into George’s question, it doesn’t require you to have seen all the previous Dexter, but if you have, like so many sequels, it really pays off because you know the the texture of the show and the lore and why it’s so important that these two people are in the same place at the same time.
Mo no
Jon It’s so crazy. So, yeah, yeah, i agree.
Mo so yeah, I’m enjoying it.
Jon yeah it’s I would tell people it’s a good starting point and it’s great, but it’s almost so much better if you’ve at least watched some of the original to know what the show was like because you enjoy it even more. highly recommend it.
Jon As I speak right now, but by the time actually, the the time this episode drops, the finale is out. So you can actually go and binge the whole 10 episodes.
Mo Oh my God.
Jon It’s great. I can’t wait. You in the future have the benefit that I don’t have right now.
Mo right
Jon i’m still waiting. All right, George, how about you? What have you been watching that isn’t Dexter or somebody being resurrected?
George Well, you know, at least it’s an original series, although not necessarily an original premise.
Jon Okay. Mm-hmm.
George So I’ve been watching this series that I talked a little bit about in Looking Forward to segment a few episodes ago called Irish Blood. This is the one that stars Alicia Silverstone as an L.A.
Mo Okay.
George attorney who ends up going to Ireland because her father has recently passed away and he’s from Ireland and… She goes over there more than anything out of curiosity.
George Turns out um everything she thought she knew was wrong kind of a situation. Her father had left her and her mother when she was 10 years old, and so she just always assumed that ah her father had abandoned them because she had misunderstood something her mother said then.
George And they never really talked about the situation because too painful and all that kind of stuff. Turned out, no, he left to protect them because of some bad shit that was going on around him due to his past activities.
Mo Okay. Oh,
Jon crime
George ah When she gets there, you know, as I said, he’s, he’s dead. She finds out um that he has this family that has never heard of her or her mother because he never told them about it.
Jon Oh, ah like a different family he formed after he left?
Mo ah wow
George Turns out, No, no.
Jon oh Oh, no.
George his His birth mother and siblings, they don’t know anything about his American family because he was protecting his American family.
Jon oh Oh, okay. Got it. Got it. Got it.
George He didn’t want anybody in Ireland to know about them for fear that they might get hurt. So, yeah.
Jon Right, the Lois Lane syndrome. You mess with Lois because you can’t hurt Superman.
George Yeah.
Jon Got it. Yeah, yeah.
George It’s a solid series. I’ll say that even though it’s an Alicia Silverstone starring vehicle and it is 100% a female forward series, all of the main characters who are doing things and making things happen and are figuring things out are all women.
George Everybody who is either a secondary character, ah helper character, or mostly bad people are men.
Jon Mm-hmm.
George So that’s kind of an interesting dynamic.
Jon That checks out.
George I like it, but there’s a kind of a ah hidden gem within the series that he only pops up in a few spaces here and there through memories. And that’s an actor named Jason O’Mara.
George Now, You guys might remember him.
Jon Hmm.
George He was on Life is Mars. He was the star of that. That’s the guy where the guy has a head injury and then he wakes up in the past as a police detective.
Mo love that one.
Jon Hmm.
George Nope, doesn’t ring a bell.
Jon Not sure if I saw that one.
Mo That
Jon Okay. All right.
George It was a good series. It was only on for a season or two. Then he was also in the only season of a series called Terra Nova where, again, past his prologue thing, they go his whole family goes back from the decimated future and they end up in the Jurassic period.
Jon Yep. um remember that.
Mo yeah way remember
Jon Sure.
Jon Right.
George So that guy who was the star those two series is her father in this.
Jon Okay.
George And it turns out, I didn’t know this through watching those original series. He is actually an Irish actor. So this is a natural part for him. And he’s just really good and fun. The storyline itself is weak.
George I will say that what they’ve done is she is given a cottage in his will
Jon Oh, no.
George And she discovers a briefcase in his locker at a gym. And the briefcase has clues. And every episode, so one of those clues gets used to solve a mystery that furthers the storyline of how he died and what’s been going on around him.
Mo okay
Jon Got it. The, yeah you know, when you mentioned this before, I remember it was a few episodes ago, but you mentioned looking forward to it and you said Alicia Silverstone and it didn’t register with me then, but knowing what I know more about the show now, I’m really curious.
George Mm-hmm.
Jon I don’t think I’ve ever seen Alicia Silverstone in anything where she wasn’t the ditzy blonde. Now, granted, I haven’t seen her a lot of stuff, but she’s maybe, i don’t know if I saw that.
George Babysitter?
Jon I mean, she Clueless was her big film, right? Was that the one we saw her in?
George Clueless was a breakout.
Mo Yeah.
Jon Yeah.
George After that, she did a film called Babysitter where she was kind of a crazy stalker girl who was infatuated with the father of the household she was babysitting at.
Jon Really?
Jon Okay. So how is she in this as a dramatic lead? I mean, you said it’s female forward. is it Are you able to disconnect that she’s Alicia Silverstone? Is she good enough actress? How is she in this kind of role?
George She’s still Alicia Silverstone for probably 75% of what she’s doing.
Jon Yeah, okay.
George She does um she is able to affect the dramatic stuff when it’s necessary, but the series is also fairly comedically based. like
Mo Oh.
George The writing that shows up with interaction between characters and the dialogue… everybody is poking fun at situations until something really bad happens.
George Like if somebody gets killed or something along those lines, then, you know, it’s kind of a dark cloud falls over the episode for just a moment, but then it’s,
Jon Okay. Okay.
George She gets herself in impossible situations and somehow never gets killed, which is a little unfair, I guess, in my regards to the viewer.
Mo This TV.
Jon Yeah, right.
George Yeah, I mean, like, so some of the big bads that were obviously had problems with her father, they kidnap her, drag her out to the middle of the marshes, and leave her. Really?
Jon Yeah. Okay.
George Like, that’s not the end of Alicia Silverstone right there. She’s in another country.
Mo Wow.
George They know she’s from America.
Jon yeah
George They know nobody’s going to search for or anything. Really? Okay, whatever. But…
George it’s ah It’s a fun series. It’s a good distraction if you need just a little bit of a break, a peace of mind kind of moment.
Jon okay
George 40 minutes. the They are releasing them um each week, so it’s not like a bingeable thing until you get to the end.
Jon Right.
George I’ve watched up to episode four. By the time this releases, I think they’ll be up to episode six. They’ll probably have like 10 episodes, the traditional short series kind of thing that’s been going on right now.
Jon Right. Right.
George So…
Jon right.
George it’s It’s an okay series. It’s not great, but it’s distracting.
Mo Okay. yeah
Jon It’s not terrible. We need those shows too, don’t we? we
George Right.
Mo Yes.
Jon We need the super dramatic edge of your seat stuff. And then you got to, you need something to c cleanse your palate and go back to that. Sorry. Irish, Irish blood, Irish blood.
George Yep.
Jon Very cool.
Mo All right. going to kick off Tekken Toys with…
Jon Mm-hmm.
Mo When we get to our age, get aches. get pains. We get pains.
Jon Mm-hmm.
Mo You know how it is Me particularly because I. i i
George I had that shit in 20. I didn’t need to get to 50.
Mo What’s more pronounced at our age? I’ll have that. um They um and ah for me, especially like I especially like stress, I feel in my neck and my shoulders. That’s where they my muscles.
Jon Okay.
Mo yeah So I was trying to find like one of those neck massager things, which I generally think are pretty.
Jon Sure.
Mo I never really care for that much. But i said, you know what? I’m to try one this time. And I got one off Amazon, of course. The name of the company really just kind of threw me. It’s called Neck Tech. Go figure.
Jon Okay.
Mo yeah How on the nose can you get?
Jon next
Mo um And it’s ah it’s a neck and back massager.
Jon yeah
Mo And it’s kind of like the shape of it is almost like a scarf. It kind of wraps around you and hangs down in front of you. And when you turn it on it has heat and has the rotating things in the back.
Jon okay
Mo And let me tell you, this thing works. I was actually shocked at how like much i was like, oh, like, you know, think you feel your shoulders going to drop youre like, oh my God, I feel so much better.
Mo um This is it does. It heats up, too. So it’s like as a warm kind of thing. You could it has a timer. So it actually stops on its own because otherwise you’d probably be there all day with it because you to take it off. and today And it’s actually, it was, yeah, exactly.
Jon Right. yeah Danger. Fall asleep with it and burn up.
Mo And it was, I thought it fairly reasonably priced. It was 50 bucks, which I thought was actually a pretty decent price for it. um It’s, I’ve used it. My wife uses it too, you know, whenever her neck gets tense and it’s, and it even comes, I guess they, it’s, is the thing I thought was kind of odd. It actually came with a cord so you could plug it into your car, like the cigarette lighter.
Mo Which I’m like, do people still do that?
Jon Hmm.
Mo You
George I mean, imagine if you’re like an Uber or Lyft driver, though, you want to keep it with you.
Mo know? Ooh.
George Maybe that’s the way to charge it.
Mo You know what?
Jon Hmm.
Mo that’s a that they Think about that. See? That’s why George is here. Think of these things that we don’t think about.
George Yeah.
Mo um But again, i said 50 bucks and it worked really well. I really have no complaints about it.
Jon You said it’s kind of I’m not looking at the picture here yet. So you said it’s kind of like a a scarf of things, right? Is it flexible?
Mo Yeah, it kind of wraps around.
Jon Like you can put it how you want or it’s just kind of horseshoe shaped.
Mo It’s soft, yeah. Well, the the part that actually does massage is stiff, but then the arms that come off it are loose.
Jon Okay.
Mo So actually, you kind of like you can put your arms through it, if that makes sense, like the ends of the scarf and pull down to to change how much pressure it puts on you.
Jon Oh, to like, to like add more ah pressure kind of thing.
Mo Right.
George Oh!
Mo Exactly.
Jon Oh, they’re more like, uh, like leverage handles kind of thing to to pull down.
Mo Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
Jon ah Is that right? Okay.
Mo Yeah. and But it’s not like super hard.
Jon I gotcha.
Mo You can turn the heat off, of course. You can change the different settings, all that fun stuff, like the basic things.
Jon Hmm.
Mo But for such a simple thing, I was actually quite surprised at how well it worked.
Jon And you mentioned that you could have it in the car.
Mo yeah No, you have to be, it has to be plugged in.
Jon When you’re in the house, is it rechargeable or does it always stay plugged in? does it work? It’s always plugged in. Okay.
Mo It’s always plugged in. Yeah. So either plug into the car, which umt know if I saw some, if I saw somebody in a car with this, I think that’d be kind of odd, but, but you can plug it into a car or an outlet.
Jon Gotcha. Okay.
George oh
Mo It has ah a long cable. So it’s really not a big deal.
Jon Okay.
Mo You know, it’s not like I’m like, Oh, I need this wherever I go. 24 seven, you know, it’s, it’s plugged in the wall. So it’s not big a big, big problem.
George But I mean, if you’re in, forgive me here, because I immediately assumed it was a cordless device because most of those massagers have a cordless option.
Mo No, it’s not.
Jon Right.
George And I mean, maybe the battery would make it too cumbersome or too heavy for the design of the device.
Mo Possibly.
George But if you’re in a chair, we’re talking about the home use part, not the car use.
Mo Yeah, yeah.
George But if you’re in a chair that’s nowhere near an outlet, which is very possible for a lot of people, this is not a useful device unless that cord is 20 feet long.
Mo It’s it’s like an eight-foot cord, so I haven’t had an issue with it yet, but, you know…
Jon Yeah, you might need extension cord depending on where you’re at, right?
Mo Yeah, but if it’s that long, then yeah, yeah.
George Right.
Jon Yeah. Yeah.
Mo Just don’t get it. Get something else, I guess.
George Well, because I’m, no, I’m just thinking like my wife could benefit from something like this, but where she sits in the living room, traditionally, there’s no plugs near that.
Mo I don’t know what else to e
Mo I see. I see. Yeah, we haven’t run across it because we happen we happen to use it in your outlet, so it hasn’t been an issue for us.
Jon Yeah, right. You have to work that out.
Jon Right.
Mo But yeah, you if you wanted to do it any place, yeah, yeah you would definitely need extension cord for sure.
George Huh, just odd that they went with the battery-less idea.
Jon Yeah. If it feels good enough.
George I would think they would have put a battery in it.
Jon Yeah.
Mo yeah don’t know. Maybe that’s to keep the cost down. I said, it’s 50 bucks, but I thought was actually pretty reasonable for something like this. I’ve seen more pricey ones that were out there, but yeah, I mean, maybe, yeah, for sure.
Jon Mm-hmm.
Mo You know, the fact that it heats up, which I wonder how long a battery would last with a heating option.
George Sure.
Jon Generating heat, right? That just burns electricity, right? Because you’re just, yeah.
Mo You know, maybe, I don’t know. Like said, I’m not an engineer, so i’m not sure the technical aspects.
Jon Yeah, right. I’m not engineer either. i
Mo So I don’t know, but I, George says, I’m sure there are wireless options out there for ones if that’s what you need. So, so anyway, that’s what I have.
Jon Yep.
Mo So John, what do you have for us today?
Jon Mm-hmm. You know, I have, interestingly, almost a direct follow-up to something George was talking about last episode or a couple episodes ago. We’re talking about these wireless ah telephone, smartphone microphones that plug in, you know, USB-C or lightning into your phone that we then take to events that we use for microphones for, you know, for interviews or for just, you know on cameras or whatever.
Mo Yeah. Yeah.
Jon And we talked about how we kept getting these 20, 25, $30 ones that were just crappy. and And in fact, George returned the ones we got last time already.
Mo yeah yeah
Jon They’re sent back because they just frankly weren’t a good enough quality and the audio quality wasn’t good. So on the heels of that, and I said in the last show, yeah, it’s time to start looking for things.
Jon So I went shopping around and you can pay as much as you want for these sorts of very small, portable lavalier microphones. But I kind of looked for good quality brand name.
Jon what are then the affordable options within that? And they ended up landing, so DJI, the company that makes drones and gimbals and all these you know great production material, ah they have a line of microphones and they have a brand new one called the DJI Mic Mini, which is at its surface, it’s pretty much what we’ve talked about. It’s a little box that plugs into your phone and then you have two of these lavalier microphones that you can then you know put on yourself or on you and a guest or whatever you want to use or just use one of them if you want.
Jon And that’s where the differences stop and the differentiating factors begin. So ah yes, they’re rechargeable. Yes, they have a nice little carrying case you can charge and all of that.
Jon All of the things that this does beyond that, though, i should say, by the way, I think it costs like $130, something like that.
Mo Okay. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Jon So yeah, it’s about you five, six times what we had been spending on them.
Mo okay
Jon But if it’s five, six times more useful, it’s well worth It’s like your dress shoes, Moe, you said last time, just spend the money on the thing. First of all, the number one problem I’ve had, well, number two problem, of the first three problems I’ve had is that not adjustable gain.
Jon Every microphone you put in there tends to sound over-modulated and too hot. The receiver has a gain dial on it. You can set the gain on it right away. Also, it has a built-in limiter. So if you don’t adjust the gain, it’s going to do its best to bring down the audio to prevent clipping, even if you don’t adjust that correctly.
Jon You also have multiple ways you can use the microphones. You can use them with the included dongle. If you have another DJI device, like a camera or something, you can pair it with that and bypass the little receiver entirely if you wanted to. And I don’t have those, but you can.
Jon Then there are the ways you can configure the microphones. You can configure them as the the old ones that we had seen, the cheap ones, where I put one on my lapel and i put one on Moe’s lapel and we’re both talking and it’s both on the same channel.
Mo That’s Oh.
Jon you can ah You can swap it around. Use a little phone app. You connect to it. You can have those both independently record on separate channels, one on the left and one on the right. So you have isolated tracks.
Mo ah school
Jon You can also have them each perform backup duties. So one will record at normal volume and one will record at a lower volume. In case there is noise or problem, you can go in and switch to the other one.
Mo oh
Jon It ah has a myriad of ways that you can use it and electronics that are involved using a phone app to adjust, not just, yeah, you’re transmitting audio from me into your phone.
Jon phone, but more importantly, how is it being transmitted? How is it being processed? What is the ultimate recording going to be on?
Mo Mm-hmm.
Jon What tracks is that audio going to lay down? And even though it doesn’t work well, it does provide an option for a straight Bluetooth connection. If you want to bypass the receiver entirely. And when I say it doesn’t work well, it doesn’t have near the audio fidelity. It works, but it’s it’s more ah It’s more akin to what the, you bypass the receiver that has the gain control and everything.
Jon It’s just a straight mic, a little lower quality of Bluetooth compression and stuff. But those are among the options that you have on this. So just like with the other ones, it has two microphones. It has the receiver and the charging case.
Jon And then it adds in all these other functions and features that add into it. And I’m going to be going to RetroCon in Pennsylvania in and a week or so. ah I guess tomorrow, the day after this show drops, I’m getting a plane heading up to Pennsylvania where I’ll give this the first big test because I’ll be in an environment where It’s very, very loud, like it was for you, George, like it is for me at shows and CES and stuff where I can try.
Mo Mm-hmm.
George Mm-hmm.
Jon It also has noise reduction, another option there. So I’m not doing mission critical things at RetroCon, but I’m going to use it as a test bed to really put that microphone through its paces and try it in a hot environment, not just here in my studio and really try it out.
Jon It turned out to be, ah look, we tried and tried and tried and they were junk. And now got a good one that looks like you know, for the money we paid damn good. So I’m excited to excited to have finally picked one that seems to meet all the criteria.
Mo I was looking at it. It looks like this one also connects to like cameras, aux inputs. It sounds like it’s like it could pretty much connect to anything you want it to.
Jon Oh, absolutely.
George Well, as long as it has a three and a half millimeter, right?
Jon Right. yeah
Mo Right.
George Because it’s got that output, so.
Jon That’s right.
Mo But it has that, but plus iPhone, plus phone, right?
Jon Yeah.
Mo USB-C.
Jon That’s right. Yeah. Thank you, guys. I forgot to mention it has a ah cold shoe slot on it so you can slide it onto the cold shoe on top of your camera and then plug little aux cable for just a regular microphone for like a DSLR or a mirrorless or something.
George Mm-hmm.
Jon Yeah, it has a number of ways that you can use it that are really production people in mind, the different ways that you might want to use something like that.
Mo Very cool.
Jon all right. So as always, links down in the description for either get your neck massaged or get a good microphone.
George All right, guys, time to talk about games. We all three have something here. And of course, since John has been looking and watching things that are going back to the well once too often, he decided to go with something completely new.
George No, it’s also something that’s going back to a well that has been visited many a times.
Jon It is. Yep.
George John, hit us up with the game you’ve been playing recently.
Jon Yeah. and Well, I didn’t pay for it recently, at least. so
Mo Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Jon ah this is the newest, latest, rebooted, remastered version of Gears of War called Gears of War Reloaded. ah Now, it just a quick refresher. If you’re not familiar with Gears of War, it’s been a while.
Jon Back in 2006,
Jon On the original Xbox 360, there was this Cliff Blazinski, whatever company he was with, was making this amazing third-person shooter with great cover dynamics and everything called Gears of War. The premise is these giant monster bugs called the locust who had been living under the earth. We didn’t know about, they erupt on emergence day and effectively we’re overmatched. And the only way they could keep them at bay is to destroy the cities they were occupying.
Jon And so our planet is kind of a wasteland. And now we’re trying to come back and take back the planet. And all these guys are big, thick neck, muscle bound monsters that look like little linebackers that are, uh, and the chainsaw bayonet, probably the most signature ah device from that.
Mo Yeah.
Mo Oh, awesome weapon.
Jon Yeah. Um, ah So ah it came out in 2006. There have been sequels, Gears of War 2 and 3 and some other stuff. ah Maybe five or six years ago, they did something called the Ultimate Edition, which apparently wasn’t because here we are years later doing another one.
Jon The real distinguishing factor with Gears of War Reloaded, of course, it’s everything a remaster would be. It’s ah updated textures, updated frame rate, stability and all that. The big thing here is Gears of War was always an Xbox Microsoft exclusive.
Mo Absolutely.
Jon You only play it on their stuff.
George Mm-hmm.
Jon Not anymore. This release, not only is it on Xbox and PC and PlayStation and I think Switch, Switch 2, yeah.
Mo Wow.
Jon Cross play. Doesn’t matter what platform you’re on. You can all get in the lobbies and play together now.
Mo That’s cool.
Jon ah So all the multiple, you can play the campaign together. You can play the multiplayer, the squad matches, the sudden death, you stuff like that. Capture the flag, all those sorts of good squad based things that you can play.
Jon And I mentioned sure I didn’t pay for it. They’re really cool. I saw a lot of people complaining that they just did the ultimate a few years ago. They’re money grubber, money grubber. If you bought any one of those earlier versions, Microsoft sends you a key to get this one for free.
Mo Oh, okay.
Jon Yeah. I first learned this was coming. I think I said, I was looking forward to it last time.
Mo Mm-hmm.
Jon George mentioned it on his news segments on bit by bit on the YouTube channel. I’m like, cool. And not two days later, I got an email from Microsoft. Hey, good news. Go plug the key in. You could get it on the day it releases. And sure enough, it released last week. Now, I’m going to give you a link.
Jon I did a live stream the day it released over on the YouTube channel. And here’s the thing about remasters. am I think about when Bioshock remastered, you know, if you haven’t played it since when it was new,
Jon Probably in your head, it looks better in your head than it looked in reality. So when you watch the remaster, like, oh, this was always gorgeous architecture.
Mo Oh. Right.
George Right.
Mo Yeah.
Jon No, no.
George Yeah.
Jon You go back and look at the old one. like, oh, that was blurry shit back then. I just didn’t know because your mind is up resing what the experience is, you know, as you play a game, you all the way back to adventure.
Mo right
Jon We learned that I’ll just, you know, oh, that’s that ducks a dragon. I’ll just accept it. But really they really did up everything, the frame rate up, the quality up. And the game is just as fun as it was before. It’s mindless fun. The story is garbage.
Jon It’s just defeat the bad guys, blow up the thing, run from the monster, you know, those sorts of, and a lot of variety, you know, chain gun stuff and on a train stuff and rolling stuff.
Mo yeah
Jon but Gears of War was always good and it’s still good. And now it’s not sequestered into the Microsoft environment. Anyone can play it on pretty much any major platform and enjoy it and enjoy it together, which is really nice. If you bought it before, you’re going to get it for free from them.
Mo See, this game actually has a lot of fond memories for me because I think back when we first met, John, and you talked me to getting an Xbox, this was one of the first games I think we played together.
Jon Yeah.
Jon Yeah.
Mo You know, it was Gears of War, you know.
Jon Yeah. It was pretty new. Yeah.
Mo It was new at the time, and I i mean, I can’t tell you how many, I mean, we played the campaign, then we started playing like just the the survival missions. I mean, we played the crap out of this game.
Jon Mm-hmm.
Mo I mean, and it is, I mean, I still have very good memories of being just um just mindless fun. I mean, that is still what it is, right?
Jon Yeah. Somebody’s down, you curb stomp them and smash their head or you catch them with the chainsaw and it cuts them in half.
Mo Yeah, yeah. It’s chainsaw best thing ever.
Jon It’s crazy. Yeah. Yeah. So it’s nice to see. I’m going guess this is probably one of the last iterations we’re going see for a long time. It’s pretty much the ultimate version in my mind that you could get, but it’s damn cool. And if you never experienced it, now it’s probably a song to pick up.
Jon If you have, it’s worth going back to play again. So I’m really enjoying it.
Mo Cool.
Jon Mo, how about you? have you been playing?
Mo So this is um this is actually another old game, actually older than your game even.
Jon Oh, okay.
Mo It’s the Forgotten Realms, because way back in the day, um they came up with these D&D games for PC from Forgotten Realms.
George Mm hmm.
Mo Eye the Beholder was like the big one.
Jon Oh, right.
Mo And so they basically, i want to call it a remaster. They basically made it so that they will work on modern hardware. That’s pretty much all they did.
Jon Okay.
Mo they and
Jon Like put it wrapper so you can play it on your Windows 11.
Mo So you can play, exactly.
Jon Yeah.
Mo um You can get like the…
George Gave him the GOG treatment.
Mo Exactly. You get the first three games, of the item holder one, two and three for five bucks.
Jon Yeah, yeah.
Mo And I was like, you know what?
George Oh.
Mo I’m going try it. I mean, it was like there’s five bucks first.
Jon Sure. Mm-hmm.
Mo And there’s just something. do I put this? There’s something like it’s compared to like especially Baldur’s Gate in the modern D&D games. I mean, it’s, you know light years apart from each other, obviously.
Mo But there’s just something. fun and engaging about these games that it almost like the modern games kind of lose it in the way because the graphics are so good that, you know, that they didn’t have to focus so much on a lot of things that this game like did its best to kind of help, you know, help pull you into the story a little bit more help, you know, your, your characters are a little bit more like they’re not as like in depth,
Mo But in a way, it’s simpler, but that’s better because the new ones use modern D&D rules like fully, like completely in it. So knowing those little nuances and stuff like, oh, if I get this skill and this skill, they’ll complement each other. you know, um something that you don’t have to worry about with this.
Mo you know, it it kept it pretty basic.
Jon yeah yeah it’s more just more hit points more damage that’s what you’re looking for
Mo Exactly, exactly. You know, the fireball, fireball, fireball, you know. And so i I got it and I played it just really just from nostalgia reasons. And I wound up playing that first game for a while.
Mo like It shocked me how long I was playing it. I looked up, i was like, holy crap, that much time has passed. Because it was just fun. And you actually have to read, like it wasn’t, you actually have to read text for the stories and you had to read all this stuff.
Mo And For five bucks, I was like, man, I said, um I’m definitely going to get my Corys out of this thing.
Jon Yeah.
Mo You know, if you don’t know Corys.
Jon Right. No kidding. It’s like you already did.
Mo Oh, yeah, I already did. Because if you don’t know, Corys is a system. ah A good friend of ours, Corey, came up with it. He says, you got to get an hour’s worth of playtime for every dollar you spend. So for five bucks, I’m like, oh, I will totally get my Corys out of this sucker.
Jon Right. Okay.
Mo and it And it’s the first three games. And they’re not short either. Each one is quite a while to actually get through and finish.
Jon And you said this came with three games. It’s three in there.
Mo It came with the first three Eye of the Beholders.
Jon First three. Yeah.
Mo So it comes with all three.
Jon Okay.
Mo And it’s funny looking at between one, two, and three. It’s like you do see the graphics got a little bit better. you know I mean, again, not leaps and bounds compared to today. but
Jon Yeah.
Mo um And it wasn’t high-res motion graphics. lot of it was very suic still graphics and stuff. But again, just kind you appreciate what they did with what they had.
Jon Mm-hmm.
Mo you know I kind look back to the 2600 games.
Jon Yeah.
Mo like you know People, oh, they they’re blocky. Well, yeah, because they had 4K to work with at most or something less or probably less than that.
Jon Yeah.
Mo um And this one too, I mean, these came out in the early days of PCs. And you know at the time I remember playing it, I thought it was freaking the most amazing thing I ever saw on a computer ever and it would never, ever be beaten.
Jon Right.
Mo Yeah.
Jon Multicolor graphics. Oh, my goodness.
Mo oh my god you know ega you know but so again if you guys ah if anyone’s ever played these before in the past it for five bucks it’s just a fun trip to go back down there and play them again yeah oh yeah for sure so that now what the hell is yours george i just see what
Jon Cool. All right. Yeah. they were I remember playing them in the day. Yeah, they’re fun.
George No.
Jon know.
George No.
Mo know what
George No.
Mo I even know how to toss this to you, man. i hear’re Okay, just for people don’t know, all George wrote is, fuck me.
George i don’t know.
Mo That’s all he wrote, so I don’t know what that means or what to do about that.
Jon i know
George Yeah, John knows because I told him because I complained about it all fucking week.
George I’ve been playing crime scene cleaner, goddammit.
Jon Lay it on us, George.
Mo ah
George fucking 17.2 hours into this goddamn game.
Jon yeah
Mo Oh my god.
Mo It sucks you in, doesn’t it?
Jon So this this was the game Moe was playing last time, right?
George No, no, no, no, no. ah Yeah, let me do the whole thing.
Jon Okay.
George If I’m the one who has to suffer through it, I get to talk about it.
Mo Go ahead.
Jon All right. Okay.
Mo All right.
George So yes, Mo brought this up in the last episode and I gave him shit because he likes to play these games where you do boring mundane tasks that are essentially just work, but they’re classified as a video game.
Jon Yep.
Jon Yep.
George And I didn’t understand why you would want to spend your fun free time doing something you normally would do during work.
Jon Mm-hmm.
George Well… I still don’t fucking understand it, but I can’t quit playing this goddamn game. So just as a refresher, You’re a janitor whose wife has recently died, whose daughter is going through a medical procedure because she has some kind of disease, and you’re drowning in debt.
Mo Yep.
Jon hmm
George A friend calls you up and says, holy shit, I just killed somebody. Please go clean it up because you’re a janitor and you know how to do that kind of stuff. So you go, you clean it up, and that’s kind of the prologue that teaches you the game mechanics. And then when you get back home, after all the crazy blood splatter and people and everything else you’ve seen, you get a call from a mafia guy named Big Jim.
Mo Big Jim.
George And he is, he’s not a big Jim sounding voice actor.
Jon You’re right.
George He sounds like Ukrainian or Russian maybe or something.
Mo Yeah.
George But anyway, ah he then puts you on the mafia payroll. And for the rest of the game, you’re going out and, Cleaning up crimes for the bad guys.
George Not what you might think of, like for the police, as crime scene cleaner.
Mo Yeah.
George You think you might, no, you’re not doing this for the police or the good guys.
Mo You’re hiding crimes.
Jon yeah right
George ah This is strictly for the bad guys so they don’t get in trouble. There are 10, what they call, episodes or chapters in this game outside of the prologue that teaches you the game mechanics.
George I’m in number nine, which is a ridiculously large…
Mo Oh.
George chapter to try and complete.
Mo Yeah.
George um Each one of these chapters takes place in a different location around the city.
Mo Mm-hmm.
George They all have their different ah nuances.
Mo And sizes too.
George They have hidden things. They have all these different… ah just little gotcha places and stuff, but they do build upon one another.
Mo Yeah.
George You start to learn, oh, I better not use my mop whenever there’s glass around or maybe picking up a shit ton of trash later on, that kind of stuff.
Mo Right.
George So what I will say is that what’s keeping me playing this goddamn game is that when I do play games that have the ability to have a completion aspect to them, like you can pick up a whole bunch of idols or do a whole bunch of this, and it gets measured and tracked and you get rewards for it, I feel a need to do those things and I enjoy doing it.
Mo Mm-hmm.
Mo You be done. Mm-hmm.
George That’s what this game is for me at its core. Mopping up 100% of the blood, picking up 100% of the bodies, getting 100% of the trash into the trash bags.
Mo Yeah, getting all the furniture in the right place.
George Yeah, but then there’s also the little secrets. Finding these little um ah recordings that you get to put up on your wall in your basement later, these little cassette tapes, or finding the secret hidden locations in a place that, you know, some of it informs the, quote, storyline, which is very thin, but still it’s there at least.
Mo Yeah, it’s pretty cool.
Mo Mm hmm.
Mo It is.
George But I just couldn’t stop. Every time I play the goddamn thing, I’m two hours in before I realize what the hell happened. So ah John’s got his hand up, everybody.
Mo Yeah.
George So going to let him belittle me a little bit here because I fucking deserve it.
Jon No, I’m happy that you found a game you like. I really do.
Mo Yeah.
George I don’t like it.
Jon but oh Oh, you do.
Mo You’re obsessed.
Jon That’s the problem.
Mo It’s more of an obsession.
Jon So interestingly, if you listen to the last episode, Mo actually gifted us both a copy of this, as I think as as a as a prank or something to give us.
George Right.
Mo Well, no, I knew I was right.
Jon Okay. And George, I had the opposite experience from you.
George Mm-hmm.
Jon I fired it up. I was excited to try it.
Mo you
Jon I walked to the first room. I’m like, oh, I see there’s some blood. And I mopped up all the blood. And I’m like, this is not a big deal. Then you open a door to the next room. And it looks like a sprinkler of blood went off in that room. and there’s a body and things are smashed. I’m like, oh, the anxiety hit me. And I’m like, I don’t want to do this much work. And I turned it off.
Jon It felt like you said, it feels like work. And it was amazing. It gave me too much stress because I’m like, well, if I don’t get it all right, I’m going to fail. It’s like the opposite of your experience. You want to get it all right for the endorphins.
Jon And I, I’m worried I’m not going to get it all right.
Mo Oh, John, I think if you persevered through that first one, you would get hooked.
Jon Really? Maybe.
Mo If you just got that first thing done.
George ah
Mo So, oh, yeah, I’m to say something going to even make George maybe more or less upset. I’m not sure which.
Jon Okay.
George I know what’s coming.
Jon I hope it’s more. This is fun.
Mo Yeah. Once you finish the last 10th episode, which is huge, they just recently released.
George I know.
George I know.
Mo It’s called the Nightmare Levels.
George Nightmare.
Jon Oh, you mentioned that before.
Mo Yep.
Jon Yeah. The spooky versions.
Mo So you can replay all 10 again, except can guarantee it’s not the same. Like when you go play like the nightmare of of the base, the first one, it is way, it’s cut more complicated, but it’s, it’s creepy.
George No.
Mo Like you said, it’s whole, like each one is like a different, like horror genre kind of thing attached to it. And you get to do it all over again. Oh yeah.
George Yep.
Jon Mm-hmm.
George So I will say in chapter four, the pizza cleanup, there is a glitch in the game and it affected me and it prevented me from getting a hundred percent on one of the items, which was ah put all the furniture back, right?
Mo oh yeah
George That’s one of the things you can accomplish in these missions. um If you do things in a certain way, which I apparently stumbled onto, and it is a known thing, people talk about it on forums and whatnot.
Mo Okay.
George Um, And you go to put this one piece of furniture back as your last piece. So you’re at 29 out of 30. When you put it back, now your meter says 30 out of 31.
George So you take it down, put it back. Now you’re 31 out of 32.
Mo oh Oh, whoops.
George It just keeps implementing incrementing both counters instead of letting you complete it.
Mo Oops. Which piece was that?
George So I don’t get that goddamn achievement in that level unless I guess I go back and redo the whole thing or something, which is really going to piss me off.
Jon Oops.
George um But… it
Mo but I’m sorry.
Jon Mo wins.
George It’s a game that grabs a hold of me in a way that I don’t like. It feels like Moe is a drug dealer, and he shot me up mainline with a speedball and said, ha ha, here’s a bunch of cocaine, kill yourself.
Jon First one’s free.
Mo Yeah.
Mo And it’s something weird when I, like, John, i know you felt the anxiety, but when you finish and you leave and everything is, like, perfect, I felt really good.
George But I can’t quit playing it.
Jon I can imagine. i just, i don’t like, it’s getting to that point that I’m like, that’s a lot of work.
Mo I’m like, oh.
Mo Yeah.
George And it is, and it gets worse, the levels that you keep going up to.
Mo Yeah.
George Every chapter gets a little bit bigger, a little bit more complicated, new things come in.
Jon I can only imagine.
George You, of course, just like in any one of these types of games, Mo talked about it last time, there’s a skill tree, and the skill tree is not small. It appears small if you’re not paying attention when you first look into it after the prologue.
George It looks like, oh, all I have to do is increase my sponge and my mop and my buckets and everything’s good. No, there’s like 15 different skill trees on there for getting new items, carrying multiple infrared lamp things that show ultraviolet blood and all this bullshit.
Mo Yeah.
Jon Wow.
Mo Oh.
George ah You can get all your cleaners. And by the way, there’s another glitch because one cleaner is called strength twice, but it has two different symbols because it is two different things. So that was apparently because of a translation mishap from where the game was programmed to where it is here in American English.
Mo oh
George Anyway, I’ve done far too much goddamn research on this game. I’ve looked up forums to figure out, oh shit, there was this thing behind the pool underneath the statue of this.
Mo Bye.
Jon that you missed.
George Oh,
Mo I mean, it’s I think it’s it’s, I like, I mean, I thought it was neat that it wasn’t, they took the basic game, which is you clean up, but they actually had these little things on it that like makes you want to kind of like find like the hidden room over here or find this little thing over here.
George God damn it.
Jon oh
Jon I’m sure. Hmm.
Mo And, you know, like there’s more to discover. And some of the basic stories that you do realize that there’s like a new story inside of it that you didn’t realize like, holy crap, it’s not just this. It’s a whole other thing I didn’t realize, you know?
George It’s designed for sufferers of OCD.
Mo Yes, it is.
George That’s what this game is.
Jon o Yep.
George If you’re an OCD sufferer, this game is going to make you happy and miserable all at the same time.
Mo Yeah.
Jon Miserable until you do it and then happy when you do, right? Until you get it satisfied.
George Yeah.
Mo Exactly. And you’d be like, oh, yeah you get that back massager I got afterwards and you’re fine.
George Exactly.
Jon Crazy.
Mo Hmm.
Jon I just played a little bit and I feel like I needed it.
George Yeah.
Jon As we come into the back end of the show, we always like to take a few minutes here to talk about the things we’re either looking at right now or looking forward to between now and the next time we get together.
Jon And I want to start with George now that he’s got the not the cleaner off of his back a little bit, maybe.
Mo Yeah.
Jon Let’s see what he’s got coming up next.
George Yeah, a pair of movies, both releasing on September 12th. So the first one is a Stephen King adapted from a novel, The Long Walk.
Mo hmm. Oh, that’s coming out to 12.
George Been really looking forward to I’ve seen a couple of trailers on this.
Mo Oh, yeah.
Jon Hmm.
George Looks like it’s going to be a fun adaptation of the book.
Jon Oh, right.
Mo Yeah, yeah.
Jon Oh, yes. I saw that trailer.
Mo don’t know fun’s the right word.
Jon Yeah.
Mo yeah.
George Second one is a movie based on a anime series that my son and I are both very into.
Mo h
George He was into it from a very young age and he got me interested in it called Demon Slayer. And this one is called Infinity Castle.
Mo oh yeah
George There’s going to be a multiple series of movies that are going to finish out the whole manga story arc, but they’re all going to take place in the Infinity Castle. This is movie number one of that group of movies.
Jon Mm-hmm.
George ah So we’ve we’ve already got our tickets to go see it.
Jon Mm-hmm.
George We’re definitely looking forward to it. ah But then the thing that I think I’m most looking forward to, and this is based off of ah Amazon Prime series. So this is a spinoff from the boys called Gen V.
Mo Mm hmm.
George And they’re finally coming out with season two, which I’m very happy of that because season one left it off in a place that it needed follow up for sure.
Mo Oh, they are OK. I
George But the boys, which came out it with this fourth season, I think it was after season one of Gen V made it feel like, Oh, maybe we’re not going to get any more, but it turned out we really are.
George And we’re going to get another season of the boys to finish off that whole arc, I think as well. So, uh, good on them.
Mo yeah hope so.
George That’s on September the 17th on Amazon prime.
Jon Mm-hmm.
George I know that’s a little bit further out than we normally do, but I’m really looking forward to it. Um, all of us here in our household watch those series and like them.
Jon Yeah.
George So Michael and my wife and my kids, everybody getting to sit down and watch this. It’ll be a lot of fun.
Mo Cool.
George So that’s what I’m looking forward to.
Jon Yeah.
George Mo, how about you?
Mo um So I’m looking one to finish that TV show, Interior Chinatown. um Like said, I’m a few episodes in.
Jon OK.
Mo It’s just it’s weird, but so I know I got to finish it. So I’m gonna do that. um Only Murders in the Building is coming back September 9th, which is cool, which I i was so surprised.
Jon Oh, okay.
Mo i didn’t think it was coming back that soon. But I think about that series, I just enjoy it. It’s just like a fun series to watch.
Jon Mm-hmm.
Mo What I’m really most looking forward to, though, is Spinal Tap 2.
Jon Yep.
Mo September 12th.
Jon Oh, man.
Mo ah A direct sequel with the same actors who are all way older.
Jon Yep.
Mo I think I saw Rob Briner said, we have to do this before one of us dies because they’re all getting really old.
Jon ah
Mo He’s like, we do this soon.
Jon Like the subtitles, like Spinal Tap to the end continues, which which is perfect in their line of humor.
Mo Yeah, it continues.
George Right.
Mo Yeah.
Jon if it this Yeah, it looks great.
Mo And I think it’s been a while since I’ve seen like real like mockumentary where there’s like a lot of ad libbing, like, you know where the, where you just, it’s just a talent of the actors that.
Jon Yeah. And that’s what they do. Yeah.
Mo They could just pull a seat off, just off the top of their heads and do some amazing work. So really super looking forward that coming out in the theater, September 12th.
Jon Me too.
Mo So that’s what I got.
Jon Yeah.
Mo So how about you, John?
Jon A few things. So, so October, I’m sorry.
Jon August, a few things. So starting actually the day we’re recording, this is coming out um August 29th. So it’s out now for you to watch the remake of the toxic Avenger starring Peter Dinklage.
George oh
Mo That’s going cool.
Jon ah That’s been, was originally filmed by Troma productions back in the eighties sometime, I think.
Mo Wait. Oh, yeah.
Jon And it was really weird, like underground indie movie.
Mo but Big time. a Yeah, it was a cult movie.
Jon Yeah, yeah. And it’s, you know, guy falls in sludge and becomes an anti-superhero kind of thing.
Mo With his mop.
Jon Basically, he’s ah he’s a gross Batman kind of guy.
Mo Hmm.
Jon But that’s out now to watch. I’ll hopefully get to see it. We’ll talk about it soon. An Atari game, Adventure of Samsara, that we’ve been keeping an eye on.
Mo Hmm.
Jon Now, when they announced this, it’s It’s supposed to be connected to the world of adventure, though it’s based on an older game. But um it’s a Metroidvania, which is my kind of game.
Mo Mm-hmm.
Jon And even when I played the demo, it was only kind of halfway done with the product halfway ready for release. And no matter what it’s connected to, I’m excited to play a good Metroidvania. I’m still in the middle of Shadow Labyrinth, that Pac-Man Metroidvania, which is so good. So pile another one onto my playlist.
Jon That’s coming September 4th, which is, I think, the day this show releases. So it’s out right now for you. And for me, what I’m looking most forward to is RetroCon 2025 up in Oaks, Pennsylvania.
Jon I’ll be there September 6th and 7th, which just in a couple of days for when you’re listening to this show, if you listen on release day. I’ll be up there hanging out with my friends at Retro Days, as well as my friends from 1980s now.
Jon And we’ll have a panel actually 1030 on Saturday morning. But otherwise, I’ll just be roaming around the dealer’s room. All the guys from Chips are there. Eric Estrada and…
George ah He was also Jim Halpert’s father.
Jon The captain, who’s Chris Pine’s dad, whatever his name is, something pine, right?
Mo Yeah. Yeah.
Jon The dad, he’s there. ah ah Larry, what’s his name? the the So all the all the primaries are there, the three main guys.
Mo Yeah. You get to test that your microphones too, right? I’m sorry.
Jon Mm-hmm, right, yep, yep. So look really looking forward to that. So a lot of good stuff on the horizon. ah Now, before we go, i always like to thank a new patron. I’m going to do that here in just a second. But first, one of the benefits of being a patron is you get to ask us a question we’ll answer here on the show. And I know Mo has pulled up a really cool one from one of those patrons.
Jon What do got, Mo?
Mo Yeah, it’s from Christian, and I apologize if it’s pronounced differently.
Jon Okay.
Mo um So here’s the question. He says, hey, guys, imagine that you are starting up your own retro arcade business.
George Yeah,
Mo Which 20 video arcade games and pinball machines from the 70s and 80s would you deem essential to have in your arcade? So that’s your question, Christian.
Jon Hmm. Hmm.
Mo And let me going modify a little bit because if we each come up with a list of 20, we’ll be here all night.
Jon We’ll here all day.
Mo So I think why don’t we just kind of round robin and each pick a game and go around until we each get like seven and that we’d be like 21. So that would be like our perfect arcade.
Jon Okay.
George because that won’t take long at all.
Mo Nah, we’ll play.
Jon Oh, I got my list. It won’t take me long.
Mo I got mine already too, so I don’t know. yeah
Mo So I’ll kick us off. Let’s start with the easy one. Qbert. Absolutely must have for me.
Jon Okay. There you go.
Mo right. John.
Jon ah Donkey Kong.
Mo All right.
Jon Easy, George.
George Galaga. All
Mo Galaga.
Jon There we go.
Mo Thought that was up there.
Jon Oh, got those out of the way. Yep.
Mo OK, let’s get those out. We knew those were coming.
Jon yep
Mo Robotron. Absolutely. It must have for me.
Jon Yeah, makes sense. Yeah. I’m going to next.
Mo John.
Jon I’m going to go Donkey Kong Jr. Got to have that one.
George if we don’t put Pac-Man on the list at some point, we’re going to be disowned.
Jon Oh, we’re gonna.
Mo It’s going to.
Jon Is it you?
George So Pac-Man, I’ll throw that in there.
Jon Okay, gotcha.
Mo Okay, Pac-Man.
Jon Yep.
Mo All right. ah Tempest.
Jon Oh, yeah. Sure. Yeah. Oh, my goodness. Okay, well, I’m going to just echo again. I’m going to Ms. Pac-Man because a lot of ways, i enjoy that more than Pac-Man sometimes.
Mo Yeah.
Jon So…
George I think we got to have Defender in there.
Mo Yeah, that’s pretty much a must.
Jon Oh, yeah. Yep.
Mo Even though I hate playing it, it’s a must to have, though, your arcade.
Jon Mm-hmm. You got to have it. It’s got to be there.
Mo Yeah, gotta to have it.
Jon Oh,
Mo um Zaxxon.
Jon God. Yep. Mm-hmm. I’m going to go, my turn, going to go Green Beret. Not one lot of people know really, really well.
Mo Oh.
Jon a little bit of a deep cut, but I love that game. It’s really fun to do. George?
George We got to have a driving game in there, so i’m going to throw a pole position up.
Mo Good one.
Jon Oh, okay.
Mo That’s a good one.
Jon Yeah. Yep.
Mo Let’s see. I would throw Burger Time.
Jon Oh, yeah, yeah, that.
George yeah I’m throw an oddball one out for number five.
Mo No, no, it’s a good. I love Burger Time. Can I have to play that one?
Jon yeah Oh, well you think burger time? I got to have Dig Dug.
Mo That’s my next one.
Jon So, okay, got you covered.
Mo OK, yep. but
Jon Got you covered with anything, George.
George I’m going to throw Pingo in there.
Jon Oh, yeah, that’s a good one.
Mo Tango. Oh, that was a good one.
Jon Of course. Yeah, why not?
Mo That was a good one. Wow. Battlezone.
Jon that’s That’s an obvious one, isn’t it?
Mo yeah ah And this is the last round, by the way. That’s seven i’m on set that’s the seven one.
George Nope.
Mo So you guys each one more.
George Nope, I’ve picked five. You said seven.
Mo Oh.
George I’ve still got one more.
Mo Yeah, i say, yeah.
George That was your last round.
Mo That’s mine. So you guys each get pick one more each.
George We get two more each.
Jon so Okay. what
Mo Oh, two more. That’s right. I’m sorry. Six.
Jon Two more each.
Mo wait get Yep.
Jon Yeah, yeah. One more round.
Mo Good.
Jon One more round. so
Mo One more round. All right.
Jon Okay. so Okay. I’ll take that out. So you did Battlezone. What am I gonna do next? Oh, man. I just have a couple left. That’s rough. Oh. Oh. Mortal Kombat.
Mo Oh, yeah, I was wondering when the first fighting game wasn’t getting in there.
Jon Yep.
George Uh, I’m surprised we haven’t done it yet, but, um, I’m going to throw one of these in here. So I’m going to go with, yeah, asteroids. Cause that was the first of the two that I’m thinking of that I played.
Jon Okay.
Mo Yep, I was on those lines, too.
Jon All right. Yeah.
Mo Oh, man.
Mo Sinistar.
Jon Oh, damn it. That’s a good one.
Mo ah sorry
Jon See, here’s my problem now is how about five more? And this is my last pick, right?
Mo Yeah.
Jon So my last pick, I want to say street fighter, but I’m not, I’m going to go with ye are Kung Fu.
George Yep.
Mo Okay.
Mo What? Wow.
Jon Yeah. Yeah. They got little bit of a deep cut. I know, but that’s for, for my arcade.
Mo That’s a deep cut one for sure.
Jon It’s gotta be now George’s last here and he’s not called out one of his favorites.
Mo i know.
Jon I’ll be stunned.
Mo I’m thinking i’ I’m on the same wavelength.
George I know.
Jon All right.
George um
Mo don’t if going to pick it.
George I’m bookending it because neither one of you guys are going to pick it. So start with Galaga, finish with Dragon’s Lair.
Mo I was wondering. there you go.
George It’s real easy.
Jon Dragon’s lair. There we go.
George Yeah.
Jon There’s our run.
George But what surprises me is Moe didn’t throw Tempest in his list and Jon didn’t throw Missile Command in his.
Jon Oh, I know. there’s just so many.
Mo Oh, shit.
Jon Just so many.
Mo All right, one more round.
Jon Yeah.
George Yeah.
Mo Tempest.
Jon One more round, Bo says.
George mean…
Jon Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Mo Missile Command. All right. So that’s our list. Great question. So, hey, guys, if anyone has any suggestions, I’ll put this out as a question actually on our our Discord channel too.
Mo I think we’ll get a lot of great responses.
Jon yeah
Mo But, um yeah, if anything that you think should be in that perfect arcade that we didn’t pick, let us know. But, again, if you want your question answered on this channel, it’s super easy. Just go to geneticsgroup.com slash Patreon.
Mo as little as a dollar a month. Don’t you question this and a great chance it’ll answer and there’s a great chance that we’ll answer it right here on the show.
Jon Right.
Jon Yeah. And I mentioned I had a new patron.
George Yeah, we didn’t.
Jon I wanted to. I’m sorry. Did I jump you?
George No, i was going to say, we didn’t even get into pinball at all.
Mo That’s right. We skip him.
Jon I know.
Mo Oh yeah.
George I had like five pinball machines to throw in there, but.
Jon Yeah. Oh, well, we’ll build the annex of the Albee pinball.
Mo Yeah.
Jon After the first 20. I mentioned I had a new patron I wanted to thank. Now, I think I’ve actually may have mentioned Joey L before, but I want to share with you. He joined just before we went to SFGE this year and he dropped us a line when he joined.
Mo OK. Oh,
Jon And I want to share with you what he had to say. Joey says, hi, guys, this is Joey. I just joined Patreon today. I’ve been listening to the podcast for a while now and wanted to show my appreciation for all the entertainment you provide.
Mo ah that’s cool.
Jon I originally found out about Gen growing up on YouTube and didn’t realize it was a podcast until I got to meet the three of you at SFGE a couple of years ago. Nice.
Mo Oh, wow.
Jon I listen to the podcast whenever I’m in the car and working my way through the back catalog. My son, Peter, and I also love watching the YouTube videos together. We live in the Metro Atlanta area and are excited to see all of you again at SFGE this year. That was last month.
Mo Yep.
Jon And I love being the fourth listener. I’m excited to now offer my support. And Joey, we appreciate you.
Mo Yep.
Jon Appreciate that note. It was great to get to meet you at SFGE. And we’re happy that we got to tell you about the podcast.
Mo and was.
Jon You weren’t missing out on half of the stuff that we do.
Mo Mm-hmm.
Jon So um like Mo said, patreon.com slash Gen X Grown Up. Sign up to support and do what Joey did. We really appreciate you. That’s going to wrap it up for this edition of the show. ah Before we leave you, though, that’s going to wrap it up for this edition.
Jon God, I can’t talk. That’s going to wrap it up for this edition of the show. Don’t worry. We’ll be back in two weeks with another one. Next week, though, is our backtrack. You don’t want to miss this one, at least not if you’re a fan of this show like I am.
Jon Late 70s and early 80s, Leonard Nimoy hosted an amazing pseudo-paranormal documentary creepy show called In Search of… that covers all the weird mystery stuff of the world.
Jon And it’s from Bigfoot to block desk monster to Bermuda triangle to all that kind of really cool stuff.
Mo Yep.
Jon We’re going to run down that series. It’s origin. ah Take note of some of the most interesting episodes. You might want to check out with that still watchable still today. we’ll be talking all about in search of the next backtrack.
Jon I hope you’ll join us for that one.
Mo Awesome.
Jon Yeah. Until then, I hope you will definitely join us. when We talk about that until then. I am John George. Thank you so much for being here, man.
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. We can’t wait to talk to you again next time. Bye-bye.
George See you guys.
Mo Take care, everybody.
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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!

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