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PLUR1BUS, Tron Ares Merch, & ASCIILL

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About This Episode

We head to the theatre to see a remake of an ’80s classic based on a novel by Stephen King, add to our collection of limited-edition theatrical popcorn merchandise, and play a game with a fresh twist on minesweeper that might give you BBS flashbacks!

(May contain some explicit language.)

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Show Notes

TRANSCRIPT

Speaker Transcript
Jon Welcome back Gen X Grown Up Podcast listener to this episode 201 of the Gen X Grown Up Podcast. I am John. Joining me as always, of course, is Mo. Hey, man.
Mo Hey, how’s it going?
Jon Good. You know, it would not be a show without George. Hey, George.
George Hey, how’s it going guys?
Jon In this episode, we head to the theater to see the remake of an 80s classic based on a novel by Stephen King, add to our collection of limited edition theatrical popcorn merchandise, and play a game with a fresh twist on Minesweeper that might give you BBS flashbacks.
Mo you
Jon We’re gonna have those topics and many more coming up in this episode. But first, it is time for some fourth The three of us are here. We tend to listen on occasion, but if anyone else outside of us…
Jon The three of us are here and we are… How do I say that? little la la lila The three of us are here. We sometimes listen. But if anyone else does and drops us a line to tell us about what they heard, then you are the fourth listener.
Jon and the fourth listener this time around, long-time listener and supporter over on Patreon, long-time writer Brandon G.
Mo Hey, Brandon.
Jon dropped us a line. Yeah, subject was prizes in food rewind. Just dropped a couple weeks ago, he heard.
Mo Yeah.
Jon Yeah. here’s what Brandon had to say. Hey, guys, listen to the food… Hey guys, listen to the prizes in Food Rewind and it was a nice call back to earlier episodes. At 44 years old, I am a bit younger than you guys, but remember many of the things that you and Will talked about.
Jon The cereal segment hits home the most. I didn’t have a strategy for getting the prize out. I went elbow deep, fished out the toy, and left the cereal so pushed to the sides that it looked like a bowling ball had been stuffed inside.
Jon Mom must have been too busy frying pork chops to notice doing it. Pointing at you, George.
Jon What I loved the most about cereal prizes, though, were certain ones not inside the box or printed on the box, but shrink-wrapped onto the box. The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle cereal had cereal bowls shrink-wrapped on the outside of the box.
Mo Really? i remember that.
George Damn, how the hell did I miss that?
Mo Wow. Yeah, me too.
George That feels like a trip to eBay coming up right after this episode.
Jon Wow. I… oh
Mo Oh, God.
Jon Thanks, Brandon. ah The same went with the Batman tie in from the first film where a Batman piggy bank was on the outside of the box. I remember the Batman piggy bank.
George Wow.
Jon it was little plastic. It was it was very small, but it was, yeah, shrink wrap to the box. And also when the first Adam family film came out, there were flashlights depicting different characters of the movie.
Mo Interesting.
George Wow.
Jon Oh, yeah. I didn’t say that. The Batman, I remember. and The others, no. He says, I think Lurch was the only Adam’s flashlight I got. if memory serves me, it worked for 10 minutes.
Mo Oh, okay. Probably 10 minutes more than most.
Jon We love that you took time to listen to that rewind and shared your thoughts with us. We enjoy it every time the fourth listener drops us a line, lets us know what they think of what they have heard. If you would like your email featured on the show, it is drop dead easy. Just fire off an email to podcast at genxgrownup.com. We read every single one and most of them, like Brandon’s, eventually make the show.
Jon All right, gentlemen, with that good business to the rear view mirror, it’s time to jump into the body of this episode 201 right after this very quick break. See, once I got on a roll, there’s those segues that are fucking me up.
Jon Time get the ball rolling, talking about media that we have been enjoying since we last spoke. Now, we had a couple of rewind episodes, so there’s a lot of media on my plate that I could have talked about.
Mo Yeah.
Jon And in fact, the one I picked, Mo was like, no, I wanted to pick that one.
Mo I was like, no, ah was all ready to talk about this one.
Jon And therefore, i was happy i was i was happy to see it here because there’s so much good out that I have watched that I could talk about.
George Mm-hmm.
Mo Yeah.
Jon So Mo, share with the listeners what it is you stole from me and would like to talk about. Good choice, by the way.
Mo Or you generously gave to me. ah
Jon Sure, let’s, okay, fine. My benevolence.
Mo Let’s it that way. It’s a little less negative.
Jon Whatever. Yeah.
Mo It’s a new Apple TV show called Pluribus, um except the I is number one. don’t Have you guys watched this? But this is one of the few shows that I’m now looking forward to every week.
Mo Wait for it to drop so I can watch it.
Jon I have. I have.
Mo You know?
Jon Have you seen it yet, George? No, no.
George No, no, not yet.
Mo Okay.
Jon no Okay.
Mo so So the basic premise, just high level, and this is not like a spoiler, it just is, is that
Jon All right.
Mo Every something happens to the earth. So every single person on earth is not part of a hive mind. Right. You’re all connected. Everybody’s connected except for one.
George Yeah, that’s dangerous.
Mo Well, ah one, the main character is not. She’s immune for some reason. And she’s also a very miserable person, just naturally. You know, and um it’s it’s Rhea Sehorne, who is Better Call Saul.
Jon yeah
Mo She was the other attorney friend of his.
Jon That’s right.
Mo um She sees stars in it. And let me tell you, it’s this is a show. It makes you think like a lot because that everyone who’s part of this group is happy.
Jon Yeah.
Mo You know, they’re all happy, you know. um She’s not. And she’s fighting. She thinks it’s wrong. She’s fighting against it, you know.
Jon Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Mo And it makes you think, like, is it wrong? Is it better? Because everyone the world is not working together. Literally, everybody is working together, you know. um Everybody has complete communication. Everybody knows everything, you know. So it’s it just makes you think a lot. It’s a very interesting show.
Jon it really is. And it’s as like we noted a second ago, yeah I was going to talk about it already. So i definitely have seen it. And the thing that is most interesting in this, I mean, it’s it’s well done. It’s one of those it’s one of those like severance kind of shows like, wow, something it’s kind of sci fi, but it’s kind of rooted in the real world.
Mo Yeah.
Jon The creepiest thing is that everybody knows everything is everyone who you talk to talks.
Mo Yeah.
Jon We we because
Mo Right.
Jon Every person alive knows everything that everyone else knows and has access to that information. And so everybody can tell you whatever you want. And the people that are immune, they would very much love to heal because they look at as, oh, this is an affliction you have that you weren’t able to join the hive mind.
Mo We’re trying to fix it.
Jon And the people like, no no, no, no, I want to hear you. You’re the one that’s broken.
Mo Yeah.
Jon And it’s that conflict. And as you said, she is already a furious person that just doesn’t enjoy life in the first place. And this didn’t make it any better for her.
Mo No.
George It sounds like somebody took the two ideas from Body Snatchers and the Borg from Star Trek and then… put them into subrebral context and said, and, and said, okay, here you go.
George Cause body snatchers is all about us all becoming one part of a hive pod people thing. And then Borg of course is, you know, just like we are Borg, right?
Mo A
George it It sounds like they got the idea from there. Is this played for dramatic effect or comedic effect?
Mo little both, I think. Would you say?
George Okay.
Mo Because it’s it’s there’s funny parts in it.
Jon I mean, it’s more dramatic. than it’s Funny things happen, but nobody’s nobody’s having fun, really, you know?
Mo Yeah.
Jon and And if you think of the Borg, George, it’s it’s the Borg if the Borg wanted to throw you a tea party and give you anything you wanted. like
Mo Right, because…
Jon They’re happy to help you out until they can fix you and get you in the hive. They’re not hurting you at all. In fact, they want you to have a happy life and give you anything that you want until they figure it out.
Mo Yep.
Mo Yeah, basically. Yeah. So she so they’re constantly and this is just one example is like when this whole thing is happening, she’s freaking out, obviously, because she doesn’t understand what’s happening. Right. She just sees people collapsing and getting up and doing stuff. She’s flipping through the news TV, trying to find a TV station that’s showing news. Right. And then she sees something that says it’s the White House press room.
Mo So she’s like, oh, okay, good. Someone has some information. And across the bottom, you know they have a little crawl. It has her name says, please call us at this number.
Jon Yeah. Call us, Carol.
Mo e
Jon We want to talk.
Mo Call us, Carol. We want to talk.
Jon And she dials in and the guy on the TV was, oh, Carol, thanks for calling.
Mo You’re perfectly safe.
Jon Like he’s the one on TV at the White House talking to her.
Mo yeah The guy on TV is talking to her.
George ah
Mo You know and course she’s says that.
George Yeah, because there’s no need for press conferences if everybody’s connected.
Jon Exactly.
Mo No, exactly.
Jon Everybody else knows everything.
Mo Exactly.
George Yeah.
Mo Exactly.
Jon You got it.
Mo But they’re like, they’re like, oh, we’re glad you called.
Jon You got it.
Mo And there’s and the the high people are super nice.
Jon Mm hmm. Mm
Mo They just want her to be happy. That’s like all they care about.
Jon hmm. Mm
Mo But she’s just one a naturally miserable person, which makes it even funnier in a way.
Jon hmm.
Mo And you see everybody and she looks out the window and all she really sees is the whole world working together. Now, suddenly.
Jon Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Mo You know.
Jon At first, picking up bodies of people who died in the trans in in the migration to the hive mind.
Mo In the transition, yeah.
George Oh, so it wasn’t a clean, it wasn’t a clean migration.
Jon Because you can imagine some people were, no, because some people were driving or flying or whatever, right?
Mo No.
Mo And you went unconscious for a while.
George ah
Jon And they just, yeah, a lot of people died.
Mo couple plane crashes, know, but and it’s it’s made by the same guy who did Breaking Bad.
Jon Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Mo so you know, so that’s probably why they got the um got Rita Sehorne for it because she was up to you.
Jon Mm-hmm. Yeah.
George So he was on meth when he wrote this. is that what you’re saying?
Jon Probably.
Mo Oh, it’s on Apple.
Jon Yeah.
George Yeah.
Mo but It’s the number one show.
Jon yeah
Mo It’s like the number one show ever, I think, on Apple TV right now.
Jon It’s the number one show on meth.
George wasn’t safe I wasn’t saying where it was showing. I said the guy who wrote it that did Breaking Bad was on meth when he wrote this.
Mo Oh, I just agreed and moved on. i sorry. yeah
Jon just what That was obvious. The meth was given, George.
Mo Oh, yeah. But ah no, but it’s it’s a super interesting show. um Really makes you think.
Jon Yeah, it’s fun.
Mo And I said it’s one of the few shows now that every episode i I’m waiting for the episode to drop so I can watch it.
Jon Same.
Mo You know, so so that’s what I watched.
Jon Yep.
Mo So, John, you watch the movie. I wish I could have went with you. Couldn’t do it. It’s my daughter’s birthday. But curious to see what you thought of it.
Jon Yeah. I went and saw the remake of the running man.
George La la la la la.
Jon Right. So now i’m no spoilers.
George la la la la la
Jon I won’t, I wouldn’t dare spoil anything for you, George. I know you haven’t seen it and you want to.
Mo I haven’t seen either yet.
Jon Yeah. Yeah. So I’m not going to spoil anything. So this is a, it was a Schwarzenegger helmed film in the eighties, right? Running man. um And Richard Dawson played the host of the show and,
George Yafet Kodo. Yep.
Jon Yeah, yeah. So this is a remake, but it’s not a remake of that movie.
Mo Oh, yeah, yeah.
Mo Mm-mm.
Jon It’s a remake of a film based on the novel by Stephen King. And though I can’t, I haven’t read the novel myself. My understanding is this does its best to hold closer to the novel in terms of story beats.
Mo Mm-mm.
Jon And the the ending has changed, but it’s not absolutely.
Mo Yeah.
Jon This stars Glenn Powell, who I wasn’t sure I would feel about him as like an action star, an action hero. don’t I want to say after this, like if they’re trying to make him happen as an action hero, ah he they have my approval.
Jon Not only is he athletic and he’s quirky and has quips, you know, like you want to see out of an action hero, like a Bruce Willis-y kind of guy.
Mo she she
Jon He’s also much more grounded. He’s a more from or friendly kind of guy as opposed to just being the muscle-bound beast that’s running ramshackle through the show.
Mo yeah,
Jon He’s more cerebral. He’s more thoughtful in this. And overall, I found that the Look, I saw The Running Man, the original one, many times. I know it quite well. ah Not as well as you guys probably who are film aficionados are, but I know it quite well.
Jon But at no point in this movie did I find myself going, well, that doesn’t match. That doesn’t match. I didn’t care. They had created their own world here in Running Man that fit so well with what I understood the novel to be originally intended.
Jon And also, it’s kind of prophetic. It matches some of the classism that we have in the modern world that probably was seen as something coming for Stephen King when he wrote this novel, and now it’s kind of present and here, and they lean into that.
Mo Mm-hmm.
Jon It’s disturbing. It’s dystopian. But you can also see it being something that could happen. And it was… I’m trying to decide, do I like it better? or i don’t like it better or worse than the original. I find that I like it equally for different reasons.
Jon I’ll say that.
Mo I mean, to be honest, the first Running Man, the only thing it had in common with the story was the title and the title the name of the main character. That’s pretty much it
Jon Really?
Mo And the end there was a game show.
George Well, it was a game show about killing people.
Mo That was it.
George I mean, yeah but you know,
Mo ah very different.
Jon Oh,
Mo It’s not even remotely the same, not even close to the same. Okay. Yeah.
Jon really?
Mo i mean, it was, it was not even remotely close. I’m sorry. um You know, just the fact that there was a game show, that was about it.
Jon Mm-hmm.
Mo But, so I was actually looking forward to this because it was, because i read the novel, I thought it interesting. So kind of, it it seemed, you know, watching the trailers and stuff, I was like, oh okay, this is, it seems pretty good.
Jon Mm-hmm.
Jon and
Mo i’m glad to hear that they did it.
Jon I don’t think it was quite as good as I thought it was going to be based on the trailers, but the trailers made it look damn good.
Mo Okay.
Jon So it was pretty darn good.
Mo Okay.
George so i was just curious because in the movie which is extremely popular to our generation right because it came out as arn schwarzenegger in his prime but in that movie killian was the host of the show but in this one of course killian and the show host are two separate characters played by uh domingo uh what’s that guy’s name
Mo Oh yeah, big time.
Jon Mm-hmm.
George Oh, goodness. Coleman Domingo, the guy from Walking Dead, Fear the Dead, and Josh Brolin, of course.
Jon There go. Yeah.
Mo Oh yes, yes, yes.
Jon He’s fantastic in this. Yeah, he’s amazing.
George How did they do, and did did they feel like that those characters were better or worse than the Richard Dawson character?
Jon Yeah.
Jon Look, Richard Dawson is is is a national treasure, was a national treasure, but these two guys in this remake, this new film, they just, every time they were on screen, they were chewing on the scenery and it was a it was a delight.
Mo Thank you.
George Okay. Okay.
Jon It was great. Yeah, the guy playing the host, He’s like, I want to follow him. He is great at what he does and he’s putting a spin on it and he’s really pulling at your heartstrings. And depending on whether they want you to hate him or love him, he does a great job of making sure you hate or love the Glenn Powell character.
Jon And Brolin is just a damn Brolin. I mean, he’s, and he’s so smug and self-righteous and you’ve saw it in the trailers.
George Okay. okay
Jon Like, yeah, that’s why you’re going to win. That’s why you have a chance. But really he’s just playing this guy for ratings. Really ultimately.
Mo Okay.
Jon Yeah. It’s, it, it, The more I talk about it, the more I liked it. I think the more I think about the pieces of it that I did like, I’m liking it even more.
Mo Okay.
Mo okay
Jon So, yeah.
George When you talked about you weren’t sure about ah Glenn Powell as an action star, I kind of have been seeing him that way since the Tom Hanks, or Tom Hanks, the Tom Cruise remake on the Maverick shoot, because he was one of the main characters in that, and I felt he was kind of action-y in that movie.
Jon Really?
Jon Yeah. well
Jon I get it. Well, I saw him more of like a, more of like a, uh, Look, a military role where you’re following the rules is one thing, but a renegade, seatier pants, you know, quippy kind of guy.
Jon i i didn’t see him as that until I do now.
George That’s Okay, I was going say, I thought that’s what he kind of played in Top Gun Maverick.
Jon Yeah. Was he?
George He was…
Jon or
Mo Yeah.
Jon well Well, now he’s nailed it. He’s got it sewn up.
George ah
Jon So he’s good he’s got it.
George ah
Jon He’s done a good job. Yeah, I’m ready to see more Glenn Powell. So I’m okay with it. All right. So I saw Running Man. Absolutely. Something we’re all going to have to see. um It didn’t spoil anything, certainly for you. George, what about you? What have you been watching?
George Yeah, so um I picked out a movie for this because just like you might imagine, since we had all the rewinds here and we had the break, I’ve got like four or five things that I really would want to talk about in this segment.
Mo Yeah, I know.
Jon Same.
George I could do the whole entertainment section just on my own like I’m sure you each could as well.
Jon Sure. Yeah.
George So it was very tough to pick and choose. And so I decided to go with one that I think is probably flown a little bit more under the radar than anything else.
Mo Okay.
Jon Good choice.
George It’s a movie. And I’m just going to say the three leads, and then you tell me if you it’s a movie that you would want to see.
Jon Okay.
George So Keanu Reeves, Aziz Ansari, and Seth Rogen.
Mo Okay.
George Right?
Jon yeah Yep.
Mo Yeah. oh well Yeah, I’d definitely watch that one.
George Right. It’s called Good Fortune, and in it, Keanu Reeves plays a lower-tiered angel who decides to do a Freaky Friday on Aziz Ansari and Seth Rogen.
Jon Yep.
Mo Okay.
Jon Yep. I’ve seen this, by the way. I enjoyed it too. Yeah.
George Yeah. So basically, uh, I don’t want to give too much away in case people want to go see it, but Aziz Ansari is an every man who’s kind of down on his luck. He’s driving Uber eats kind of jobs. He’s living out of his car. Uh, Seth Rogen is a tech boy, tech bro, whatever millionaire guy that lives up in the hills.
George And,
George Keanu Reeves’ character, his entire job as an angel is to simply sit in the back of people’s cars and nudge them when they’re distracted driving so they don’t get in death accidents and kill themselves.
Jon Love this.
Mo Thank you.
Jon Right.
George That’s his whole job. like Other angels have more important ones, like inspiring people to not commit suicide or you know doing like inspiring other people to create these wonderful movies or books.
Jon Right.
George But no. Keanu Reeves with his tiny little angel wings.
Mo excuse
George And apparently as you get better as an angel, you get bigger wings.
Jon ah
George His whole thing is just, Oh, you’re looking at your phone. Let me tap your shoulder. So you don’t run into that telephone pole. That’s his job.
Jon Yeah. it’s It’s like specifically texting and driving, I think, is his sub-niche, right?
George Yeah.
Jon He touches her shoulder, he’ll, oh, little angel sing, they go, look around.
George Yeah.
Jon Yeah, it was great.
George I thought they did a wonderful job with this movie at tying into the despair of the modern culture um that a lot of us probably feel, at least 99% of us, according to statistics, as far as who has the wealth in this country and who doesn’t.
Mo Oh.
George And what was even more interesting to me was they kind of turned it on its head a little bit and they forced the Keanu Reeves angel character to experience the human side of the equation about halfway through the movie.
George And to see him experiencing things for the first time, both like… like super excited because he got to taste a milkshake for the first time ever, to being really distraught and smoking a cigarette because he couldn’t get a good job.
Jon Yeah. yeah
George It’s just so well written. The acting across the board is subdued. Like you expect Aziz Ansari and Seth Rogen, you expect them to be very bombastic and take over a scene.
George They really were more reserved in their roles in this movie.
Mo Wow.
Jon Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Mo Okay. That’s that’s different.
George ah They were who they were, no question about it. you could It’s not like they you know they didn’t turn in an Oscar-winning performance or anything, but I feel like this film should maybe be a dark horse for best screenplay for the Oscars.
Mo Yeah. Yeah.
Mo Oh, really?
George It was really solid.
Mo Okay.
Jon It startled me how good it was, George. You’re right. Look, when you see that casting, you’re like, all right, Aziz Ansari, Seth Rogen, Keanu Reeves.
Mo Mm-hmm.
Jon Okay. They’re going to do the things they do, right? So Keanu Reeves either going to be a badass or he’s going to be a dope. Rogen Ansari are going to be, as you said, over the top and crazy.
Mo Mm-hmm.
Jon None of them were that.
George Not really, no. Yeah.
Jon Yeah. Keanu Reeves was kind of subdued and calm. The two guys were flavors of themselves, as you said, but they also took the script and the material very seriously and said, how would these people be?
Jon You know, and I really love the twist on the whole angel thing, which is he got in trouble.
George Yeah.
Jon Keanu Reeves got in trouble because he did something he wasn’t supposed to.
George He did.
Jon His job, as George said, was to sit in the back of the car and stop you from wrecking if you’re texting. That’s all. And he’s like, well, but I saw this guy. it was somebody he had saved. He had saved Ansari from this very thing.
George He wanted to save his soul. Yep.
Jon And saw how miserable his life was it says, I want to do more. And that’s what got him in trouble. And then they couldn’t switch back until they all agreed to switch back and they were not in agreement.
George Yeah.
Jon That was the big twist that loved.
George Well, and not just agreed, but had to mean the agreement.
Jon Yes.
Mo That you couldn’t just say it yeah um i was just looking i was surprised that Aziz Ansari wrote this and directed it i was like wow i Wow okay It’s even more surprising be honest
Jon Right.
George Yeah.
George Yeah.
Jon Yeah. Surprised.
George Yeah.
Jon Yeah. Lots of fronts.
George Yeah. I mean, no, it’s a solid outing for him. That’s why I say, like, I don’t think any of them deserve an Oscar for acting. They were all great in their roles, but they’re going to be better performances throughout the year and already probably have been.
Mo Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Jon Mm-hmm.
Mo Mm-hmm.
Jon Yeah.
George But the writing on the script, the way that they grounded everything, or the way that Aziz and Sarai grounded everything in reality and in our modern culture, because it was very telling in putting a microscope on the American culture today with how people are trying to survive.
Jon Mm-hmm.
George And what does it mean to be truly satisfied and happy in our society today versus, say, 40 years ago and the American dream and all that stuff?
Jon Yep.
George It was just a nice eye-opening piece that, like I said at the beginning, I think probably has flown under most people’s radars because of other bigger, more well-publicized films out there.
George I had not heard about this. I just happened to like be going through Overseer, the app that John recommended, and it was just one of the recommendations.
Jon who
George And I’m like, yeah, let me take a look at that. And boy, I’m glad I did because it was really a solid outing and a good, fun film to watch.
Jon It was surprisingly sweet. I think with a little redressing, this could be a great holiday Christmas film based on the uplifting message that’s in it, you know?
George Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah.
Jon Frankly, you could watch it the holidays anyway and get a good message out of it. And yeah, super surprising and worth your time, no doubt.
Mo So, John, let’s have you kick off this week’s Tekken Toys because mine’s really not that interesting.
Jon Sure.
Mo But there’s a funny story that goes with it, though.
George ah
Mo So go ahead. Why don’t you go first?
Jon I can’t wait to hear what you have that’s less interesting than what I have to talk about, but we’re going to give it a shot.
Mo Oh. OK, let’s see.
Jon I’m going talk about my new dishwasher.
George Oh, Jesus Christ.
Jon Yeah.
Mo okay well maybe i was wrong.
George The hell are we doing?
Mo ah
George This is Gen X Grown Up. We’re almost at Christmas and we’re talking about a dishwasher? Come on, guys.
Jon Well, here’s the thing. I don’t think anybody ever goes shopping for a dishwasher when they’re not in a crisis. Nobody goes, I’m bored.
Mo That’s true.
Jon Let’s just upgrade the dishwasher today. You know, nobody does that.
Mo Yeah.
Jon Mine was, right, mine was leaking water, soaking the floors.
Mo We still broke it, right?
Jon We tried to get it fixed, and finally we’re like, well, I’m sick of washing dishes manually. Everything’s piling up. We’ve got to get it fixed for the house. and they okay so… I went shopping. Getting the new dishwasher is not the story I want to tell you.
Jon It’s the surprise I got when I got the dishwasher. So usually it goes shopping for, you know, what Whirlpool and GE and these big name brands and stuff.
Mo Okay.
Mo Yeah.
Jon But the more I read and watch YouTube videos up about people reviewing dishwashers, I kept coming across this brand called Medea. And you heard of it?
Mo Never heard of it.
George Oh, yeah. Yeah.
Mo Mm-mm.
George Mm-hmm.
Jon Okay, you’ve heard of it.
George Oh, yeah.
Jon And apparently it underdog brand four or five years ago, and it’s gotten more and more prestige. And now it’s like the mid-range dishwasher that has top-level features you wouldn’t expect.
Jon So it has…
George They’re kind of like what Vizio did in TVs.
Jon Sure. Yeah. Yeah.
Mo Okay.
Jon ah So it’s a nice, you know, ah stainless steel, chrome front kind of thing. All the buttons are on the top and little chimes. You push the buttons. It goes doodly. It makes noises. It has three drawers that was unexpected. It has the big bottom drawer, a middle drawer that’s adjustable and a tiny little like two inch drawer at the top just for putting flatware and silverware and stuff like that.
Jon Has special little places you can put where there are jets of water.
George Oh, that’s nice.
Jon Like if you have… like dried milk or something in ah in a glass. You put it on one of these and when the dishwasher runs, it’s going to shoot jets of soapy water right up into the glass. Little areas like that that are really cool. The thing that surprised me and the reason it’s finally in tech and toys, I promised I’d get there, is when I got this, i was going through the instruction manual. What need to do? And it said, go and download the app.
George Oh, Lord.
Jon that’s That’s what I said. App for my dishwasher? Yeah, you scan a little.
Mo John’s like, I’m strangely excited now. Oh,
Jon It’s like, um I like this dishwasher more. Yeah, it’s so it has little QR code. You scan, you go and get the app. And sure enough, you connect to the Wi-Fi. My dishwasher’s on my Wi-Fi network now.
Mo God, this this is how it begins.
George Oh, Lord.
Jon Now, there are lots of things you can do via the app that I don’t want to do. Things like, you could remote start the dishwasher. I don’t care. You can see how far along in the wash is it.
Mo Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Jon I don’t care. When it’s done, it’s done. I’m not waiting for that fork. I don’t give a damn. But it does have… um
Jon It does have energy rating information in there. So it’ll tell you how much energy it’s used, how much water it’s used over time. So you can get information and see if in fact, like the energy energy star rating they give you on new appliances, it’ll actually report how that’s doing. And so if there is a problem with it, it will report to you and go, oh, the rinse fluid is low. you need to replace it. It was kind of like just gauges in your car.
Jon At no point am I going to want to remote start my dishwasher, which you can do.
Mo you
Jon At no point you can lock it out. Like if people in your bed and breakfast, maybe you want them to not use the dishwasher. You can lock it from being used remotely, things like that. Crap you don’t care about in a dishwasher.
Jon They did because they could, but it is nice to know about ah the, the, the clear rinse level and energy efficiency. What I think is really cool. I can’t think of people have talked about my refrigerator has wifi and stuff like that.
Jon I can’t imagine why. And even now on this dishwasher, It’s kind of like they did it because they could, not because they needed to.
Mo It’s a selling thing, right? It’s like 3D TV at one point. Yeah.
Jon I guess it was, but I didn’t know about it till I got it, honestly. It wasn’t a selling point for me, but it is interesting to know that this guy has the ability to do that, and it just makes me think, what might other appliances in the future do for you?
Mo Mm-hmm.
Jon Like, would you want your stove or your the dish you know laundry machines on? I don’t know. I can’t imagine why, because they’re such physical devices.
Mo ah yeah
Jon You’ve got load You’ve got put the soap in. Anyway. So, but it is a great dishwasher. does a good job.
Mo Okay, that’s the important part.
Jon Cleans the dishes spot free. When it finishes, it it automatically pops the door by about three inches to let the steam get out. So it dries faster. Little things like that.
Mo Oh, that’s handy.
Jon Little, little quality of life.
Mo Also, you know what’s done too.
Jon So that’s right. So it’s a good piece of hardware if you need it and you’re looking.
Mo Oh, that’s pretty cool.
Jon So Medea, good brand. And if you care, Wi-Fi. So, all right, Mo. Tell me about the boring thing that’s more boring than my dishwasher.
Mo Yeah, so here’s the boring thing, but kind slightly funny story.
Jon please
Mo so um So Amy was out of town, so I was doing some cleaning in the garage, and then I’m putting lot of storage up in the crawl space above the garage.
Jon Okay. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Mo And I was just really just… I have a ladder going up the ladder and I’ll say, okay, I’ve been meaning to put one of those like pull down ladders here forever. you know So I said, so I’m going to buy one and install it.
George Oh, yeah. Yeah.
Mo So I find one in Home Depot. i I’ll put the link to it if anyone really cares. I get it all ready to install. I drag the whole thing up there. And then as I’m starting to finish it, like I’m about to put the first screws in actually locks it in place. I’m thinking, how do I get out?
Mo Because I had to put straps across the opening to hold it in place.
Jon So you were in the attic?
Mo so I was in the crawl space and I’m looking at this. I’m like, wait a minute. I can’t get out if I put this in because I can’t open because these braces are in the way. So I can’t actually open the ladder.
Mo So I’m sitting there like I spent hours trying to figure out some workaround. And then finally i looked at the instructions and sure enough. The bottom of one of the pages, it says, oh, by the way, you need two people to do this. Otherwise, you’d be locked in the crawl space and you can’t get out. so
Jon I gotta say, Mo, you were right. My dishwasher was more exciting than your latter.
Mo Yeah, I told you.
Jon I didn’t think it was possible, but but you you win.
Mo I told you. That’s why I had you go first. I figured, you know. no that’s And we say George for last because…
George when did the When did the damn tech and toy segment become hardware house repair?
Jon Congratulations.
George Or is this this old house now? We’re on PBS? What the hell’s going on?
Jon Well, men of a certain age.
Mo Yeah. So lesson learned, read the, actually read the instructions before you do anything. So, so on that, so here, George is goingnna be our savior for this segment.
Jon Yeah. Okay.
George Yeah, so I’m going to be Bob Ross and paint something, I guess, for this next part of the
Jon Oh, thank goodness.
Mo Yeah.
Jon On our PBS feature.
Mo Go for it.
George ah show. So, of course, ah people who have listened to the show for a little while probably know this. People on the Discord server absolutely taunt me with this on a regular basis.
George I am… unfortunately addicted to buying these goddamn popcorn buckets from movie theaters every time a movie comes out that I’m halfway interested in. And of course, if I’m halfway interested in it, they’re going to release a specialized popcorn bucket that I’m going to spend far too much money on for something that I have nowhere to display and no real use for other than now I have it.
Mo Of course.
George Well, that damn Tron Aries movie came out with like 17 bajillion different popcorn buckets.
Jon m
Mo Yeah.
Jon They went nuts.
Mo Oh, really?
Jon Yeah.
Mo didn’t know they came out that many.
George Yes. Every theater had its own version. Every chain pretty much had their own types.
Mo Oh, okay.
George There were some that were just the regular, like a bucket, ah you know, that had like some cool lighting on it.
Mo Mm-hmm.
George And then there were some that were far more intricate. Well, ah I went down to my local AMC because AMC traditionally has the more intricate popcorn buckets in America.
Mo They’ve had just so far, yeah.
George They usually do. My AMC, when I went down there, when Tron Ares released, did not have any of the specialized buckets. So I was asking people on Discord, hey, if you see this, can you get…
George I decided eventually, since I wasn’t getting any help there, and thank you for not helping me on Discord, by the way.
Mo ah
George That’s not a chastisement. So…
Mo Yeah, we’ we’re trying to help here.
Jon right
George ah so
Jon It’s tough love, George.
Mo Yes.
Jon It’s tough love.
George I found that there is a theater chain called Marcus Theaters that is happy to ship anything you’d like to order to your house from their chain that they offer.
George And they offered the exact same line of Tron Aries popcorn buckets as AMC did.
Jon Mmm.
Jon Oh.
George So I’m like, well, shit.
Jon It’s dangerous.
Mo Now no excuse.
George Yeah, so I bought the lot. um I bought everything they offered except for the regular, like, just metal tin one.
Jon Mmm.
Mo How?
George that Because I was like…
Mo How many did? How many?
George They offered four.
Mo Ooh.
George They had four different things.
Mo Ooh, this sounds expensive.
Jon Okay.
George So… Yeah, it wasn’t cheap.
Jon Sounds expensive.
George First up they had they had a tumbler with a light cycle in the bottom underneath the liquid reservoir. And there was a little button on the bottom of the tumbler that you could press.
George And it had these different LED lighting schemes that would like flash or pulsate around the light cycle, that kind of thing.
Mo Okay.
George That was the first thing that I got. Second thing I got, they had Tron Ares arcade cabinet park popcorn bucket. So it was shaped like the original Tron arcade game, but with Tron Ares instead of Tron.
Mo Okay. That’s cool.
Jon Mm-hmm.
George But it had the cute little flight yoke on it.
Mo Okay. Yeah.
George And the popcorn goes in the back and it has a little LED behind the screen that lights up.
Mo That’s cool.
Jon Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
George And then you can see the words Tron Ares on the screen. I feel like they kind of cheaped out on it, but I still had to have it.
Mo Thank
George But by far, the best one that they had in the lot is the ginormous Tron Ares Light Cycle popcorn bucket.
Jon Yep. yep
George It’s sitting on my shelf behind me, Moe, if you want to squint back there. ah It is enormous. It is the largest specialty popcorn bucket that I have bought yet.
George And that includes this damn Back to the Future one that’s sitting over here because I bought that right after it. Um, I spent, I want to say like, Oh God, don’t even want to, I think it was around 150 bucks, maybe 200. I can’t remember.
George It was stupid, stupid money. I could have bought a dishwasher.
Mo yeah What are you going to do? It could be crack. Okay.
George Yeah. Well, yeah.
Jon Kind of is.
George So here’s the thing.
George They got here, and the light cycle, the wheel is where you put the popcorn in, both wheels.
Mo okay
George On the back wheel, the cover wouldn’t close all the way. It was just poorly put together and wouldn’t close no matter what you did. The tumbler cup was cracked right down the side of it.
George Now, not in a way that would compromise the liquid spilling out, but still cracked on the outside, because it’s, you know, like a double-walled tumbler type of thing.
Mo Yeah, yeah, for that much, yeah.
Jon Or
Mo Yeah.
George So I was very upset. I spent a lot of money. I reached out to the company because number one, it took them about a month to get them here to me.
Jon cheap. Hmm.
George And then I had these two problems. So I reached out to the company, said, hey, these are the problems that i’m that I’ve seen. I’m not happy with this. What can we do? And they said, well, can you take a picture?
George Okay. Took a picture, sent it off to them. Great. We’re shipping you both out right now.
Mo Oh, OK.
George So they sent me a brand new light cycle and a brand new tumbler.
Jon Okay.
Mo OK, that’s nice of them.
George I’m like, well, that’s fair.
Jon That’s nice.
George What do you want me to do with the owners?
Mo Yeah.
George I’ll just keep them.
Mo Well, it cost them like a buck, probably.
George Yeah.
Mo yeah
George I’m like, all right.
Jon just shows you.
George So I get the new ones in. The light cycle is okay, but the tumbler is cracked again in a different way. So I reached back out to them. Tumbler’s cracked again. Okay. Take a picture. Took a picture.
George Okay. We’re sending you another one out. So I ended up with three tumblers, two light cycles, and an arcade pump cord bucket for about $200.
Mo John, I know what we’re getting for Christmas.
Jon We’re getting cracked trunks tumblers, aren’t we? Oh,
George So I’ve given away the stuff to the kids and stuff already. So I’ve got nothing left over, but no, no, no, but…
Jon oh oh we’re not getting it for Christmas.
Mo ah Okay.
Jon Ill-advised.
George and Just to say all of that, number one, kids don’t collect popcorn buckets. First of all, it’s like, just say no to drugs kind of thing.
Mo Just say no.
George Second of all, if you’re going to collect popcorn buckets in Marcus theaters, have the popcorn buckets that you want to buy.
Jon ill-advised
George It’s going to take them a while to get to you, but their customer service when something goes wrong is a hundred percent excellent.
Jon Hmm.
Mo and Okay.
Jon Okay. So there, is there any, are were there any of those promotional Tron things that you didn’t get or you got, ah ah you said all but the 10 bucket is the only thing you didn’t get.
George Yeah, I didn’t get that. So from Marcus and AMC, they had four things. Ten Bucket was the one I didn’t get.
Jon Yep.
George But other theaters had different versions of their own popcorn buckets. I didn’t get any of those either.
Jon Okay. Gotcha. Yeah. You got, you got the nice ones, the pretty ones.
George So i got the I got the ones that I felt were worth it.
Jon Yep.
George You know, it’s kind of like if you get back to the future, are you going to get the stupid little plastic cup you could get a 7-Eleven? Are you going to get the DeLorean popcorn bucket?
Jon You get the DeLorean. Yeah.
George You’re going to get the DeLorean, right?
Jon So.
Mo gets lorian Yeah, you gotta get DeLorean.
Jon Of course.
George Yeah.
Jon Yep.
George So yeah.
Jon Makes sense.
George I mean, again, no ladder, no dishwasher, but still.
Jon It works.
Jon but But then again, what is? Really?
Mo Well, you know.
Jon It comes down to it.
George All
Jon All right. Great.
George Well, it is a banner podcast because in both of the previous two segments, we’ve all three had something to talk about, regardless of whether it was a ladder or not.
George Now, in this segment, we also all three have something to talk about. Mo, let’s start with you. What have you been playing since the last time we got together?
Jon I gotta say, Mo, it might take you a while to live down that ladder. just seems like it might.
George i’m goingnna I’m going to rally on that ladder for a while.
Mo I’m OK. You know, it’s got to be something.
Jon it It might be your bidet.
Mo It could be my bidet.
George Ha ha ha ha ha!
Mo So um I was playing a game I was actually looking forward to quite a bit. It was called Outer Worlds 2. It’s a sequel, obviously, to Outer Worlds.
Jon Mmm.
George Yeah.
Mo And for those you don’t know, it’s basically a game very much like the Fallout series, the single player Fallout series, like Fallout 3, Vegas and 4.
Jon Mmm.
Mo Outer Worlds kind of came right at that point where like everyone really wanted a new Fallout game, but they weren’t coming out with one. So the Outer Worlds came out. Everybody bought it. it’s so It was an amazing game.
Mo it It was funny. It was quirky. It was just a blast to play. um And so this is the sequel to that very, very popular game. So I bought it. Well, there’s a few weeks ago now.
Mo um Finished it, played it through.
Jon Did you?
Mo Oh, yeah, I played that crap out of this game.
Jon Oh.
Mo they And I’m actually thinking about restarting it because they the way you build your characters can change the way the game flows so much.
Jon Mm-hmm.
Mo I’m like, I know there are parts I missed that I just couldn’t do.
George Oh, kind of like ah like Mass Effect was.
Mo Yeah, exactly. Yes, very much like Mass Effect.
Jon Mm-hmm.
Mo you know So like you know depending on which characteristics you picked, maybe you couldn’t open that particular door safe or whatever to get that crazy weapon.
Jon Okay.
Mo Or maybe you couldn’t talk your way out of this situation.
Jon Yep.
Mo Because there was ones, and it actually shows you when there’s an option you can’t do. It’ll show you like, oh, sorry, you don’t have the skill for this.
Jon Oh, to taunt you.
Mo So it’s like, yes, it’s taunting me. Yeah. Plus in the game itself, it gives you so many different roads. Like you could totally do this game just by yourself as far as like not getting allies within the game.
Mo You know, not lying with anybody. You can play the game pissing off every single group out there and finish it. you know You can make friends with literally everybody, which is probably very difficult, but you can.
Mo you know And they just left it open with so many options and so many different ways of playing that I’m i’m seriously like, okay, I need to replay this with like a totally different type of character.
Mo I’ll probably put it on easier mode just because it’s a second playthrough.
Jon Yeah, right.
Mo I don’t need that anymore.
Jon Yeah.
Mo But just to kind of see what what I missed in the game.
Jon Yeah. So you bought this new, so you know the question I’m going to ask I’m going ask you the Corey question because you finished It’s not like you bought it and went, meh.
Mo Yes. Oh, yeah.
Mo Yes.
Jon So I’m going to guess you probably paid 50, 60 bucks for it.
Mo It was 60, yeah.
Jon Yeah. So what was a full playthrough? And now, plus another one coming maybe, but how many hours you think you put into it for 60 bucks?
Mo Yeah. Oh, it was 20-something hours to finish it?
Jon Yeah. Okay.
George Ooh.
Mo 23, 24 hours, maybe? Somewhere around there? um and i miss And I know missed a lot of side quests. I know I missed a lot of side quests.
Jon Yeah.
Mo I couldn’t go back. So that’s the other thing. My playthrough, going to go back and do those.
Jon I’m kind of good with that. Like I don’t need a hundred hour adventures anymore. I want something I can finish in, you know, under 40 hours, hopefully.
Mo Yeah.
Jon Cause I don’t, I can’t have another full-time job, but then you’re going to play through again.
Mo Yeah, exactly.
Jon going another probably dozen hours out of it.
Mo Oh, yeah, for sure. You know, so but yeah, I mean, it’s it’s a great game. up It ran almost perfectly. No crashes, no weird.
Jon Hmm.
Mo Had one like weird bug, but then they had a fix out like the next day. So, yep, on the PC.
Jon You play on PC?
Mo It’s, you know, I think they have it across every single platform out there. But if you’re looking for a good game, if you especially if you like the Fallout series, absolutely 100% recommend our Outer Worlds 2. So that was my.
Jon Cool.
Mo So, John, what do you got for us?
Jon Yep.
Mo I’m not familiar with this game.
Jon Yeah, what you’re going to be because you’re gonna want it. So I think it probably costs three or four dollars.
Mo Okay, yeah I’ll get let me get seen now here. Hmm. ah
Jon Yeah, right. so So I’ve been seeing a new game coming ah called if was it called Effulgence. effluence I can’t pronounce this crazy name, but there’s an RPG coming that the same developer is making that’s entirely based on ASCII characters, just letters, just glowing little letters. And the way that they achieve the world is if something is someone’s skull, well, then they use the words, and the letters in the word skull to draw it like S K U L L all over with dots and everything.
George Mm-hmm.
Jon So whatever you’re looking at is the characters or word.
Mo is made up of those characters.
Jon Right. So while I was waiting on his new game to come out, which by the way, is about to come out I’m going to stream it soon. I found that he had a previous game that came out a couple of years ago called ASCIILE.
Jon And now I’m not sure how to pronounce that, but it’s basically ASCII, A-S-C-I-I, you know, the American Standard Code for Information Interchange that we all remember from the BBS days, ANC and ASCII, but with a kill on the end.
Mo Okay.
Mo Right.
Mo Oh, yeah.
Jon So it’s ASCII, it’s kill is what it is.
Mo Okay.
Jon Now, when I went into it, I thought, misunderstood, this was his RPG. His new game is going to be his RPG. Instead, I was surprised to find out this is an action-adventure Minesweeper game, all done with ASCII characters, level-based.
Mo What?
Mo Minesweeper game?
Jon Right. So, Minesweeper came with every copy of Windows 95 and on.
Mo Yeah.
Jon You know the deal.
Mo Yeah.
Jon you have to put your flags down to find where it is. well What’s happening in Askill?
Mo instance
Jon We’ll call it Askill, whatever. Kill the ass, whatever it is. In Askill, what you do is you have this world and there are these little question marks and there are bombs in places and you have a few lives that you can’t accidentally get hit and you have to move, but it’s action.
Mo you
Jon It’s not you click wherever you want. You have a character. it looks like a little cursor. You must move around the world and cross over these question marks and not hit the bombs. That’s great for the beginning. And a couple levels later, they introduce bugs that are crawling around the screen.
Jon They don’t look like bugs. They look like a capital B, a lowercase u, and a capital G. And they kind of inchworm their way around the screen.
Mo okay
Jon theyre they They can hurt you. ah Later, they add lasers that are laser beams of light crossing across. They’re underwater levels where you have to go under where you’re holding your breath because you’re underre in the blue characters where you’re underwater in these levels. You’ve got to make it to these tanks of air and get stuff.
Jon Incredibly inventive. I liked Minesweeper. But I loved Askeel.
Mo Oh, yeah.
Jon This, i I can’t tell you the last time I went back to play Minesweeper, but after the live stream, I’ve been back to play this game multiple times to find out what new things they’ve unlocked. It’s the same logic of Minesweeper.
Jon Oh, well, let’s see. This one has to be associated. It has a two, so that means it’s got to be this one and this one. Therefore, this one’s got to be empty, right?
Mo Oh, OK, OK.
Jon Same logic. But you got to do it real time while dodging enemies. While moving around, make sure you have enough breath.
Mo Oh, geez.
Jon Not getting shot by lasers. All those things happen. So it’s an action-adventure, ASCII-based, minesweeper evolution. That’s what call it.
Mo Okay.
Jon and We did a live stream.
Mo Wow.
Jon I’m going give you the link to put in the show notes if you would. Somebody can take a look at it. And I think it’s only three or four bucks. It’s been out a couple of years. Super, super fun. We’re definitely worth checking out. I’m going play his next game in a couple of weeks on a live stream as well.
Jon So ASCIILE.
Mo Okay, cool.
Jon That’s what I played. So, George, how about you? Something familiar.
George Yeah. ah Something, uh, something that also we did a live stream on recently. Matter of fact, just this week, as we’re recording this episode, uh, a game that we found at Portland retro gaming expo feels like lately, all I talk about is stuff that I found at the Portland retro gaming expo.
Mo Mm-hmm.
Jon Mm-hmm.
Mo excuse
Jon All right.
Mo Good show.
George That is a great convention, by the way, we definitely need to find our way to get out there next year. And Mo, we got to find a way to get you out there as well.
Mo Oh, yeah.
George Cause it’s, it’s something that all three of us need to be at, but, While we were there, um we have our friends with the game light gun, and I was checking on them. And while I was talking with them and checking and making sure their day was going well, there was a gentleman there talking to him and he said, hey, you’re with Gen X Grown Up, right?
George We’re like, yeah, John, and you know he does all the stuff and we’re just behind the scenes and everything.
Mo Yeah.
George Uh, not important like he is, but he was like, no, no, no, but you’re, you’re, you’re with Gen X Chrono.
Jon Mm-hmm.
George Have you seen this game that my friend is doing? I’m like, I don’t know who your friend is, so i’m going to say no. And he said, well, let me take you over to his table real quick if you’ve got a minute.
Mo You’re like, yes.
George So he brought me over and there was this guy who had a couple of monitors, a couple of keyboards, um, displays and whatnot. And he sat me down at one of the chairs and the gentleman who was running the table, Mike Smith, who runs a company called Ellicorn that does game development.
George He sat me down and he said, here, you need to put the headphones on. And I was like, not going to put headphones on at a convention. How gross could that be? But he was wiping them down and everything, which was nice. um He said, put the headphones on because the audio is going to be better for you that way.
Mo Yeah.
George This game has no mouse and no joystick.
Jon Yeah.
George It is keyboard only. It’s called Keys of Fury, and if anybody in our generation remembers games like Typing of the Dead, you’ll be instantly familiar with what Keys of Fury is.
George Instead of killing zombies with words that you type, you’re fighting off bad guys in kind of a final fight, double dragon, beat-em-up side-scroller game.
Mo yeah
George Uh, it is absolutely intoxicating for me to play this game.
Jon Hmm.
George As soon as I sat down at that demo, I went through the demo probably three times at the convention, so much so that somebody had to tap me on the shoulder because they wanted to turn. And I was not, I was clueless that people were waiting behind me.
Mo My child wants to play.
George Yeah.
Jon Hmm.
George Um, so it starts in the 1800s and it tells the story of Tai Ping. See what he did there?
Jon Hmm.
George Typing, uh,
Mo yeah
George Very cute, funny. She is martial artist trying to get through to this place and she has to encounter steampunk robots and ninjas and all these different characters that are trying to prevent her from getting to the place that she wants to get to. It’s just a ton of fun. Now,
George I’m going to leave it at that to say that it comes out the Monday before you get a chance to listen to this. So it’s already released on Steam and it is $5.
Jon Mm-hmm.
George It is an insta buy of a game.
Mo Yes.
Jon Yep.
George If that’s all it was, but because we worked really closely with Mike and a couple of other people who have kind of been friends of the channel for damn near a decade now, basically since the beginning of the channel, they’ve
Mo But…
George We got something done in this game that has not been done before.
Mo so
Jon Mm-hmm.
George There is a special arcade level setup that is themed around Gen X Grown Up, ladies and gentlemen.
Jon That’s right.
George It has our logo on it.
Mo We…
George We put in over 200 different phrases into this level that you have to type out to defeat the different enemies. It is set in a pixelated arcade.
George Our banner is behind some of the games.
Jon Mm-hmm.
George And on top of that, the person that we’ve been involved with named Beefy, who wrote the original theme song that we kind of stole and took over for our own with his permission, I’ll say so we don’t get in legal trouble.
Jon Hell yeah.
Mo Mm hmm.
Jon ah
Mo With permission.
Jon yeah Yeah, we’ll say. Legal theft, right?
George um He and his co-producer Tanner put together a special one-of-a-kind song dedicated to the level and Gen X grown-up that Still, I just want to listen to the song sometimes just to hear it.
George And you get all of this plus the game that was already going to be there for just $5. So Mo, I’ll give you a link to the game and the the live stream that I did this Tuesday for you to put in the show notes.
Mo Yeah.
Jon Yep.
Mo Oh, absolutely.
George But Jesus, man, this thing is fun.
Jon And for five bucks, five bucks.
Mo yeah
Jon Yeah.
George Right. And it’s not done. Like he’s going to add more levels in the upcoming year.
Jon o
George That’s what we love about it. And ah by the way, Mike just got a brand new job. He was working in the Amazon game development division.
Jon Yeah.
George He just got a um a new job and it’s with a really big company, Skydance Productions.
Jon Whoops.
Mo Oh, yeah.
Jon Oh yeah.
Mo Oh, man yeah.
Jon Mm. Hmm.
George So they’re the ones who do the VR stuff for The Walking Dead and other big AAA titles.
Mo Oh, yeah. Wow.
George He’s going to be working with them now too. So this guy has been around for a long time. He knows what he’s doing and what he does is quality. So for $5, I don’t know how you can go wrong.
George I mean, to me, like I said at the beginning, it’s an insta-buy.
Jon yep and I think you’ve described it very well I have nothing to add other than I’m going to let us leave this segment playing a little bit of beefy’s custom song just for our level in keys of fury there you and I’ll play that up for a little bit yeah go extract that and grab it all right looking forward in five four three
Mo Yeah.
Mo There you go.
Jon We are almost there, but you know, at this point of the show, before we get to the end, we always like to take just a few minutes to talk about the things we’re currently looking at or looking forward to between now and the next time we get together to speak. And I want to start with you, George. I want to hear what you have on the horizon.
George Yeah. So first up is another side-scrolling beat-em-up called Marvel Cosmic Invasion. It’s basically in the vein of the Teenage Mutant Turtle arcade games or the X-Men arcade game.
Jon Hmm.
George It’s just teaming up with different Marvel characters and running through different levels and fighting these crazy creatures by just pounding keys, which is all I’m good at in video games anymore.
Jon Okay. Hmm.
George um that comes out across all platforms on December 1st. So looks to be very fun.
Jon Hmm.
George I think it’s probably going to be around like 30 bucks is the price. So I might wait to see if it drops to 20, but I played the demo and honestly, 30 might not be bad either.
Jon Hmm.
George yeah, We’ll have to see. Second thing up is kind of a callback to an old stars series called Spartacus House of Asher.
Mo Is it based on the same thing?
George Now, it’s based, it’s the Spartacus universe, but instead um of being the traditional story that they already told in the four seasons of that show, it’s a reimagining that what if
Mo Okay.
George Asher was actually the dominant a gladiator, killed Spartacus during some part of the storyline, and became his own dominus of his own house.
George Like, went from slave to gladiator to dominus.
Mo Okay.
George I’m interested in it because I love the actor who plays Asher in that film.
Mo Thank you.
George And I always felt like in that series, ah that character was one of the more intriguing characters in Spartacus. He was bad, but he was good, but he was mostly bad.
George Ended up having a face, a fate terrible, you know, for him and everything. But still, I think this will be a fun walk back to a universe that there’s really was no way to go back to other than something like this.
Jon Yeah.
George So,
Jon Hmm. Hmm.
George there’s that. And then finally, the thing that, probably everybody should be looking forward to. um Stranger Things Season 5, Part 1 on Netflix, November 26.
Mo Yeah, finally.
George So in the tradition of a lot of TV series that have been out the last few years, they’re going to break up this final season in three different parts with like six or seven episodes in each part, I think it is. But I don’t know what they’re going to do to bring this series to its finale, but at least it seems like they’re giving it the right time frame to do so.
Jon Yeah.
Mo Yeah.
Mo Very cool.
George Yep.
Jon Yeah.
George So that’s what I’m looking forward to.
Jon Yeah.
George John, how about you?
Jon yeah Well, you know, I never watched the Spartacus series, but my wife did. So I just added that to our list because she’s going to want to see that and didn’t know it was coming probably.
George ah Yep.
Jon So she’ll thank you for that later. I have a few things I’m looking forward to. This is, I guess, a sequel to a weird movie from a few years ago. There was a film called Sisu, S-I-S-U,
George Oh, yeah.
Jon This revenge film of this guy whose family was tortured and brutalized and he was getting revenge and everything.
George Yeah.
Jon There’s a sequel. Sisu Road to Revenge. which we’re having Sisu and revenge in the same title is kind of redundant.
Mo Okay.
Jon That’s what these movies are.
Mo Yeah, just getting what it is, right?
Jon They’re just revenge fantasy, just crazy over the top action set pieces. So he’s a sequel coming ah November 21st. So it actually comes out today as we record this. So it’s out and in theaters now for you to go and see, don’t know how big it’ll be in theaters, but I would like to see it on the big screen.
Jon Cause it’s that kind of movie, you know, that kind of action packed kind of thing. The next thing I’m looking forward to is George’s fault. um It’s Florida, man. Season two is coming on HBO Max.
Mo Oh my god.
George Ha ha ha ha
Jon I remember you brought this to us and I’m like, I’m not going to watch that. And then I watched it. So now there’s a second season coming. So I can look forward to that November 28th. And like you, Stranger Things, looking forward to that. Not in the way I used to look forward to Stranger Things. You know, there’s so far in between that I’ve lost some of the just, I cannot wait to see it.
Jon I’m interested to see it. I want to find the finality of the story, but they’ve stretched it out so long that some of my enthusiasm has waned. I want to see where the characters go.
George fair………….
Jon I want to know how it wraps up.
Mo yeah
Jon But the way they’re breaking it up a few episodes here, a few episodes there, I don’t think it’s going problem for me. I might not keep up with their release pace even. So I’m not going to big binge three, four and then wait a week. I’m just going to, I probably won’t be done with the first three when they drop the next one.
Jon So who knows, but I’ll definitely be watching because I want to see how this story I’ve been watching for 10 years now or so.
Mo Long time. Yeah, something like that.
Jon I want to see how it concludes and they’re probably gonna have spinoffs.
Mo Yeah.
Jon so You’ll want to know the whole story. So ah Mo, how about you?
Mo Yeah.
Jon What do you got coming up?
Mo Well, yeah, Stranger Things, of course, you know, and I’m like you guys, too.
Jon Sure. Yeah. Yeah.
Mo It’s it’s just they it’s just been so long. You know, it’s like I have to go back and I think watch last season just to remind myself what even happened in it.
Jon Yeah.
Jon What happened? Right.
Mo um Netflix.
Jon Eddie played the guitar. That’s only that the most important thing you need to know from season four.
George Yeah, that’s really.
Mo Yes. Yes.
Jon Eddie played the guitar and killed everything. was awesome.
Mo And um ah Netflix did an animated series called Tomb Raider, The Legend of Laura Croft. They’re coming the second season of that. That’s coming out December 11th, which was pretty it was pretty decent.
Jon Really? I didn’t know that. Huh.
Mo I’m looking forward to that. What I’m most looking forward is a show called My Next Guest Needs No Introduction. It’s David Letterman’s interview show on Netflix.
Jon Oh, right. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
George Oh, yeah.
Mo Yep. So he’s doing a season six, and his first guest is Adam Sandler.
Jon Uh-huh.
Jon Mm-hmm.
Mo And yeah and ah for some reason, the way he interviews, it’s I just really enjoy watching these interviews.
George Oh.
Jon It’s so disarming.
Mo Yeah.
Jon It’s so odd and different in a good way.
Mo They’re sort of chatting, really.
Jon Yeah.
Mo You know, it’s like they’re just sort of talking and you a lot of shared experiences stuff.
Jon Mm-hmm.
Mo But I’m really looking looking forward to that December 1st on Netflix.
Jon Yeah.
George I still hold to my my truth that David Letterman was the best late-night talk show host ever.
Jon Yeah.
Mo Yeah.
Jon m Yeah, maybe so.
George i think he was better than Carson…
Jon Yeah.
George i think he’s better than any the… I like the modern guys, but I still think David Letterman was the pinnacle.
Mo Yeah.
Jon he set himself He set himself apart from them in a way that no one else has quite done, certainly. So, yeah.
George Yep.
Mo Yeah.
Jon Yep. All right. All right. Hey, before we get out of the show, you know, I always like to thank one of our new patrons for supporting us over on Patreon. Before I do, though, Mo, one of the benefits that patrons get is a chance to ask a question over on Patreon that that we’ll answer here on the show. And I see you have one for us for this episode. What do you got
Mo Which is funny because it’s from Brandon.
Jon Oh, hey, Brandon.
Mo Who just read his e’ve just read his email.
Jon Way to go. He’s our fourth listener.
George Start and close the show.
Mo Yeah, and and this was coincidence.
Jon Yeah.
Mo I did not know which I didn’t know what he was gonna pick for the head of the show.
Jon Okay.
Mo So here we go. And when he asked this, he says, Hey guys, on various episodes, I have heard you all briefly mentioned coding computer programs for games, etc. 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. Yeah.
Jon Mm-hmm.
Mo I have quickly learned that one wrong keystroke can ruin an entire session of typing lines of code.
George Mm-hmm.
Jon Yep.
Mo Do you guys have any standout memories of trudging through lines of code and getting the payoff of it running perfectly, or maybe even programming your own games that actually worked? And that was from Brandon.
Mo so um
Jon Yeah.
Mo So, John, you want kick us off?
Jon Yeah, absolutely. So i I probably typed in everything in every magazine that was for my computer. So you’d get a magazine and there’d be stuff for Commodore 64, for MS-DOS, Atari BASIC. They’re all slightly different. ah And if if, look, if there were 10 programs in there, three of them were for me, I would type in them all, whether I wanted it or not. Checkbook balancing? I don’t have a checkbook. I don’t care. I’ll do it. It’s fun to type in.
Jon And yeah, there were errors sometimes, but I learned basic that way and you got better looking for the problems. um He’s asking for a notable story. the one And I’ve heard this has happened more than once, but I remember it specifically happening to me, which is I typed in a program and it didn’t work. And I spent the better part of a week trying to figure it out until I finally gave up.
Jon And then the next issue of the magazine, they’ll go, Hey kids, there was a typo.
Mo Oh, yeah.
George he
Jon And last month like, son of a, you know, I spent so much time.
Mo Yeah, I remember those corrections.
Jon It was your fault. And maybe it was a printing error. Like they left out lines when they went from the one page to the next, or I forget what the problems were, but like replace these lines with these lines. And you’re, and sure enough, when I got the new lines, it worked perfectly because I poured over it so many times.
Jon It was, it was right to what they had wrong. But yeah, the frustration of finding out that I wasted all that time and it was just a misprint. but what could you do? you didn’t know any better.
Mo yeah Yeah Sure How about you George
Jon So yeah, that’s probably the most memorable thing to me. But I i did plenty of typing in stuff.
George Um, yeah, I mean, I’m sure I’ve told the story before. I’ve just like John, um, I typed in programs. I actually had that computer games, ate a to Z book where every letter the alphabet had a different game associated with it.
Jon Mm-hmm. Yep.
Mo Oh yeah I remember that one
George And you could type in the code. Um, and I still have it on a bookshelf somewhere, but where there were some times when I would type everything in and it would work. And a lot of times where I type everything in, it would work.
Mo Mm-hmm.
George Um, I think, I never did anything where I created my own game and programmed it, which was kind of the back end of Brandon’s question there. The closest I got to that was creating demos at in high school that we contributed to a competition that was going on at the time, computer, national demo, high school thing.
Jon Oh, yeah.
George And our school won a big Cray 3 computer, something like that that for the school, which was incredibly expensive, considered a supercomputer back then, which now would…
George My phone would make it cry. um
Jon My dishwasher.
George But your dishwasher would make it upset.
Jon Probably more processing power.
Mo Yeah.
George Yes, no question. ah I think that’s really my only story, so to speak. I mean… i I really wish, and having worked with people like Mike that I mentioned in the Keys of Fury thing earlier, I really wish I was better at that kind of stuff because I have a lot of ideas, but I’m just not good at that stuff, and those guys are excellent. So I don’t even take anything away from those people by saying i coded anything because I sure as hell didn’t.
Mo That’s great though. So yeah, I definitely did too. had a Commodore 64. I bought compute magazine as soon as it came out, you know, went to the game pages and every now and then they’d have one that was particularly long.
George Mm-hmm.
Jon Yep.
Mo Like, like it was a couple of pages of code and like, george like John, I was like sitting there typing it, typing it.
Jon Mm-hmm.
Mo Hammer one was really long and I had typed in most of it. Got to go to the bathroom, came back. And my dad’s like, Oh, I thought you were done.
George oh Oh.
Mo I don’t have yeah i like have to say what happened.
George Mm. Mm-mm. Mm-mm.
Jon ah
Mo Now, you can’t really get mad at your dad. You know, you could you could slightly express it.
George Mm-mm.
George Well, not then.
Mo Yeah, not when you’re little kid.
George Yeah.
Jon I’m somewhat displeased with your behavior, father.
George Yeah.
Mo Yes, yeah. I’m like, oh, dad, no, I wasn’t done.
Jon Ha ha ha. Ha ha.
Mo I just spent the last two hours typing in all this code and da-da-da-da. Yeah.
Jon Now I’m playing beachhead.
Mo Yeah, and of course, I just went back and started over and typed the whole thing back in again.
Jon boo ah Of course.
George ah
George e
Mo But I was like, Dad said, I’ll let you know when I’m done.
Jon Yeah.
Mo He’s like, he says I just saw it on. dad is one of these guys. If he saw a light on in the room, he’d turn it off. And sometimes you were in the room because he didn’t happen to see you.
Jon yeah
George Right.
Mo you know He just like turned it off on reflex. So yeah, that was my… i said To this day, I still remember it. I’m like, oh, oh that was like… I think it was the most angry was at my dad at that age and could do absolutely nothing against it.
Jon Yeah.
Mo Like, he could do nothing.
Jon Oh, well. Mm-hmm.
Mo So just had to swallow it.
Jon yeah
Mo But hey anyway, Brandon, thanks.
Jon so well
Mo Thanks for the question and the painful memories it brought up. um But yeah, anybody out there, if you would like to have your question read here, it’s super easy. All you got to is go to genxgrownup.com slash Patreon.
Mo A little dollar a month. Shoot your question our way and good chance you’ll be asked right here on the show.
Jon And we really need, love and appreciate that support. I want to call out another, not ah another one of those upgrades that happen every once in a while. Look, 1969 Eliminator is a user who found us maybe a year or so ago.
Jon He’s been very engaged. We see him all over in streams and in video comments and everything.
Mo Oh,
Jon And he listens to the podcast and he, he was at one level and he just went, Hey guys, I just love what you’re doing. I’m going to bump it up to the next level just because he was already getting the benefits and
Mo wow. Yeah.
Jon It’s the kind of people that we get here supporting us. and we’re I’ve heard horror stories from other people on Patreon. We are very fortunate. We have an amazing audience of folks that are just beside um beside myself with with appreciation and awe in these guys. So Eliminator, thank you so much for that little increase. We certainly appreciate you. We put it to good use. We have bills every month. We’ve the platform we’re using to record this podcast, music sites, and everything that we do costs money somewhere, somehow.
Jon And we want to keep doing it for you. And you allow us to keep doing it. You and everyone who has joined us at patreon.com slash Gen X Grown Up. Thank you so much for your continued support. That then is going to wrap it up for this edition of the show.
Jon Don’t worry, though. back in two weeks with another one. but next week, well, that’s the backtrack. We pick a single topic and dig in deep.
Mo Mm-hmm.
Jon George, we’d like to do the honors. Let the fourth listener know what is coming their way next week.
George Yeah, it’s time for us to influence you guys to spend some money. It’s our 2025 Geek Gift Guide, ladies and gentlemen.
Jon yeah but
George We got four categories on tap for you, all at different pricing levels, so you can decide on whether or not you kind of like the person, sort of like the person, really like the person, or are in love with the person you want to buy a gift for.
Jon Yeah,
George We’ve got you covered.
Jon yeah it’s it’s always a good time. And it’s always curious to see what sort of things we pick from different arenas of our interests. So that should be, that should be good time. don want to miss that one. I hope you will join us for that. Until then, I am John, of course, George. Thank so much for being here.
George Yes, sir.
Jon Mo, you know, I appreciate you, brother.
Mo Always fun, then.
Jon Fourth listener, it’s you. We appreciate most of all. We cannot 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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