Critical Space Theory, Ep. 1: Gaming, Vacations, and When to Move
Alright. I'm recording. Alright. This is Christian. Did you clap?
Speaker 2:You know, the claps are not the claps are being muted by, the software because they're considered background noise.
Speaker 1:Really? So you guys didn't hear my clap?
Speaker 2:Heard no
Speaker 3:claps. I didn't hear any.
Speaker 1:Actually that's actually problematic for syncing it up.
Speaker 2:Well, like, so hold on. No.
Speaker 3:Like, we the thing about syncing just the audio, though, like, unless there's some, like, drift over time, then, like, we'll be able to tell.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I mean, that's our biggest concern. But Yeah.
Speaker 3:It's like
Speaker 1:But but, honestly, it it actually it is easier when you've got the, like, allowed something that you can just lock on to. But Yeah.
Speaker 3:It's true.
Speaker 1:It doesn't it doesn't matter. I think, like, I think first off, I think Premiere will actually work, but, like, we should both try Laz and and and kinda see what happens is is my thought. Okay. Alright. Yeah.
Speaker 3:So I'll say this is Laz, and I'm gonna clap. Okay?
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 3:Alright. This is Laz.
Speaker 1:I actually heard your clap.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Yeah. Nice. Weird.
Speaker 2:I'm gonna snap. Okay.
Speaker 1:Go ahead. Leo.
Speaker 2:Silence. No snap. No snap at all.
Speaker 1:Not even a little bit.
Speaker 2:Perfect. Well, guys, we're nailing this so far.
Speaker 1:We're nailing this so far.
Speaker 2:No. But you know what? Mhmm. OBS did will record the sound. It's just not coming through on Zoom.
Speaker 2:Yeah. But Zoom needs to record it to sync.
Speaker 1:Right? Yeah. Exact it doesn't matter. I I I think, like, Laz was saying, we'll figure it out.
Speaker 3:We had a we had a a really funny moment with, I was we were doing a Zoom call with, Richard, and it was, like, for his birthday. And we were the kids birthday? No. Richard's no. He's he's December 8th.
Speaker 1:Oh, I don't know why I thought that he and I had the same birthday. Anyway alright. Sorry. Keep going.
Speaker 2:But yeah. So so he was
Speaker 3:like, I've been working on you know, he's he's he plays a lot of guitar, and he's like, I've been working on this this new piece. And he was like, let me play a little bit for you. And Zoom just filtered the entire thing out, and we we and and he'd he'd already taken off his headset, so we could've tried to tell him. He just he played for, like, 2 and a half minutes, and it was, like, just Zoom
Speaker 1:was just sad.
Speaker 3:It was complete silence, and it was it was just like Richard Richard. It's mute. No. Zoom's filtering it.
Speaker 2:Oh. They usually call you.
Speaker 3:Like, ah, that was nice. It's 2 and a half minutes of silence. Sorry, Zoom.
Speaker 1:I think somebody should start this episode so that I
Speaker 2:think we just did.
Speaker 1:Well but so that the re well, okay. But we didn't have, like, a, hey. This is the thing. I guess it doesn't matter, does it?
Speaker 2:Oh, no. Let's yeah. But let's hear what yours would sound like.
Speaker 1:What my let's hear what mine would sound like? Yeah. Okay. Hell hello. Hello, everyone, and welcome to the show the show that is called, Critical Space Theory, which we
Speaker 3:I wasn't sure which way you were gonna say there.
Speaker 1:It's it's it's I wasn't sure which way I was gonna say any of this, which I think is not coming across because I think I sound I mean, I think I'm I'm like nailing this. Right?
Speaker 2:Yeah. This is great. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And I'm Christian. That's how I would open it. And then I would and then I would throw it off. Then I would throw throw it to you guys.
Speaker 3:Nice. Catch it.
Speaker 1:I I'll catch it. Okay. You catch it.
Speaker 2:Alright. I'm
Speaker 1:Emilio. I've nailed it. You nailed it. Yep. Yep.
Speaker 3:Nice. Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, children
Speaker 2:alright. I
Speaker 3:won't do that
Speaker 2:one. Mhmm. I don't know that. Get ready to podcast.
Speaker 1:I don't know. I don't think we should steal the opener that Laz uses for his podcast. I think those were that was though it was those were those were
Speaker 2:at verbatim.
Speaker 1:Right? Yep. Podcast about web programming.
Speaker 3:To h t m x.
Speaker 2:The one the one the one piece of feedback, Laz, that I do have for your podcast is that Yep. You do need an intro because when I'm listening to it on the app, it's just it runs directly. Like, it just plays, like, a, you know, episode to episode, and I couldn't tell when an episode had started or anything.
Speaker 1:Noticed that too. Like, I listened to the trailer, and then it went immediately into an episode. And I'm like, am I still in the trailer? And it was like, nope. Yep.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Actually, that's a good point. I I've thought about doing some music intro, just like a little, like, little beat or something just to, like just for that purpose, actually. So it's like, okay. Here's the beginning and here's the end.
Speaker 3:So I might do something like that.
Speaker 2:I don't know about Use your, use your ukulele skills.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Maybe the ukulele. But Or, you know, I think something like this
Speaker 1:musically talented too.
Speaker 3:Yeah. We'll do we'll do something. May maybe even a mix. Maybe I'll see if I can get her help on something.
Speaker 1:She's actually explicitly signed not to do the project. She wants nothing to do. She wants no. She's already
Speaker 2:she is out. Yeah.
Speaker 1:No part
Speaker 3:of it. Yeah. Part of the part of the agreement of doing the podcast in the first place for her to allow me to do it. She was not able. She's never gonna be invited
Speaker 1:Never doing it.
Speaker 3:At her request.
Speaker 2:She made a a pretty awesome beat for, like, D and D stuff for
Speaker 3:us. Oh, yeah. The epic beat? Mhmm. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Super. I like I like that one, actually. I listen to that sometimes.
Speaker 2:Did I ever end up using that? I I feel like I I tried to incorporate that in somewhere at some point, maybe in a stream or something.
Speaker 3:I think it was not quite right for let's roll. Like, I think what you sort of said, it was, like, it wasn't quite the vibe of let's roll characters, but it felt very epic and fantasy. So, like, I'm sure it was, you know, it's like I ended up listening to it sometimes doing just their writing stuff just because I thought it was, like, for some scenes and some, like, ideas that, like, just kinda, like, felt good for it.
Speaker 1:To be fair, Let's Roll Characters maybe should have adapted its vibe to that song.
Speaker 2:I think
Speaker 1:that's sort of a missed opportunity.
Speaker 3:Epic fantasy. Should have been should
Speaker 2:have been a little more epic.
Speaker 1:Yeah. For for all of our listeners out there who don't know what Let's Roll Characters is, that was the YouTube channel that Emilio and I had where we made D and D characters. It was fabulously popular, but, basically, it was sort of a, oh, sort of a John and Paul situation and just, creative differences.
Speaker 2:Classic Emilio goes in. Yoko showed up.
Speaker 1:Creative differences, artistic differences.
Speaker 2:So, man, I am so curious. Who is Paul and who is John?
Speaker 1:Oh, I'm obviously John. No. Maybe not. No. Maybe I'm Paul.
Speaker 2:Shit. You might be Paul.
Speaker 1:Oh, no. You're definitely John. Oh, man. Can we can we go back and can I be, oh, the other one? The cool one.
Speaker 1:Who's the good one? The one who isn't Ringo.
Speaker 2:Ringo. Oh. The worst. Are you kidding me?
Speaker 3:Oh, yeah. The worst. Actually, he yeah. He did one of my favorite songs, though. But
Speaker 1:Who what is the other one's name? Is the only one I can't remember? Is
Speaker 3:that George. George.
Speaker 1:George. Thank you. I'd like to be George, please, for 100.
Speaker 3:Okay. He he he's gotta be the least gently leaps.
Speaker 1:He is yeah. But he's he was, like, by far the actual sort of, like, best of them. No. I'm sorry. Was, like, an absentee father.
Speaker 1:Like, what a horrible person. Did you guys know that about John Lennon?
Speaker 2:No. I
Speaker 3:did not know that at all.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, he had a son before he got together with, Yoko.
Speaker 2:And I don't know any of this.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Know that. But now that I think about it, I probably should have.
Speaker 1:Why should you have?
Speaker 3:Because I feel like I know him. He's a musician. Oh, yeah. But I didn't I just I always assumed, you know, he was Yoko's kid. But
Speaker 1:You know, well, he has 2 sons. He had 2 sons. 1 was with Yoko, and one was with another, person prior to getting together with Yoko. And basically, like
Speaker 3:So the the one I know is probably not you know, it's it's probably the one who's absentee. No. He Does that make it possible?
Speaker 1:No. I think, no. There the one he had with Yoko is is a musician.
Speaker 3:Okay.
Speaker 1:And he's like he's silly. Like, he's like I don't know. He wears a top hat. You know? What can I say?
Speaker 1:Do I need to say anything else? He wears a top hat. Okay?
Speaker 2:Anyway Unironically, you mean?
Speaker 1:Yes. Unironically wears a top hat. But yeah. So he, like, I don't know if he ever really was in his first son's hey, Jude is about his first son. Did you guys know that?
Speaker 1:No. Yeah. Hey, Jude is a song that Paul wrote about John's first son and and and basically, like, it's about this boy who's sad, and it's because John isn't around and Paul was sort of, like, there for this kid, actually. And I think that I I don't know if it was exactly, like, John got together with Yoko and then just, like, left the mother of his first kid and that kid behind or if he'd already left them behind before he got with Yoko. But he was just, like, at least for the initial period, not in that kid's life.
Speaker 2:I'm I'm looking at the Wikipedia page right now, and it says, yeah, basically, the parents that, his so his name is Julian Charles John Lennon. Mhmm. He inspired 3 songs, Lucy and the Sky with Diamonds, Hey Jude, and Goodnight. Mhmm. And his parents divorced in 1968 after his father had an affair with Yoko Ono.
Speaker 2:But, yeah, as you say, we don't know what the whether he was involved before that anyway.
Speaker 1:I mean, I think Yoko Ono, like, you know, obviously, she's pretty unfairly maligned, but also kinda terrible. Like,
Speaker 3:what Well, it sounds like like everybody blames, like, the Beatles breaking up, but maybe the bigger story was the family breaking up. Yeah. I mean Like, similar situation, but different.
Speaker 1:She just came in and just destroyed every relationship that John Lennon had with everybody else. But granted, I think John Lennon is the person who was, like, I want somebody to come into my life and allow that person to destroy every relationship I have. Right? So, like, you know, giving him no agency and her all of it is, like, totally unfair. But Yeah.
Speaker 1:You know, she's she was cool with being that person too. So just a toxic couple.
Speaker 2:Say say that, but in in John Lennon's voice though.
Speaker 1:I think you're the one who would be best at saying these things in John Lennon's voice.
Speaker 2:What was the lie? I don't know.
Speaker 3:Oh. Go into my life and change everything.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yoko. Let let me work. Hang on. Let me find it.
Speaker 2:Let me find it. Let me find it. No.
Speaker 1:No. You got it. That was it.
Speaker 2:It was perfect. Liverpool fish and chips fish and chips. John Lennon Beatles. Oh, good. Hello?
Speaker 2:Can you damn it. I you know, I I can actually do a decent job, but I can't I don't know where I can't find it right now.
Speaker 1:Oh, man.
Speaker 3:It's Lucas out there. You'll find it.
Speaker 1:My life and nope. That was awful. I'm never gonna do
Speaker 2:it again. I'm so sorry.
Speaker 3:That was my first and final John Lennon.
Speaker 2:The Beatles. Yoko. That's right. You Yeah. Yes.
Speaker 2:I'd like you to come into my life and ruin everything because you're good. It's it's Ono.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I mean, I didn't think you could have topped the first effort.
Speaker 3:I recognize that voice actually, but it's not John Lennon, but it's someone else.
Speaker 2:It's more like it's Paul Bacardi, maybe.
Speaker 1:Well, Paul's, I think, a little easier to do maybe. I don't know. I want me mum.
Speaker 2:Me mum?
Speaker 1:I want me mum. Oh, anyway, hey. What are we, what what's the thesis of this, podcast, my friends?
Speaker 3:So maybe that's what this discussion is. Silent. Hey.
Speaker 2:We yeah. We're talking about, the whatever we wanna talk about this week.
Speaker 1:I had a I had a subtitle for our show, which is, an excuse to hang out.
Speaker 2:Yep. Hello?
Speaker 1:Critical space theory, an excuse to hang out.
Speaker 2:Oh, so I just then, I couldn't hear either of you for, like, 10 seconds.
Speaker 1:Oh, that was really weird. We were hearing each other.
Speaker 3:Zoom for that. Yeah. I could hear everything.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I got a I got a zoom, like, latency thing.
Speaker 1:Oh, That's interesting.
Speaker 2:Well Edit edit that out.
Speaker 1:Yeah. We'll just, take care of that in post, as
Speaker 2:they say
Speaker 1:in in the biz. Okay. Yeah. So what what is the what is the thesis of of our show aside from our excuse to hang out? And and somebody answer this while I mute myself and eat a cream puff.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Yeah. So I don't know. Should it be the week, or is that too, like, specific to, like, this to, like, a point in time?
Speaker 1:I like the week.
Speaker 3:Can you guys hear me? Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1:I was hearing you. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yep. Yeah. I think, I I think, you know, current stuff is interesting, you know, whatever is sort of present for us right now. But, if there's stuff that you know, like, we'd had a little talk about, a little character, for example. Like, if there's stuff like that that's on our mind, then I don't see why, you know, there's no reason not to talk about it.
Speaker 2:But, like, I mean, I definitely have some shit that happened to me this week that I'd love to talk about.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I mean, I think that we I think it should be exactly what you said, which is, like, you know, whatever's on our mind, which I think will map onto the week, and that could be something related to current events or something we did or watched or whatever or something that we just decide that we wanna talk about. Like, I'm I'm feeling pretty open to that. I I don't know. You guys?
Speaker 3:Yeah. What's, like, taking over your headspace this week?
Speaker 1:Oh, I like that. Oh, that's great. Yeah. That's well stated.
Speaker 2:Critical headspace theory. Oh, it's
Speaker 1:too late. Too late. There's no there's no going
Speaker 2:back. We
Speaker 1:are we have been speaking for 15 minutes, and I'm not changing now. I'm please.
Speaker 2:You've gotta be more flexible there, Paul.
Speaker 3:If you are
Speaker 2:we if we're going to be musicians, we've gotta try different things. You know? Maybe a different name every week.
Speaker 1:I can't believe how quickly I was like, I'm obviously John and then how immediately I was so obviously not John. And so, obviously, Paul.
Speaker 2:I'm gonna work out that impression.
Speaker 1:Okay. Good. I think you should. We'll we'll we'll be able to track how it's improved over time or Oh, that's gotten significantly worse.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:Well, I'm still working on this cream puff, so somebody else should go on what it is that's, up in their headspace.
Speaker 2:Oh, man. You got anything, Les?
Speaker 3:Yeah. Yeah. I okay. So I got a the the big thing for me is actually nothing that happened the previous week, but on Wednesday, the family is we're taking the kids out of school for a week even though it's not vacation, and we are flying to Saint Martin.
Speaker 1:Woah. Like, where is that? Is that
Speaker 2:in the southbound?
Speaker 3:Way out in the ocean. It's, it's in the water. Tropics. Yeah. It's owned half by France and half by the Netherlands.
Speaker 3:Woah. And I think I don't actually don't even know which side we're gonna be on or if we're gonna be on both. It's, Grace's parents have always gone there on vacation, and that's, like, their place that they go. And, you know, they used to go there when they first got married. And and, they've never, you know, Grace has never been, and I've never been obviously.
Speaker 3:And and so they wanted to, like, they're not sure like how many, you know, how often they're gonna be able to go or if they're ever gonna be able to go again just because, you know, it's like just harder as, you know, they get older. So they were gonna bring they wanted to bring the family and bring the kids to Saint Martin, which is, like, one of their favorite spots. So Wow. So that's we're going on Wednesday, Wednesday to Wednesday, and it's gonna be, it's gonna be a big trip.
Speaker 1:After after years of saying, oh, I'd love to go to Saint Martin's,
Speaker 2:they finally invited you.
Speaker 1:Yep. They finally said they say said, uh-oh.
Speaker 2:Yep. No. That's done any any big trips with the kids before?
Speaker 3:So we go we were just yeah. We were talking about that. We've never done a vacation, like, quote unquote, like, gone to a place and done a vacation type thing. We have visited family, which is like that's that's been our vacations, which is a good, you know, like, I'm happy with that. It's a good use of vacation time and, like, effort.
Speaker 3:And we go we've gone to Seattle a bunch of times. We visited, we visited Richard in Chicago. And so we've we've done some trips, but, yeah, this is the first time we're going, like, on a vacation type trip.
Speaker 2:What are you, anticipating? What do you think it's gonna be like? Is it Yeah.
Speaker 3:I don't know.
Speaker 1:Warm there right now, by the way? Like, is it in is it in
Speaker 3:I haven't even checked the weather, but to the equator. Yeah. No. No. It's it's the tropics.
Speaker 3:Like, it's like I I let me I'm gonna pull it up on it. Yeah. Why don't you pull it up on a map too because, like, I looked at it, like, when we booked this, like, 2 months ago or something like that. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:It's, like, probably hurricane season right now. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Oh, cool. Oh, it's right there. It's it's just it's just east of Puerto Rico.
Speaker 2:Yeah. It's right there.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Okay. Let me see.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So it's it's good. It's definitely, like, in one of
Speaker 3:the most places. Puerto Rico. Okay. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Man, it's south of Cuba. That's crazy. I didn't that's like it's in in my head, it was closer to, like,
Speaker 1:you know, like or something?
Speaker 2:Yeah. Bermuda. That's sort of that was the first
Speaker 1:thought that I had. But
Speaker 3:Yeah. But no. It's way down there. It's past past Cuba and past Dominican Republic. So it'll be a trip.
Speaker 3:We're gonna you know, it's gonna be a long it'll be a it's not actually as far as Seattle in terms of flying, but,
Speaker 1:Is that technically the West Indies, or is that, is that not right?
Speaker 3:I do not know. I thought that was actually, I really don't know. Geography quiz time. Oh, no.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Right. I have I'm realizing I have no concept of where things are in the Caribbean at all, and I've been to several of these places.
Speaker 1:You have?
Speaker 2:I've been to Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Bahamas. Oh, really? Yeah. But I
Speaker 1:Yeah. It it's total it's totally the West Indies. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Okay. But yeah. And and we're gonna do so what we were deciding on just today is, like, are we going to do our flight is at 8 o'clock in the morning. So we have to be at the airport at 6. And so do we try to, like, get a hotel and park there?
Speaker 3:Or I think what we're gonna do is we're gonna do the, like, waking the kids up at 3 AM and putting them in the car.
Speaker 2:Awesome. Uh-huh. And we're gonna
Speaker 3:see how that goes. You know? It's like you gotta find out whether this is a whether this is a workable situation.
Speaker 1:Keep them up.
Speaker 2:Oh my god. All night. Not a not a shit. Sleep.
Speaker 3:No sleep. So miserable. So and then we have we have a a layover in New York too. So we're gonna be at JFK for a little bit as well.
Speaker 2:Okay. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And we'll hang on.
Speaker 2:Is it a direct from New York, is it direct into
Speaker 3:Saint Martin? From New York, it's direct to Saint Martin. So and Grace's parents are already there, and they, you know, they they know their way around. Like, I think that's kinda I haven't you looked at a single thing there. Like, I don't know anything about what we're flying into.
Speaker 3:Showing up.
Speaker 1:And we're just gonna
Speaker 3:show up. We have, you know, we have, we
Speaker 1:have passports now, which
Speaker 2:is cool.
Speaker 3:And we're just gonna show up, and they're gonna show us the place, I think. And, hopefully, they have a hotel room booked for us or something like that. I haven't sorted that stuff out. But
Speaker 1:What's really funny is, like so the north, I'm assuming, is the, British side and the south is the Dutch side. The north, is listed here on Google Maps as the collectivity of Saint Martin, Mhmm. Which is a fascinating almost like fantasy, sci fi ish, sound way to describe a place. Right? The collectivity of Saint Martin.
Speaker 1:Like, what is that?
Speaker 3:Yeah. I have no idea. And I wonder it's such a tiny place. I wonder how they, like, split it between It
Speaker 1:looks like it's just down the center, honestly.
Speaker 2:Yeah. It's in the mountain. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And the downside is is sint mareten, like sintmaarte n, which is just ridiculous. That's good. You know, what what that makes me think of, it it reminds me of, how when I was a kid, and there would be other kids who got to leave during non vacation periods to go do whatever. And, usually, this is our friend Anna, right, who was always, like, leaving with her family to go to, like, Italy or something. Or I think also you, Emilio, you were, like
Speaker 2:Me too.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Going to India or Turkey or something. And, that's not fair.
Speaker 2:That's not
Speaker 3:cool. That's not fair.
Speaker 1:I don't like it. I don't like people who
Speaker 3:do that. I don't like it now.
Speaker 2:I feel I feel really crass now because I was just like, oh, yeah. I've been to a bunch of those places.
Speaker 1:That's right. During the school year, not during a vacation.
Speaker 2:So when so I I'll I'll quickly tell a story. So my, you know, my mom my grandfather worked for the United Nations. He's from India originally. My grandmother's from Turkey, and one of the United Nations, policies or whatever back in the day was that you get home leave. And so my grandfather would take, you know, his family to either India or Turkey every summer for, like, I don't know, a month or 2 months.
Speaker 2:And
Speaker 1:so they were always
Speaker 2:going back and forth, my mom and her sister, And, like, even though, they didn't you know, then my mom didn't work for the UN or anything like that, she sort of ended up adopting that policy that, like, summer times were for, like, long trips to visit family. I'd love that. So that was, you know, what we we would we would tend to travel in the summer for longer periods of time, and then sometimes that would overlap with the start of the school year, and we'd be, like, coming back, like, just the day that school started or something or, like Roll into school with
Speaker 3:sunglasses on.
Speaker 2:Just crazy.
Speaker 3:No no bags. No books. Just big shorts.
Speaker 1:For some reason, a Hawaiian t shirt even though you were in India or Germany.
Speaker 2:I was just trying to just trying to look cool. Yeah. My Yeah. I do realize now, like, looking back that that how how sort of privileged that was. Oh, for sure.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:My family Yeah.
Speaker 3:And this this trip You
Speaker 1:know anyone anywhere. Sorry. Go ahead.
Speaker 3:Yeah. No. I no. I just feel that way about I mean, I'm like I'm trying to, like I don't know. Like, the my kids' experience is gonna be so much different from mine, which is good in some ways probably and, like, you know, crazy different in others, and I'm just like it's like, oh, yeah.
Speaker 3:Like, we're gonna jet off to a tropical island for a week vacation. It's just sort of not like it's like it's feel it feels very foreign to me, but, you know, this is that's just how it is.
Speaker 2:It's great. We give our kids, like, you know Let's do it. Do it.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Like vacation whenever and not having to move every 2 years and a functioning car.
Speaker 3:Yes. But let's also so the flip side of that, right, is, like, I moved so often, but, like, doesn't that kind of, like, give you a certain, like, I don't know, some, like, you learn how to move and you learn how to, like, kind of adapt to a new place? I I think what I worry about with some of this stuff is, like, all these are all good things. Like, the kids are, like, get the chance to, like, do their thing and and settle, you know, build some roots and stuff like that. But also it's like with a lot of this stuff, it's like, I don't know.
Speaker 3:I don't want to say no hardship or something like that, but it's like, is there a downside to everything is very good?
Speaker 1:I mean, I think this is a reasonable question. Like, I'm so, like Yeah. Okay. So you and me, Laz, we both have that lifestyle growing up. Emilio, Richie Rich over here,
Speaker 2:you tell us. Yep. You know me.
Speaker 1:Do do you It
Speaker 2:worked out great.
Speaker 1:Do you feel like you've had difficulty adapting to new situations potentially as a product of your upbringing?
Speaker 2:Oh, but you'll you'll spotter.
Speaker 3:I'm not gonna yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yes. Okay. Well, let me establish my rich credentials first. Yes, please.
Speaker 2:I mean,
Speaker 1:you already have, but keep going. I'm traveling every year.
Speaker 2:So, I mean, I I think, like well, I I I guess that's a great question. I don't think so. So when I was in I don't know. Since college and then, until basically a few years ago, I moved every year or 2. And I actually really enjoy it.
Speaker 2:I I love moving into a new place, settling in, exploring new areas, and I find it pretty boring that I've been in this one house that we're at now for, like
Speaker 1:Fascinating.
Speaker 2:And I think about moving. And I and I I don't actually want to because I sort of, you know, I'm comfortable here, and I like the stability. But, but I do think about it a lot, and I think, oh, man, wouldn't it be so fun to live in this part of town or this place? I think about moving to other countries still. Like, I I I don't know.
Speaker 2:But,
Speaker 3:what about the what about because so your your experience and and I feel the same way. I moved all the time, and I I love it, and I think it's a it to me, it's valuable. It's good that like, I I liked that, and I appreciate it when I do move. But, yeah, it's same sort of thing. I've been in place for 8 years.
Speaker 3:Like, what about your kid? Does I'm I'm I'm not sure if I should say names just because I'm like, I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. We can
Speaker 2:leave names out for now.
Speaker 3:So, like, you know, he's he's not having that experience. Right? Like, he's not moving. And is that good or bad, or is it just different? You know, it's like, is there some resilience that's built from kind of moving around and making new friends?
Speaker 3:Or is it like, well, you know, sometimes you just get to, like, really settle in and, like, really get to know a place.
Speaker 2:It's hard for me to answer because I didn't have the, you know, the that experience as a child.
Speaker 1:But what do you observe with him?
Speaker 2:Well, I think he had this he's having the same experience as me. Right? So Yeah. But I
Speaker 3:thought oh, but I thought you said you did move around a lot. Oh, no.
Speaker 1:Well, Well, but not since he's been a manager,
Speaker 2:really. Yeah. Well, no. I moved a lot from college.
Speaker 3:Oh, okay. Okay. So when you were younger, you were in the same place for a while.
Speaker 2:But it yeah. So we we we moved once when I was 3, to the house that my mom still lives in, and I grew up there.
Speaker 3:I agree. Okay. I gotcha.
Speaker 2:So my my moving experience was when I was, you know, late teens twenties for the most part up till, you know, mid 30. Yeah. And that's different. And so I don't know. So, yeah, I think so I think my son is having a similar experience to what I had.
Speaker 2:And, and so I don't know if there's I don't know if I
Speaker 1:And he's never Miss You've never seen someone more resentful.
Speaker 2:He, you know, he's a person that, interestingly, you know, very different to me. He he really values sort of structure, stability, consistency. I am very much I wanna do something different every time. And so we're you know, he's much more like, my wife in that way. And so even, like, what I've suggested, you know, hey, what if, you know, what if we looked at some houses or something?
Speaker 2:Or what if we he's like he'll he'll, like, stare me down and be like, no, dad. Oh, man. Moving. Wow.
Speaker 3:Yeah. I I get I get a little bit of the same, the same same sort of thing. And it's like, you know, I I like the idea of, like, okay, you know, it's good to, like, I feel like it's good to have build up that build up some sort of, like, ability to do that. So it's not like so you're not scared of it or something like that. Mhmm.
Speaker 3:But I don't know. It's like you just move for the sake of moving. Like, that seems almost cruel. Like Yeah. If things are good, it's like, oh, no.
Speaker 3:We've built a really good life. No. Now we have to get out of here. Like, that just that also doesn't seem quite right to me.
Speaker 2:I I think, like, there's a lot of I I think I hear this a lot from, like, our generation and our parents' generation that you have to build resilience in certain ways, and people have to be tough, and there has to be hardship. And I've found myself kind of questioning a lot what that looks like and how to do that, or, you know, once I became a parent. Mhmm. And I I don't necessarily think that the the ways that my parents tried to toughen me up quote unquote were, you know, effective. I think they more, like, you know, maybe led to me being, like, very anxious and insecure all the time.
Speaker 2:But I don't know. That's it it it's hard to say. Right? And, and meanwhile, if I'm trying to think about, like, well, is there another way to do this? I think people can build resilience in a lot of different ways.
Speaker 1:Oh, for sure.
Speaker 2:Right? And I and and, actually, Christian, you can probably speak to this much more clearly.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Well, I mean, I have a, before jumping into that, I will say, you know, so it it we grew up moving around a lot too, and I hate it as an adult. I want I don't wanna do it ever, ever. And so we've got this house now, you know, that we own, and, like, that just feels like I I couldn't be happier with that. The only thing that would really get me to move is, like, a significant external sort of pressure.
Speaker 1:Like, you know, if my job, like, imploded, or if this country imploded. And, fortunately, there's nothing on the horizon that could lead to something like that. So I so it's like so, it's
Speaker 3:How many hours from the border are you? Unrel unrelated question.
Speaker 1:Unrelated question. I mean, I have it's not like I've counted it to be exactly 3 hours and 45 minutes, but, like, you know,
Speaker 2:that's Oh, I can be I can be in Mexico while we record this if you want. I can be there in 15 minutes.
Speaker 1:That's I mean, I think we're all relatively close to, the border of another country, aren't we? Yep.
Speaker 3:Yeah. About 3 and a half hours.
Speaker 1:Yeah. But, like yeah. So I don't ever wanna move. But, of course, having said that, like, sometimes there is an escapist sort of, aspect of my personality that that does find a, like, a romanticism in that. Right?
Speaker 1:So, like, even though I don't wanna move and I hate the idea of moving, I, like, am on an email, like, list for if Moving for fun. Well, no. Yeah. Right. If it like, actually so my escape plan is is has always been New Zealand, and New Zealand gives you priority sort of visa and immigration status and all that sort of stuff if you are of a sir if you have a particular profession, and psychologist, is one of those professions.
Speaker 1:And so I get email updates on job postings that, are sort of motivated to bring in, international psychologists to New Zealand. So, like, you know, I'm on file with them. And then every now and then, just for the hell of it, I will apply to a, a civilian position with the military on a base in another country, like Italy or Germany or South Korea or whatever, just to see what happens. And it's never gone anywhere. But, like
Speaker 3:It's not compulsory that you would do it, though, if you if you got the job or something, though. Right?
Speaker 1:Exactly. Right? It's like they you know, I could inter I could interview. They could offer it to me, and I could be like, nah. I don't really wanna do that.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Good. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:But it it's just sort of like there is that one part of me that just sort of thinks like, what would that be like? But usually but it has to be, like, a drastic change. Right? I don't wanna move to somewhere else in the United States. I wanna move to, like, another place entirely.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yep. I would love to.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Anyway, what else should we talk about?
Speaker 3:Well, I'll scout out Saint Martin next week.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Tell me, what the, mental health, industry looks like there. Although, like, living in a tropical place would be my absolute nightmare.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Yeah. Sun nonstop.
Speaker 1:Yep. Gross.
Speaker 3:We'll see.
Speaker 1:Swimming. Ew. I still really kinda can't swim. I basically can't
Speaker 3:swim. Still not sure if you'll die every time you put your feet in the water.
Speaker 1:Exactly. It's like it's 5050.
Speaker 2:Let me, let me switch gears, and I got something I wanna gripe about.
Speaker 1:Oh, a gripe.
Speaker 2:That's right.
Speaker 1:Emilio's gripe corner, I think, is
Speaker 2:that the Oh, yes. Let's do a segment.
Speaker 1:Isn't that the segment that we decided we would have? Yeah. Yep.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Do the, do the intro song, Laz, that we that we set up.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah. Do the song, Laz.
Speaker 2:Alright.
Speaker 3:That was it. It was a that was actually an electric guitar. It's hard to tell.
Speaker 1:That was incredible. Was that a, was that a riff from, John Lennon, a John Lennon song?
Speaker 3:Yeah. No. I hooked that up all the hooked up all the guitar stuff out in the shed Yeah. You for that moment.
Speaker 1:You hooked up every guitar you own and dropped them. You just dropped them. Yep. Em Emilia, what's your gripe?
Speaker 2:So have you guys heard of the game Pal World?
Speaker 3:Actually, the name sounds familiar,
Speaker 1:but yeah.
Speaker 2:I've heard
Speaker 3:of it.
Speaker 1:It's very it's, like, very of the moment.
Speaker 2:It's so so popular. Right? So it's
Speaker 3:I've never played it. Don't know what it is.
Speaker 2:For context, it's I mainly, I believe, a PC game. I don't know if it's on console. It's sort of like a, Pokemon game, but for adults with, like, lots of guns and also some crafting and survival elements. Elements. Okay.
Speaker 2:I have heard
Speaker 3:of it in the context of Pokemon is gonna sue the crap out of this thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah. That's, like, the whole thing.
Speaker 3:Context ever. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1:It's it's exactly Pokemon with guns.
Speaker 3:Okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Anyway, it's it's taken you know, I I'm so I'm big into, like, all these survival crafting games. I watch a lot of YouTubers who do that stuff. I play most of them, at some point or another. This one's been taking the sort of community by storm.
Speaker 2:Everyone's talking about it. Everyone's playing it. Regardless of, you know, how I feel about the game, it it looks fine. It apparently is destroying everybody's servers.
Speaker 1:A what? Yeah.
Speaker 2:So, I heard about this maybe 3, 4 weeks ago. Because so many people are playing Powerwall, all these server companies, you know, the big sort of hosting companies, like, maybe I won't throw out any names, but there's, you know, there's several sort of big names out there that host gaming servers for, for groups of players. They they started selling to Palworld servers like crazy.
Speaker 1:So you They Palworld doesn't provide its own servers then.
Speaker 2:It does.
Speaker 1:Got it.
Speaker 2:Well, and not dedicated, sir. I don't know I don't exactly know the ins and outs, but, yeah, most most people get a dedicated and I've bought many dedicated server. Yeah. I've I've Okay. For other games Conan and 70 Sedat, etcetera.
Speaker 2:Yep. Valheim? It seemed Valheim. Yes. We had a Valheim server.
Speaker 2:I even I even ran a Valheim server off of my laptop.
Speaker 1:That was so hilarious, man. We were in anyway, sorry. I don't mean to take away, but, god, we're into that game for, like it's 6 months, like, hardcore into that game and then never again.
Speaker 2:Yep. Yeah. Just no one ever talked about it even. Anyway Our our friend group, like, dissolved after that.
Speaker 1:I know. Basically, that was the one thing holding our online gaming group together. Actually, you guys still play 7 Days TO Die, but I
Speaker 2:We do. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah. At that point. Sometimes.
Speaker 2:Anyway, so so what happened is, it seems like two things happened. The the server hosting companies sold way, way, way too many servers. They couldn't handle the demand, and they, all their servers crashed. They just had too many players. They couldn't keep up with it.
Speaker 2:It became a nightmare. But then secondly, it turns out that maybe pal world also has some kind of crazy, like, memory leak built in that
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Destroys servers.
Speaker 3:That's kinda old. Yeah. So
Speaker 2:what what's what this has resulted in, and my gripe here, is that, players like me, you know, more regular players who have had servers and are running servers, all of our shit got destroyed in the last few weeks.
Speaker 1:Wait. Like, your power world stuff or other things? No. My Icarus server
Speaker 2:Oh, man. Was down for days. I had to try, like, hosting on a different platform. Wow. I've heard all these horror stories from, like, 7 days to die people, from Conan servers.
Speaker 2:Just if you as long as you had a server on any of these big platforms, their whole system just went to shit in, like, you know you know, for for weeks weeks. Wow. And and it seems, you know and so on the one hand, I I sort of am annoyed at powwoworld for whatever their issue was, but really, it's these fucking server host companies that, like, are selling they're still selling servers. They sold me a server 3 days ago that was down for 3 days in a row. Oh.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And so, like, they and they are well aware by now that this is an issue that they need to either stop selling servers or get more, you know, server power and, and also deal with whatever the leak is with how world, but they're not doing it apparently. And so, like, it's just become like this disaster where where so many players are, you know, unable to play, and, you know, and and this is such a first world problem. Right? Like, oh, no.
Speaker 2:We can't play our video game. Mhmm. But it's it's very frustrating, and it it's it to me, like and my I guess my gripe here is, oh, capitalism because, like, why the fuck are they, like, irresponsibly selling more of these of this service that they can't provide, and just compounding the problem. So, yeah, that I'm I'm annoyed at Power World. I'm annoyed at server companies.
Speaker 2:I'm annoyed at America.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So, I mean, a server is like I would put the blame in that situation just personally. Like, I would probably put it, like, mostly on poweworld. And and my guess would be, like, any game like that, it's got to be so hard to imagine the problems you're gonna have when you scale up suddenly. Like, you know, give you some of these games kind of have hell a lot of time to, like, grow online.
Speaker 3:And if I mean, I have I don't know that much about powwow world except that I I know nothing about it, like, 2 months ago, and now it's huge. So it's like Yep. Anything that grows that fast, like, you could have just the tiniest issue of, like, one unindexed, you know, query, one unindexed, like, part of your system that's not using the correct version of RAM, you know, it, like, uses RAM on disk instead of, like, RAM, you know, whatever, like, those sort of things. And it's, like, one mistake like that compounded to this scale. It's it could yeah.
Speaker 3:It just could tear down servers. And I and that's, like, that was, like, one of my big things against the Bitcoin world was the the process of updating stuff was so inefficient that you were just burning servers and burning electricity and burning money just for doing like one inefficient like pro you know, it's like just to, like, make a purchase on Bitcoin. It it took this amazing amount of computational power. And that's like, if you make a mistake in code or even just like an inefficiency in something like power world and compounded a million, you know, 200,000,000 times or whatever it is, it's like, you just it's I don't I mean, I don't know what the fix is. Like, who knows what's going on there, but my guess is it's just a couple like the kind of thing that would never cause a problem at a small scale.
Speaker 3:And then you just like bring it up and it's like, okay, now this table is huge. And so it's gonna take, you know, 30 seconds to query it, which is gonna, like, burn all these servers down. And it's probably something super small. And it's just like it's like one of those tiny meaningless things that ends up probably costing 1,000,000 and 1,000,000 of dollars in electricity or, you know, even more than that actually. Like, it's like, yeah.
Speaker 2:Man. That's interesting to have that your your perspective on it as a as a coder because, like, yeah, I don't know I I don't know who to blame and I'm just, like, angry at people, but
Speaker 3:Yeah. I mean, if the servers are still like, if they can't isolate it, that's that's a problem too. Like, they should be able to, like, okay, poweworld's obviously causing a problem. So we can separate that. We can sell a server.
Speaker 3:They don't have to do these, like, shared virtual servers. Or or if they're gonna share a virtual server, make sure all of the ones that I have power rolled on it are shared on similar ones. So I I think that's that's also on them for, like, how they organize their servers.
Speaker 2:I got an email from an older server hosting company that I used to use that I I still have an account with, but I don't currently have a server. And they sent out a first, they sent an email, like, hey. We're ready to host Pal World and, satisfactory now. And then, like, a couple hours later, they said, one thing, we're we're we're so sorry, everybody.
Speaker 3:We we just are about to flip the switch, people. Make sure to follow us on this stream. The switch has been silent, radio silence.
Speaker 2:They they offered they actually are giving any customer that was affected, like, a free month of server hosting per year into perpetuity.
Speaker 1:Woah.
Speaker 2:Woah. Yeah. Because it was
Speaker 3:so fun. Free was that bad. Okay. Wait. Free month per year.
Speaker 3:Okay. Never heard that. I was just like Yeah. I heard the word in perpetuity. I was like
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah. Or a
Speaker 3:month or a year. Good, but not great.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah. It's not yeah. It's you save whatever $78. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's something but they called it the, they said that they would also give you a, palpalpocalypse survivor badge on their discord
Speaker 1:channel. Cute.
Speaker 3:At least once it becomes, like, a common thing, like, they have, like, an, you know, it was just Pal's fault.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah. Alright. The funny thing is, and I didn't realize this initially, but, like, when Power World came out, I was like, oh, this looks weirdly familiar. And I I looked, and I the developers actually had or, had this other game called Craftopia.
Speaker 2:And I had played craft or I had bought Craftopia to play with my son maybe 6 months ago, and it was horribly buggy garbage, and couldn't connect to multiplayer servers. And so the the whole point was that we want to play together. There was no way to to connect to each other directly through servers, anything, even though it claimed to have that capability. It was the co op just didn't work at all. And so we it was it's like one of the only games I've ever actually returned to steam, and I'm like, oh, man, you know, this game was garbage, and then they to see that now they just pushed out this other game into early access, and it's, you know, riddled with bugs apparently is no surprise, I guess.
Speaker 1:Yeah. What's that dinosaur game that we tried to play a little bit of Emilio that also was, like, terribly coded? Arc. Arc. That's right.
Speaker 2:Arc survival. Those motherfuckers. That's gonna be fucking started on that. Oh, dear. They so they've been so Arc came out, I don't know, 7 years ago, whatever.
Speaker 2:Right? And it's been desperately in need of an update. Mhmm. But they were like, well, we're gonna you know, we're probably not gonna update anymore. We're working on Arc 2.
Speaker 2:And they're like, we signed Vin Diesel to be the place we're doing
Speaker 1:Right. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Much more, like, story based Mhmm.
Speaker 3:Game. Dinosaurs. Right.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Exactly. Oh, beep. T Rex. Like, it's good.
Speaker 2:It's good, Vin. That's good. To another line to another line reads. He's like, it's all about dinosaur family. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Okay. Now now you're sad, Vin? So, anyway, but, they just, like, I don't know, maybe, like, also, like, 6 months ago or less, they released a remastering of the original art. And Oh. At at a $40 price point
Speaker 1:What? $40.
Speaker 2:And my dumbass bought it thinking, oh, maybe this will work.
Speaker 1:Emilio, no.
Speaker 2:It's even worse than the other one. It's way more, like, system intensive. It's full of bugs. Mhmm. It it's not fun to play at all.
Speaker 2:I've tried to return it. They said I had played too many hours. I only played so many hours because I spent the whole time troubleshooting it.
Speaker 1:Like, I
Speaker 2:could barely get the damn thing to work, and they yeah. Yeah. So I am out $40 to these fucks. Uh-huh. So and I and and also, it seems like this has taken the place of arc 2.
Speaker 2:They're not even working on arc 2 anymore.
Speaker 1:Wait. Wait. Wait. So they're they're re whatever. Their remake of arc 1 has taken over their development of arc 2?
Speaker 2:Yeah. They're talking about, like, they're doing all these updates to their remake of arc 1. Wow. Jeez. Let's see what arc 2 says now.
Speaker 2:Let's see. So maybe maybe arc 2 will come out. They're saying that it may have released this year. Okay.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Alright. We'll see.
Speaker 1:Release terribly. Arc There's there's terribly. We have we have another terrible release coming from
Speaker 2:Yeah. I mean, seriously. Yeah. Arc is, very popular, and it I think it, you know, has the potential to be fun if you have a good group and you have really great computers. But, yeah, it's not a well made game.
Speaker 1:Man, I just, I can't do those games anymore. Valheim was it for me. He was like, okay. Yeah. Okay.
Speaker 1:I'm crafting and also doing the other things with other people. This is cool. But, also, I've now spent, like, 40 hours on this, and I don't know how I feel about myself. Sort of alright. I mean, I don't feel better about myself as a person.
Speaker 2:Is that is that why you play video games?
Speaker 1:I don't know. I don't know. I guess I'm just, like, I I I maybe. Maybe that is why I play games is, not necessarily to feel better about myself per se, but to, like, feel to experience some form of growth, maybe? Is that crazy to, like, want that in a video game?
Speaker 1:I don't know. I have video games that I've played that make me feel that way, where I'm just like, wow, this is like giving me an experience that is usually, it's emotionally sort of like growth oriented or something. I don't know.
Speaker 3:Does does it feel like a book kind of to you? Or is it more like
Speaker 1:Yes. Yes. Like a book or a really good movie or really good TV show or something like that. Yeah. I guess I I that's where I put video games, sort of like in that same, like, here's what I'm looking for is like, what insight does this give me on myself or the human condition or on sort of emotional experiences or whatever, I guess, which I know is not, like, how everybody wants.
Speaker 3:It's definitely not how I play games.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I want. Right. But that's really interesting.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I mean but, like because obviously, Emilio, you love that that style of game, the crafting. Yeah. Like
Speaker 2:It's all I play.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And it does I mean, I'm I'm assuming it is not checking those boxes that I'm looking to check. Right. Not at all. Yeah.
Speaker 1:What boxes do they check for you?
Speaker 2:Yeah. It's it's like I really enjoy sort of the progression. I've been thinking about this a lot lately.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:I really enjoy the progression of a crafting game and the the need to problem solve. Mhmm. And I don't enjoy the story based games as much and and even less and less these days, because I feel like you're you're you're following a story, you're on someone's path, you're not really encouraged to sort of be creative or do your own thing. I when I'm playing a a game, I really like the crafting, building, and, like, survival aspects of it. And so all the games I play are like that.
Speaker 2:And so, like, I'll find you know you know, it probably started with, with Minecraft as an example where it's like, oh, man. Like, the first time I played Minecraft, I was like, what is the point of this? What am I doing? Right? Like, there's no story, there's no instructions.
Speaker 2:You're just like, hey, you're a guy, here's a block, do something, figure it out. And then it was like, oh, I get to figure it out. I get to decide, you know, what I wanna build, and if I wanna build a certain thing, well, then I have to go find those particular resources or those tools or whatever it is. I have to learn how to build them. I have to, go fetch them in the world.
Speaker 2:And that's just, like so then I have, like, you know, my purpose is, like, okay, find the things that I want to build the thing that I wanna build, and, and I don't worry about, like, any sort of cohesion or story or anything like that. It's totally different.
Speaker 1:And, Laz, you're saying you also don't look for the same things I'm looking for, but my guess is you're not necessarily looking for the same things things that Emilio is. I'm curious what you're looking for, you know, in a No.
Speaker 3:No. Yeah. I know it's game. It's totally different. I mean, I I actually just just started playing Minecraft for the first time last week.
Speaker 3:So I'm Uh-huh. On that on that front, like, I don't really play any of those types of games, except now I sort of have tried this. I've tried Minecraft. I think I play, like, right now, it's just for it's like comfort. Like, it's just like yeah.
Speaker 3:I'm gonna sit down and, like, I mostly play games that I'm already good at, that I already know how to play. And it's like like, like, I do, like, Super Mario World. I'll try to beat it from start to I'll do, like, a speed run of Super Mario World.
Speaker 1:Oh, wow. So you'll even try to do a speed run thing?
Speaker 3:Well, but not like a real speed run. Just like my my own personal
Speaker 1:do it.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So, like, I know all the paths, the secrets to get to beat the boss. So I can do it in, like you know, it's, like, 16 minutes now. And I remember that when I was younger, I could probably do it in, like, 12 or 13. So I'm like, okay.
Speaker 3:I can probably, like, get back to that to that level. And it's like You're
Speaker 1:you you've you've fallen out of your training, and so you gotta get back into it so that you can No.
Speaker 3:Exactly. And it's Mario ready. Same with Mario Kart. Same thing. It's like, you know, I can pick up some of those old tracks, and I'm not gonna beat where I was before because I'm not willing to put in the training and the time and the effort that it takes to be great.
Speaker 1:Well, the carbo loading and the protein shakes. You're walking around in
Speaker 2:a with a you've got a, like, a what are the a trash bag on so you can sweat inside of it. Yeah. Yeah. Drop water weight. In a
Speaker 1:tub full of creatine.
Speaker 2:Well, well, that part's true. Yeah. Well, we all got a tub. Yeah.
Speaker 3:No. I mean, it's like I'm
Speaker 1:going well. I'm eating it right
Speaker 2:now.
Speaker 3:No. I think I I play just like I play, like, couple baseball games. I play, like, Mario Golf. Like, just like things where I'm like, okay. I can start and stop this at any time, and I'll just pick up the controller.
Speaker 3:I play some some of the Zelda games. I'll just, like, run around the world a little bit because they're like it's most of it is, like, a lot of familiarity. And you know Minecraft has been kind of fun to that's something we just got and that's been fun. And like I mostly play games with the kids like that's that's the other thing is I unless it's like a baseball game where I'm like no one else is around I'm like yeah I'll just play a couple innings like I mostly play things along with the kids or or I play so that because they like watching games. Like, they like watching people play.
Speaker 3:They watch on YouTube all the time and they actually, like, they just like watching me beat games or play games sometimes.
Speaker 2:You're not my kid. No? What? But I I did wanna ask what what your first impressions of Minecraft are?
Speaker 3:I like it. I mean, it's like I don't really know what's like what I'm doing exactly except that like you know we had the first decision we made was is it peaceful or is it easy? Like between you know so and I I chose easy because at least then you can get killed. Like it's like I think there's something nice about the challenge, like, that you have that first night out there, you have nothing, you'd like dig yourself a hole and wall yourself in and wait out the night with, like, monsters above you. And that was fun.
Speaker 3:Like, I I like that. And then, like, I've been killed a few times and it was a pain in the ass. But now I got, like, plans. I'm gonna, like, I'm gonna build, like, the world's biggest staircase up to the top of the mountain next to my house. And that's pretty much, like, that's what my plans are for the next, like, whatever whatever it is that whenever I play that game, that's what I'm gonna be doing.
Speaker 3:It's, like, building this this, like, stairway to god or whatever it
Speaker 2:is. I love that. That's that's
Speaker 3:how I
Speaker 2:yeah.
Speaker 3:That's how I look
Speaker 2:at those games. It's like I I have a project I wanna do. It's kind of like it's kind of like a creative outlet. Right? It's like arts and crafts almost.
Speaker 2:It's like, oh, I wanna make a thing. You know? It's it's how I it's how I sort of approach a lot of the woodworking stuff that I did. It's like, I didn't know shit about woodworking, and then I'd be like, oh, well, I wanna make a desk. Okay.
Speaker 2:Well, I need these particular tools to make a desk. Right? Okay. Let me go get them. What are the good versions?
Speaker 2:I have to research Right? And then, okay, I need these pieces of wood. I need to cut these things in this way. I have to figure out a design. Right?
Speaker 2:It's all all of that, and then I get a desk and it's not very good, whatever. But, like, yeah. That was sort of that's how become now I don't do any woodworking. I just just played fucking Nickarism. It's a lot easier.
Speaker 1:Man, that is so funny. All all I wanna all I wanna do, you guys, all I wanna do I just wanna feel something. I just wanna feel something. I I you know, and it's funny because the thing I was gonna talk about was gaming as well today, but from a very different angle. So I think we'll this this my topic can just merge with your topic and we can bounce back and forth.
Speaker 1:But like I just started playing this game today that I'd been interested in for a while and then it went up on sale on Steam. It's called Planet of Lana and it's a side scroller. Beautiful looking. First off, like, that is, as Emilio knows, a requirement for me with a video game. Like, I want the game to be aesthetically pleasing.
Speaker 1:It doesn't have to be photo realistic. If it is, that's cool. If it's pretty. But whatever its style is, I want that to be like, you know, a very good, if not the best version of that aesthetic. And so this game, planet of Lana, it's got these, you know, a very sort of like watercolor y feel, pastel y feel maybe to like the art.
Speaker 1:It's on another planet and you play this girl whose name is Lana and, your sister, Aylo has been taken away by these giant machines. And so you're going through this world and you're not you're, you're sort of it's very simple puzzle solving, I guess, to get from one sort of area to the next. But mostly it's beautiful and it's also evocative. And so, like, the feeling to it is nostalgia, you know, around, like, nostalgia and, like, loss. And so there's a melancholy to it, which is contrasted with the very beautiful, you know, in many cases, in the sun sort of scenes, and just, like, feeling like this is the type of thing that I like to have.
Speaker 1:Like, when I'm when I'm just leisurely doing something. Like, it almost feels like if I'm not having an emotional or, you know, or or or intellectually sort of, you know, stimulating experience with a game, I'm sort of like it it then for me, it feels too much like wasting time. And so maybe I'm, like, convincing myself that it's actually meaningful because I have an emotional response to it. But I'm just noticing, like, that's what I'm looking for. And, like, every game that I'm sort of playing and, like, oh, man, that was such a, like, usually, like, beautiful experience is the word I'll use.
Speaker 1:Like, that's such a beautiful experience. It has these sort of, you know, emotional qualities to it. And so it's just it's so interesting to me, like, the differences in sort of what people are looking for in gaming. I don't know.
Speaker 2:Yeah. It's true. This looks gorgeous, man. I'm looking at this on Steam.
Speaker 1:Doesn't it look beautiful?
Speaker 2:Absolutely gorgeous. I actually might wanna try to play this with the family. This might be
Speaker 3:is it like a Hollow Knight type thing? Like, have you have you played Hollow Knight?
Speaker 1:Hollow Knight is brilliant. It's it's not like Hollow Knight. Hollow Knight is more you know, you're having fun with Hollow Knight because of the mechanics, and there are some light story stuff there, but it's like, who cares? It's just a really fun, cool game, that is about for me, it's like exploration. Right?
Speaker 1:Oh, I haven't been over here. Let me go over here and figure this out.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:But Yeah.
Speaker 3:We played that as a family and loved it.
Speaker 1:Oh, how awesome. What a great game to play as a family. Planet of Lana is more like, this is a story and you're playing through the story and it's beautiful and, like I said, evocative, but it's not it's not a heavy lift. That's for sure.
Speaker 2:I noticed that they they also are the developers of a game called Somerville.
Speaker 1:Yes. Which you and I have talked about before, Emilio.
Speaker 2:I don't remember talking about that. Can you can you remind me?
Speaker 1:Yeah. So Somerville is also a really cool looking game, and it's, like, the game is done in like 3 or 4 hours or something like that. It's a short one. And I think Planet of Lana is also relatively short. But it is a game that, you're this dude, you're in your kitchen at home with your wife and kid and, like, suddenly aliens invade and you're running out of the house and the game is going.
Speaker 1:And, it goes into weird places that are sort of trippy and you don't really know what's going on, and then, like, the game is over. And, maybe there are like different endings or different ways you can go. I I couldn't quite tell. I played it. I did a run through of it once and I thought, oh, that was cool.
Speaker 1:But aesthetically really beautiful. One of these games where, you know, there are multiple layers of imagery. So there's like a foreground and then there's the, you know, layer that you're in and there are maybe like 3 layers behind you all sort of in motion as you're moving through this world, creating this really beautiful this really great sense of sort of space, I think. And so that one also really cool looking, but, yeah.
Speaker 2:Planet of Loma on sale currently 30% off on Steam.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And if you buy it, you also get Somerville. Yeah. Go ahead. Or maybe you're No.
Speaker 3:I I feel like the way that you're talking about it, I feel like if I played games by my like, on my own does this because what you're describing sounds like like I read books for probably for a similar thing like I'm like I love to have like just even if it's like a corny emotion like I love just I think like the emotion like having this kind of like fantastical wonderful thing that is like an emotional experience. Like that I think that's that's usually because and I just, you know, I read those alone. It's I just kind of like will find a book and read it. But, like, I never play video games that I can think, you know, maybe a few minutes I'll play like a sports game by myself, but, like, it's just not something I've ever I don't play on my computer. We have a family TV.
Speaker 3:If we're playing games, it's kind of for everybody. So I don't even think of them really as, like, an experience, like like a part more personal experience like that, at least not right now. But I feel like I I could be convinced, like, when you're talking about it, I'm like, that sounds kinda fun. I have
Speaker 2:20 recommendations for you.
Speaker 1:That's nice. That's Nice. What you know, what's what's interesting too and and and that point around sort of like, you know, doing things in a group. I'll tell you, man. You know, you guys both have families who play games together, like video games together.
Speaker 1:My wife wants nothing to do with gaming at all, and I would think that it would be a tough sell when my daughter is old enough to, you know, essentially get permission to have her be able to play games with me. Like, I don't think that's on the table, honestly.
Speaker 3:Oh, that's that's tough because I that's like, you know, I I have some mix where I'm like, okay. You know, how much gaming is good and how much is okay? But, like, we've had so much fun that I'm just like Right. That I would be really, you know, I I think, you know, my kid, like, I think my kids are obviously probably on the the far end. You know, they're on the actually, they're probably like medium high spectrum for, like, playing games.
Speaker 3:Like, because they play a decent amount, but they also just, like, watch stuff and they, you know, they they like they're sort of in that they like doing game stuff but, you know, it's they're not like I wouldn't say a hardcore gamers exactly. They just sort of enjoy it. But, yeah, that would be like we've had we've had some great family. You know, Hollow Knight was a great one as a family and like just like we have like a certain shared like shared experiences because because there's 1 TV and it's in the center. If anybody's playing a game we're all sort of like oh cool let's check it out you know and like we sort of play it together And that's been, like, super positive, I I think, you know, I mean, who knows in the future, but it feels like a very positive family thing we've done.
Speaker 1:Yeah. What's your take on this, Emilio?
Speaker 2:Yeah. We're we're we're a gaming family. We do do a lot of gaming. I have a gaming channel that I stream to occasionally. Like, I I, you know, I and I so I would find it hard to, like, tell my son to not do gaming stuff.
Speaker 2:He's very into it also.
Speaker 1:And he kinda he occasionally has at least a streaming channel as well?
Speaker 2:He's got he's put out some YouTube videos, like, tutorials on Minecraft in the past, although those are now, private since we don't wanna have too much exposure out there. But, yeah, I mean, you know, that's his go to downtime thing, you know, when he's not reading or drawing. He wants to do some gaming with his friends. He's doing it right now.
Speaker 3:And there's kind of like like the more I I I do have kind of like a a hierarchy of, like, what's kind of okay and, like, you know, how much time people spending on stuff. And, like, if I compare gaming to watching tv or watching youtube like I would much rather they were playing something that most of the time. I mean there's some exceptions like I actually am maybe putting roblox into the exceptions rule because I'm just like that is probably the most mindless game I've ever witnessed But like there is something about like in interactivity versus something completely passive. Like I mean they watch like youtube and stuff and you know that feels like I know that's like the generation that's how it is like people watch YouTube rather than television shows a lot but like that feels so passive sometimes where I'm like like you know if it's the middle of the winter I'm like I can't you know we're not going to go play outside right now but you know, if we're gonna be doing something, like, let's at least play a game or something like that if we're, you know, if it's not gonna be, like, other sort of activity time.
Speaker 3:I don't know. It feels better than TV to me.
Speaker 2:I I think I agree and I well, so this is and some of our, you know, biggest fights about gaming, have been about, like, what kinds of games Rohan is allowed to play. Oh, I said his name, but, he's you know, he wanted to play play Roblox. All his friends played Roblox, so it was just like, this is the way that we communicate with each other It's through, like, Roblox speak. But we we don't let him play anymore because, like you say, the kinds of games that are on there are literally just like, hey. Click this button every 3 seconds or, you know, it's just It's awful.
Speaker 2:Sort of progress for sake of progress.
Speaker 3:And some of them cost money in the middle of the game. It's like it's shocking.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah. You know, 1 year we gave him these Robux for Christmas because he just really, really want it, and he, you know, he bought some skins or whatever. Who cares? But, like, yeah.
Speaker 2:I don't want that to become the thing, and I hate games that are pay to win. Mhmm. Of course. I definitely wanna avoid that. But then, I'm very encouraged when I see a couple things about the way he games, which is one, he's, you know, he likes to build and create.
Speaker 2:So Minecraft has been great for that. He he doesn't play Minecraft in survival mode at all most of the time. He plays in creative mode purely where you can fly around and just access any block in the game, and he will build these amazing things in, like, you know, 20 minutes. He's like, hey. I built a giant zombie statue, and it's, like, really good.
Speaker 2:It's like stuff that you would see, you know, on these, like, youth, Minecraft servers potentially.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But the other piece of it is that, you know, unlike me so I I I like to accomplish things in games, and that the survival crafting example. Right? I like to kinda set a goal and work towards it. He has no interest in that. He likes to try to break game.
Speaker 2:He likes to sort of create chaos and, like, push the limits of, like, oh, you know, they let you go to this part of the world, but what if you keep going? Like, what's over this next horizon, or, like, what happens if I spam this character over and over and over again? Will they eventually break? Will I crash the game? Right?
Speaker 2:He's trying to get there with his gaming. And and it's sort of more and more he's been into that as he's gotten older. Like, before we used to play some games together that were more, like, story based or whatever, but, like, now he's not, and I'm really not into it either. But, yeah. So that that's sort of his, his pension when we play.
Speaker 2:Although with some games, like, we've, the the 2 games that I that we've played a lot as a family, and we've done more like LAN party style than, all in front of one screen, we we'd have our own laptop, is, Don't Starve Together and this game called Stardew Valley. Christian, you know Stardew Valley.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I know them both.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Which are both, like, really fun multiplayer games. They're both very cute, and they they scratch sort of all of our itches. I get to kinda do crafting and survival stuff. My wife likes to sort of just build and farm and, like, create, like, little settlements, and then my son gets to just go off and cause trouble.
Speaker 2:It it has all of that. And we've those games, we've dumped hours into those games together. Like, in a in a single day, like, sometimes, like, 7, 8 hours we played together.
Speaker 3:Yeah. No. It's fun. I where is that? I was just gonna say, I just wanna give a quick shout out to your wife that way it's like whatever it's like, you know, I do think the gaming has been fun for the family, but I have no doubt that whatever you guys end up doing, if it's not gaming, you know, it's like that's gonna be a fun thing too.
Speaker 3:You know?
Speaker 1:Yeah. I I think it's just interesting to think about that. It's like, I I don't see the sort of gaming together thing in my future unless, like, my daughter, you know, really wants to make it happen. In which case, it'll be like a a father daughter thing and because, like Yeah. Like, I just don't see my wife sort of wanting to be interested in that.
Speaker 1:But at the same time, like, you know, she's gonna bring things. My wife had is is gonna bring that. Yeah. That, like
Speaker 3:Probably super cool things. Like Yeah. Like, it
Speaker 2:would be, like,
Speaker 3:so so good to know and to, like, be into and, like,
Speaker 2:all those kind of things.
Speaker 1:She'll probably, like, you know, teach our daughter, like oh, god. I mean, to how to garden. You know? Not that Emilio might not be teaching I mean, you may be teaching that to your son Emilio too, just because of the area of yours. But, like, you know, how to garden and, like, how to sew and knit and, like, how to craft jewelry or
Speaker 3:Run business. Yeah. You know?
Speaker 1:Yeah. Run a business. Like, and so, like, you know, it'll be it'll be interesting to see where my daughter finds herself sort of what she gravitates toward. And so, yeah, it's interesting. But man, now the the family gaming thing is almost certainly not going to happen.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah. Have you guys did did either of your parents ever get into gaming with you? Oh, man.
Speaker 3:Oh, Richard.
Speaker 1:You're I mean, Richard is, like, a a 100% no. Right? Like
Speaker 3:Yeah. No. No. There's I don't I don't even know if he's ever picked up a controller. But I I would be very surprised if it wasn't unless it was to move it out of the way.
Speaker 3:That would be the the only time he's touched on.
Speaker 1:The man has never played a game,
Speaker 3:let alone a video game. I wouldn't say so.
Speaker 2:What is this? Monopoly crap?
Speaker 1:Scrabble. That's a nonsense word, son.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Actually, he loves Scrabble.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I'm sure. Like,
Speaker 2:Scrabble is amazing.
Speaker 1:But, yep. My dad, my mom, absolutely not, of course. But my dad, I I have these memories that are still very sort of, accessible, which is that when I was maybe 5, 6, that kind of thing, my dad's stepsister let him borrow her Atari, and we had a a couple of games on there, but the one that, we that I most distinctly remember is Joust. Do you guys remember Joust? Yeah.
Speaker 1:No. What? No? Oh, okay.
Speaker 2:That's okay.
Speaker 1:Well, it's great. It's like these you're it's bizarre. Like, there are these platforms and they're over lava and you are these players who are riding giant flying birds, and you have a, jout no. You
Speaker 2:A lance.
Speaker 1:Lance. Thank you. You have a lance and you fly around attempting to either cooperatively beat these other flying, people, or you fight and or you fight each other. And so I would play this game with my dad when I was 5 or 6. And I, you know, I was a little kid playing a video game, and I figured it out, and I was, like, good at it.
Speaker 1:Right? And my dad was not, and he would get mad. And he'd, like, throw the controller, and he'd, like, yell. And, like, he it it it was just this, like, really aversive experience, and it was so unpleasant that I would pretend to be worse at the game.
Speaker 2:Oh, no.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So that he would
Speaker 3:It's a reversal.
Speaker 1:Oh my god. So that he would not be angry when we were playing. And so that is the experience of gaming with my dad that I have. And I'm just like, yeah. Nope.
Speaker 1:Nope. Basically, after jousting, I never I never really tried to engage him in gaming again.
Speaker 2:It's sort of the perfect title for that scenario as well. Joust. You guys are just jousting.
Speaker 1:Yeah. We sure were. We sure were. God.
Speaker 2:There's a we just rewatched the movie searching for Bobby Fischer, and there's a scene in that where the protagonist who's, like, 7, I think, his dad learns finds out that he can play chess, and they play together and the dad wins. And then he's like, oh, you know, I thought, you know, I thought he might be a little better or whatever, but the mom's like, he's letting you win, you know.
Speaker 1:Oh, man.
Speaker 2:He doesn't wanna beat his dad. Yeah. And so then there's a a great scene where they put dad's like, play me for real, and the kid just kicks his ass. Yeah. I played I played and maybe we should think about wrapping
Speaker 1:this up.
Speaker 2:Yeah. But, I'll I think maybe I'll just drop this one quick story. I played, my mom is not a gamer at all. Doesn't care about video games. She likes games.
Speaker 2:I we got her to play king's quest 5
Speaker 3:through 8. Oh my god. That's awesome. Yeah. I remember playing at your house too, but yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I don't know how it happened. I don't know how we got her hooked on it, but, like
Speaker 3:5 through 8.
Speaker 2:We we just started playing king's swift 5, and she kinda, like, looking over our shoulder, and she's like, what's happening? And we started telling her, and, like, I can't tell you how excited my brother and I were to have my mom playing games with us. Like That's super cool. Such a treat. And and, like, I wouldn't think of it, like, as being such a big deal, but, man, we couldn't we were we couldn't believe that she was interested in video games.
Speaker 2:Well, we
Speaker 3:can't even now. Yeah.
Speaker 1:It's it's impossible to imagine, basically.
Speaker 2:It was just and so we were, like, overjoyed, and we're, like, we'll play this game all for the rest of our lives if we have to, if it means you're gonna join us. Oh, man. That's how we played all the way through number 8.
Speaker 1:Oh my god. Yeah. Your mom is such a, like, serious person that it's it's so impossible to imagine.
Speaker 2:Yeah. You know what's funny is Pangpa is not that serious, but she is totally serious to everybody outside of her sort of inner circle, which I guess may means she's serious.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Right. Yeah. I think that does mean she's serious. Yeah.
Speaker 2:But yeah. But that's some that's
Speaker 3:a that's a there's a distinction. That's like a
Speaker 1:Yeah. It's fair.
Speaker 2:Yeah. She she's, like, sort of introverted and socially anxious and and also, like, very warm and loving at home and just doesn't come out when she's with other people. But, yeah, it's, it's interesting because I know her perception and and, like and I've seen her that way a lot of times, but I also need to give her credit from time to time.
Speaker 3:5 through 8. Shocking. Yeah.
Speaker 2:It's hilarious. I know so many so many games. We were just yeah. At one point, we're sitting there waiting for King's Quest 7, like, to come out. We're, like, watching the release date.
Speaker 2:We're, like, oh, we're gonna pick this up as soon as it drops.
Speaker 1:So Oh my
Speaker 2:god. That is so funny. Such a random thing.
Speaker 3:Oh, yeah. That's awesome.
Speaker 1:Those games, by the way and this will be the last thing I say. Those games, by the way, like, they are all, available, through emulation now. And it's this particular system, and I forget what it's called. It might even be, like, SCUM or something like that, which is an acronym for it. But it's, it's the system and, or the software and the, there are, like, you know, hundreds of titles, actually.
Speaker 1:Some of which you'll remember and some you'll just be like, what? It's called Scumm. Yeah. S c u m m. And it is like so you can play, like, those Indiana Jones games, the Monkey Island games, Legend of Kyrandia.
Speaker 1:Do you guys remember that? No. Oh, man. No. Do you did you guys ever hear of Pajama Sam?
Speaker 1:No. That's another these are all, like, you know, mostly point and click adventures. Right? And so they're all available, in all of their pixely glory. It's like Loom, of course, which you introduced me to, Emilio.
Speaker 2:Oh, shit.
Speaker 1:Along with Monkey Island and the Indiana Jones games. Those are all you introduced me to all of them. But, so yeah. They're they're still out there, actually.
Speaker 3:That's awesome. Yeah.
Speaker 2:I might have to go play some monkey holy crap. Monkey Island.
Speaker 1:I know. Right? And there's a there's a newer Monkey Island when it came out a few years ago, well rated.
Speaker 2:She's making them.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah. And that's on Steam, and I I keep on, like, almost buying it. So close.
Speaker 2:This is the kind of game my son might like, actually. Oh. It's very silly. You get to kind of He
Speaker 1:would.
Speaker 2:Like, even the little
Speaker 1:I know of him, I feel like he would.
Speaker 2:I think he I'm gonna have to give it a shot.
Speaker 1:Yeah. It's worth a shot. I love just the, like, the insult fights. Like, do you remember that? Like, that is brilliant.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah. That's I I think of that to this day.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Anyway, Laz, do you have a last word?
Speaker 3:Nope. I'm I'll be heading out of the country soon. That's all. Getting ready for it.
Speaker 2:Hey. That's gonna be great. When do you guys leave?
Speaker 3:Wednesday.
Speaker 1:Okay. Cool. Will you does that I guess that means you won't be able to do this next week.
Speaker 3:No. No. I'll be
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 3:Probably unavailable.
Speaker 1:Alright. Well
Speaker 2:Do we do we have 2 episodes here?
Speaker 1:I think conversation flows in a way that it that would be weird.
Speaker 3:That's fair. Yeah.
Speaker 1:But I don't know. You know, we could we could release this episode, like, after we have a second one, and then we could release them on a weekly basis if we want to doing that kind of thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I'd be I'd be down as long as I don't have to do any editing. Let's talk about it. Let's we'll figure it out. I mean, you don't have
Speaker 1:to do any editing, but let's we'll figure out the scheduling.
Speaker 2:Oh, thank god.
Speaker 1:Poor Emilio.
Speaker 3:We'll talk about the editing later, Emilio. Alright. We'll see you guys later.
Speaker 1:Alright. Cool. Well, let's, let let's say goodbye. Goodbye, everyone. Thank you for listening to our show.
Speaker 1:You almost certainly have made it. If you did made it 5 minutes, you made it an hour and a half, I'm sure.
Speaker 2:Yep. Yeah. Yeah. And this is John Lennon. Oh, no.
Speaker 2:Oh, that
Speaker 3:really was John Lennon.
Speaker 2:Thanks for choosing a good bait. Amazing. It's and me, Paul McCartney, thanks for tuning in. Oh, well, that was not bad.
Speaker 3:Yeah. No. Now we're talking. Bad.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Okay. Here we
Speaker 2:go. Can't do I can't do Leonard. I can't do
Speaker 1:Game on. Alright. Bye, everyone. Alright.
Speaker 2:Show them
Speaker 3:the flip side. Bye.
