HomePodcastsGenXGrownUp PodcastMarvel Zombies, ShaderGlass, & Blade Runner Enhanced Edition

Marvel Zombies, ShaderGlass, & Blade Runner Enhanced Edition

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About This Episode

We check out the new animated superhero series with an undead twist, test drive a free PC app that can give your entire workspace a retro makeover, and play the enhanced, modern edition of a 1997 point-and-click sci-fi adventure!

(May contain some explicit language.)

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Show Notes

TRANSCRIPT

Speaker Transcript
Jon Welcome back, Gen X Grown Up Podcast listeners to this episode 198 of the Gen X Grown Up Podcast. I am John. Joining me as always, of course, is George. Hey, man.
George Hey, how’s it going guys?
Jon Good. It wouldn’t be a show without Mo. Hey, Mo.
Mo Hey, how’s going, everybody?
Jon In this episode, we check out the new animated superhero series with an undead twist, test drive a free PC app that can give your entire workspace a retro makeover, and play the enhanced modern edition of a 1997 point-and-click sci-fi adventure.
Jon We’re going have those topics and many more coming your way in this episode. But first, it is time for some fourth listener email.
Mo it everybody?
Jon Look, the three of us are here. We’re liable to listen. But if anyone else does and drops us a line, you are the fourth listener. And this time around, it’s Brian J., Subject line of Brian’s email is phone fun reference to the pod, the backtrack we did not too long ago.
Jon Here’s what Brian says. Guys, I love this one. I had forgotten so many details about telephone use and abuse until I heard your conversation. I would like to add two things that stand out in my memory.
Jon First of which he has is party lines. I grew up in rural Ohio and it was common to share a single line, not number, just line with neighbors.
Mo yes
Jon You could actually pick up the receiver and hear their conversations. Oh, yeah. good yeah i You know what? I wondered about that after you set the preset. Yeah. Thank you, George.
Mo I didn’t actually do anything.
Jon I wonder if if it was just me, like it went back to louder.
George Oh, yeah, it’s bad.
Jon yeah It’s blowing out again.
George No.
Jon Like whatever you adjusted, it went right back. Yeah.
George I was trying to do it so John wouldn’t have to stop.
Jon Yeah.
Jon you’re You’re okay. I’ll just as soon catch it and be good.
Mo All right, how about now?
Jon I wondered it was just me. so Do it again.
Mo Oh, yeah, man. So yeah, my level will just bounced up for some reason. Sorry about that.
Jon Come down a little.
Mo As I might have hit it by accident or something.
Jon Okay.
George Are you setting it in the software or on the mic itself?
Mo Software.
George Are you on a PC?
Mo Yep.
Mo Oh, yeah, how’s this?
George How did, okay.
Mo This is where was.
Jon That sounds good right there.
Mo This is where it was.
Jon Yeah. Yeah, that sounds much better now.
Mo Yeah, and i I might have accidentally hit ah the other preset button or something silly.
George Yeah, you can even see the waveform. When you first saw said hello, you were completely clipped on the top and bottom, and now you’re normal.
Jon Mm-hmm.
Mo Okie dokie.
Jon Okay. Cool. Okay. I’m just going to start over. That’s easy enough. I’m only 30 seconds in. so I’ll have to do that. Actually, just give me a… Hello.
Jon It wouldn’t be a show without Mo. Hey, Mo.
Mo Hey, how’s everyone doing?
Jon That sounds so much better. okay good. I’ll edit that back in. blahh Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Okay, picking up a party lines.
Jon The first topic he had is party lines. I grew up in rural Ohio, and it was common to share a single line, not number, just line with neighbors.
George Mm-hmm.
Jon You can actually pick up the receiver. you remember that, George? Pick up the receiver and.
George That’s what I talked about in Kentucky.
Jon Yeah, it’s weird and hear their conversation, he said. There were times we really needed to make a call and would politely ask them to finish up so we could have the line. That seems so weird.
Jon Like you pick it up.
Mo It does, doesn’t it?
Jon Somebody’s talking to go, can you guys shut up? We didn’t have an important call to make.
George Yeah, imagine how phone sex was back then.
Jon Uh, yep.
Jon He actually all but he he almost gets to that in a second.
Mo It was a party line.
Jon Hang on.
Mo Okay.
Jon Wait for Brian. Don’t get ahead of Brian. He even says, super awkward. I’ll never forget a guy named Tony who would talk with his girlfriend late at night. I used to unscrew the transmitter piece and listen to them declare their infatuation to each other.
Mo Oh.
Jon One night he actually sang to her.
George Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Jon Now, I would do that trick. do We don’t have party lines, but I would do that trick like multiple lines in the house because if you picked up the phone, they know you’re there. But if you unscrew the mouthpiece, there’s no background noise. So you can eavesdrop on someone else in the house. Although they would go, just heard a click.
Jon Did you hear a click?
Mo Yeah, there was a click there. There was a click.
Jon Yeah. um His other thing you remembered was also there was a service advertised in the front of our phone book that was sort of an audio educational thing. No, not me.
Mo Yeah, I remember that.
Jon You would dial the main number.
George I’m just wondering why they needed a phone book. They only have one line for the whole goddamn county.
Mo I know.
Jon That’s an excellent question. yeah He said you would dial the main number that enter code to hear a five to seven minute explanation of whatever topic you were interested in. It could be a brief scientific discussion or maybe historical.
Jon But the one I remember listening to many times was female sexual response.
George Ha ha ha!
Jon there’s There’s your phone sex, George.
Mo Oh man.
Jon were looking forward to there
George There you go.
Jon it was probably like super clinical. And yet you probably let’s do it over and over and over. Listen to what they say in this audio.
Mo Yeah.
Jon I don’t know. Anyway, Brian says, those were the days. Thanks, guys. Brian, Patreon supporter. We love you, Brian.
Mo Awesome.
Jon Thank you for that. Thanks for your support, of course. Thanks for writing in. We love it. Every time the fourth listener takes time to drop us a line, let us know what they think of the show. If you would like your email featured here on the show, it’s drop dead easy. Just hit us up at podcast at genxgrownup.com. We’ll read every single email and most of them eventually make their way to the show.
Jon All right. Got lot of topics to get to, so let’s jump into it right after this quick break.
Jon Lovely. Yeah, you sound great, Mo. Yeah, you sound great.
Mo Okay.
Jon Yeah. I saw you with your head down, George. i’m like, uh-oh, something happened. I wonder if maybe got a text or something came up and you were writing the note to me.
George Mm-hmm.
Jon All right, media in 5, 4, 3. four three Let’s get the ball rolling. Talking about media, it’s how we always start out in this segment. of course, this could be television or film or books or music or podcasts or whatever you’re into right now.
Mo she
Jon George, why don’t we start with you? have you been watching?
George Yeah, so a thing I was looking forward to, I think, recently, Gen V Season 2. So this is the college drama that’s set in the universe of the boys, the Amazon Prime series, based on the Garth Enos series.
Jon Yes. Mm-hmm.
Mo Yeah.
George Now…
Mo Yeah.
George um The first season of Gen V was outstanding. Loved it. It was very controversial in a lot of things because there was a lot of graphic violence and sex, and but they didn’t pull any punches.
Mo yeah
George They did keep it true, in my opinion, to the universe that the boys had created. ah You saw a lot of crossover characters and stuff in that first season. and Season two is doing the same thing, but there is one major note that with season two that’s completely different and very sad from season one.
George The young man who played the character Polaris, who was actually the son of another superhero also named Polaris, ah that actor died in real life between seasons one and two.
Mo Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Mo yeah
Jon Okay.
Jon oh no
George so… and so When we left season one he and three other of the main characters that were kind of the rebel group to the you know to the organization, they were all captured and in this holding facility and going to be jailed and experimented on.
George Well, they had to obviously write that character out of the story, so they wrote it off like with background sounds and stuff and basically made it out that he tried to escape and was killed in the process of that escape.
Jon Hmm. Hmm.
George So my son and I, who are big fans of the show, we had not paid attention to real world news and didn’t know that that had happened.
Jon Interesting.
George So when we started watching, we were like, oh, they’re going to say he’s passed away, but he’s going to come back, right?
Jon Oh.
George It’s going to be a superhero comeback kind of thing, like in comic books.
Mo right
George But ah as soon as the first episode was over… I jumped on my phone real quick just to see, okay, when is Polaris coming back? And then found the articles.
Jon Ah, oops.
George And I was like, oh my goodness, that is so horrible. So um again, something sad, but the rest of the episode itself and the storyline, even though they had to pull that character out,
Mo Mm-hmm.
George I feel like they did a really good job with recovery. The writers really stepped it up. They’ve reintroduced his father’s character, who was kind of prevalent only in an episode or two of the first season.
George So now he’s going to have a more prominent role in this season, which is a nice little homage to what the actor had already done as the son, I think.
Jon Right, right.
George um But it is, again, another solid offering. um I don’t want to give too many spoilers because the episodes are coming out episodically on the weekly basis. They’re not dumping them all at once.
Jon Mm-hmm.
George And I’ll just say that
George propaganda is paramount in the universe of the boys, and it is no less so in the universe of Gen V.
Mo she
Jon Hmm.
Jon Hmm. I have one quick question.
George Yeah.
Jon I have not watched Gen V, but one time you called me and said, you have to see this crazy puppet scene.
George Yeah.
Mo Yeah.
George Yeah.
Mo Yeah.
Jon Will there be or has there been any other of those crazy cool? Because basically it’s like a guy. It’s like what he imagines is this terrible. So you saw like like streamers coming out of people instead of blood or whatever.
George yeah
Jon It was really crazy. And I loved it, but didn’t know the context. Is there more of that coming? Because I was most interested in.
George there ah So there likely will be. That character is still a main character in the series.
Jon Okay.
George and he is ah he So basically, he’s schizophrenic.
Mo yeah
George And part of his superpower is when he sees people as puppets, that’s when he gets this super strength and can just literally rip a human body apart without any problem.
Jon Yeah. Yeah.
Mo Or a puppet.
George So…
Jon It was funny.
George it it was it was outlandish for sure. but They have not done any puppet scenes with him since, but I would not be surprised if they have one pretty shortly.
Jon Oh.
Jon It’s good. Yeah. Well, they do, please let me know because I’m eager to see more of the puppet violence.
George Yeah. Or you could just watch the series and be caught up.
Mo she Yes, sure. You could just do that.
Jon Yeah, I got so much else to watch. ill just Just show me the puppets.
George Ha ha ha ha ha. Good series. It’s on Amazon Prime, just like the boys.
Jon Yeah.
George This, I don’t know if this will be the last season, although I do know we’re getting the last season of the boys coming up. So if the boys ends, this might continue.
Mo yeah
Jon Mm-hmm. Yeah.
George It’s definitely got its own legs, but it might be hard for them to justify the expense. I’m sure this is not a cheap series based on all the special effects that they use in this thing.
Jon no
George So we’ll just have to see.
Jon And all the puppets.
Mo Yeah. Did the boys comic book, that end? is that still going on?
George ah You know, honestly, I don’t know. and my son and I were talking about this ah and right after we watched episode one of Gen V this year.
Jon Hmm.
George ah I don’t know that that matters because the um From what we’re understanding, the series diverges a lot from the comics.
George So, for instance, in the comics, the boys, who are the the rebel group that are against the superheroes, right, that are um led by, in the TV show, Carl Urban, they all take Compound V, like, immediately, right?
Mo Oh, I see. Okay. Like Walking Dead.
Jon Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Jon okay
George in the comic books and start trying to kill off the superheroes. And they don’t have great, backstories for anybody other than the main boy.
Mo Mm-hmm.
George um whereas obviously in the boys in Gen V, all the characters have well-developed backstories. They’ve done a great job with that. So Garth Enos has a history of putting out strange and unusual comics.
George You know, he’s the guy behind preacher, which was also another series that made it to TV.
Mo Oh, was great series.
Jon That’s awesome.
George but I get the impression, at least from what I’m reading online, that this may not have been one of his best comics, but it’s turning out to be a better series. So
Mo Yeah, OK, OK.
Jon Hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
George what about you, John?
Jon I’m digging it.
George You been watching anything fun with puppets spewing streamers of blood everywhere?
Jon I wish. I wish that was a regular recurring series, but I am watching something I was looking forward to the last time we spoke. This is a new animated series on Netflix called Haunted Hotel.
Jon It has a lot of good voice talent. the one you recognize up front is Will Forte. He’s one of the stars of this.
George ah
Mo Oh, yeah.
Jon And… You know, a lot of you hear the great thing about Netflix animation, any modern animation is big stars now love doing voiceover stuff. So like I heard ah just a one off character ah voiced by Keith David the other day in an episode.
Mo Oh, really?
George Oh, nice.
Jon You know, they just are getting great names, doing great. He was like this giant demon, as you might imagine, with his booming voice. But the premise of Haunted Hotel and I’ll tell you, you know we all enjoy ABC, CBS. One of the biggies have the the ghosts series.
Mo Mm-hmm.
George Mm-hmm. Right.
Jon It’s a live action with the people. well It’s almost sounds similar. They have what a bed and breakfast in there and have all the ghosts in there. It’s like that, but definitely in a more of a broader supernatural vein.
Jon So the concept of Haunted Hotel, and I’m going I’m going to give you a tiny spoiler that is spoiled in the first 10 minutes of the first episode. And it’s it’s enough. I think you need to know what’s going on in the show. And so they have this hotel and there are all the ghosts. And of course, the people that roam around can pass through halls and people see them, but you can’t interact with anybody just like normal ghosts. You know, you they pass right through you and that sort of thing.
Jon And you you really find out that there’s the the characters are this woman who owns the hotel, her brother.
Mo Okay.
Jon the woman’s two children. And then this weird child named Abaddon that is actually a 17th century 10 year old with a demon’s body trapped in it that for some reason lives in this hotel.
Jon Not a ghost, just a demon.
Mo okay
Jon Right. And you shortly find out that the reason it’s there, she’s there with her brother is her brother played by Will Forte died. died. He is one of the ghosts. He’s not alive.
George Ah, yeah.
Jon He willed the hotel to his sister. So she’s there trying to make the hotel a success, constantly getting second guest and, you know, armchair quarterback from Will Forte’s character who used to own the hotel, but is now dead.
Jon And the scope is much larger than just here, the five or six ghosts that live in the hotel and their experience. It really is more about each episode Someone comes into the hotel that’s either human or supernatural or something, and it’s how they interact with all the different monsters.
Jon There could be tentacle creatures and Mothman and Bigfoot and whatever crazy things can happen.
Mo um
Jon And so far, each episode kind of explores a different, interesting paranormal thing. I haven’t seen it yet. There’s an episode that they kind of call in some Ghostbusters who was very closely sort of follow. There’s like an emblem on their shirt. they’re sure It’s not a Ghostbuster, but that idea.
Jon And if you enjoy ghosts and animation oh already, this is a winner for me. And I’m probably four episodes in five episodes in. And it I think one of the creators had to do something with Rick and Morty.
Jon I’ve really been enjoying. I’ve kind of been you your series. ah You said George was kind of coming week by week. The Gen V.
George Oh.
Jon This one they dropped all at once.
George oh
Jon And when they do that to me, I’m like, okay, slow down, watch one, just maybe watch one or two, you know, take it easy. Cause after it’s gone, it’s gone. But, uh, it’s, it is, it turned out, I was looking forward to it and it turned out to be really cool.
Jon Uh, it’s fun in the vein of like a solar opposites or Rick and Morty kind of thing. And it’s, it’s, and it’s also heartwarming because you have the family dynamic too.
Mo Is it more geared toward adults?
Jon Oh yeah.
Mo Or is it? Oh, definitely is adult cartoon.
Jon Oh yeah.
Mo Okay.
Jon It’s not for kids. There’s too much spewing blood. And you know, but at one point, a young man falls in love with this ghost, but it’s a trick because they want to find out where her body is.
Mo No.
Jon Cause they found out she was buried with a diamond and they want the money and they find out their soulmates and whatever they touch or the ghost pass through him and they get into a fight and this thing, how could you do that to me?
Mo Oh, geez.
Jon I let you lick my heart. Because, like like, she shoved her face in his chest.
Mo Oh.
Jon You know, it’s like, it’s weird, creepy stuff. It’s definitely for adults, Mo.
George you
Mo that’s weird.
Jon Yeah. So, ah highly recommended. If you like our crazy sense of humor, highly recommend it. I like it. ah Mo, let me get to you. I think you also were looking forward to what you’re watching here, right?
Mo Yeah. Yeah, it was. Yep. It’s a ah limited series on Disney Plus called Marvel Zombies.
Jon Mm-hmm.
Mo And it’s a continuation of a what if animated episode they did, which was what if there were zombies in the Marvel or something like that.
Jon Yeah.
Mo So it’s a continuation of that, basically.
Jon Okay.
George Oh, so it’s not ah built off of the Marvel zombie storyline from the comic books then.
Mo I don’t believe so. I think it’s just built off the animated.
George Huh, that’s odd.
Mo So…
Jon Hmm. I know that.
George Wow, because that was a big universal thing for Marvel for like four five years.
Mo Oh, really? Okay. Yeah, this is I couldn’t find any references back and I never read the original one, so I couldn’t tell you.
George Yeah.
Mo um But it’s basically set in the Marvel Universe. Think of Black Panther one ish time frame. That’s where things sort of diverge at this point, you know, and the horrible part is what, you know zombie apocalypse, you know, you get bit by zombie, turn to zombie, yada, yada.
Jon Okay.
Mo um the The weird part is that when superheroes turn to zombies, a lot of retain their powers.
George Mm-hmm.
Jon This could be a problem.
Mo Oh, just a little tiny problem, really. It’s, it’s, um, and so, I mean, and they’re, I won’t say they’re intelligent, but it’s almost like they, they still have their instincts, I guess.
Mo So they, like when they fight, they fight like they used to fight because it’s sort of like muscle memory is short, a kind of thing.
Jon Oh. Hmm.
Mo So the story is about, you know a group and they have something that could save the world and, you know, the whole thing. Um, I, I enjoyed it. It’s only four episodes. Uh, the episodes are hour ish long, you know give or take.
Jon Hmm.
Mo But it’s it’s not an upbeat thing at all, like which I know zombie apocalypse, you don’t expect it to be. But characters die a lot in this.
Jon Yeah. You mentioned it was kind of a spinoff or shoot off offshoot from the the What If series. I remember that each one of those was kind of self-contained with a different What If.
Mo Mm hmm.
Jon What if Captain America was actually Peggy Carter or whatever, you know, Agent Carter?
Mo Right.
Jon um Are the four episodes here? Is this one narrative? Is these is this one story going on?
Mo It’s one story all the way through, yes.
Jon Okay. Huh. All right. I might be more prone to watch it then. Okay, good.
Mo OK. Yeah. this
George so couple of thoughts and questions run through my head number one the what if series itself was based on an original series of comic books from marvel you know there was what if the this had happened or what if that had happened um but the the marvel zombies being based off of a what if
Jon Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Mo yeah
George thing from the animated stuff as opposed to the the comic book line, which i I never did get a chance to read that storyline and I always meant to go back to it. My son, a number of years ago for my birthday, got me a Deadpool zombie, a big pop figure, like ah one of the giant ones.
Mo Oh.
Jon Mm-hmm. Yes. Yeah.
Mo Oh, okay, okay.
Jon I remember.
George And I know there’s also ah Zombie Wolverine in the comic books. I don’t know if he’s in the series or not, but I always found that very strange because Deadpool and Wolverine can’t be killed.
George They keep regenerating.
Mo Yeah, basically.
George How the hell do they become zombies?
Mo Yeah, you think your body would kill the virus, right?
George Right. I mean, they, they instantly heal.
Jon Yeah. Yeah.
George So but it kind of goes against, but it’s comic book, right? the The rules can change for the storyline, I suppose. So I just wondered, did they address anything with any of those characters in the episodes that you watched?
Mo No, they you didn’t see any super healers in there.
George Oh, so no Deadpool, no Wolverine.
Jon Oh, okay.
Mo No Wolverine. So, yeah, like I guess that’s avoid the issue.
George Wow.
Mo ah Just don’t have them in it.
Jon Well, I was wondering similarly, George, but I was thinking, oh, maybe it’s just an infection, not a a death, you know. But then again, still, their bodies should be able to fight that infection, just like they do other infections.
Mo Yeah, exactly.
Jon So the problem isn’t solved.
George Well, and that’s, you know, ah infected are not zombies. Zombies, by definition, have to be dead and reanimated. So if you’re going to call them Marvel zombies, that was my thought, that they had to be killed and then reanimated.
Jon Hmm.
Mo They got to be dead. Yeah, they’re definitely dead.
Jon Hmm. I guess I don’t know all the zombie rules. Okay.
George Yeah. Yeah.
Jon but just
Mo That’s a big one.
Jon Okay.
Mo That’s a big one.
Jon Yeah.
Mo But he says it’s four episodes. um It was it’s that cell cell shading style that they like the what if animation, which i actually really like. I think it’s a really nice animation style.
George Yeah.
Jon Yeah. Okay.
Mo And it’s it it was good. It’s like it’s not it’s it’s it’s a weird ending. You just have to watch it to see. But he said they may make a season two. Who knows? But I thought it was definitely a good worth watching series.
Jon Okay.
Jon Cool. Marvel zombies. All right. Two animation back to back. how about that?
Mo There you go.
Jon I love it. Okay. We’ll be right back. Stick around.
Mo So let’s kick off Tekken Toys with… George, you look like you probably spent too much on something.
George that’s fine. hundred percent 100%.
Jon Bye.
George Yep.
George So i got into the popcorn bucket craze two years ago.
Mo Oh, oh.
George trying to acquire a specific popcorn bucket that sold out before I got to the theater. Now, since that time, any movie that has an interesting popcorn bucket, and by the way, every chain…
George when a movie has an interesting popcorn bucket, they all come out with their own versions.
Mo Right.
George So what you might see at AMC is going to be different than what you might see at Cinemark, as an example, or Litchfield.
Mo Oh, okay.
Jon who A regal sneaky.
George They all have different versions. They all have their own proprietary thing. So you’re really screwed if you want to collect all the versions. That’s even worse. But I typically only collect from AMC because there’s…
Jon Okay.
George tend to be the more substantial offerings. they They are more expensive usually than some of the others, and you can’t buy them online like with some of the other companies.
Jon come
George Some of the other companies, you can go to their corporate website and buy the different collectibles and have them shipped to you, so you don’t even have to go to the movie.
Jon Mm-hmm.
George oh AMC, though, I was recently ah going out with my sons to go watch the new Demon Slayer movie, Infinity Castle Part 1.
George They had four cups and a popcorn tin. And they were being very careful. Only two purchases per person were allowed.
George So you could only buy two of the cups or one of the cups in the popcorn tin or two popcorn tins if you really liked them or something like that.
Mo Okay.
George A set of two, no matter what combination you got, was $58. Well…
Mo Whoo.
Jon For cups.
George well
Jon Whoa.
George We had four of us there, so guess what I did?
Mo Oh, no.
Mo List four times.
George I bought a crap ton.
Jon Spit $275 is what you did.
George i absolutely did. So that got me thinking as we went back home that evening, because we had a whole bunch of stuff. I put some stuff on Discord because… Like literally we went into the four o’clock first IMAX showing. And by the time we came out, everything was sold out. So I couldn’t go back and pick up the two that I was missing for me to have the full set at my house.
George My sons and I ended up working out this kind of trade, which I thought was very funny because I paid for everything anyway.
Mo Yeah, why are trading?
George But I ended up with a full set in the popcorn tin and I’m sitting in my house that evening and I’m putting them up in the shelf for display. And I’m thinking about it. You know, I never did get that one from two years ago.
Jon Which one?
George The Dungeons & Dragons Popcorn D20 Bucket.
Jon The D20?
Mo Oh, yeah, the big die, the big die, right? Yeah.
Jon Oh.
George So…
Jon There it is.
Mo Oh, boy.
Jon You got it.
Mo Those you don’t. Yep, we’re looking at it now.
George Yep.
Jon Yep.
George Right there on screen. There you go. It’s got the cool little plastic insert that tells you it’s from AMC.
Jon Yep.
George It’s not some knockoff or anything.
Jon ye
Mo They just had one there.
George No, no, no, no, no.
Mo Oh, I thought maybe one was hidden in the back and they forgot about it something.
Jon Oh no!
George no no
Jon Uh oh. Mm hmm. Mm hmm.
George No, no, no. This was an eBay purchase after I was at home. The original popcorn bucket, I went and looked it up, was $20.
Mo Yeah.
George I didn’t get it for years because when it was first on the market, it was like $150, $200. did…
Mo Yeah.
Jon o
George two hundred i did get, well, I’m not going to say I got lucky. I got stupid and paid lesser amount than what I would have a few years ago.
George I ended up paying with shipping and all $92. have now.
Jon Whoo.
Mo But you have one.
George i do have one now
Jon Man.
Mo And it’s cool.
Jon Wow.
George And love how John is who, where before he was full-time in Gen X growing up that, oh yeah, no problem.
Mo I know.
George I’m big wig moneymaker guy. I got my seven figure job. I can afford whatever.
Jon Well, I’ll tell you the second part of that woo is I’m just trying to be kind because I paid $20 for mine at the theater and I’m not going to rub it in.
George I’ll buy you three popcorn buckets, George.
George Notice he didn’t buy me one at that point. He only got one for himself.
Jon It was limit one. It was limit one. I couldn’t do it.
George It was limit one, I think, back then.
Jon no You remember when that happened, I did go back and try to get one for you and they were all gone.
George Yes.
Jon As you said.
Mo Yeah, they were gone.
George Yeah.
Jon Yeah.
Mo Yeah.
Jon Yeah. I actually sent someone to another AMC here in my town. They were just all gone. So I couldn’t help you. Yeah.
George All I can say to our listeners out there, don’t get into the popcorn collecting genre. It’s stupid.
Jon Don’t, don’t do what George does.
George Don’t do it at all, please. It’s just not worth it.
Mo yeah
George it’s All you do is you buy something. It looks really cool. You put it on a shelf. You show it to your friends during a podcast recording and that’s it. That’s all you get from spending this money.
Jon But now you got it. You got it, though.
Mo and I say one thing that they’re doing with these that smart is limiting quantities. from ah From a business standpoint, yeah, for sure.
George It’s certainly driving up the collectability. Yeah.
Jon Yeah. Yeah.
George Yeah.
Jon i’m I’m happy with the fact they’re limiting how many you can purchase. I wish they weren’t quite as rare because that would then undercut the scalper market. It’d be nice if they upped the volume but kept the limit on per purchase.
Mo Yeah, that’s true.
Jon That would be better.
George I’ll have to say, if you’re going to put out a set of five items like they did for the Demon Slayer movie recently, and you’re going to limit what you ship to the theater so much that within the span of one showing of that movie, it sells out, I think you’re doing a disservice to the customers.
Jon Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Mo Yeah, that’s a little bit.
Jon That’s not enough.
Jon Yeah.
George That’s my opinion.
Jon And you could make so much more money. Yeah.
Mo Yeah, and still and it still be somewhat rare. You know, it’s still be collectible.
George and And there were kids, trust me, we were walking in, four of us, right?
Jon Right.
Jon Mm-hmm.
George My three sons who were obvious anime fans and big fat old white guy who was obviously there with his kids, but kind of likes the story, right? We’re walking up and there, I think we were accosted at least two, maybe three times by other anime fans. Like, hey, look, they’re only letting you buy two. Can you buy two for me?
George No, fucker, we’re using, we’re using our lots for ourselves.
Jon Oh, boy.
Mo no
Jon We’re trying to buy two for us.
Mo Yeah.
Jon Well, congratulations.
Mo Yes.
Jon Well done.
George thank you so you don’t have one still mo i got one here for 160 all right well let’s move on from stupid into something i hope is a little bit smarter john what do you got up for the segment this week oh wow
Jon Yeah.
Mo i’m i’m I’m a little jealous, to be honest.
Jon Yep.
Jon Yep.
Mo I’ll think about it.
Jon and
Jon Let me tell you, not only is it smarter, it’s free. So after you’ve drained your wallet and it’s really simple, it is a piece of software.
Mo Oh.
Jon So I i brought it in the tech category.
Mo Mm-hmm.
Jon It’s i don’t know where else you can get it, but I found it. You can download it from Steam and it runs on your PC. It’s a piece of software called Shader Glass.
Mo Okay.
George Okay.
Jon you We have all played all sorts of emulators, RetroArch and Stella and everything. And you can go in and turn on these shaders that can like, oh, make it look like a CRT or make it look like it’s a Game Boy.
Mo Mm-hmm.
Jon Because emulation is fantastic, but it just doesn’t look like you remember it when you played it, right? So they have these shaders that affect the entire output of the program so that it looks like you might have played on the hardware you might have played it on in the past.
Jon But i came across, wont be ah maybe a tweet or a blue sky message or whatever random place I was, Facebook, I don’t know. Someone had mentioned, hey, how cool I’m watching this old TV show using shader glass and it makes it even cooler. I’m like, what is that?
Jon So I went and dug it up. It’s a piece of software. You go and download it. You run it. It’s this little window and it, like a piece of glass held up to your computer monitor, what you see through it, you can apply shaders to.
Mo Oh, okay.
Jon So for example,
George Yeah.
Jon I went and watched the Bob Newhart show, which I watch all the time. But before I started playing it, I applied the shader glass to my Plex window that’s playing it, set it up to be an old badly tuned CRT.
Mo Hi, Bob.
Jon And it’s like you’re watching it on TV in the dark, and in like when you were a kid in the seventy s it applies. and And it’s not just like two or three filters. All the retro arch filters are in there. All these different shaders do all these crazy pixel and distortion of VHS noise on anything you put on your computer, not just a game.
George Okay, so I’ve got questions based on all that stuff.
Jon I’ve got answers. I’m gonna try.
George So I know shaders from emulation like you described, but you just said you downloaded this on Steam, but then you used it while you were watching TV shows through a completely different platform that
Jon oo
Mo Me too.
Jon Yeah.
Jon Yep.
Jon That’s right. Yep.
George So you go, I’m um um’ confused and excited.
Jon Okay.
George ah i i went in immediately while you were talking, went to Steam, added it to my account.
Mo me too
Jon You guys are fast.
George I can’t find it now because when I go to library, I’m looking at games. I just switched over to tools. I don’t see it in tools. How in the hell do you load and use this thing?
Jon ah Well, it probably dropped a shortcut on desktop if you installed it. So that’s step one.
George i I don’t think I even got a chance to install it.
Jon Okay, well, you will need to install. You have to go to the page and install it once you once you find it.
George Okay.
Jon Once you do install it it, for me, it dropped a shortcut of my desktop, or you can do that from anything that’s in your Steam library. And once you have it, the way it functions is one of two ways. One is literally imagine if you had a sheet of glass that you can move around your screen and look through or apply to the entire window, or you can apply it directly to any open application.
Jon So you can say, apply this to my Plex player or apply this to this game window. And it just locks to that window and performs those shader functions on whatever application you want to run it on.
George Okay.
Mo Okay.
George i I did find it. It’s under, when you’re in um your library, it’s actually under software, oddly enough.
Jon Okay.
George So yeah.
Jon Under software instead of games. Yep. Makes sense.
George So not under games, not under tools, under software, which makes sense. So if you go and get this, it is free. Like John said, just make sure you’re there.
Jon Yep.
George And then once you do that, you’d click on it and it’s a regular page, just like a game. You click install, like John’s saying, okay,
Jon o Yep.
George Now I get it then you can even apparently hit launch directly from Steam. If you hit launch from Steam, will it work with other things or only inside Steam?
Jon That’s right.
Jon It will.
Mo Oh, it totally works.
Jon Absolutely.
Mo I’m looking at you guys now like you’re on a bad TV.
Jon It works already. right So, like, if you ever wanted to watch The Avengers, but on a Game Boy, you could do it with this.
Jon Or if you wanted to watch Tron, but you wanted to watch it like it was being played on a Super Nintendo, you could do it. It will down convert colors, pixel size, very customizable. It’s just fun.
Jon It’s very fun and free and really cool.
George Wow.
Jon Like you heard, while we were talking, George, with the questions you had, Mo already fired it up and was looking at us through a filter.
George Yeah, I’m doing the same thing. I’m on the VHS filter right now. it’s It’s crazy.
Jon It’s awesome.
Mo Oh, wow.
Jon It’s so fun. It’s so fun. It’s so fun and free.
Mo and there’s a ton of shaders, too.
Jon So it’s.
Mo Holy crap.
Jon Yes.
George Yeah, there are.
Jon Yeah.
George Like I just looked at the community favorites and I’m like, holy, there’s a whole retro arch library, which I wonder how that, oh man, NES raw palette.
Jon I know.
Jon yeah Well, because people make the shaders and they just imported them from retro arts.
George Wow.
Jon that awesome?
George That’s crazy.
Jon Yeah, yeah, it’s really cool. It’s a fun thing to play with. It’s become a shortcut on my desktop that sometimes I’m like, oh, man, I’m going to watch the episode of The Greatest American Hero. Wait, wait, wait, we wait, wait. I want to watch it on a CRT.
Jon And so, and like like, bow the corners like it’s on a piece of glass. It’ll make it fuzzy. It’s great.
George I just think how hard I worked to go find the highest quality copies of Star Trek Next Generation, and now gonna put this…
Mo I know.
Jon To then fuck it up with this toy. Yeah.
Jon Some people are never happy. We just watch the world burn.
George Oh my goodness.
Jon I know. Yeah. All right. So it’s a very simple thing. That’s all I had to say about it. Go check it out. It’s fun. Look, I’ve already addicted these two guys to it, listeners. So if you’re interested, check it out.
George Yep.
Mo Oh, yeah. I’m looking at you now in an old TV style, so it’s cool.
Jon you’re I think you’re gonna like it. That’s awesome.
George Mm-hmm.
Jon Yeah. All right. Mo, how about you? What do you have in the tech and toys realm?
Mo Yeah. Sure. Mine’s little piece of tech. um So, you know, since I got married, we now have three dogs and, you know, it’s three dogs get a little rambunctious, I guess, whatever we would call it.
Jon Okay.
Jon Mm-hmm.
Mo um So the problem is that when you discipline a dog, like you try to get to stop doing something, sometimes they associate you with it. So they know that if you’re not there, it’s OK.
George Ah. ah
Jon Mm, okay.
Mo You what mean? Like, like if you’re not there, then they can do it. When you’re there, they don’t do it. Like I’m sitting there like the dog never gets on the table when I’m around. As soon as I walk out the house, and dropping on the table. Like dogs are smart that way.
Jon Right. It’s only bad if Mo’s watching.
Mo Exactly. And so I was trying to find something that I could like sort of deter them from doing stuff without actually it coming from me. And I found this thing is called a, well, it’s for dog barking, but it actually used for any kind of discipline.
Mo It basically makes an ultrasonic sound that you can’t hear, but the dogs do.
Jon Mm-hmm. Okay.
Mo And so when you see him doing something, you hit it and it makes like this weird chirping sound. It freaks the dogs out for like a split second. And they’re like, what? And then they stop what they’re doing. So it doesn’t associate with you anymore. Now it’s just that weird sound from nowhere. They can’t figure out where it’s coming from.
Mo Like, cause you’re not around. So it can’t be coming from you.
Jon Hmm.
Mo And it’s, you know, trying to use it, like to keep my dog from jumping up on the door and some simple things like that, you know, um and it works pretty well. My problem is, of course, I have three dogs. They all hear at the same time. So I have to…
Jon Oh, no. Right.
Mo So whatever they’re doing at that time, one’s doing something bad, the rest them going to associate with it. So I had to be careful about that. But it’s actually really simple. It’s relatively inexpensive. I think it was like 20-something bucks. um And it actually works. And it’s something you can bring when walk your dog because has little flashlight attachment and some other things. So it’s it was a neat little piece of tech, I thought.
Jon Not too long ago, you shared with us that you got some kind of an anti-bark collar that was just like made kind of a chirp or whatever, right?
Mo Yes. Mm-hmm.
Jon So did that not, so looking back, did that not work for you or it worked for one thing, but not for other discipline or you had the problem of the association?
Mo It’s
Jon What made you then look for yet another thing or your dog’s just that chaotic or both?
Mo isn that chaotic, but also it’s only good for dog barking. like When the dog barked, the sound triggered the caller.
Jon Okay. Not for other discipline.
Mo Not for everyone.
Jon Yeah.
Mo So this one, though, you have to be kind of paying attention to dogs, so it’s not random, but it’s ah it was just something they kind of stopped some other general things that they’re doing that I kind of wanted to stop them. Nothing too bad, but you know jumping on the couch, you hit it.
Mo And they jump off because they’re like, what the heck was that sound? And you just have to be kind of consistent the first few times, but they pick it up pretty quick.
Jon So is…
Jon So is it working so far?
Mo it’s it’s so far it seems like it is um it’s it’s also kind of too much fun to hit the button watch the dogs like all sort of like dogs are like what they all like like also they all like stand up like looking around like what the hell was that um exactly and it has some different it has different like tones and you could do like a louder or different frequency so it’s not the same one every time even and it was just like said it’s just a neat little toy inexpensive and it seems to work
Jon Okay.
Jon Moe.
George he
Jon Watch this. Yipe, yipe, yipe.
Jon Okay. All right. Cool. All right. We get back. We’re going play some games.
Jon Mm-hmm.
George All right, ladies gentlemen, time to talk about games. John, I’m going to put you on the hot seat first. What do you want to talk about being played in your household right now?
Jon Yeah, yeah. Well, a lot is going on. I talked last time about Adventure of Samsara. I finished that game on like three or four live streams.
George Mm-hmm.
Jon I ran through that. Amazing. I think I put 18 hours into it. The most I played a game in a while. But rather than talk about that again, I have a brand new game that is an iteration of a 90s game.
Mo you
Jon And that is back on the PlayStation Portable, the PSP. I played some games. I forget who the manufacturer distributor was, but there was a game called Loco Roco that was kind of like a rolling balls around.
Jon And there’s one called Patapon, P-A-T-A-P-O-N, that was a rhythm game. um but You had an army of little monsters that marched behind you, and you had to do certain BXB to the rhythm of music, or XXA to jump, or BXY to do…
Mo and Okay.
Jon a fire attack or whatever, along with this music that’s playing. they’re kind of chanting in the background. The art design is very, ah want to call it, I think I’ve heard my daughter call this a chibi art style, like very cute and rounded and colorful and big eyes and ah very, almost like a Japanimation look a little bit to it.
Jon ah But there’s a brand new iteration of this game called Patapon Rattatan. A couple of random.
Mo Right.
Jon Type that in. Both words are misspelled. If you try to type it into Google, I tell you.
George Hehehehehe.
Jon But Patapon Ratatan is in early access right now. um And George helped me reach out to the publisher because I’ve always played Patapon and we saw this press release. And they sent me a key for the early release.
Jon Now, you know how early access works on Steam is that the game’s not really done, but it’s done enough. They want people to play it and help them like shake it out and find what the problems are.
Mo right
Jon And so I’ve been playing a little bit of this. They just call Rattatan now. It’s in the Patapon universe. And very similarly, you wander through this world with these giant crazy spiders or monsters who throw arrows or fireballs or whatever.
Jon And you have music playing in the background, kind of chanting. And you have combinations of button presses to let you attack the monsters. And all of that is the game that I remember and enjoy.
Jon The part of this game that i I feel like I’m listening to millennials have a conversation when I play parts of this game.
Mo Thank you.
Jon Like they’re talking about Riz and Cap and i don’t know what the hell these things mean.
Mo she
George he
Jon There are parts of this game that are very, like there are cards to modify and collections I’m doing and like some of the names of things, like, is that an attack? Like lightning pause. I’m like, is that good or bad? Like what is, i don’t know what that even means.
Jon Now could be that it’s none of this is bad. I don’t mean no negative on this.
Mo Mm-hmm.
Jon It’s I think early on, there’s not a real thorough tutorial in this game. So it hasn’t held my hand to show me what all these mechanics are and being an early access is kind of threw me into the game and said, good luck, figure it out.
Jon And it’s fun. It’s cute. And I feel like I’m playing about a third of the game because I’ll, I’ll pass by things time to upgrade. I’m like, I don’t know. don’t know what any of these things mean and what they do.
George He he he.
Jon I’ll probably figure it out over time, but it’s a rhythm game. It’s a quality game. I think right now, if you pick it up, it’s on sale right now. Normally $24.99 is like $22. There’s a Steam sale going on for the next, I don’t know, by the time you hear this, maybe it’s not, sorry.
Jon So it’s not like a super $60 game. It’s going to be in the $20, $25 range. I’ll be keeping a closer eye on it. And I think when it’s a little closer to release, I’ll probably do a live stream on it because it reminds me of a 90s game that I enjoyed on another console that’s now here.
Mo Did happen to mention when they think it’s going to be full release?
Jon I haven’t seen a date. and It’s probably smarter than probably when it’s ready is my expected thing. Yeah. Not sure.
George Nothing that I saw in the press release, at least.
Jon Not in either. Yeah. Just they’re working on it.
Mo and Okay. Okay.
Jon They’re working on it. Yeah. Now. So the game I’m playing is kind of an updated version of something I played in the nineties. Coincidentally, George, what have you been playing that might fit the similar mold?
George Yeah. Yeah.
Mo she
George Yeah, um so I have been playing an old game from a really old publishing company that I’m pretty sure is no longer around called Westwood Studios. The Blade Runner point and click adventure from, what was this, 95 or 97 or something like that, I think.
Mo Oh, I played the crap out of that back in the day.
Jon yeah
Mo Yeah.
Jon Yeah. yeah
George Yeah. It was re-released not too long ago by Digital Eclipse, friends in the Atari area, and this is their enhanced edition.
Jon Makes sense.
George And i I only started playing it because I was really trying to figure out, well, what game do I want to talk about on the podcast this time around? There’s a whole bunch of free stuff that I got from the Amazon Prime things and from other free resources like Epic Store and whatnot.
George And I was looking around and I had this Blade Runner enhanced in one of them. So i’m like, oh, let me ahead and play that.
Mo Okay. Mm-mm.
Jon Oh, you already had it. Oh, cool.
George Yeah. So I went ahead and um started playing it. First of all, ah the game, for those who don’t know, it is not a retelling of the movie Blade Runner.
George It is what they’re calling, like, um I think they said…
Jon Mm-mm.
George like side quill. So it’s like a sequel, but it’s a side story in the same timeline.
Jon Oh, okay. So
George So you meet the characters from the movie in different places, but you’re not in that same movie storyline because you’re a different character.
Mo Right. Yeah.
George You’re a different Blade Runner in this.
Jon you’re not Decker, you’re some other dude.
George You’re a guy who…
Mo yeah
George You’re not Decker. No, you’re a guy who’s only been on the job for about a year, year and a half.
Jon Okay.
George So he hasn’t really done a lot of Blade Runner work.
Jon Okay.
George He’s just kind of the rookie of the group. And you get your first big case. And of course, these replicants are very similar to the ones that Decker had to deal with in the movie.
George And they’re you know trying to get information about themselves because all Nexus 6 replicants want to know you know how they can survive and live. right That’s the whole…
George theme of the movie and story, but it is purely point and click. You can put your keyboard aside.
Jon Mm-hmm.
George There is no joystick with this.
Jon Mm-hmm.
Mo Yeah.
George It is literally point click. Digital Eclipse, in my opinion, did a really good job but of putting out an enhanced version. They enhanced the visuals a little bit for modern devices.
George And all the same gameplay and functionality is there like it was what I remembered from back in the day when I first downloaded this. and Or not downloaded, I bought it and played it on a Windows 95 machine, I believe, because it came out in 97.
Jon Right.
Mo Yeah. Something like that.
Jon Wow.
Mo Yeah.
George And I’m pretty sure it would have gotten it right away.
Jon 200 megahertz Dell or gateway probably.
George Yeah, exactly.
Mo Yeah.
George like um it’s ah It’s a fun game. It’s a fun storyline, especially if you’re a fan of the movie. This definitely will hit you right in the feels in a couple of places.
George You’ll recognize ah the motifs and the characters and the way that…
Jon Mm-hmm.
George Look, it’s Blade Runner. Everybody who listens this podcast probably knows Blade Runner in some shape or form, so I’m not going to bring something to you that you’ve never heard about before.
Jon Mm-hmm.
Jon Yeah.
Mo she she
Jon Mm-hmm.
Mo Yeah, i played the I played the crap out of this game. um It was one of the first ones I remember that actually had a divergent storyline. Like, depending on what you did a certain point, would change the path of the story, which was cool.
George he
George Yep.
Mo then you get to replay it a few different ways and try different, you know, but if I’m nice to this person as opposed to being a you know dick and whatever.
Jon Yeah.
Mo um But I you know and i remember it was probably, you know, rose-colored glasses. I remember the graphics being really and like impressive back in the day. But maybe I’m just…
George i think they I think they were impressive for that time period.
Mo Yeah, probably was.
George ah I will say that they remind me an awful lot when I fired this back up again, even in the enhanced version. That’s a nice thing. What digital eclipse did on, you can use your keyboard for a couple of things based on this being the enhanced version.
George You can hit the Q button and toggle it between the original or the enhanced.
Jon I love that.
Mo Oh, that’s cute. I like that.
Jon That’s neat.
George And it’s, it’s instantaneous.
Jon Yeah.
George Like you don’t have to wait for a cut scene or for gameplay. You just flip it a million times back and forth, back and forth, back and forth all you like.
Jon That’s cool.
George Um,
George The original game, i will say, it reminds me an awful lot of GTA Vice City. The way those characters are drawn and looked and polygon fills and shading and everything.
Jon Mm-hmm.
George Like, if you go look at GTA Vice City, you look at their hands.
Jon Yeah.
George Their hands are literally like these triangles with a couple of lines in them.
Mo Right.
Jon A couple of baseball mitts.
George Right? And that’s…
Jon They have the weird boxy things.
George That’s not…
Jon Yeah.
George too far off of this when they’re doing the cut scenes. When you’re in gameplay, ah the characters are very small and they’re bit mapped and everything else. um But yeah, that’s what it reminds me of. So who’s it was pretty solid quality for 97.
Jon Yeah. For as much as I know, I remember you playing this back in the day and talking about I never did. Have you found that… Do you remember enough about having played it originally to be of any use to you playing it back through at this time?
Mo she
Jon Or it just feel familiar?
George and No, it’s ah as soon as I started playing, like I get to a scene. i i remember, oh, yeah, I need to go ask this thing three times. I need to go click on this thing twice because in point and click adventure games, especially back then, if you clicked on something one time and walked away, you would end up missing something.
Jon ah Oh, you do remember. Okay, yeah.
Jon yeah yeah the repeat yeah like okay they’re done yeah yeah
Mo Yeah.
George You had to click on things multiple times until you started getting the same response over and over again.
Mo Right.
George Then you knew you were done. Yeah. um I will say i got really curious. How good a job did Digital Eclipse do enhancing this?
Mo Okay.
Jon okay oh the original the old one yeah okay
George So I went and fired up my copy in MAME on my LaunchBox platform.
Mo Oh, okay.
George And I ran them side by side on two different monitors. Digital Eclipse did a pretty solid job with the enhanced version, but when you hit that Q button and turn the enhancement off, their regular version looks worse than the main version does.
Jon Not surprising. Yeah.
Mo Yeah.
Mo Okay.
Jon Huh.
Mo Interesting.
Jon what What if they have, what if they shaders on it to make it look worse or just looks worse, you think?
George So
George i don’t, I mean, I have no idea, but I, it was very glaring to me.
Jon Don’t know. Okay. Yeah.
George I was like, Oh yeah, that does look a lot worse than the original. Now,
Mo Yeah.
Jon Hmm.
George by modern standards, the original doesn’t look great today, but it’s still a fun game. I really enjoyed playing it.
Jon Sure.
George I highly recommend this enhanced version, but don’t worry about playing on the low res, just play it on the enhanced in that if you’re going to.
Mo yeah
Jon The modern. Yeah.
George um It’s available on Steam and I think Epic and probably a few other places. i think I was playing it through GOG,
Jon Okay.
Mo okay
Jon Yep.
George So um it’s out there everywhere. I’m sure Mo can put a link down in the description for this because it’s one of those timeless classic games, in my opinion.
Mo Yeah, I’ll find it.
George It’s not going to challenge you, but it sure as hell going to be fun.
Mo It’s a good story.
Jon Like it. Great.
Jon As we come in the back end of the show, you know, we always like to take a few moments here between five, four, five, four, three.
Jon As we come in the back end of the show here, you know, we always like to take just a few minutes to talk about the things we’re looking at right now or looking forward to between now and the next time we have a chance to get together. And I’m going start with you this time.
Jon What do you have on the horizon?
Mo okay Let’s see. ah Abbott Elementary is going to season five, December. I’m sorry, October 1st. ah So love that show.
Jon Okay.
Mo Definitely looking forward to that.
Jon Yep.
Mo um
Jon Patton Oswalt. Yep.
Mo Very topical. Saturday Night Live season 51 is kicking off on the 4th of October.
Jon Oh, all right.
Mo And for those who listen to our podcast regularly, we just talked about that.
Jon Yeah. Just last week. Yeah.
Mo But what I’m really, really looking forward to with some trepidation again is Tron Ares.
George yeah
Jon Yeah.
Mo ah
Jon Huh.
Mo Because… the way the last one ended, I thought a sequel could have fit neatly into that, but it seems like they might’ve went to a different way. I’m not sure.
George Mm-hmm.
Jon Mm-hmm.
Mo It looks like they went a different direction, which kind of bugs me a little bit because I thought there was a direction there that they could have kept going with.
Jon It’s looking that way. Yeah. I think you’re right.
Mo But, It’s Tron stuff flying in the real world, looking amazing, light cycles on the roads. ah I know I’m going to see this.
Mo I mean, there’s just absolutely just no way in hell I’m not going to go see this movie.
Jon Oh, yeah.
Mo You know, again, i I’m lowering my expectations of how good a movie is going to be.
Jon Let’s say.
Mo So I’m just saying as as the special effects are good, i’m go to be happy.
Jon Yeah.
Jon Okay.
Mo If it happens have a good story, awesome.
Jon All right.
Mo But I’m not counting on that. So we’ll see how it goes.
Jon Very pragmatic of you.
Mo Yeah, figured that’s what I’m looking forward to. How about you, John?
Jon Yeah, well, I tell you, I am looking forward the second time to the new Toxic Avenger film starring Peter Dinklage. Because when I talked about it a few episodes ago, it was coming out in the theaters.
Jon And that was like August 28th.
Mo Yeah.
Jon I didn’t get out to the theater to see it, unfortunately. Just scheduling.
George Mm-hmm.
Jon Well, now, September 30th, it’s hitting streaming already. A month later. so have ah And it’s not in the theaters anymore.
Mo That’s fast.
Jon So i have a second shot at it. Now I can watch it. So I’m looking forward to finally seeing that since I didn’t get out in the theaters.
Mo Yeah.
Jon um There’s a horror film that I have been keeping an eye on for a long time, not so much because of the film, which I know nothing about, but because of the director.
Mo Okay.
Jon It’s a new film hitting theaters October 3rd called Shelby Oaks. Now, this is from a first time director named Chris Stuckman, who is one of my go to YouTube movie critics.
Jon He’s been a movie critic and film critic on YouTube for over a decade.
George Oh, yeah.
Mo Oh.
Jon He loves cinema and film, and he’s been gradually working his way into becoming an actual filmmaker. This is his first film, Shelby Oaks.
Mo Oh, interesting.
Jon The trailer looks interesting. I’m hearing good things about it. I know almost nothing about it other than what I saw in the trailer, which is very vague. ah But because of its origin, I want to go and support this creator who has finally worked his way into the official Hollywood you know ah ranks.
Mo Yeah.
Jon And let’s see how he does. super curious about that.
Mo OK.
Jon So Shelby Oaks, October third And the thing I’m looking most forward to, oddly, is a yeah A Netflix pseudo, it is a documentary coming called The Perfect Neighbor.
Jon And it’s getting a bunch of buzz on um on social media. It’s coming out October 16th on Netflix. And the buzz around it is that It’s all this, they’re calling it found footage, but it’s actually like a body cam footage.
Jon They’re like, is that really found footage? The point is the story is about this crazy Karen in this neighborhood that’s always calling 911 every time a kid is screaming.
Mo okay
Jon And apparently the situation escalates to the point that it’s not just trivial calls. So I’m anxious and nervous and excited to see this. It’s got a lot of buzz.
Jon It’s called The Perfect Neighbor.
Mo Are
Jon Again, October 16th on Netflix. I’m going to watch it. I love these crazy, weird left field documentaries. All right, George, how about you? What do you got coming up, man?
George Well, unlike last year, I’m actually looking forward to more FSU football this year.
Mo they going to be good this year?
George My local home team went two and 10 last year in the worst season they’ve had in 30 plus years.
Jon Oh, yeah.
Mo All right. Only go up.
Jon Damn it.
George ah So far this year, they’re three and oh, they have a game the night that we’re recording this episode that’s due to be their first real test after the first game of the season, which was against Alabama.
Jon Hmm.
George So um they have been dominating all the teams they’ve been playing so far. Uh, they’re kind of the talk of the town because everybody predicted that they’d be lucky if they won six games this year.
George Um, and they have already hit so many markers from last year and exceeded them that, uh, it just looks like they’re going to do well this year.
Jon Good. Good.
George I, I think we might get to 10 wins, which would be really, really nice. That would be a huge turnaround to go from two and 10 to 10 and two would be awesome.
Jon No kidding. Yeah.
George Um, Also looking forward to Tron Aries, even though it has the Jared Leto curse attached to this goddamn film.
Mo Yeah, that also scares me.
Jon Ha ha ha ha ha.
George Every time that some bitch is in one of the films that I’m looking forward to, it just turns out to be trash.
Mo That does scare me. Oh, why is he doing that?
George And it’s mostly his fault, I believe, honestly. i just don’t like that guy.
Mo Yeah, he’s too weird.
George But at least this time, maybe because he’s playing a robotic computer program, we won’t have to deal with his crazy Joker shit. I don’t know. We’ll see, but I am looking forward to, as Mo said, if for nothing else, the visuals should be outstanding.
Mo Yeah.
Jon Mm-hmm.
George um Mo, you talked about that you know they could have gone that sequel. Everybody thought they were, but all the writers and directors ended up having to do something different, and the guy who played ah the main character’s son in the Tron movie, he’s now over on the Tulsa King show, so maybe there was some scheduling conflicts or something with him, but
Mo Flint Sun, yeah.
Mo Conflicts.
Jon Mm-hmm.
George Anyway, um I think the thing I’m looking forward to the most is Portland Retro Gaming Expo, October the 17th through the 19th. John and I are going to be out there guests of Allen One.
Jon Mm-hmm.
George This is the company who is building current day arcade cabinets based off the the Atari Recharge series and putting them in arcades.
Jon That’s right.
Mo Oh, wow.
George I believe they’re going to be debuting a new model.
Jon Whoop, whoop.
George at that event we’ve been in close talks with them obviously since they’re bringing us out uh they’re going to be at their at their half of the atari booth we’re going to see some of our old friends as well that they’re john did you tell me my arcade’s going to be there
Jon Mm-hmm.
Jon I don’t think they are. I think that they’re, yeah, no, no, not this year.
George no okay well we’ll just carry some of their devices with us then yeah there you go
Jon That’s right. Let’s walk. I’ll have my game station go with me. I’ll walk around. Everybody be jealous.
Mo she
George I know the game people are going to be out there. Those are the ones with the light gun that I went and saw at the Long Island Retro.
Jon Yeah.
George So it’s it’s going to be a fun time. I’m looking forward to it. It’s my first time in two years going to an extended event away from my wife.
Jon Mm-hmm.
George So little bit of trepidation, but she’s doing so good in her recovery.
Jon Mm-hmm.
George And thanks to all the thoughts and prayers that have been sent to me over the year and a half, two year period.
Jon Yeah.
Mo That’s awesome.
George um She’s doing so good that she felt like there would be no problem whatsoever with me going. So looking forward to this lot.
Jon What a trooper. That’s great.
Mo Yep.
Jon Yeah. I’m looking forward to that too. Yep. Awesome. right. Hey, but before we get out of here, you know, I was about to thank a patron and then I remembered one of the benefits of being a supporter over on Patreon is an opportunity to ask us a question we answer right here on the show. And Mo, I think you have another one for us to this episode. Yeah.
Mo Yeah, I do. It’s from Brandon.
Jon Okay.
Mo And there’s little bit of preamble to this, so bear with me.
Jon all right, Brandon. Hey.
Mo But he writes, Hey guys, on various episodes, I have heard you all briefly mention coding computer programs for games and et cetera.
Jon Okay.
Jon Mm-hmm.
Mo When you were younger, I’ve experimented with typing out programs on my C64 mini in basic and find it interesting because it wasn’t something relevant to my childhood in particular.
Jon Mm-hmm.
Jon Yep.
Mo I’ve quickly learned that one wrong keystroke can ruin an entire session of typing lines of code.
Jon Yep. yeah
Mo Do you guys have any standout memories of drudging through lines of code and getting the payoff of it running perfectly or maybe even programming your own games that actually worked?
Jon Yeah, yeah.
Mo ah John, you want to kick us off with this?
Jon Sure, oh yeah, yeah. I just share two quick little stories with you.
Mo Okay.
Jon The first is absolutely typing out of a magazine. I would get Antic and Analog and Compute and all those different magazines.
Mo Mm-hmm.
Jon And it was always a nightmare, just like Brandon is finding out that any little keystroke, it might not come up as an error in basic, but it might not actually work is the problem.
Mo Yep.
Jon And I remember Compute came up with this like code analyzer. It was really neat what they would do.
Mo A checksum.
Jon Yes, as you typed it in, there would be like a hexadecimal checksum.
Mo Yeah.
Jon And you’re it looks right, but it should say 4F. If it doesn’t say 4F, you made a mistake.
Mo Mm-hmm.
Jon And so that way you could kind of tell whether or not you typed it in right with the checksum.
Mo Mm-hmm.
Jon That helped a lot. um The other thing he mentioned, not always games. I did a lot of basic programming myself and being a band nerd, I went and got the sheet music to the police’s every breath you take.
Mo she
Jon And I wanted to make my computer that only had four voices created. So what I did was I created this giant behemoth of a program that had a little subroutine that you could pass pitch, duration, and sustain to the four voices and just kept sending variables through it over time. And I had the entire song in a basic program.
Jon I was so proud of that. I wish I could get that back. It went with all my software and discs, but. something about programming and basic and, or typing it in a magazine.
Mo Mm-hm. How
Jon It just made you feel like you were doing something. It was like a diy It was really fun. Yeah. I loved it.
Mo about you, George?
George ah Well, I still have my A to Z book of computer games that you would, ah each letter through the alphabet, they would give you a different game to code in.
Mo oh Yeah.
Jon ah Yep.
Mo Mm-hm.
Mo he
Jon Yep.
George And I did all of those on my C64. Oddly enough, the thing that he’s talking about there about one wrong keystroke, what I found happened too… infrequently was those programs, I could type them verbatim perfectly and you’d still get an error because something was wrong with their code or something along those lines.
Mo Or it was type mistype.
Jon Yeah.
George Yeah, ah so exactly.
Jon Or printing error. Who knows? Right.
Mo Mm-hmm.
Jon Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
George um But I did, um i do have, it wasn’t a game, but when I was in high school and I may have already told this story, um I was in a computer class, introduction computers, and then we went to advanced computers.
George In my last two years, junior and senior of high school, we were on IBM PC Juniors and there was a national competition for creating demos.
George And so in that class, there was probably five or six of us who enjoyed the coding part. Most everybody else was just in there but for the credit to you know get graduated whatnot.
George Um, but we, we all ended up doing our own demos and submitting them. And I remember I did a Christmas scene demo, Christmas tree, little dog hops in mom and dad come in and kid gets his gift, that kind of thing.
George Um, and we sent all of these demos off to this competition and they didn’t tell us which one of our demos, um, was the reason for this, but we ended up placing third in the national competition.
Jon Oh, nice.
Mo Nice.
George So we won a Cray computer for the school, which were very expensive back then.
Mo Wow.
Jon Wow.
Mo Geez.
Jon Okay. Yes.
Mo Yeah.
Jon Yeah.
George um And the school ended up running their local bulletin board off of that computer for the next five or 10 years.
Jon Perfect.
George Yeah.
Jon Yeah.
Mo Nice.
Jon Great.
Mo That’s awesome. Yeah, mine. I mean, yeah, I totally feel. I mean, I remember times when you’re typing in that long ass program that you you decide up front. Am I going to take the time to do this? Because you see how many pages it is. You like, do I decide do it?
Mo And I remember things like one time of my brother accidentally kicked the power cord out right when was getting to the end.
Jon Oh, damn it.
George Oh,
Mo Just gone. You know, this is and finally got to the point where you had the tape backups. Remember those things, the cassette tape backups, which you had to fast forward to the spot where you saved it.
George oh yeah
Jon Yep.
Mo And, you know, they were kind of iffy, but they they basically worked.
Jon ye
Mo But yeah, I said it was the same thing, compute. I bought magazines that had nothing but, gang you know, different code of games and stuff in it.
Jon Yep.
Mo um
Jon ah Great.
Mo I did actually write I wrote a game way… It’s like, geez, a really long time ago. And it was one where you could actually move like your… There dots that represented soldiers, and you can move them in, but there was snipers and stuff set up ahead of you that you couldn’t see. So you had to… like figure out where they were.
Jon Like a Stratego kind of thing.
Mo Yeah, you had to figure out where they were, and you could kind of surround them and stuff.
Jon Like you they’re on a board.
Mo And it’s one of those things that I wish I still had the code for that, because I spent so much time on that thing.
Jon Yeah, right.
Mo And I thought it was amazing.
Jon Hmm.
Mo But yeah, it’s one of those things that somewhere in time, it just is gone and never, never going to get back again.
Jon Hmm.
Jon Evaporated. Yeah.
Mo But yeah, when I when i read this question, though I just started having flashbacks of how many times, like you said, George, you type it in, it’s just doesn’t work for no reason.
Jon Yeah.
George yeah
Jon Right. It’s right. I’ve triple checked
Mo I triple checkcked everything. And you find it was like a typo. And and then the next, epi next edition the magazine, there was an error on line 400.
Jon Right.
Jon Sorry. Correction. Like you son of a. Yeah.
Mo But yeah, no, it was great question. Thanks. And Hey, everyone out there, if you want your question asked in the program, it’s super easy.
Jon Hmm.
Mo Just go to gen x drum.com slash Patreon. Join for a little as a buck a month and submit your question.
Jon Yep.
Mo And it’ll probably get answered right here on the show.
Jon Well, yeah, and I was saying, I wanted to thank another patron. This is one of those upgrades, and I want to talk about it is just very quickly. It doesn’t, you mentioned a dollar a month is all it takes. Heading over to patreon.com slash genx grownup and signing up for this pledge.
Jon So Greg Z has been a patron for quite a while, and he was at that $3 level, ah which is fantastic.
Mo Oh, yeah. Mm hmm.
Jon Fantastic doesn’t have to be $50, $100, a dollar or two really, really, really helps.
Mo Yes.
Jon And just last month, Greg said, you know what? I can do a little more. Let’s make it four. you know it’s not like he tripled or doubled. It’s like, i want to help a little more and I can, and I appreciate you.
Mo Yeah. Absolutely.
Jon And it’s, it’s those little tokens of appreciation that really are motivational and really keep us going. Cause you didn’t, he was fine. He could have canceled and everything would have been fine. But he’s like, I want to help a little more.
Jon And it’s that kind of amazing ah patron that we have over there to support us. Just really generous people that really believe in what we’re doing support of Greg. Thank you for that. That was very thoughtful.
Jon All three of us appreciate you and everyone who supports us financially over on Patreon.
Mo absolutely
Jon It means the world to us. And we’re so grateful that you do. so that then is going to wrap it up for this edition of the Gen Grown Up podcast. Don’t worry. We’ll be back in two weeks with another one. But next week, well, that’s our backtrack where you pick a single topic and dig in deep on it.
Jon ah Mo, how about you do the do the honors and the fourth listener know what’s coming their way?
Mo oh Sure.
Jon All right.
Mo ah this going to fun one because if I talk about power-ups, Koopa stomps, and warp zones, I could only be talking about Super Mario Brothers. I mean, the game that started all of that and really just led a revolution of console games and just gaming in general.
Jon Yeah.
Jon Yeah. Yeah. it It was like was the 40th anniversary of 85.
Mo Yeah.
Jon I said, right?
George 40th anniversary.
Jon Yeah.
Mo 40th.
Jon Crazy.
Mo Yeah. Oh, geez.
Jon 40 damn years. Hold on.
Mo I know. I feel older again.
Jon We’re all so old. All right. Well, forget about how many years it’s been and just enjoy that show. You don’t want to miss that one. Until then, I am John George. Thank you so much for being here, my friend.
George Yes, sir.
Jon Mo, you know I appreciate you.
Mo Always fun, man.
Jon Fourth listener, it’s you, Will. Three 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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