Fire Escape Cast #93

Summary

Fire Escape Cast #93 Summary

Release Date: November 4, 2024
Hosts: Mike Mahardy, Dan Reichert, and Mary Kish

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1. Introduction and Light Banter (00:12 - 03:00)

The episode kicks off with the trio welcoming listeners back, accompanied by Mike Mahardy's cat, Daisy, making a playful appearance. The hosts engage in humorous interactions about Daisy's newfound habit of becoming a lap cat.

• Dan Reichert (00:32):
  "For the audience, for those who aren't on the video feed, that is just a cat speaking into a microphone."

2. Health Update: Mary’s Illness (03:00 - 06:00)

Mary Kish opens up about feeling under the weather, sharing symptoms like a fever and a hoarse voice. The conversation lightens as the hosts joke about the lingering effects of her sickness.

• Mary Kish (02:24):
  "I broke it yesterday. And I think now I'm just, like, recuperating ye old voice."

3. Running and Marathon Discussions (07:00 - 24:00)

A substantial portion of the episode delves into the topic of running. Dan Reichert shares his journey through multiple half marathons and his plans to tackle a full marathon next year. Mike Mahardy discusses his recent marathon experiences, emphasizing the importance of training and dealing with weather conditions. Mary Kish expresses her love for running shorter distances, highlighting the social and mental aspects that keep her motivated.

• Dan Reichert (17:10):
  "I think that is like I'm trying. Every Call of Duty campaign is just..."

• Mike Mahardy (17:01):
  "So that was the first one I've heard. I think it was like..."

4. Soda Preferences and Mexican Coke (09:00 - 10:00)

The hosts shift gears to talk about their beverage preferences, specifically Mexican Coke. Mary advocates for its superior taste and packaging, while Dan mentions his preference for sugar-free options.

• Mary Kish (09:21):
  "Mexican Cokes there are, like, such a scam. It's such a good deal."

5. Allergy Tests and Sinus Surgery (10:00 - 16:00)

Dan shares his recent experience with allergy testing following sinus surgery. The hosts discuss the challenges of scheduling medical appointments and the impact of health on daily activities.

• Dan Reichert (10:59):
  "They said blep. Like, a lot. To the point where I was like, is this an actual medical thing..."

6. Video Games: Zelda and Beyond (48:00 - 58:00)

A significant segment is dedicated to video game discussions. Mary Kish talks about her experience with "The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom," expressing both enjoyment and frustrations with its open-world design and repetitive elements. Mike Mahardy and Dan Reichert contribute their perspectives on game mechanics and storytelling within the franchise.

• Mary Kish (50:23):
  "I just kept throwing tables at that bitch for like 10 minutes."

• Mike Mahardy (56:27):
  "It feels like a collection of really cool ideas that are a bit rough around the edges."

7. Movies: Best Sex Scenes and Terrifier Series (76:00 - 94:00)

The hosts engage in an animated discussion about memorable movie sex scenes, debating the difference between ironic and sincere portrayals. They reference classics like "Titanic" and newer entries like "Wild Things," and delve into the controversial "Terrifier" series, sharing their views on gore versus psychological horror.

• Mary Kish (80:31):
  "For me, it's the fear of what's going to happen... that's the most exciting part."

• Dan Reichert (87:05):
  "It's just like, I have spent the last like 25 hours getting into the muscle memory..."

8. Listener Emails: PB&J Sandwiches (104:00 - 119:00)

Listener Wes from Baltimore writes in with his take on traditional peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. The hosts dissect his critique of his mother's preparation method, offering their own preferences and humorous banter about sandwich-making.

• Mary Kish (116:07):
  "I just like to throw a little bit of jelly on a piece of toast and eat it with your breakfast."

• Dan Reichert (117:30):
  "You do Skippy super Chunk all day... eight knifefuls."

9. Upcoming Events and Patreon (121:00 - End)

As the episode wraps up, the hosts discuss upcoming live streams, particularly their "Game of the Year" episode scheduled for November 16th. They encourage listeners to support the podcast through Patreon and merchandise purchases, highlighting the benefits of becoming a patron.

• Mike Mahardy (136:37):
  "For those who haven't signed up yet, you can sign up at tryfirstleaf.com/fireescape."

• Dan Reichert (140:23):
  "Check out Giant Bomb. We have our Game of the Year stuff coming up..."

10. Closing Remarks and Final Banter (143:00 - 144:23)

The episode concludes with lighthearted jokes and playful insults among the hosts, maintaining the camaraderie and humorous tone that listeners have come to expect from Fire Escape Cast.

• Mary Kish (144:19):
  "Thanks for listening, everyone. Bye bye, everybody."

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Notable Quotes:

• Dan Reichert (03:07):
  "That's why you don't put things in your brain first. You just have them come out your head."

• Mary Kish (06:11):
  "What you're looking for with open-world games is something that truly feels open without punishing the player for exploration."

• Mike Mahardy (54:16):
  "It's like Titanfall meets Doom meets Tony Hawk."

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Summary:

In Episode #93 of Fire Escape Cast, Mike Mahardy, Dan Reichert, and Mary Kish navigate a wide array of topics ranging from personal health updates and running marathons to in-depth discussions on video games and movies. The episode seamlessly blends humor with insightful conversations, ensuring that both regular listeners and newcomers find the content engaging and relatable. Highlights include the trio's passionate debate on the merits of different Zelda games, their critique of graphic horror films versus psychological terror, and their thoughtful responses to listener emails. As always, the hosts maintain a lively and entertaining dynamic, punctuated by memorable quotes and shared experiences. The episode concludes with exciting announcements about upcoming live streams and ways for listeners to support the podcast, reinforcing the community-centric spirit of Fire Escape Cast.

Transcript

[Mike Mahardy]

Hello, everybody. Welcome back to the Fire Escape cast. It is episode 93. I'm Mike Mahardy here as always with Dan Reichert.

[Dan Reichert]

Hello.

[Mike Mahardy]

Mary Kish.

[Mary Kish]

Hello.

[Mike Mahardy]

And my cat Daisy decided to come. Intro.

[Dan Reichert]

Hello. Oh, my God.

[Mike Mahardy]

That was her.

[Dan Reichert]

Wow. We're breaking, like important.

[Mike Mahardy]

I was gonna move her mouth.

[Mary Kish]

Pet me, Michael.

[Dan Reichert]

Wow. For the audience, for those who aren't on the video feed, that is just a cat speaking into a microphone. You won't know if I'm lying unless you join the Patreon at the video feed.

[Mike Mahardy]

Gotcha.

[Mary Kish]

I love Amanda Moore.

[Mike Mahardy]

Yeah. That's not a lie. You're not far off. They all do.

[Mary Kish]

I mean, she said it.

[Mike Mahardy]

Daisy has become. I don't know if I've told you this. You just decided like two weeks ago to become a lap cat at five years old.

[Dan Reichert]

I think as animals get older, I think you can see those, like, we see it with like, razor just getting like a little more chill or a little different. Yeah, maybe. I think that happens. That happens with people when you get older, you get different. Right. That's life. Yeah.

[Mike Mahardy]

I forget what five is in cat years, because cat years isn't just seven years like dogs. It's. It's like way more at first, but then when they're older, each year is not human years. So what does it say for five year old cats? How old? How old is she?

[Dan Reichert]

Well, Google AI says it's just the thing at the top. It's the quickest thing. You're not saying it right. The first year. Okay, here's from Purina. Okay, this is from Purina.com, the source.

[Mike Mahardy]

Look, there's the second thing down, more real.

[Dan Reichert]

Okay. The first year of your cat's life is considered the equivalent of 15 human years. Second year adds nine. So two cat years are 24 human years. After this, each additional human year is four cat years. So age three would be 28. So 36. Yeah, 36 is how it works.

[Mike Mahardy]

So they're 36. They're like, they're our age now. And now she's decided to cuddle on my lap. I'm not 36, but might as well be. And she just like, started doing it. I think the colder weather also is, you know, they. They need me for heat sometimes, but it's really cute.

[Mary Kish]

I'm a lap dog, me. Yeah.

[Mike Mahardy]

You sound like shit, by the way. What's wrong?

[Mary Kish]

Thank you. I'm sick.

[Mike Mahardy]

I'm just clearing the air before I'm sick in a very polite way.

[Dan Reichert]

What do you got? What are you sick With.

[Mary Kish]

I don't know. It's not. It's not the big one. Tested death. Tested negative for death.

[Dan Reichert]

There's a lot of big ones. Really?

[Mike Mahardy]

There's a bunch of big ones.

[Mary Kish]

That's true. That's true. I, like, grossly overestimated the power of COVID Yeah. I'm not dying, and I don't have anything, like, severely wrong with me, but I did have a fever two days ago, and I broke it yesterday. And I think now I'm just, like, recuperating ye old voice. Also, sometimes I'm just tired, and sometimes what I think I'm going to say in my brain comes out terribly after it's come out. I think it's happening right now.

[Dan Reichert]

That's why you don't put things in your brain first. You just have them come out your head.

[Mike Mahardy]

Yeah.

[Mary Kish]

No advice.

[Mike Mahardy]

Yeah.

[Mary Kish]

Right out of the mouth. No head, just out of the mouth.

[Mike Mahardy]

Dan's filter is a, like, reverse osmosis where he says stuff and then it goes back into his brain and then he evaluates it after it's been said a few seconds ago.

[Dan Reichert]

That happens when I'm listening to, like, somebody will say something to me and I'll go like, yeah. And I won't understand what they said. And then I'll respond, and then I'll think about what they said and be like, oh, that's what they said. But I've already said yeah, or laughed or something. Uh, it's kind of a problem.

[Mike Mahardy]

I hesitate to bring this up. I'm not going to go into specifics because I. No, no, no, no, no. It involves like. Like, people we know. And I'm not going to say names, but. Dan, you made a. You. Bianca and Amanda and I, we went out to dinner, like, two weeks ago, and you said a joke that at the time, or you made it this comparison at the time, that was like. I was like, oh, that's. That was pretty funny. But then, like, that night in bed, I was like, that was really fucking funny. I should have laughed harder.

[Dan Reichert]

I know what joke you're talking about. Funny.

[Mike Mahardy]

You know how, like, I got a.

[Dan Reichert]

Better laugh from another friend.

[Mike Mahardy]

Yeah, I was. It was the end of the day. I was having. I have a lull at like, 5pm every day. And you, you know, we saw you right around then. But it's kind of like when you are laying in bed going over something embarrassing that happened that day. I, like, had an epiphany. I should have laughed so much harder at that joke. Dan told me it was Really? I need you to know it was impressive.

[Dan Reichert]

Well, can I just take the laugh? That felt good. That was good. Yeah. I'll take. Look, all is forgiven. We're good.

[Mary Kish]

No, it's too late.

[Dan Reichert]

No, no, no. Hey, I'm the one who told the joke. Mary. I get to have the final verdict on this.

[Mary Kish]

I think that's sad for you then.

[Dan Reichert]

I liked Mike's joke earlier about how Mary's voice is hoarse because she was cheering too loud at Madison Square Garden recently. I thought that was funny. That's my laugh for that one. I laughed the first time, too.

[Mike Mahardy]

That's the kind of joke I make before we record.

[Dan Reichert]

That's right.

[Mike Mahardy]

People don't hear it, Dan.

[Dan Reichert]

Oh, I mean, Vinny hopped in the zoom and said that.

[Mike Mahardy]

Yeah.

[Mary Kish]

These are really funny. These are really funny jokes.

[Dan Reichert]

We're coming out swinging here.

[Mike Mahardy]

I like how the butt of the joke changes every episode. So far, it's been a lot of merry.

[Dan Reichert]

We had a Jake. We had, like, a Jake special.

[Mike Mahardy]

Yep. Although then I became the butt of the joke when you changed fuckjake.org to.

[Mary Kish]

Say you did that because you weren't fast enough.

[Mike Mahardy]

That was a really funny joke.

[Dan Reichert]

Jake won that round. Yeah.

[Mary Kish]

So Jake won that round. Yeah. I'm not smart enough to defend myself right now because I have sick brain. What's the problem here is that you guys are picking on someone who doesn't have the full capacity of their brain. And I think that says more about you than it does about me, who is a victim in this situation. I am doing my best to keep up, but it takes me a little longer to retort and call you what you are in these situations. I have to think about it, process it, and by the time I usually come up with a really nice, witty comeback, the moment has passed and I just have to be quiet.

[Dan Reichert]

Well, the question, you know, we're typically drinking during the show, and that impairs speed and reflexes and things like that. So do you feel like sober and sick is slower than not sick and a few drinks in.

[Mary Kish]

Oh, not me, honey. Alcohol only improves the speed and veracity of my mouth.

[Mike Mahardy]

There's my tipping point. There's like a drink count or, like.

[Mary Kish]

Balmer's Peak, for sure. Is that what it's called, Balmer's Peak? Like, notorious for engineers or like, essentially coders who would drink because it improves your creativity, your flexibility, and your curiosity to a certain degree. And so people who were, like, programming. It's like an old comics. You can look it up, but like.

[Dan Reichert]

This is Steve Ballmer thing.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah. The comic is depicting essentially like a bunch of programmers who are at Ballmer's peak. And so it's making them really creative and really interesting and they're writing amazing code. But the problem is, is that you can never maintain Balmer's peak because you drink too much and then you pass out. And so it's. It's a fallacy. Like, you can't maintain it.

[Dan Reichert]

There's a sweet spot.

[Mary Kish]

I'm finding out there is a sweet.

[Dan Reichert]

Spot with like, I have Balmer's peak during Astrobot speed runs where it's like, okay, I'm like four drinks in. I'm like, you know, not getting in my head about stuff. But I'm not like sloppy. Like, yeah, there's a right amount of drinks, 100%.

[Mary Kish]

The dexterity goes up. Right? Like, have you ever drank when you're like taking on like a crazy bloodborne boss or something and you're just like, I'm so fluid. I'm thinking of his moves before he's making them. I'm in the motherfucking zone. Oh my God, I'm drunk. And then you get to fall asleep with your keyboard. And you know, that's happened to the best of us.

[Dan Reichert]

That's so rare with me, the falling asleep. It's happened but on a rare occasion, like sleeping in a couch or a chair or something I like. That's why I can't sleep on planes and stuff is because I can't be in a seated position sleeping easily. Reclined. Sure. If I got like a La Z Boy situation going on. That's happened more often. But like in this chair. No way.

[Mary Kish]

Do you ever play on a couch, like where you're like, kind of. It's a lounge couch situation. Like I fall asleep like that. All this. And I just got a new couch. And so now it's. I'm in trouble if it's. It's the couch that has. Half of it is a sitting couch and half of it is it a legs extendo couch. You know I'm talking about.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah, recline leg rest.

[Mary Kish]

Leg rest situation. And if I do that and I have usually my steam deck and I'm playing something in there, all bets are off. At any moment, no matter where I am in a video game, I might just fall asleep and have it happen.

[Dan Reichert]

Steam deck and lap. When you wake up and I just.

[Mary Kish]

Wake up like an hour later and I'm happy and nothing bad really happened to me. There's no punishment for it usually. So, yeah, I mean, it's just become a natural occurrence.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah. Not like waking up at the airport or something. You're probably fine. Yeah.

[Mary Kish]

You don't want to wake up in a lawless land. If you wake up in, like, you know, Toledo in a random Tuesday, you've gone too far. But if you're in your home, you're safe. Still with your blankie on you.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah.

[Mike Mahardy]

Have you guys seen. We might. May have talked. Is that Mexican Coca Cola?

[Mary Kish]

It is. You guys, I'm a Costco homie now.

[Mike Mahardy]

Yeah.

[Mary Kish]

I can't help it.

[Mike Mahardy]

You get good.

[Mary Kish]

I can't believe it.

[Mike Mahardy]

For good prices, they.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah, I got.

[Mike Mahardy]

They randomly have, like, really good wines that should not be as cheap as they are or.

[Mary Kish]

It's crazy. It's crazy what they offer. But the Mexican Cokes there are, like, such a scam. It's such a good deal. And if I'm gonna drink soda, I'm not much of a soda person. Dan, I know you're a big soda head, so, like, we can maybe talk about this, but, like, I usually just do not drink sodas ever. It's not in my thing. I'm a. I'm a Lacroix person. I usually drink, like, soda water if I want something crispy. But I do not have any kind of soda almost ever in my life. But a Mexican Coke at the glass bottle, it's just like. It's. I don't know. It's a treat. It's like somebody gave me a gift. It's a decadent dessert. It makes me feel like a million bucks. I love it. It's such a good treat.

[Dan Reichert]

I believe it. The only thing is, I just. I've never bought full normal soda since, like, before college or maybe early college. So it's all zero. And, like, I don't think they do zero Mexican coke.

[Mary Kish]

I don't think they do 0 Mexican coke either.

[Dan Reichert]

I don't think they do. No.

[Mary Kish]

I think there'd be something, like, just completely impossible about it, considering the whole point of Mexican Coke is that it's made sugar instead of corn syrup, which is like our American systems. And I don't think zero has corn syrup. I would assume it's all sucrose or some kind of, like, fake sugar.

[Dan Reichert]

Okay.

[Mike Mahardy]

I used to know that there was a period when I was younger and I was getting tested for allergies, and it turned out one of them was corn. So, like, we were like, all right, if it's bad enough, then I guess corn syrup will have a little bit to do with that. So I started trying to avoid corn syrup in all of. In everything.

[Dan Reichert]

I had an allergy test this morning, My first time ever. It was a lot.

[Mike Mahardy]

What did they do? Do they do the prick?

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah, a billion little pricks in my back. And then they did. I didn't know this was, like, a medical term, but they did this. I still have these raised dots on my forearm. They're like, okay, we're gonna test for food stuff by putting. It's not a shot, it's not an injection. It's just like a little blip under your skin. And they said blep. Like, a lot. To the point where I was like, is this an actual medical thing that I've never heard or. Because I've only heard it, like, oh, a dog's, like, sticking his tongue out. Weird. Like. But, oh, yeah, we're gonna put, like, six blips under your forearm. Like, I don't know what that means, but go for it.

[Mary Kish]

An acronym.

[Dan Reichert]

I don't know, but it's just, like, six bumps that they inject, like, wheat and oil or whatever under your forearm, and they see if it, like, freaks out and sprouts another arm. And it didn't do that for me. So, yeah, I guess I'm fine.

[Mike Mahardy]

Why did you get the. Well, first off, I hated the prick test because several of them went nuts on my back.

[Dan Reichert]

Oh, really?

[Mike Mahardy]

Yeah. Grass went crazy.

[Dan Reichert]

Grass grew on your back?

[Mike Mahardy]

It was so bad that it, like. It, like, it got red and a huge bump, and the red overtook some of the other pricks. It was so, like, radiated out from it. Yeah, yeah. No, but did you just get. Was it, like, a routine thing, or. Have you been thinking you're allergic to something?

[Dan Reichert]

It takes forever if you book something here. Where. I booked it back before I had my sinus surgery. Just being, like, when I was having all those infections, I was like, ah, it's the spring. Maybe I'm allergic to something or pollen in Minnesota or something. So I booked it, and the earliest date they had was today. And in between booking it and now, I, like, had surgery and recovery and stuff, but I was like, I'm still curious. Why not? I'll look at the test. So. But I think I'm good.

[Mary Kish]

It seems like it's a nice thing to do. I mean, I'm not even. I don't have a lot of allergies. I'd be very curious if my body had any reactions to any items. Like, I would do it just for the knowledge of, like, what I'm allergic to. So did you. Did you have any reactions to any bleps? Nothing.

[Dan Reichert]

There's the one, like, control poke they do on your back to, like, compare the other ones to. And they said, oh, that one's like a histamine thing that's going to make it itch for a little bit. Like, I slightly itched for a little bit, but it just. It was easy. It was fine. Nothing reacted bad. Yeah, simple. They drew some blood to check some other stuff, but, yeah, it's all easy.

[Mary Kish]

So you don't have any allergies?

[Dan Reichert]

I'm not allergic to anything, no.

[Mary Kish]

Why did you do it again?

[Dan Reichert]

I was wondering if all my sinus issues earlier, because I booked it in the spring and I was like, oh, maybe I'm getting 9,000 sinuses.

[Mary Kish]

I guess I just. I heard this story. I understand, but why did you book this?

[Mike Mahardy]

That's a bit. That was me.

[Mary Kish]

I'm going to bed. I'm going to bed.

[Mike Mahardy]

Yeah, he booked it a while ago before he had all the surgeries, and the surgeries all helped and now he feels fine. But he had an appointment booked.

[Mary Kish]

I see.

[Dan Reichert]

I'm a curious man. I'd like to know about my body and what it looks like.

[Mary Kish]

I mean, ideally, you find out if it's something like allergies before you have major surgery. So you did it. A little out of order, but I guess it just worked out in the end. Thank you, American Healthcare System.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah, I would have booked it sooner, but, like, it literally was like, oh, six months from now is the earliest thing, so. That's great.

[Mary Kish]

That's so crazy. I was thinking about.

[Mike Mahardy]

Dan's got the big one looking into.

[Mary Kish]

A deviated septum because my nose is always stuffy. And I've heard that deviated septums are like, you know, it's. I mean, it is a procedure, but it's totally fixable with modern science and it's really worth looking into. And, like, these things are booked out six months in advance. So if I wanted to, like, get my deviated septum fixed, I have to, like, call a doc now and book it and hope you see me in the next year.

[Dan Reichert]

Like, might as well. Like, you'll book it and then forget about it and then it'll come up for, you know, and it's like, oh, shit. Getting that done. Like, they did that.

[Mike Mahardy]

That's got recovery, though, that, the allergy thing. You just came home and you're fine. Deviated septum has quite a recovery phase.

[Mary Kish]

It's like getting a little nose job.

[Mike Mahardy]

We both got It.

[Dan Reichert]

Dan and me, yeah, they did it with mine. While they were in there doing the sinus stuff. I had a slightly deviated one.

[Mike Mahardy]

So they fixed it two weeks where they got these, like, stents up it. Right. I didn't do a different.

[Dan Reichert]

I didn't need the stents. But it still was fucked up for a while.

[Mike Mahardy]

Yeah, I had the whole. Mine was bad, so, like, my whole left nostril just, like, didn't work my whole life. And I never really asked anybody about it, so no one knew that it wasn't working. I was like, what? Why do we have two nostrils? I thought it was like a. Like a kidney situation. My mom's like, what are you talking about? I was like, why do we have two nostrils if we only breathe through one? She's like, are you congested right now? I was like, no, I feel fine. She's like, are you telling me you can't breathe through one of your nostrils? I was like, yes. She's like, how long? I don't know, 17 years.

[Dan Reichert]

I didn't realize until like two years ago and I was doing a yoga class and they were like, let's do some breath stuff. And she was like, okay, so cover one nostril in, out. Cover the other one in, out. I'm like, one of them just doesn't do that. It turns out, like, yeah, I just wasn't breathing through the right one.

[Mike Mahardy]

It helps, like, turns out being able to breathe, like, symmetrically. And I was playing sports up and like, fairly well up until then. And then afterwards, like, oh, my God, I've been working, like, over time, like twice as hard to run the same amount.

[Mary Kish]

If only they could have unlocked that during your peak high school years. Yeah, you could have made state, Mike.

[Mike Mahardy]

Oh, dude, I'd be. I'd be fucking.

[Mary Kish]

You would have been able. You could have climbed mountains with both of those nose holes opened up.

[Mike Mahardy]

I'd be the fourth splash brother. Everything would have been different. I wouldn't be sitting here in those.

[Mary Kish]

Weight chambers, like heavy gravity chambers, just struggling to do sit ups. And all you needed was that second hole.

[Mike Mahardy]

I wouldn't fucking be talking to you two every two weeks, that's for sure.

[Dan Reichert]

I do wonder if that was something, because I did. I just did another half marathon on Sunday. And the last one, like, all my training and everything was done without the surgery. And this one was like a billion times easier for me than the first half marathon this year. But I think another big part of it, though was it was 34 degrees this time and the One I did in July was 80 degrees by the end. And so like I was full on. Like when I crossed the finish line in July, I was, I felt fucked up. Like I remember thinking like, I need to sit down and just eat a bunch of cookies or something until I feel like I can like drive. Uh, this one, I crossed the finish line, grabbed a bottle of water and like, yeah, I'm good to go. Like it's so much better when it's cold outside.

[Mike Mahardy]

How many halves is that now?

[Dan Reichert]

3. And I signed up for a full marathon next year.

[Mike Mahardy]

You can start telling everybody you've run one and a half marathons. Adds up.

[Dan Reichert]

No, no, I'll be accurate. Three halves and I'll do the full next year. My sister's going to train with me.

[Mike Mahardy]

So that'll be fun from a distance.

[Dan Reichert]

Yep, yep. So she'll train in Kansas and then she'll fly up for the thing in October.

[Mike Mahardy]

How do. Is it the Minneapolis marathon?

[Dan Reichert]

Twin Cities Marathon? Yeah.

[Mike Mahardy]

How does that, like, I know training for that is like, okay, one day you do two miles and then you rest and then the next day you do six and then you rest and then you kind of work up to peaks and then you work back down and then you work up.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah.

[Mike Mahardy]

Am I, am I sort of describing it?

[Dan Reichert]

Well, I've got it on my Google calendar. It starts in May and then so like let's say, let's look at June. My long run Saturday is 8 miles, then it's 9, then it goes down to 6, then it goes to 11, then it goes to 12. So it does kind of go up and bring it down every once in a while. But it is slowly, like the trend line's going up. So like by late July I'm doing 15 miles. Get into August, 17, 18, 19, uh, just working your way up to that 26.

[Mike Mahardy]

Do you run 26 before the marathon at all?

[Dan Reichert]

No, it looks like the longest I will run before is 20 on September 13th.

[Mike Mahardy]

Maybe it's just like not worth the injury risk after those six, that extra six miles or something. I don't know.

[Dan Reichert]

I could see it cuz it was three, four days ago I did this half and like my left foot is like, I don't think I like broke anything or whatever, but just like I can feel like the bones in my left foot are like hurting so I'm like icing it and stuff. So if that happens at 13 miles, I can't imagine doing 19, 20 plus.

[Mike Mahardy]

Yeah, my, my uncle, I forget how many he's run, but He. He, like, places well, sorry, not like top three. I don't think top three. But he, like, he takes it seriously. Does it in under whatever the hour count? Is that like, oh, you're a serious marathon run or whatever? And he was saying. I was like, have you ever gotten, like, this random injury, like, two hours in or. Sorry, two miles in? He's like, yeah. I was like, like, what? And he described some of the injuries he got at two miles. And I was like, that sucks to just have to end the race. I was like, oh, I ran the rest of the race. I just didn't run quickly. I was like, but you. I forgot. I wish I knew. Remembered what. But it was like an injury that if I was playing basketball, I would leave the court immediately.

[Dan Reichert]

Sure.

[Mike Mahardy]

He just ran another 24 miles or something. Because he's like, well, I did a year for this. Like, yeah, if it's on.

[Dan Reichert]

If it's on race day and you're literally not like. It's not like a bone sticking out of your leg or something. Like, you know, you train for. Yeah, the better part of a year. Like, I would probably run through there. Like, my foot was hurting by the end of this one. I was like, I'm. This is my last run of the year.

[Mary Kish]

Basically, all the bones were inside. And so you kept running.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah, I would have accepted an injury if, you know, it was my last run. Yeah.

[Mary Kish]

When the doctors check you out before the run, they're always like, where are the bones? And if they're all on the inside, you fucking run.

[Dan Reichert]

If there's one poking out, they just kind of poke it back in and you're good to go. Put a band aid over it. You're good. Yeah.

[Mike Mahardy]

Dance periodically.

[Mary Kish]

Everybody got out of this pussy's way. He's got a bone sticking out.

[Dan Reichert]

My bone hurts.

[Mary Kish]

Oh, no.

[Mike Mahardy]

Meanwhile, Dan's orb is hanging out of his body.

[Mary Kish]

What a fucking loser.

[Mike Mahardy]

His orb is intact. He's fine.

[Dan Reichert]

My orb is strong.

[Mike Mahardy]

Yeah. Well, that's cool. That's exciting. 26.2 miles.

[Dan Reichert]

Yep. Yep. That'll be October. I mean, we'll see. I could get injured. Any number of things could happen, but.

[Mike Mahardy]

That would suck if you hit 26 miles and you only have 0.2 left and then one of your friends flew in secretly and comes out of nowhere on a skateboard and runs into you.

[Dan Reichert]

You're Tanya Harding. Me?

[Mike Mahardy]

Yeah, basically.

[Dan Reichert]

That'd be a really weird thing to do.

[Mary Kish]

Tanya Harding did that so that she could win. Mike wouldn't even be doing it any.

[Mike Mahardy]

Self, I just can't tolerate.

[Mary Kish]

Take you down a peg.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah, yeah.

[Mary Kish]

And he doesn't skateboard, so that's just a cool factor.

[Dan Reichert]

He learns to skateboard so he can do this. It's for the content. We'll tell the story on the podcast.

[Mike Mahardy]

No, that'd be even funnier if I, like, put a hood over your head, and then two of my henchmen pulled you backstage, and then I came out dressed like you with a wig on. Or a beard. A beard wig. And then I crossed the finish line like, Bonk goes to hug me. Like, hey, Bonk, I love you.

[Dan Reichert]

It's just that Nathan, for you, where he has all the prosthetics and stuff. Yeah.

[Mary Kish]

Come here, baby.

[Mike Mahardy]

Fucking watch your back that last mile, Dan.

[Dan Reichert]

Shit.

[Mike Mahardy]

Okay, that's when. That's when. That's when I'll be lurking.

[Dan Reichert]

Oh, God.

[Mike Mahardy]

That really would be funny, though, if, like, now if I did fly in secretly and you look off to the side and you. I'm just standing there randomly at, like, mile 19. Yeah. Doing.

[Dan Reichert]

Oh, I agree. That'd be very funny. Yes. I'm calling your bluff. Do it.

[Mike Mahardy]

That'd be really fucking funny.

[Mary Kish]

My girlfriends have also been doing marathons. They've been trying to convince me to do one. There's a couple half marathons, But I really do not tend to run more than five miles ever. And I don't know if I want to run more than five miles. That's a long time. I remember the first time I run, I ran, like, three miles. I was like, good for you. Like, go get a drink. Like, you're done for the day. But I've gotten more proactive with running with them, and I've found that when I run by myself, after I run about one or two miles, I'm pretty tired and would like to, like, take a break or chill. But if I run with friends, I can run three miles and not notice. And there's, like, a social component or at least a mental component to running that's like, just about distracting yourself with other shit going on so that you don't think about how tired you are.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah, I would. That would be. When I listen to my podcast, typically throughout the week, like, during the training runs and then on actual race day, there is something about just, like, there's adrenaline. There's a million other people doing this. It's like, it's not your normal route, so there's, like, novelty to it. So I, like, I didn't necessarily know if I was going to be able to do it this time. But, like, once you get out there, race day, it's just like your brain clicks into place and it's like, all right, yeah, we're doing this.

[Mary Kish]

I couldn't imagine a full marathon and give you a lot of credit. I've tinkered with the idea of doing a half. Um, but again, I just think that there's, like, a sweet spot for me personally. We're like five or six miles, and I'm like, I'm so proud of me. And then I go home, I don't get a medal, but I feel like I accomplished a lot running five miles.

[Dan Reichert]

But you know what the thing is, though? Is that I think the reason it's worked for me more than most any other workout is because you register so far in advance. Like, I've already paid for a thing a year from now, and if I am not ready for it, I've just wasted that. You know, I wasted the money. It's not refundable. You know, it's like, so I have to hit the schedule. I can't just like. Because if you don't have, like, a dedicated thing or a day on the calendar, you gotta prepare for at least me. I'll just be like, ah, you know, today was busy. I didn't have time to do this.

[Mary Kish]

Or whatever gives you a reason.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah, you have to do it, otherwise you're fucked. And you're just not gonna be able to run the marathon. So it, like, keeps you on track.

[Mary Kish]

I do like that. I feel like I could use more reasons to be committed. The best one I have is that my girlfriends want to run with me, which is such a wonderful thing. And I don't want to embarrass myself and have these girls that do run marathons. And I noticed this the last time we ran together because they're obviously much faster and better runners than me because they run marathons was that they were running slower than they usually do. I know what their average miles are, and they were running slower miles, and they didn't complain. And they never brought it up because they're very nice girls. But I recognized that I was slowing them down. And so, like, to me, my motivation is if my girlfriends are inviting me out to run, I don't want to be the slow runner. So I have to, like, keep my shit together so that I can be invited to the Cool Runners Club. It's all social for me, baby. Like, I don't want to be in the loser runner club. I gotta. I gotta show up.

[Dan Reichert]

That sounds fun. I've never done that, like, the, like, running with people thing.

[Mike Mahardy]

I don't. I. It's. That's not. Speaking of, like, what's for you and not for me. I can't run with other people, really, because, like, I. Either I'm slowing down for them or I'm working harder than I want to be to, like, with them. I mean, once you run enough with someone, I'm sure you, like, get a good sense of each other's pace. But, like, I hate even when I round a corner because I'm running in, like, a city most of the time, so it's all on a grid for the most part until I get to the water. If I round a corner, I kind of peek around at first to make sure no one else is running on that block, because, again, then I have the conundrum. It's like, do I pass them and feel like an. Or do I get stuck behind them or. Yeah, do they show me up?

[Mary Kish]

So those are strangers, and that's toxic masculinity.

[Mike Mahardy]

Oh, no, it's not a. I can be competitive and not be a toxic masculiner.

[Dan Reichert]

What?

[Mary Kish]

They're just, like, so excited to run together. I didn't say it's other men and a child. And Mike's like, I better not let this other man pass.

[Mike Mahardy]

I didn't say clothesline.

[Dan Reichert]

Oh, clothesline gets my way.

[Mike Mahardy]

Run up behind him and kick him in the cross from behind, and then keep running, pickpocket him as he's bleeding out. Take. Take it. Steal his phone for the rest of my run and just text all of his friends, I hate you. I'm in love with your spouse.

[Mary Kish]

Gruber.

[Mike Mahardy]

KFBR man. KFBR 392. KFBR 392. Mary, I texted Dan and Bianca this yesterday, but I'll have you know, and you'll appreciate it, that, yes, Amanda and me cannot watch a sex scene in a show or a movie without her, like, shouting over it. I'm a. I'm a fucking fill you up. Yeah. Like, it.

[Mary Kish]

It.

[Mike Mahardy]

Like, it could be the most emotional scene now. And, like, in a drama, like, we're like. And it's just. I know it's coming, so I'm bracing myself.

[Dan Reichert]

I'm gonna shoot.

[Mike Mahardy]

What? Oh, let me do the talking.

[Dan Reichert]

I shot.

[Mary Kish]

That's so funny, because it kind of. I mean, it has the potential to ruin things, but I actually think it's a beautiful thing that makes you closer. Like, so me and my partner, sometimes this is just. I don't know how this happened, but probably for years now, anytime a character and another character kiss, we elbow each other like schoolgirls and are like, hahaha. Like we always do it. So if it's steamy, if it's spicy, if it's just a kiss, it's always an elbow. Just be like, shit's heating up. And it's become like lore now where it doesn't matter what situation it is, if people are kissing, we have to like elbow each other. And I think it's funny. And like, I wonder if like years from now you guys will be like watching the equivalent of like the next generation's Titanic. And like two star crossed lovers will finally. That's a different movie. Will finally be kissing and you. And you guys will just be like.

[Mike Mahardy]

I'm gonna shoot on opening night in the theater.

[Mary Kish]

Disgusting secret joke between you two.

[Dan Reichert]

You know what I want? There was a website once called the Walk of Life Project. And it took that, you know, the. They did the walk. They did the Walk of Life, that Dire Straits song.

[Mike Mahardy]

Yeah, yeah, it was.

[Dan Reichert]

They basically said that every movie could be improved by putting that over the end as it goes into the credits. And so it would be like 2001 A Space Odyssey, like the Star Child and Walk of Life is playing. And it was amazing. I want to see a site like that where it's just taking the MacGruber sex sounds and putting them over sex scenes in movies. So just like famous sex scenes where it's like the Terminator one, where it's like Kyle Reese and Sarah Connor and just dub over McGruber sex.

[Mike Mahardy]

Just.

[Dan Reichert]

Why is that my. I was trying to think of a famous sex scene in a movie. It was like Terminator.

[Mary Kish]

What A famous sex scene.

[Dan Reichert]

Hey, tell me what sex was. So to me, it's the most famous sex scene.

[Mike Mahardy]

What does it say about me that I went straight to 300 with Gerard Butler? The beginning, this very slow motion scene.

[Dan Reichert]

Before he goes on the MacGruber set.

[Mike Mahardy]

Yeah, before he's going off to die when he plays Persian Army. I'm going to shoot. That's my slow motion. Gerard Butler.

[Dan Reichert]

It's really good. Yeah.

[Mike Mahardy]

What is. What is like an emotional sex scene?

[Dan Reichert]

Why can't I think of an emotional sex scene? How much emotional sex have I seen in movies?

[Mike Mahardy]

Fuck, there's got to be some.

[Dan Reichert]

I don't really see a lot of romance movies we talk about.

[Mike Mahardy]

Well, I guess MacGruber had the right idea when they took the Top Gun scene and fucked with it.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah. God, what is like a non Ironic. Nice emotional sex scene.

[Mary Kish]

The Titanic one where they're in the.

[Dan Reichert]

Back, they just paint each other naked. They don't have sex. No.

[Mary Kish]

Bang.

[Dan Reichert]

They do.

[Mike Mahardy]

Yeah. On the raft at the end. Yeah. He falls off into the deep because he. They were trying to 69 on the raft.

[Dan Reichert]

He came and like blew his body back into the water and he died.

[Mike Mahardy]

And then she was too tired. Just too satisfied.

[Mary Kish]

I'm too tired. Get off.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah, sorry. I'm beat.

[Mike Mahardy]

That's why Leo's face as he falls into the depths. He's like.

[Mary Kish]

He's got a boner.

[Mike Mahardy]

Just a lot of bubbles coming on.

[Dan Reichert]

The director's cut. He keeps sinking down and you see his boner coming to frame.

[Mary Kish]

I'm too sick for this.

[Mike Mahardy]

Now. I'm curious. Let me search. Emotional. Most emotional sex scene.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah. I don't remember the banging in Titanic.

[Mike Mahardy]

Wow, there's a Reddit about this.

[Mary Kish]

Don't remember the banging in Titan.

[Dan Reichert]

I remember the painting and I remember the ship crashing. Those are the two things I remember.

[Mike Mahardy]

Okay. The subhead for this Reddit post is something blue is the warmest color. E2 Mama Tambien. Okay, now I remember that. Portrait of a lady on fire.

[Dan Reichert]

No, I haven't seen it.

[Mary Kish]

Cruel Intentions.

[Mike Mahardy]

Which one? Aren't there several?

[Mary Kish]

What? The only one. The original.

[Dan Reichert]

I never saw that. I was thinking of Wild Things for a second. I was thinking of the pool.

[Mary Kish]

So good. That was not emotional, though. Those are just really hot people.

[Dan Reichert]

Yes.

[Mike Mahardy]

Aren't there several sex scenes in Cruel Intentions? I meant. Yes, one is Selma Blair and Ryan Philippe. Right.

[Mary Kish]

But there's the same girl kiss, which I think is pretty hot.

[Mike Mahardy]

Oh, in the pool. Oh, no, that's. No, they're in like Scream, isn't it? What is the. Who's the. I think it's who kisses Naomi.

[Dan Reichert]

You think Neve Campbell and Denise Richards and Wild Things.

[Mike Mahardy]

Yes.

[Dan Reichert]

Yes.

[Mike Mahardy]

Okay, so. Yes, we were. We already talked about that. We covered that. I never saw that movie. I just, like when I was 18, my version of porn was watching movie sex scenes.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah, that's like a super famous one for anyone remotely close to 30s or 40s.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah, you fix that.

[Mike Mahardy]

Right?

[Mary Kish]

You've seen this film, Wild Things?

[Mike Mahardy]

No.

[Mary Kish]

Oh, my God. We have to discuss this. Wild Things is one of the greatest films of like. Was it 90s of like that era?

[Dan Reichert]

Late 98, 99 maybe?

[Mary Kish]

It's so fucking good. Neve Campbell kills it in the role. But you have to be really careful because there's Spoiler City. Because it's about it's. Like all filled with like twists and like a whodunit. And there's like all these neat stuff to it, so you really shouldn't look it up. But like, it's really well done, especially for how hot everybody is. Everyone's so smoking hot. You'd be like, was probably not a good plot. And you're watching it because you get to see a full pair of like stunning boobies. But it's also got an incredibly good plot and really good twists and everyone's a good actor. It's a 10 out of 10 movie.

[Dan Reichert]

I think I might have just seen the pool scene.

[Mary Kish]

Oh my God.

[Mike Mahardy]

That's all I needed. I was in and out.

[Dan Reichert]

I think that was it. I think I just rented it from Blockbuster.

[Mary Kish]

It continuously gets good. Matt Dillon is really good in it. Denise Richards kills it. Like it's. It's awesome. It is like. Yes, it's super horny. And you should watch the sex scenes. They're really great. But the film itself is wonderful. It's just like people are dying and there's like money floating around and everyone's like, who's killing these people for like, what but money? And there's like masterminds going on and there's a police isn't Bill Murray in it? Situation. It's very good.

[Dan Reichert]

What isn't Bill Murray in it? Am I thinking of the right thing? Bill Murray is like in a neck brace, right?

[Mary Kish]

Oh yeah, there is a neck brace situation. Is it Bill Murray?

[Dan Reichert]

I think so.

[Mary Kish]

It might be. But it's very well done for how hot everybody is. You'd think it was a second rate movie because it's just there's too many good looking people.

[Dan Reichert]

But it's like a Cinemax After Dark type thing. It had that vibe to it, but it was a real movie.

[Mary Kish]

Yes. So I think that's absolutely worth watching in its entirety. And then you get the bonus of these really great scenes. But I'm telling you, the movie itself is solid. It's a solid watch.

[Dan Reichert]

I think I remember people liking that. Yeah.

[Mary Kish]

Okay. You both have homework. Can you watch Wild Things please?

[Dan Reichert]

Well, see, Bonk's interested. Yeah.

[Mary Kish]

This is not a huge ask, Mike. There's tits.

[Mike Mahardy]

No. Sure? Yeah. Okay. Okay.

[Dan Reichert]

For sure.

[Mike Mahardy]

Amanda's seen it.

[Dan Reichert]

Do we still not know a legitimately romantic, non ironic sex scene in the history of cinema?

[Mike Mahardy]

No. I've seen there's a few Brokeback Mountains. Blue is the warmest color.

[Mary Kish]

I do not recommend blues. The warmest colors.

[Mike Mahardy]

No. Isn't that two kids, like high Schoolers.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah. And these scenes are, like, 10 minutes long. Like, I. When they say these things, I think they mean things like. Like Romeo and Juliet, where there's, like, people, like, making out in a pool. And it's hot. Like, blue is the warmest color, is as close as you absolutely can get to it just being, like, porn with, like, a slight plot.

[Mike Mahardy]

Oh, well, yeah. I'm just saying, like, I'm just looking at famous ones.

[Dan Reichert]

Wait, Top Gun, Maverick. Was there one with Tom Cruise and Jennifer Connelly? Didn't they, like.

[Mike Mahardy]

I feel like I remember that. Was that the Lady Gaga the first time the song came on?

[Dan Reichert]

Oh, maybe. I thought. I remember there being a. Yeah, okay.

[Mike Mahardy]

Oh, I was watching by your name.

[Mary Kish]

Witches of Eastwick. Have you guys seen that? It's a classic. It's older.

[Dan Reichert]

It was Susan Sarandon, right?

[Mary Kish]

It was. Yes. And Cher. Hello. And it's really, really good. But I couldn't remember exactly what it was called. And I was just like, what's it called? Like, Witches of, like, Breastwick or whatever. And it turns out that there is a Witches of Breastwick because they made a porno.

[Dan Reichert]

Nice.

[Mary Kish]

Based on Witches of Eastwick, and they called it Witches of Breastwick.

[Dan Reichert]

Boy, that sounds like a real first draft. Like, oh, we'll call it which is a Breastwick. Or do. We'll call it until we come up with a real title. It's like. Which is Breastwick.

[Mary Kish]

Made it all the way into the final. Jack Nicholson is in Witches of Eastwick.

[Dan Reichert]

Yes.

[Mary Kish]

It's great. It's three witches who are all, like. They don't actually know they're witches and they're sick of men, but they love men and they're drinking and they're all concocting who they think is the perfect man. And then it's Jack Nicholson, and he comes into town and he starts seducing them all, and he starts, like, getting with all three of them.

[Dan Reichert]

Is Jack Nicholson like a hunky dude? Is he, like, a desirable man?

[Mary Kish]

So I think what's interesting about this film and Jack Nicholson in general is, like, Jack Nicholson can play, like, an absolute psychopath. And he can also play a very charming and charismatic person. And this role contained both of them. When they're describing in the Witches of Eastwick when they're like, should he be handsome? And the girls are like, he should be, but not too handsome.

[Dan Reichert]

Okay.

[Mary Kish]

It should be, like, in a funny way.

[Dan Reichert]

So it's more of a charisma thing with him.

[Mary Kish]

And, I mean, Jack Nicholson has that in droves. Like, he's so charismatic. You can't take your eyes off of him. And the way he portrays this character who I believe, like, although it's probably up for debate, very like, essentially like demonic character. The more Jack Nicholson plays him, the more you're like, oh, this guy's like a fucking psychopath. But you also still can't take your eyes off of him because he's really charismatic and enjoyable to look at. But he's just a freak of nature.

[Dan Reichert]

He just never plays the. Like, I'm just a everyman good old boy. Like, he is always like some sort of like shining or cuckoo's nest. Like, you know, he's kind of a wild man. Like, because he's so good at that. I can't picture him just being like an everyman character.

[Mike Mahardy]

He's got the. He's got the Easy Rider, five Easy Pieces, Chinatown era. I think Chinatown would have been before those. Have you guys seen Easy Rider?

[Dan Reichert]

I have.

[Mike Mahardy]

It's a really good movie.

[Dan Reichert]

Yep, I've seen all those movies.

[Mike Mahardy]

Just looking through these sex scenes on this timeout list.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah.

[Mike Mahardy]

Blue Valentine.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah. Mike was so quiet recently, and I think it's because he's been looking at best sex scenes of all time.

[Mike Mahardy]

Mulholland Drive Porn.

[Dan Reichert]

Oh, I saw that, but I don't remember.

[Mike Mahardy]

Oh, wait, that isn't that. This is the bad one. This is the Last Tango in Paris. Why is that on this? Isn't that when she came out saying that she was not comfortable during that whole.

[Dan Reichert]

Oh, I heard about that. Yeah. With Brando.

[Mike Mahardy]

Yeah.

[Mary Kish]

Oh, Fight Club.

[Dan Reichert]

Oh, the weird, like, Matrix cam. Helena Bonham Carter sex. That's just like a shot. That's just like a quick, like, Matrix rotate around her thing.

[Mike Mahardy]

Monsters Ball with Halle. Darryl about Thornton. I know. The sex scene. Similar thing. Never seen a movie.

[Mary Kish]

Well, Dan can describe this Matrix shot.

[Dan Reichert]

Am I wrong?

[Mike Mahardy]

No, it's.

[Dan Reichert]

I've seen Fight Club a lot.

[Mary Kish]

As a 16 year old. You have that, like, embedded in your brain.

[Dan Reichert]

And that's not even a horny thing for me. That's just. I saw Fight Club a lot as a teenager. I could tell you, like, any scene.

[Mary Kish]

In that Here comes the Matrix shot.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah, yeah, totally, man. I haven't seen any of these fucking movies. Oh, Team America. That had a good one.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah, that one's a joke. That's not sincere.

[Dan Reichert]

It's on this list. It's on this list.

[Mary Kish]

Then it's a bad list. It should be sincere.

[Dan Reichert]

This is. Okay. It's best sex scenes of all time. I'm Looking at.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah, so that's like a joke.

[Dan Reichert]

Okay.

[Mary Kish]

Like, good ones are like, Pretty Woman.

[Dan Reichert]

I haven't seen that.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah, you guys are fucking Iron Man.

[Mike Mahardy]

I see Pretty Woman.

[Mary Kish]

Well, they bang in it.

[Mike Mahardy]

Yeah.

[Mary Kish]

You guys. The only time you guys can each think of sex scenes is when the Matrix camera has, like, really shot up their pussy. Or like some kind of action sequence has occurred right after it.

[Dan Reichert]

I thought about, but didn't say when. I was trying to think of movie sex scenes. There's the part where Nicolas Cage and his girlfriend on the roof when he. Before he gets called to Alcatraz and they're about to do it on the roof and he gets a call from the FBI being like, we need you to go to Alcatraz. And he's like, thrusting. This is not happening. Like, I remember that.

[Mike Mahardy]

Yeah, we remember the ones that matter.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah, I remember romantic sex.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah, the ones that matter.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah, Her. Like three minutes of screen time, just the Cage thrusting into her.

[Mary Kish]

Well, here's the thing. Like, these are. They're probably made for different people when you're googling something, like, best romantic sex scenes from the 90s or whatever. These are probably going to be more targeted towards, like, my demographic, so I understand why you probably haven't watched them. But the great equalizer is Wild Things because it's genuinely good and it has really hot sex scenes. It's. It's the perfect blend of both of our worlds. It's got something for everyone. I swear to God, I cannot not like it.

[Dan Reichert]

I believe it. I believe it. From the, you know, three minutes I've seen of that movie. I could see it.

[Mike Mahardy]

I've seen that same three minutes many times.

[Dan Reichert]

That's the part that's always on tv. When I was a kid trying to.

[Mary Kish]

Turn it on and I was rewinding it and playing it.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah. Oh, it's this many minutes in. Okay. It's airing at 1:00 on HBO. Guess I'm watching that Scrambled late at night. I'll tune in. Right. I'll cut away from Conan right now. And there we go.

[Mike Mahardy]

And then I'll be done and out of breath and back to Conan.

[Dan Reichert]

Back to Conan. Okay.

[Mike Mahardy]

Just reading these lists of, like, best sex scenes of all time. Do you ever get, like, overwhelmed by how many fucking movies have been made? Like, what percentage? In a good way, but, like, what percentage of movies do you think you've seen? I'm curious. That have ever been made and published? Like, you're, like, released.

[Mary Kish]

Say it again.

[Mike Mahardy]

How many?

[Mary Kish]

Question.

[Mike Mahardy]

What percentage of, like, the movies ever made do you think you've personally seen?

[Dan Reichert]

Well, I've seen 13, 19 movies according to my letterboxd.

[Mike Mahardy]

That's so much. I'm not saying, oh, there's a lot.

[Dan Reichert]

More than that for sure. Yeah.

[Mike Mahardy]

But I'm saying, what, what? Like, I wonder how you find that step. Just watching, just reading through this list of like, best sex scenes. Like, God, there are so many movies I have not seen and probably never will.

[Dan Reichert]

But there's also. You have to like, are we saying like theatrically released? Because like, you know, it's like, yeah. How many games came out this year? If you count every Steam indie, every, you know, $2 thing on Steam or.

[Mike Mahardy]

Whatever, Everything ever made. But like, still, I think if you go to like the Criterion Collection or the Criterion Channel, I was like, oh my God, I've seen like, they're like. Film buffs are very impressive to me because I've. I have not seen a high percentage of movies. I've seen a lot of movies in my life, but not, you know, not nearly as much as I could have if I focus more on it.

[Dan Reichert]

Well, according to a Reddit thread, which is. I don't know if that's better or worse than Google AI. As of 2016 or 2017, Hollywood was releasing around 700 films a year for how long though?

[Mike Mahardy]

But yeah, that's 30s.

[Dan Reichert]

I don't know when film started, but.

[Mike Mahardy]

A lot of film school. A lot of the movies on this list probably. I wonder what, like, what they define as Hollywood.

[Dan Reichert]

Because.

[Mike Mahardy]

Yeah, to your point, there's a lot of dvd.

[Dan Reichert]

I think the act. Yeah, like you don't count like direct to DVD, like Aladdin 2 stuff.

[Mike Mahardy]

I'm counting that there's like a lot of like indie gems that people like Chris Plant always tells me about. I'm like, Chris, I'm not gonna watch this. But.

[Dan Reichert]

But nowadays it's like straight to streaming stuff too. Is like, oh, okay. Like Palm Springs is definitely a real ass movie. Even though it went straight to Hulu during the pandemic. Yeah, yeah, it's muddy. I guess we'll never know.

[Mike Mahardy]

One day we'll know. I guess we'll never know.

[Dan Reichert]

I've seen 1319. I'm so picky with my fives. I'm very proud of it.

[Mike Mahardy]

I saw a fucking cool movie.

[Dan Reichert]

Can I Probably less than maybe around 20, I would say. I want to give a suggestion here.

[Mike Mahardy]

Sorcerer.

[Dan Reichert]

Have you heard of this movie?

[Mike Mahardy]

Yes. Why? Why is that?

[Dan Reichert]

I actually heard about it, Mary, at your get together in Portland. A good Friend of yours that was there. Chris was telling us about his favorite movie, and he said it was Sorcerer, and it's Tangerine Dream does the soundtrack. They did the GTA 5 soundtrack. They did Heat, they did Thief. James Caan. So awesome. Awesome soundtrack. But it stars Roy Scheider, the chief from Jaws. And it's basically. It's almost like death stranding. It's like. It definitely seems like something Kojima would have seen.

[Mary Kish]

It's like 1977.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah. Yeah. It's like. It's such a cool concept. Bonk. And I had never seen anything like this. It's like four dudes from different spots in the world, all. And I'm not going to spoil anything. They all just kind of get into shit where they need to, like, skip town. So, like, one of the guys was, like, a terrorist. One of the guys was in the mob, and they got in some shit. One of the guys got into a shady business thing, needed to skip Europe and stuff. They all wind up in the same, like, South American village. And they're all just kind of, like, trying to lay low off the grid. Just go into the shitty bar and stay. Stay low. And all of a sudden, there's a problem at, like, an oil facility or whatever, and they need these pallets of extremely volatile dynamite delivered 200 miles.

[Mike Mahardy]

Oh, this is the truck on the bridge.

[Dan Reichert]

Yes. And it's like a suicide mission where it's like, okay, we need good drivers, too. And so, like, Roy Scheider plays, like, a former mob driver, and he has to drive this, like, dynamite that's been leaking and will blow the fuck up if there's, like, you hit a rock and he has to drive it 200 miles. So it's just a lot of, like, four dudes trying not to kill each other and kill themselves like, very precariously transporting dynamite across South America.

[Mary Kish]

That sounds really good.

[Dan Reichert]

It is so tense and cool. And the soundtrack's awesome. I fucking loved it.

[Mike Mahardy]

Yeah, I've. I think I've seen that truck scene come up on, like, most tense movie scenes ever.

[Dan Reichert]

Oh, it's crazy.

[Mike Mahardy]

That's why I recognize the. The name I want to watch. That sounds cool.

[Dan Reichert]

I like, huge recommendation for it.

[Mike Mahardy]

Have you seen Jaws? There's, like, a big. There's a shark, and it sneaks onto the beach and dances some during the middle of the day. Yeah.

[Dan Reichert]

Oh, wow.

[Mike Mahardy]

Yeah. I want to watch Sorcerer.

[Dan Reichert]

Okay. I've given 42. Five stars, so out of my 1,300 plus reviews, I've given 36. Five stars. Yeah.

[Mary Kish]

And you gave a five star to Sorcerer four and a half.

[Mike Mahardy]

What's your most recent five?

[Mary Kish]

How dare you recommend something you didn't give five stars to.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah, no, it's good. Most recently released, most recent that you.

[Mike Mahardy]

Rated, that you saw.

[Dan Reichert]

Oh, is there. Does it show chronologically sort by when rated? Yes. Newest first. What do you know? Oh, I guess I went back and. Okay, the last three were ones I rewatched recently. The Wrestler Alien and Annihilation. Those three I rewatched in the last year and I was like, yeah, those are five star movies.

[Mike Mahardy]

I'd agree with all those.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah. And before that was Rambo, Last blood and Gremlins 2.

[Mike Mahardy]

So all the sermons.

[Mary Kish]

Ah, yes. Gremlins 2.

[Dan Reichert]

Gremlins 2 is a five star movie.

[Mike Mahardy]

I've seen it very late at night.

[Mary Kish]

Where's the sex scene?

[Dan Reichert]

Actually the last scene in the movie is the lady gremlin kissing on the dude and then she like looks at the camera with like lipstick on. It's all fucked up looking. And then like I think it might heart fade into the credits or something like that. So it's implied that the gremlin lady had sex with that henchman guy. Five stars.

[Mary Kish]

Cool.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah, cool.

[Mike Mahardy]

You guys want to talk about video games?

[Dan Reichert]

Oh, sure. Yeah. Mike and Mary. I joined first leave to enjoy some fantastic personalized wine just for me. But now it's become my secret weapon for the holiday season. From hosting to attending parties. I always have great wines on hand to share with friends and family.

[Mike Mahardy]

Plus, we're coming up on Thanksgiving. We're coming up on the holiday season in general. So it's a good time to get some St. Audet Nuit Pinot Noir from France. Pinot Noir is always a great Thanksgiving wine. I myself love Beaujolais. There's Cabernet Sauvignon from Chile. There's Cabernet Sauvignon from California. There's Zinfandels. There's Chardonnays, there's roses. Mary, tell people how they can get in on this before Thanksgiving and the holidays hit.

[Mary Kish]

You can bring a great bottle to your next gathering with First Leaf. Go to tryfirstleaf.com firescape to sign up and you'll get your first six handpicked bottles for just 44. 95. That's T R Y F I R S T l e a f.com fireescape try firstleaf.com fireescape Keep here.

[Mike Mahardy]

Like there's a lot of background noise.

[Dan Reichert]

That was a fart.

[Mike Mahardy]

Oh, okay.

[Mary Kish]

That was not that was a crash. It looked. It sounded like a dog had run into a box.

[Dan Reichert]

No, I see the waveform on that fart. That was. I. Trust me, it was a fart. I felt it.

[Mary Kish]

I mean, I almost want to replay it because I have to just say it's incredible to me that your farts can sound like an animal rustling in Christmas packages under a tree or falling.

[Mike Mahardy]

Through a china shop.

[Dan Reichert]

I think the problem is we talked about Costco earlier. I bought a giant bag of candy as backup candy bag because I want to be the full size candy bar house. So I bought 30 full size candy bars. And then if there are more, I've got the backup. But I have eaten almost all of this bag of the backup candy in the last. It's like, oh, Halloween's coming up. I'll throw out the bag after Halloween. But after every fucking meal, three meals a day, I'm taking so many fucking Skittles and Twizzlers and Nerds and Arrowheads and Lifesavers Gummies, and I'm just eating, like, a thousand calories of candy a day. So that's what's going on with the parts after three.

[Mike Mahardy]

Each meal. Like after breakfast.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah, it's like a lot of Skittles after breakfast.

[Mike Mahardy]

Is your breakfast just Skittles?

[Dan Reichert]

No, I'll do. I'll do the healthy thing. You know, it's like, oh, add some oatmeal or avocado toast and then Skittle town.

[Mary Kish]

If you think you smelled your fart, do you think you could taste the rainbow smell?

[Dan Reichert]

No, it just smelled like a fart. It's still lingering in here, so.

[Mary Kish]

So you can tell?

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah, it's not Skittles. It is not Skittles. No, it's just Mary whiskey and farts in here right now.

[Mike Mahardy]

Mary, when you got up to. When we got up to take the break right before Dan left, I was like, wait a minute. William Friedkin directed Sorcerer. Why did it just lead off with that? That would have had me right away.

[Dan Reichert]

Forgot that part.

[Mike Mahardy]

Yeah, some of the best ones ever. But anyway, Mary, you've played Zelda. Now. The Legend of Zelda. Echoes of wisdom.

[Mary Kish]

Yes, I finally got my hands on it. I've been delayed, but we are in godie season, so I've really tried to kick it up and make sure that I am up to date with the latest that everybody else is playing. And I don't know how far I am. Maybe you guys can help me, but I mean, definitely. I have to be like eight or nine hours into it now.

[Dan Reichert]

How Many full on dungeons have you done?

[Mary Kish]

I don't know. I think it's a little confusing to know what a dungeon is. Is it when you're in the cloud.

[Dan Reichert]

World, if you got a. Well, you do the cloud thing to like get into it. But like, if there was a big key in it in a boss fight, that's.

[Mary Kish]

I think I've done two big keys.

[Dan Reichert]

Okay. Has the map kind of opened up after that? Like you did the thing with the like, oh, the Zora is playing their flutes and then you did the desert stuff.

[Mary Kish]

I've done the desert stuff and I've done the water stuff.

[Dan Reichert]

Okay. I think it's right after those two that I started liking it. Like I liked it at the beginning. I started really liking it after those two because those two in particular are really talky and stuff. There's just a lot of like, they're so talky. Yeah, I was surprised. It's a lot for a Zelda game.

[Mary Kish]

I appreciate you saying that to me because I've like skimmed a couple reviews and I've played it. And so far, although I would not say I dislike it, it's still Zelda. I mean, it's very fun and it's interesting. I would say it's one of the weaker Zeldas that I've ever played for a couple reasons so far. So far. Right. And I have more time to go with it. But here's like a couple of my issues. One, very talky. I just want to play, dude. Like, leave me alone. I don't understand why everybody like wants to tell me their life fucking story. Two, I felt a couple times that I was punished for investigating areas early. And I'll give you an example. In this game, I find it fairly linear despite the fact that it is an open map. Right. But they've closed a lot of spaces off because of the purple cloud shards. Whatever.

[Dan Reichert]

What do they call it?

[Mike Mahardy]

They call it tears or something? The rift Rifts.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah, maybe, yeah, the miasma, whatever, you know. And it makes pretty limited where you can investigate. And in the water area, I started just scoping around in the water because I thought it would be fun. And I found this cave and I was like, that's so cool. I found an underwater cave and I went through this system and I got a little treasure co. You know, box and it gave me 50 rupees. And it wasn't that I didn't get an item or anything, but I was like, oh, well, I got some money and I investigated this little cave and then I Started doing the main story, and then later on in the main story, they were like, my son's stuck in a cave. And it took me to the same cave system I had already discovered and investigated and enjoyed, but now there was a kid in it, and I had to redo the exact same cave system it already had. My. My treasure was already open because I had already discovered this space and enjoyed it, and I just had to. They literally made me redo the exact same puzzles so that I could free the child who was stuck in the cave systems. And I thought to myself, you know, if you're gonna punish me, I don't know if it's a punishment, but, like, if you're just gonna make me redo this because I didn't do it in order that the game wanted me to do it, why did you let me do it?

[Dan Reichert]

That is really annoying.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah, just don't let me do it.

[Dan Reichert]

Have something. Block it off until a story event happens or something.

[Mike Mahardy]

Or if, like, in tears. The kingdom. I feel like if it was a open world, Zelda, you would have come across that kid first, and then you would. He would have been like, oh, thanks, you helped me out. And then he would go back to the village, and then it would adapt. So she's like, hey, I heard you got my son out. Thank you. Or whatever.

[Mary Kish]

100% thank you. That's exactly what I was hoping for. It's like, if I had discovered it out of order, an open world game should have accounted for that. And then told the person, my son told me, you got me out. You got him out. So we can skip this part of the story. Like, there was just something about it that was like, it's open world, but if you do that cave system before we want you to do it, we're gonna make you fucking do it again. Because we're not ready for you to do it yet. And it's just like, well, then it's not open world.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah, that's. I. I totally get what you're saying. Like, if a game is open world, like that. That was part of my big argument about Red Dead 2 is, like, big open world Rockstar game. But then, like, oh, I veered from the path for two seconds, and it, like, failed my mission. It's like, well, don't fucking sell me on this. Big open world. And then it won't.

[Mike Mahardy]

It's so seldom In Red Dead 2.

[Dan Reichert]

I won't have to happen. Enough to me.

[Mike Mahardy]

I've got another bone to pick with you tonight. So I'm just Getting warmed up, but.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah, I wonder what this is gonna be.

[Mike Mahardy]

I like Echo's wisdom a lot, but there are. I talked about this last episode. It does feel like one of the messier Zeldas I've played. Even considering Breath of the Wild and Tears of Kingdom's frame rate issues. This I actually. So I think I've done three more dungeons since last we spoke, so five total.

[Dan Reichert]

So you're near the end.

[Mike Mahardy]

I've got another, like, three, I think. Three dungeons.

[Dan Reichert]

Okay.

[Mike Mahardy]

I think there's six after you do the two initial ones.

[Dan Reichert]

Six after. Wow.

[Mike Mahardy]

No, is there not?

[Dan Reichert]

I don't think maybe I'm close. Three or four after two. Like, I don't know.

[Mike Mahardy]

By looking at the map, when you open up your. It looks like there's room for three more.

[Mary Kish]

Maybe.

[Mike Mahardy]

I've only done two.

[Mary Kish]

There's, like, six items, and I only have, like, one of them. So there's so many thingies I still need to get for my game.

[Dan Reichert]

There's some weird things that you get only if you do this particular thing. Let me look how many there are you'll occasionally use. It's. Yeah, it is messy in a few different ways. Like, you know, there's frame rate. You brought that up. There's things where it's like, yeah, it's open, but because you can break stuff, you can also get to stuff out of order. Like, from what I'm hearing here, I think we're all roughly on the same page of this game, where it's like, I think we appreciate what it's doing. We generally like it, but, like, there are things that annoy us about it to the point where it's like, I do wonder if this will place on the top 10 for us, you know?

[Mary Kish]

Yeah, I think it's. It's. It's. I have issues with it, you know, and I am enjoying it. And I do want to say, like, what I'm worried is that we're holding it to this really high caliber because it's Zelda. I just expect it to be so fucking perfect. I was shocked that in the first boss fight, I was like, am I just supposed to throw tables at it? And, like, I think a lot of people probably had this, like, weird reaction of, like, what am I supposed to do in this boss fight? But usually in Zeldas, they're just so clean about guiding you and coddling you of what you should be focused on during every boss fight, even if it is very open and you can do it however the fuck you want in tears of the kingdom. They were always like. So we're teaching you this very specific skill. The entire dungeon and the boss fight will also use this skill.

[Mike Mahardy]

It's all classic Zelda. Yeah.

[Mary Kish]

But in the first boss in this game, you're just stuck with this boss and you can only make like three things. And so I just kept throwing tables at it until it died.

[Mike Mahardy]

Oh yeah. The first one was very much just you gotta warp, transform into Link and hit his weak spot like that. It was.

[Mary Kish]

Oh, I did not do that. I threw tables at that bitch for like 10 minutes.

[Dan Reichert]

You did a merry style. Okay.

[Mike Mahardy]

That's. That's one thing. Like this. Even if you're probably very right. Like if it wasn't a Zelda game, I'm. I wonder if I even would have played it because I like this game a lot of its ideas more than I like the execution. The. So many of the echoes, like the ones that attack things. Their pathing is just awful and they miss. And I realize that there are things that are going to be better at. The sharks are going to be one of the better things to summon in water this far in the. Some of the birds are just better at taking out other birds. But like this game does feel like a collection of really cool ideas. That is a bit rough around the edges. I'm still really enjoying it. I think it's in my personal top 10 of the year.

[Dan Reichert]

But probably will be.

[Mike Mahardy]

It's very.

[Dan Reichert]

But low.

[Mike Mahardy]

It's just. I don't know. I also. It just like even I tried doing what you and Grubbed said Dan and opening the grid to pick an item. Even then I was like, I still preferred the. Just use my go back to the. On the D pad for the most recent ones because more often than I was using a recent one. But like even now Water Cube's always there.

[Dan Reichert]

Yep.

[Mike Mahardy]

And I don't know what the solve would be for that. Maybe a series of rings that you get. Like dishonored two style. Like a weapon wheel that you go through. Yeah.

[Mary Kish]

There's just so many and there's a lot.

[Dan Reichert]

Oh, and it gets worse by the end.

[Mary Kish]

I bet it does. Because I'm very early and I'm like, I have so much shit. I don't understand why they let you duplicate so many items. I can see the creativity. But it's also like you're confusing me.

[Dan Reichert]

Like two kinds of rocks and then. Yeah.

[Mary Kish]

Just so many types enemies. And now they've added like enemies with metal and stuff and statues. And it's like if These are for puzzles and I'm never going to need them again. You're just adding these to my very full repertoire and I'm like a little overwhelmed with choice.

[Dan Reichert]

It's like the Resident Evil thing where it's like you use a key. I love when it's like, hey, you don't need this anymore. Do you want to throw it away? It's like, oh, thanks for telling me that game.

[Mike Mahardy]

Thank you. There's some quality. I also, in a bigger sense, and this might be unfair and tell me if it is the fact that you have this ability to become the character that we were so excited that for once we were like getting away from and you use it to do damage. It's like, why wouldn't I warp into Link if I'm getting frustrated? Because these birds won't be hitting. And like the meter by the time you get to like the fourth dungeon, the meter is pretty generous. Yeah, like, I was like, it almost.

[Dan Reichert]

Feels like a cop out kind of where it's like, oh, you can. It's like it's Zelda's game, but you can be Link if you want to do real damage, do damage.

[Mike Mahardy]

And like, yeah, I'm. I'm definitely meeting the game halfway to do the creative stuff and I appreciate for what it's doing. But like, this feels like a. Not a first draft. That's very unfair. Like, I don't know. This. This feels like it needed a few more edit passes.

[Mary Kish]

I agree with you. It feels like a hack week concept. And then someone was like, ah, make it a real game and say that it.

[Mike Mahardy]

But it's still. I still think this is a good game. It's just. This is. It's like, it gets really frustrating sometimes. But yeah, I really like when I saw that you could transform into Link with like the robe, I was like. Or the sword. Sorry, I was like. I didn't want. Like I was.

[Dan Reichert]

It was go all the way in if you're like, commit to the bit if you're going to do it. You know, it's funny the weight that a series name will carry into a new game. Like, you know, we're all talking about like your expectations of Zelda going in. It's got the name on it. And I remember Spirit tracks came out for DS and we gave it an 8A game informer. And I remember at the Game of the Year meetings that year, when we're trying to whittle our list down, Spirit tracks came up and like all of us were shitting on it. We're all. We're all just sitting in the meeting, just being like, oh, man. It's like, there's no real Overworld. You're just in these fucking train tracks. It sucks. It sucks. And I think Andy McNamara or someone is like, well, we gave it an eight. It sounds like everyone hates it. And Matt Helgeson was like, yeah, but it's Zelda. So I think it was kind of. It was a gentleman's eight. It was a Zelda. Yeah.

[Mike Mahardy]

And to be clear, like, when Breath of the Wild kind of came out and did something, you know, big and bold, I was all for it. And like, I remember during Game of the Year at Gamespot that got heated because the only argument people could make against Breath of the Wild, aside from the frame rate issues, was, but it's not a Zelda game. And I'm like, oh, shut up. Yeah. And I was like. And then again, like, the more we talk about, the more like we wrote. Ollie Welsh wrote a really good op ed on Polygon when I was there. Like, this is the closest any Zelda game. This is basically if they took the idea of the very first Zelda game but made it in 20, 2017.

[Dan Reichert]

So in the middle of the map, go have fun.

[Mike Mahardy]

So like, in essence, it's the most Zelda ass game ever made. But again, I was like the first one to fire back. I'm like, I want Zelda to evolve. And I think, you know, like, when it plays with this structure that we understand as Zelda. Like Mary, you mentioned, like, my favorite Zelda games are still, I mean, Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom. I almost, to my. Maybe counter to my point, I almost don't count them among my. Like, I'm talking when I say my favorite Zelda games, my favorite traditional ones like Ocarina majora, like the 64 era, or I don't know. I really like Link between Worlds, but I'm all for them for it. Evolving. But. And I'm gl. I'm very glad Echoes of Wisdom is even a thing and that it's such a full fledged Zelda game. But yeah, God, the more I play it, the more I'm simultaneously impressed and frustrated because of the rough edges.

[Dan Reichert]

It's flawed for sure.

[Mike Mahardy]

Yeah, I don't think I'll forget it anytime soon. Which is more than I can say for some, like, really tight, boring games.

[Dan Reichert]

We were, you know, we will need to figure out we're talking about Game of the Year and stuff here. We're kind of talking a little bit off mic about the homework assignments we want to give each other because literally the next episode is our game of the year episode, which is insane to think about. So we made a little doc here of like, okay, games that we think everyone else should play beforehand because we're going to talk about it quite a bit. My two. I'll talk about more in a bit. Echo point, Nova and UFO 50. Do you guys have any off top of your heads?

[Mary Kish]

Oh, off the top of our heads. We also have to have maxes for games that we should all play because I think while you can obviously put. I'm just going to say this while I buy time for us to think about our games. But it's like while we could all say, like, well, you better put. Oh my God, I can't even think of any right now.

[Mike Mahardy]

Yeah, like two. Two. Two seems fair. Like if you like, is it two?

[Mary Kish]

Is it five? Like, I'm not gonna play 10.

[Mike Mahardy]

We have two games that you're like.

[Mary Kish]

You're definitely gonna argue.

[Dan Reichert]

Well, UFO 50 is 50, so UFO.

[Mike Mahardy]

50 is already on my list.

[Mary Kish]

I ain't gonna play all of them. You better tell me your favorites.

[Mike Mahardy]

Nova was not on my list.

[Dan Reichert]

I will talk about that in a bit here. But did you both play Prince of Persia, the Lost Crown?

[Mike Mahardy]

Yep.

[Dan Reichert]

Okay.

[Mike Mahardy]

Oh, yeah, we raved about that at the beginning.

[Mary Kish]

Oh yeah, we. We played about Prince of Persia. I think that's fair. I'll put Crow country on there. To be honest with you. I think that's. That's gonna be on my list too.

[Mike Mahardy]

That. That I want to play just out of my own excitement.

[Mary Kish]

I'll put it on there because I didn't think you guys would play it, which is why it's probably worth.

[Dan Reichert]

That's what this is for. This is for the. The homework.

[Mary Kish]

Dan. Than it is.

[Mike Mahardy]

I was gonna say, Mary, we've been playing survival horror games together. I literally. The series inspired this game.

[Mary Kish]

But where have you been?

[Mike Mahardy]

What have you been?

[Dan Reichert]

Are we doing well? We'll need to play Rise, the Golden Idol. Yeah, that's coming out between now and Game of the Year. I gotta play the last one under the wire.

[Mike Mahardy]

I think Dragon Age. I need to play.

[Mary Kish]

Sorry, that is just.

[Mike Mahardy]

See, that's the kind of attitude. I got a bone to pick with you about a certain game that you.

[Dan Reichert]

What?

[Mary Kish]

Wow.

[Mike Mahardy]

Okay.

[Dan Reichert]

I know where we're going here.

[Mike Mahardy]

Okay.

[Dan Reichert]

Okay.

[Mike Mahardy]

I sat down to metaphor refantazio and I was like, okay, so I'll play and then maybe tonight I'll get to that part that Dan mentioned that pushed him away, because I'm sure it's really far into the game.

[Dan Reichert]

It wasn't just that part.

[Mike Mahardy]

But you said. How long did you play that game?

[Dan Reichert]

12 minutes.

[Mike Mahardy]

12 minutes. Do you sincerely think that that's giving a game a chance?

[Dan Reichert]

No.

[Mike Mahardy]

12. Why did you. Why did you. Like, you had this preamble about how noble you were for giving a game a chance and meeting it halfway. That was not a bit. Maybe in retrospect, you're painting it as a bit. You were being serious. You thought that was, like, being all, like, high and mighty and being like, okay, I'll give.

[Dan Reichert]

Because I was open to a personal growth moment by giving this game a shot.

[Mike Mahardy]

Growing.

[Dan Reichert]

No, I'm not giving myself any credit because I lasted 12 minutes for. Fuck this shit. Like, so. That's not personal growth. That's me doing everything I've always done.

[Mike Mahardy]

Okay.

[Dan Reichert]

No, I didn't grow at all as a person there.

[Mike Mahardy]

Okay. At least you acknowledge that now that we're past that.

[Dan Reichert]

For 12 minutes, I was a big man.

[Mike Mahardy]

You lasted 12 months longer than I am.

[Dan Reichert]

Playing my anime game about my kings and magic. Yeah, it's. It's. I'm sure it's a really good game.

[Mike Mahardy]

Oh, man, I'm digging that game a lot. And that's. And that's. I'm not going to give that to anybody. Like, I think Jake and I are the only ones. Jake's put way more time into it. I can't give you that. It's 120 hours.

[Dan Reichert]

If you finish it, that's not happening.

[Mike Mahardy]

So, like, I'm not asking you to play it, but for what it's worth.

[Dan Reichert]

I'll quit the podcast if you put that on this doc.

[Mike Mahardy]

For what it's worth, that game, you.

[Mary Kish]

Have the ability to do the funniest thing right now in the call.

[Mike Mahardy]

All right.

[Dan Reichert]

You're right. It would be funny.

[Mike Mahardy]

Play metaphor.

[Dan Reichert]

I'm considerate with my bits.

[Mary Kish]

Fire Escape is canceled in the funniest bit Dan has ever done.

[Dan Reichert]

It would be really good. Mike, tell us about your magic game.

[Mike Mahardy]

I'm 15 hours in, so not that far. I finished the first palace or Dungeon, what have you. I'm using palace because that was Persona nomenclature, but, God, for as much as that game annoys me, it also impresses the hell out of me. Like, similar to Persona 5 and 4. Those are the only two I've played. Very slow start. I also. It's not just. I'm fine with the game being talky as long as it's done well, and much of this game is actually done surprise. Like the overarching story I really like. But so many times the game says eight things when it could just say one. And also just as often, it's almost like they're recapping every single scene right after it happens. That kind of writing annoys me. When this game gets out of its own way, similar to Persona 5, when it's talky and in a meaningful way to like ramp up drama on the way to your next big mission, then it's super fun. The momentum gets going. Possibly one of my favorite RPG combat systems ever, Octopath Traveler 2 was the most recent one. Or Octopath Traveler 1 and 2, where I was like, oh my God, this is incredible. I thought Persona 5's combat was fine. It wasn't, you know, it wasn't super building on the earlier on four at least. Again, that's the only other one I've played in huge ways. But metaphors combat is one of those things where the more I play it, the more I enjoy it. Which in a genre I think many people associate with grinding, which you can do here, I think that's pretty impressive. Using weaknesses to basically chain. Chain a series of attacks, as opposed to Persona 5 where you use an enemy's weakness and it stuns them. The objective there was to stun all them at once. So then you could use these group up attacks here. The weakness does a little bit more damage to the enemy, but it only costs you half a turn. So then if you have three characters, that means you have three turns. If you hit a enemy with a weakness every time or get a critical and there's a few other criteria, you can actually double that turn count. As a few people have told me you can actually start to do more with that throughout the game. But I'm just finished the first palace. I love the character design. So far, some of the characters are more just more compelling than others. I'm looking forward to building up my party much more like you do in Persona, you unlock these new people. But I also really like the flexibility. I think I've said this before on Fire Escape, but I'm not a respec person in games. It makes me like, I appreciate you're cheating. To me, it's like I have spent the last like 25 hours getting into the muscle memory and like building out this character. Like Diablo 4, it's just as easy. You can refund all your skills. I appreciate the option, but like, it's almost overwhelming to think it's like it took me this long to really feel comfortable with this character. I don't know if I could just start from scratch and also have to learn like eight things at once. Metaphor is one of those games that it's actually doing a great job of encouraging me to switch out their archetypes. Those are just their personae that come in and do their elemental attacks and their magical attacks, their healing, their buffs. Anything that's not just using their sword to hit the enemy in the face. You can swap them pretty much at will. At a certain point you also start unlocking new slots to inherit the skills from other archetypes. So then let's say you could be the healer, but you can also inherit skills from the brawler.

[Dan Reichert]

Feels like a job system.

[Mike Mahardy]

Yeah, basically. And it. And there's really no penalty for switching at any point, aside from the fact that you just won't be progressing through that archetype skills. The boss fights are generally really well designed. I've only done like two major boss fights. I've done some other like mini bosses that are just kind of. It's more about the spectacle. And then lastly, the world building is just unlike anything I've seen before. I mean, yeah, it's a lot of like fantasy, medieval, florid bullshit, but anytime I'm like, okay, I've seen enough of this in video games, then all of a sudden the dead king will then rise up out of the castle as this floating upside down volcano with a lava face. And he'll tell everybody that he's like, he's instituting this contest for the next king. And then all of a sudden you find out that humans are like the monsters in this world. So you fight humans.

[Dan Reichert]

Whoa.

[Mike Mahardy]

Yeah, it's crazy.

[Dan Reichert]

We're the walking dead.

[Mike Mahardy]

The monsters. But they're actually monsters. So like an enemy, the monsters were.

[Mary Kish]

Actually the people the whole time.

[Mike Mahardy]

Yeah, it'll be. It'll be like a giant bird's egg with a human face sticking out of it. And then there's a spear through the length of the egg so it looks like your dick. But then he's got like fishnet stocking legs. It just sounds like a really sexy Mr. Potato Head. I know. But yeah, the enemy design has definitely got that Atlas trademark at weird Atlas vibe to it all. Again, I'm not trying to sell you two on, especially because it's 120 hours, but I'm liking it a lot so far. And you know, Jake has told me the combat keeps getting better, which I'm excited About. Because anytime I feel like I've really wrapped my head around everything, it does introduce things at a good clip. So I'm gonna keep playing, see if. See if my. The impressive moments outweigh the frustrating moments, which again, so many times I'm like, all right, done with. I appreciate talking, but you just said the same thing four times in a row. And I just want to. I'm trying to X through the thought bubbles or the dialogue bubbles, et cetera. So, yeah, we'll see. I'm going to keep playing it.

[Dan Reichert]

Okay, cool.

[Mike Mahardy]

Dan, what is Echo Point Nova? Did I say that correctly?

[Dan Reichert]

Echo Point Nova. Have either of you heard of this?

[Mary Kish]

No. I'm shocked. I looked it up because I hadn't heard of it. And it's so odd to me that this has never come up before. I don't even. How did you find this? This is a first person shoot.

[Dan Reichert]

A couple people specifically brought it up to me as sounding like a Dan ass Dan game. I think Bonk and Grub both were like, have you heard of this game? You should check this out. And they were right. It is super open world, just a bunch of sky islands. And instantly you are just like dropped in. No fucking story. And it's just like you're getting weapons, you're getting abilities. Like, okay, here's your double jump. Now you got a grappling hook and you can grapple clouds. You can just like swing around these sky islands by grabbing clouds. You can grapple enemies and go to them. You have a hoverboard. So your sprint button basically at any point whips out like a hoverboard. And you're like, just wall sliding, sliding up these islands, just going crazy. There's agility orbs like crackdown. So there's all sorts of like, okay, you got this next agility thing. You now have a quadruple jump. And now you've got this butt stomp that makes this explosion happen. And it's just a bunch of like platforming around these islands. And then there's like combat arenas on the islands where it's like, okay, press this button to start the arena and here's 24 dudes. And you're just hoverboarding around, slowing down time, grappling to people, fucking running into them with a hoverboard and sending them flying off an island. It is like weird physics and stuff. It is the most Dewey ass game you could ever imagine. It all feels so good, almost like janky in a good way. Where it's like, I should not be able to be vertically hoverboarding up this island while shooting a bunch of dudes.

[Mike Mahardy]

It is co op too.

[Dan Reichert]

It is. So we did a co op stream on Giant Bomb and it was a blast. It was like I was loving it solo. And then we got four of us in there and it's just four of us hoverboarding around just doing crazy flips and killing everyone. It is. It is a game made for me and I think both of you could appreciate quite a bit. Actually make for a pretty good Patreon video.

[Mike Mahardy]

Yeah, the Steam trailer, just video gameplay is mesmerizing.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah. It's just super fast paced. It is. But you feel like you have control.

[Mary Kish]

Part of it doesn't seem like it. It's not like a speedrunning game, but it has a visual style that it's like a speedrun game. But it's not.

[Mike Mahardy]

No, it's not like Titanfall meets like.

[Dan Reichert]

That angry foot game. It's kind of got that look to it where it's like it looks like it should be a speedrun thing. Mary but it's like you can take your time and like there's parts if you don't activate like a combat encounter. You can really just spend as long as you want exploring like opening up the map and getting agility orbs and like it's very generous with spawn points and stuff. Basically, anytime you're on solid ground, it's just like, okay, you can spawn here, you can fast travel here. It's like there is no barrier to having fun here. You're just hopping in immediately. Immediately getting all these abilities. Fast travel is easy. Deaths are quick respawns. You know, all the weapons level up individually just by using them. So like, oh, I'm using this grenade launcher a lot. Oh, now the explosion has a bigger radius. Oh, now I've got these HE rounds for it. You can unlock skins, like unlockables for all the different weapons. Grenades on a cooldown. So it's not a lot of like collecting stuff. It is. Oh man. It is a game made for me. It is fantastic. So it went from me not knowing what it was to very quickly into my time with it being like, oh, this is going to be on my top 10 for sure. This is awesome. Yeah.

[Mike Mahardy]

I was seeing a quote that it looks like Titan or it plays like Titanfall meets Doom meets Tony Hawk.

[Dan Reichert]

I think that's a great way to put it.

[Mike Mahardy]

It also kind of looks like Edge Runner. Was it?

[Dan Reichert]

It is made by the developers of Severed Steel, which I don't remember if I played that, but it was a similar platforming speed thing. Yeah. But big recommendation. It is a great. Oh, it's an amazing, like podcast game. If you just want to like have something on the background and just go to town, you're not going to miss anything. It's great.

[Mike Mahardy]

Are you playing on with mouse and keyboard or a controller?

[Dan Reichert]

I was playing on controller until we did that multiplayer stream and everyone peer pressured and mocked me for playing a first person shooter with a controller. And I switched to mouse and keyboard and it's like, man, there's a whole bunch more buttons and you can aim real. Turns out maybe these kids with their mice and keyboards, this new fan thing might be onto something.

[Mary Kish]

They've been PC gamers.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah. Maybe they're onto some. No, that's like. I play PC games all the time, but just always with a controller. But yeah, it's.

[Mary Kish]

I like a controller. I like the way it fits in my hand and I like the way it feels for everything except for an FPS. When you're playing an FPS, that's when it changes because you want the mouse for your reticle. For everything else. I do really like a controller.

[Mike Mahardy]

I still think like, with a game like this where it's like wall running and sliding and whatnot, that never feels as set. I prefer mouse and keyboard most of the time, but that doesn't feels as satisfying to me on a mouse and keyboard.

[Dan Reichert]

Well, yeah, I feel like with stuff like grapple hooks and stuff like that, I feel like it is more natural for me at least to hit LB instead of like Q, you know, like it feels like you're doing like, you know, a bunch of stuff with your hand here. It's like, oh, fuck, I gotta go over to this. Oh, wait, what was crouch like? It's almost a little too much where it's like my brain maps to a controller easier. But it's probably just because I didn't grow up playing PC games.

[Mike Mahardy]

Yeah, but it looks reg.

[Dan Reichert]

I think both of you would enjoy it quite a bit. It's a lot of fun.

[Mike Mahardy]

All right, cool. I'll play it cool. Mary, what's Night Trap?

[Mary Kish]

Okay, this is a short one. It's the Night Trap. I was told that Vinnie played this before and it's like a thing, but I had never heard of it. If you look at it game, the. Yeah, it's like live action and you have to.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah.

[Mary Kish]

Hit tracks on time. I've never played it.

[Dan Reichert]

I've never played Al Gore's. Wife, Tipper brought this to Congress and was very upset about it. Yeah, this is like during the eight days Mortal Kombat rating system stuff.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah, that's right.

[Dan Reichert]

So I'm bringing up Tipper Gore, who's explaining that trap. I'm old.

[Mike Mahardy]

Who's Al Gore?

[Mary Kish]

Who's Tipper Gore? Imagine Gore's wife. Imagine naming someone Tipper's wife.

[Dan Reichert]

Hillary Clinton was involved too.

[Mary Kish]

My mod and friend Silver invited me to play a Halloween game on their stream and I was allowed to pick any game I wanted. And I was searching through all these different Halloween games and I have not played this and everybody else knows about it. And it's obviously very beloved and known in gamer lore. And I was like more notorious than.

[Dan Reichert]

Beloved, I would say.

[Mary Kish]

I guess that's true because I beat it and it took took. I think it took three hours for me to get through this. Son of a. It is very complicated. But it's also a beloved game where it's live action of a party or maybe. Yeah, like a teen party where things go wrong and you hit the traps that grab people that either save the day or if you miss too many of them. And it's insane the percentage of you have to get. I think it's like if you go under 75% or 70% of the times you're supposed to trap people, you just lose. You just straight up lose and then you have to do it all over again. And so it's a really annoying mechanic and poorly executed, but for its time quite innovative with the fact that like you're looking at all these different screens in security cam footage to know which trap to hit at the right time to stop these teens from essentially dying. And it's crazy how interesting and innovative it was probably at its time and how it's probably inspired a lot of games that are modern and beloved now. Like Five Nights at Freddy's, right, where you're like skipping through security cams to find out which one you should be looking at at any given time. It's not scary, it's more like funny and a bit of a joke for 80s style humor. But I had a really good time playing it. I think I'm glad it's in my gamer repertoire now. I'll probably like bring it up and then the lore that everyone talks about is that this game was how it came to be, that now we have ESRB ratings because I guess there was a scene where a girl is like in a nightie and she gets like grabbed, she gets killed. It's not like a big syringe. That's a screenshot. You'd always see like a needle in her neck, but it's not to inject her. It's like a rod goes into their body and they die. And that's the footage that they gave the government, which was like, you have to start monitoring these games because they're killing scantily clad women in them. And that's how we got the esrv.

[Dan Reichert]

Well, and yeah, that's the thing is, like, that was so like, you know, early 90s and, you know, up until then it was like pixels and 8 bit stuff. Mario. And they really freaked out with Mortal Kombat being digitized actors and Night Trap. And it's like, these are people and we're. These are realistic depictions of violence in something that is like, definitely then seen as. This is a children. These are toys. This is for children. And so, yeah, Tipper Gore and Hillary Clinton, like, brought them to Congress being like, look at this shit. We cannot allow this. This needs to be regulated. And so, yeah, that at the time, it was like Ma 13, Ma 17. Like, I remember that being like when I was reading video game magazines back then. That was the hot topic is like, oh, God, have games gone too far? Is this going to ruin a generation of children? And Night Trap and specifically always seeing that fucking screenshot of the girl with a big cartoon syringe in her neck. And then it'd be like next to a picture of like Sub Zero holding a head with a spine coming out of it. It's a weird time.

[Mary Kish]

It's actually relatively tame. Mike, have you seen any footage of this game or are you, like, looking at it? It's like, yeah, it's a. It's relatively tame. Like, yes, there are some, like, sexy people in it, but it's nothing sinister or, like really slutty or gory happens at all.

[Dan Reichert]

It's no Wild Things.

[Mary Kish]

It's no Wild Things, which does have a rating, I believe, of R and has really earned it.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah.

[Mary Kish]

For really big titties all up in your face.

[Dan Reichert]

That's what the arm meets.

[Mary Kish]

It's. It's incredible. They really did earn that. Night Trap is like, when you trap someone, it'll be like they go in a hole and it's like, what happened to them? And it's like, well, you killed them. And it's like, but nothing. You don't see them die. Like, you don't hear them. It's just a hole.

[Mike Mahardy]

It's like Megan Fox from T Teeth except it's a bigger one.

[Mary Kish]

Yes. And I. I don't think it earned the ESRB rating system, but I. It took me three hours to get through it. I probably won't play it again for fun, but I could absolutely see myself, like, putting this game in to show a niece or, like, a family member or a friend and be like, you have to play this absurd game that I cannot believe existed. And it's got good lore. 1992 is when it came out.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah. Like, as a historical piece, it's like an important moment in video games as much as, like, the game itself. I feel like if it wasn't for the controversy, it would just be another one of those, like, FMV games of the early 90s where they didn't have that stuff figured out yet. But because of the controversy, it really is an infamous thing. Yeah. Well, cool piece of history.

[Mary Kish]

Probably not too much more to say about it. I'm glad I played it. I'm glad. That Silver Streak, who also streams, he was the one who, like, came up with the idea and was like, let's play a horror game. Yeah, that's the secret. And it's funny. Like, a lot of people probably knew that. But for anyone who didn't know that is the lore of Night Trap and the ESRB rating system, which is pretty interesting.

[Mike Mahardy]

History with Mary. That was our first segment. We'll be doing that every single episode. Mary, now you need to bring in a little history tidbit to every episode. There's homework for you.

[Mary Kish]

Nice song for it. The more you know.

[Mike Mahardy]

Yeah, Dan, I saw you were playing Black Ops 6.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah. Holy shit. I feel like I went from. Really. I played every Call of Duty a lot. You know, pull on, like, Prestiging numerous times from, like, you know, call of duty 2 on the 360 up until God, like, there was Infinite Warfare, Advanced Warfare Ghosts. Like, I was still doing every entry then. And like, I think the one where I started falling off to every year was like, Black Ops 4. Was that the one that was, like, mainly Warzone?

[Mike Mahardy]

There was no campaign.

[Dan Reichert]

There was no campaign. And then it went back. Like, I didn't play WWE 2. I just, like, that's been done to death.

[Mike Mahardy]

What you just said WWE 2.

[Dan Reichert]

No, I didn't.

[Mike Mahardy]

Yes, you did.

[Dan Reichert]

No, I didn't. I said WWE 2. I might have said it weird. I blame the invisalign.

[Mike Mahardy]

World War II. I'm sorry, I thought you said WWE 2. Okay.

[Dan Reichert]

No, World War II.

[Mike Mahardy]

Yes. Okay.

[Dan Reichert]

It was a. It was a shoot. It really happened. So I fell off. Yeah. Black Ops 4 WW2. I didn't play a lot of what was after that.

[Mike Mahardy]

I didn't play Cold War Vanguard. The other World War II.

[Dan Reichert]

Oh, yeah, I didn't play Vanguard. So, like, I feel like I've been on a break from Call of Duty for the first time in a long time and coming back to it like, shit. Well, this. Well, I mean, I played Modern Warfare one remake. I played the shit out of Modern Warfare one remake.

[Mike Mahardy]

Yeah.

[Dan Reichert]

Didn't play much two and that didn't have a real campaign. Right.

[Mike Mahardy]

Like two and three did. Two did. But it was very much like just a series of gimmicky missions back to back.

[Dan Reichert]

They make a three remake.

[Mike Mahardy]

There's a Modern War for three. That was last year. Yeah, it was, but it was. It was universally panned.

[Dan Reichert]

Oh, that's right. Okay. So I think there were reasons to be deal.

[Mike Mahardy]

I know Schreier had reported it was supposed to be DLC at first.

[Dan Reichert]

Right?

[Mike Mahardy]

Yeah.

[Dan Reichert]

Okay. So, yeah, there are numerous ones I've not played. But, man, this one, you know, I saw the review saying like, oh, this is like a breath of fresh air for the campaign. I was like, okay, cool. I've always been a campaign guy more than I was multiplayer. And it is so good. I'm like, I think I'm over halfway through now. Incredible pacing. It is just like a ton of variety. It is really getting away from that stay frosty hua military stuff and way more Mission Impossible 24. Yeah, it's like, there's like. But that's what I mean with like the variety. There's like a lot of like espionage type missions. Like, remember that one in Uncharted where you sneak into the like, auction, the art auction and stuff like that. Stuff like that where it's like, it's a Bill Clinton speech. It's like prior to the 92 election. And you're like, you see Bill Clinton and he's just up there and on a stage and you're like, you know, oh, do I want to go talk to the senator's wife at the bar? Do I want to go do this? And I got to get a retinal scan of this guy. Very James Bond y type stuff. And then the next thing will be like, you're in Desert Storm and it's like a small open world desert area where it's like, like, okay, you can just go destroy these three Scud missile sites or you can go around and like, there's some dudes down in the helicopter crash over here. There's some supply drops over here. There's SAM sites here. And if you do all that stuff, you're getting more cash to build up your base between missions and you're getting.

[Mike Mahardy]

The streaks in that particular mission.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah. So you get the chopper gunner and all that stuff. So it's like I literally did every single thing on the. Every point of interest. I got the trophy for that because I was just having so much fun like. Like driving around in a Jeep. Just like even little encounters that, like, you know, aren't like when I think Call of Duty campaigns, I think very scripted. Just like, here's the part where this happens and here's the part where you rappel down the. Whatever. And so there was something freeing about like, okay, it's open. I'm driving around a Jeep. I see two guys on patrol. Hang on, let me park the Jeep. I'm going to crawl up on this hill and snipe these two dudes. Get back in the Jeep. And it feels different and fresh.

[Mike Mahardy]

It's got a really nice quality of life touch. I don't know if you've noticed. If you're not detected and you've got your scope on an enemy, one of your teammates will say, don't do that. That's going to alert somebody.

[Dan Reichert]

I wouldn't take that shot.

[Mike Mahardy]

It shows you. They basically. It's an audio way to tell you. Like a diegetic way to tell you they are in someone's sight line.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's really seamless.

[Mike Mahardy]

Nice touch. I don't remember a game doing that before. I mean, there are games, there's stealth games that, like, you could see the sight lines. But, yeah, it was a nice touch.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah. Yeah. So it's like that open world thing I absolutely adored. And then it just goes right into another mission where it's like, okay, I'm at the point now in the story where it's like getting weird in a way that Call of Duty typically doesn't. And so it started, like, doing some thing. I won't spoil anything, but it's just.

[Mike Mahardy]

Like, oh, do you know.

[Dan Reichert]

Okay, we're doing that. Okay, cool.

[Mike Mahardy]

Yeah, I was gonna say, do you know what? So I played the whole campaign. I'm curious what mission.

[Dan Reichert]

I mean, I just went into, like, a research facility. I had to get four cards. I just finished that one.

[Mike Mahardy]

Okay. Yeah, that's what I figured.

[Dan Reichert]

And so that was a crazy mission. And like, even the weapons and stuff you're getting, it's doing the thing where it's like, yeah, it's early 90s, but. But also, fuck it, here's a homing knife that you can steer in midair and remotely detonate like crazy shit like that. That didn't happen really, but it's plausible enough to like, oh, this super secret black ops thing had these experimental weapons and when you call in the killstreaks in campaign, you're piloting the missiles down in the open world areas. That all feels great. It is. I am amazed at how much I'm loving this campaign. It is really, really good and to the point where, shit, I used to like multiplayer Call of Duty a lot. Maybe I'll play more of that just because I'm loving this game. So. And I also wonder, like, I feel like back in the day it was always just like, okay, here's the Infinity Ward one, here's the Treyarch one, here's Infinity Ward. Okay, now we're bringing in Sledgehammer. And now we got three. Is this. I haven't really followed a lot of the like, lead up to this one or the marketing. Is this just kind of like Activision and we've got help from Raven and all of these studios. Are they all kind of working together on this or is it like predominantly Treyarch since they're the Black Ops team?

[Mike Mahardy]

So Treyarch got four years to work on this, which has. Oh, okay, yeah, because. Wait, why is that? I believe that's because Modern Warfare 3 became a full fledged game when it wasn't originally supposed to. So they had four years since Cold War, which is basically Black Ops 5 now based with a new number. So they had four years. There's been some shakeups. It sounded like things were sketchy at Sledgehammer for a bit. I don't know what it, what is going to. I don't know what's going happening going forward. But to your point, I don't think it's the same exact like concrete rotation as it used to be.

[Dan Reichert]

Well, I would love if this is like, get everyone all hands on deck and wait a few years between them. Like I'm. Look, I'm sure that the money situation behooves them to do every year, but them having four years to make this one led to this. Like, this is the best Call of Duty I've played in a long time.

[Mike Mahardy]

Have you. You dabbled? Are you. You're a zombies guy at all? Call of Duty Zombies.

[Dan Reichert]

I never like, some people really liked it. I just never liked zombie aesthetic stuff. And like, even just the, like, I felt like every Zombies mode was like, okay, I gotta figure out, like, I grab the doll and turn it upside down and put inside the Ferris wheel. And then I, you know, tap in a secret code and then I can, like, get a special dollar. Yeah. Then I can put two more boards on this window. I just. I never really liked zombies that much.

[Mike Mahardy]

Yeah, fairness.

[Mary Kish]

Something to do with friends, though. Like, the whole point of it isn't that it's supposed to be, like, really brilliant. It's like that you're getting six buttons that you can finish the hat so that you can put it on the cat's head so that you can get an extra nail.

[Mike Mahardy]

Yes.

[Mary Kish]

And that's what's fun about it, is it just gives you shit to do with your friends.

[Dan Reichert]

Look, I got Echo Point Nova. Now we got to have rewards. I'm good.

[Mike Mahardy]

Yeah, fair enough. Mary, I'm curious if you get time to just dabble in zombies at all. There's two maps now. Liberty Falls is very much like a Stranger Things style small town in like, Appalachia. That is the more like, intro one where. Yeah, you can. Once you get the pack a punch machine and you're upgrading your weapons, you can unlock these zip lines from tops of buildings. It's a really pretty clean, like, incline toward this church. Everybody will be like, okay, I gotta go pack a punch. This new level 5 weapon I just got, let's go back to the church. And then you'll fight your way back up. Every once in a while you'll get a syringe that turns you into one of the berserker enemies. So you just start like, hammer punching zombies. And then there's a second one called Terminus. That is what you're talking about, Dan. That's that Terminus is like, made for the, like, Easter egg. Die Hards who want to see, like, the secret stuff.

[Dan Reichert]

I. I appreciate that they're doing that and they go big for the Die Hards, but I just. I don't think I'm one of them.

[Mike Mahardy]

No. Yeah, it's not gonna.

[Mary Kish]

It's definitely like a core group of freaks that like it. I identify as one of those people. I just think, like, its core value, the zombie mode. Like, I used to always get really into like, different modes of games that do that. For example, when Team Fortress had like a tower defense mode, I was all in on stuff like that where other. Other people were like, no, I just want to play, like, regular team Fortress. And I was like, you fools. This is super fun to like, fight hordes and hordes of. Of Machines that come through. And this is the same for me. It's just, it's just a silly way to play a totally different style of game in an. With all the fun guns that you enjoy playing, but it's. It's mostly cooperative play is the only reason you would enjoy it. If I was by myself, I would not play this mode at all. If I have three buds, that's all I want to play.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah. Like, I guarantee you at some point here we will do a giant bomb stream where we get four of us together and do it and I'll be like, that was a great time. Like, you know, even if I don't necessarily know every Easter egg or whatever, it's four players.

[Mary Kish]

You will have fun with your friends playing like the zombie mode of these games. 100%. It's why they keep making them. They're like beloved and they're genuinely like a joy to play.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah. Yeah. So overall, can't say enough. I know I'm only like a little over halfway through the campaign. From what I've seen. Mike might have played more. Is it just. You don't say anything in particular, obviously. But like, does it keep getting weird?

[Mike Mahardy]

The research mission. I would. The research facility is definitely tonally.

[Mary Kish]

What do you mean does it keep getting weird? But can I just say, wouldn't the question be does it get weirder?

[Dan Reichert]

Sure, yeah.

[Mike Mahardy]

Yeah, I guess it does not get like tonally as it calms down tonally. However, you have not seen every kind of mission yet. Like mission structure.

[Dan Reichert]

See, that makes me more excited than anything because I think that is like I'm trying. Every Call of Duty campaign is just.

[Mike Mahardy]

Like it would if I. I don't think you've done. There's a mission coming up very soon. That when you said it's like it's like Mission Impossible. This, this game to me feels like. Was I telling a friend? The campaign is like if Steven Soderbergh.

[Dan Reichert]

Made wild things.

[Mike Mahardy]

Like. Yeah, exactly. No, but there's. There's a mission coming up where it's. It's playing with the structure of what a Call of Duty mission is. And then there's another one that takes pretty clear inspiration from a series I know you love.

[Dan Reichert]

Oh, okay.

[Mike Mahardy]

And that's. There's. There's those two. I try to remember how many there are.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah.

[Mike Mahardy]

Cause it's like an eight hour campaign.

[Dan Reichert]

Is the series 24?

[Mike Mahardy]

No, sorry. Video game franchise.

[Dan Reichert]

Okay. Okay. Okay.

[Mary Kish]

Okay.

[Mike Mahardy]

Yeah.

[Dan Reichert]

Okay. That's really exciting to hear because like, as much as I've liked Prior Call of Duty campaigns, there'd be variants like, oh, here's the sniper mission where you're sneaking around in the, you know, the Ferris wheel or whatever. But, like, it's still. You're going from A to B and you're shooting dudes with guns.

[Mike Mahardy]

Oh, yeah.

[Dan Reichert]

No, the rest, this is totally different.

[Mike Mahardy]

Black Ops 6. I'm trying to even think what the most linear mission would have been. Like, the first. The intro, probably.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah, the intro. Like, yeah, it's cool how it does that because it starts you. And just like, okay, here you are, you're in Kuwait, and this is a Call of Duty mission. It's just aim down, sights shooting, talk to a guy, he gets shot, whatever. And then pretty quickly it's just like, all right, here's a totally. And now for something completely different. You know, it's awesome. Yeah.

[Mike Mahardy]

I'm curious what you think about the rest. It's definitely. It's. It's not just like on Rails missions. The rest of the game, for sure.

[Dan Reichert]

Awesome. Okay, I'm all the way in.

[Mike Mahardy]

But yeah. Mary, if you get the chance to dabble in zombies, I'm curious what you.

[Mary Kish]

Think, because I would like to. It's. It's something I always really enjoy doing. And, like, that would get me to play with friends, for sure. Like, I would love to play that mode.

[Dan Reichert]

I know we're constantly just like, oh, we should do that four player for fire escape. And then we never find time. This should be. Maybe if we have time, this would be a good. Well for Nova.

[Mary Kish]

I mean, even for Giant Bomb as well. Dan. Like, that's the type of thing, like, give me a ring, a ding ding. Like, oh, yeah.

[Dan Reichert]

Okay.

[Mary Kish]

Good to know. Yeah.

[Dan Reichert]

Yes.

[Mike Mahardy]

You guys play anything else? Mary, you play something.

[Mary Kish]

I have one more. I played more Neva. I've really, really liked it. And I just want to say I think that it should be played probably before Godi. I think it is worth putting on the list. Maybe if I'm only allowed to put two. I have to think about it a little deeper. But, like, I do think it's just an incredible growth from Gris. And so now that I've put more time into it, I just think that it. It has become quite a puzzle platformer that is staying in my memory. Like, it's good. And so for someone who likes puzzle platformers and. Dan, I know you like those too.

[Dan Reichert]

I do.

[Mary Kish]

It is really well done. And I was heavily impressed by especially the secret, I don't know, flower areas. So, like, essentially, there's Lots of puzzles, and sometimes you'll be like, oh, but there looks like there's a little secret up here. But it's really hard to get to. And if you put in the extra energy to figure out the platform puzzle to get up there, there's like a little flower that you just get to touch and that's it. But it's. It pushes the player to be able to get to these, like, secret spaces. And you don't have to do them. They're all optional, but getting them is, like, a total rush because they're hard to get. Anyway, I found a lot of joy in Neva, and I think it is an absolute gem of a game for 2024. So I just wanted to say, after the completion of Neva, I think it's an absolute wonderful game and I really enjoyed my time with it. And I think it's beautiful. I think it's smart and a good platformer. And you. There's like a fun little wolf in there. You can't go wrong. It's probably one of the prettiest games of the year, easy. So if you like visual aesthetics, Neva.

[Mike Mahardy]

Got those Ori vibes.

[Mary Kish]

It. Dude, it's so pretty. I can't believe how Ori it got in this next one. And, like, it's not a Metroidvania. I just want to set that tone. Not at all.

[Dan Reichert]

More of a limbo.

[Mary Kish]

Like, it's like a limbo with puzzly platformer styles. But aesthetically, it's so pretty and it has some Ori stuff. Like, for example, like. Yeah, when you have to, like, run from the waves in Ori, like, it has that too, where it's just like a system where you have to, like, run through a series of obstacles quickly escape sequences. I think that's neat sequence. Yeah, I think it's great. So that's all I wanted to say. It's a short one.

[Mike Mahardy]

I just.

[Mary Kish]

I think it's. I think it's fantastic. I was very impressed with it by the time I was done with it.

[Dan Reichert]

Put in the homework slot.

[Mary Kish]

No, it's just if I only get two homework slots, I have to be very careful. I have to be very. This is like a strategic thing.

[Dan Reichert]

No, sure.

[Mike Mahardy]

My two are Dragon Age Velgard and Metaphor Refantasio. You have to play.

[Dan Reichert]

I'm quitting the podcast.

[Mike Mahardy]

No, I haven't played Valgard. I'm excited. For what it's worth, I'm excited to play Valgard because it's. It sounds like it has strong mass effect. Two structure vibes, which I'm looking forward to. Dan, I'm surprised to see you played a Batman VR game.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah, I just heard some early buzz saying like, oh shit, this is a real good one. And I'd always hoped that the VR gaming in general would get to a point where it's kind of worth booting up the thing and loading it, filling the battery because just sat in a closet for a long time. This is an awesome game. This is a worthy of like the Batman Arkham name. It really takes all of the feelings. It's not as open world as like, it's certainly not Arkham City where you have this giant map or anything like that. But I think most importantly the combat is there and I think the predator sneaking around, you know, jumping on gargoyle stuff is there. It's not perfect because like I think your instinct is you'll get into a fight as Batman and you want to just start throwing, you know, fists and everything. And it is a little deliberate. It's almost like a lot of VR rhythm games where it's like, okay, a yellow circle shows up and that means a straight punch. And then it's like an arrow going this way means okay, left punch, uppercut this way. So you kind of have to dial a combo type thing. You can't just like flail around and it works. But once you get used to that, it throws in really fun things in the combat where it's like, let's say you start punching a guy and just the number five shows up in a circle. That means you can just throw five punches and do full on, just Batman. Just, just fuck a dude up and then like, oh, it'll tell you to like bring both arms down and that like takes his head and just brings it up into your knee and fucks him up in the combat. You know, normally you see a guy in the Arkham games and there's like lightning above their head and you hit Y and you know, counters him. This one, it shows you that same type of symbol, but you just need to move either hand in that direction to interrupt their thing and combo. So like you'll be beating the shit out of one dude. You see someone coming in from the right, all you do is like stick your right hand out and then your perspective changes and you're fucking that dude up. Like all of that stuff works really well. You're like sweeping your cape. If you hold the trigger and move your hand, it'll like sweep the cape to stun them. All of that shit works really well, there is a little bit of a learning curve is maybe too severe of a term, but, like, it takes some getting used to basically. But it all kind of makes sense and feels right in the moment. And the sneaking around, grapple, hooking around, Batarang stuff. Like, the Batarang is on your chest, so you just like reach to your chest, you grab it, you throw it. Like, a lot of VR games have that look down and grab something, a gun or ammo cartridge from your body, and it doesn't work that well here. I was so rarely, like, fucking up. Like, oh, I meant to grab the smoke bomb, but I grabbed the Batarang. Like, no, it tracks very well. Like, this feels like an extremely well made VR game. And smart stuff, like, to activate the detective mode, you put your hand up to your head and you, like, pull the trigger. So, like, it's so fun to walk into a room and you're trying to find clues and you're like, like, you tap the cowl and Batman vision. Like, all that shit's really cool. It feels exactly like I would want an Arkham game in VR to feel like, yeah, very, very impressive. I might play through this whole game and I don't know if I've ever played through an entire VR game, like, Half Life, Alyx included. So, yeah, loving it.

[Mike Mahardy]

What are you playing on specifically? A quest.

[Dan Reichert]

It's only on the Quest three.

[Mike Mahardy]

Okay, gotcha. It's not. It's only on the three. Specifically.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah, it's specifically. I don't know if it's just like a hardware thing or. Okay, yeah, works. Works really great.

[Mike Mahardy]

I'll try it out when we're in town.

[Mary Kish]

I saw. If I could just be that guy for a second. I saw a Reddit post on our gaming about the Batman VR game. And the post was like, I thought that I had been able to break the game, but the game knew what, you know, knew how to outsmart me. And so you're Batman in VR and there are these bars and all you have to do is get your Batarang. Is that what it's called? Yeah, your bat thrower device. And you have to hit a lever on the other side of the bars. Yeah, but there's bars in the way. So it's obviously trying to get you to figure out a puzzle. But in VR, the guy, like, maneuvered the Batarang in between the bars, you know, physically, and he threw it and it hit a. It hit an invisible wall.

[Dan Reichert]

Oh, really? Okay.

[Mary Kish]

And so the game had, like, had a feature to prevent you from cheating. But my reaction to that video is like, that's actually a bummer, because if you're thoughtful enough to maneuver the baton meringue to go in between these bars and hit the lever, that should have worked. And instead of coming up with a clever in game design function, like, I don't know, maybe there's like a box over the lever or something like that, they just put an invisible wall, which I think was limiting considering the amount of creativity that you would expect someone in VR to be able to display in that game. I would have liked them to come up with something a little bit more interesting.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah. If it were real life, if Batman could get his arm in there, that would count, you know?

[Mary Kish]

I agree. And like, a whole part of the sell of VR is that they're selling an immersive experience that you get to feel like Batman. And Batman is smart. He outsmarts his way out of a lot of situations because that's the kind of person he is. And I feel like a real Batman in that situation would shove his arm through the bars and just dink the bat merang into the handle. So I thought that was interesting.

[Dan Reichert]

You said Batman being smart. That said my. A lot of my joy out of this comes out of being dumbass Batman, where it's just like, I'm kicking dudes asses and then Batman's just crotch chopping him and stuff. And, like, you can see the cowl. You can see, like, you look down, you see, you feel like Batman. It's like, professor Gordon, what's this? Fucking Commissioner Gordon will be, like, talking to you, like, showing you this, like, super serious film. And I'm like, shoving my finger in Gordon's nose. I'm, like, throwing beer bottles at him. Like, I'm just like, asshole Batman. It's very fun for me.

[Mary Kish]

You're still rich, though, so they can't touch you.

[Dan Reichert]

What are they gonna do? Yeah, yeah.

[Mary Kish]

Even if. But whether or not you're smart or stupid, what they can't take away from Batman is he's rich as fuck and untouchable.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah, he'll throw a beer bottle your head. It's fine.

[Mary Kish]

You can get away with it.

[Mike Mahardy]

I want to try that out at some point.

[Dan Reichert]

It's real good. If you want to try it when you're here.

[Mike Mahardy]

All right, I think that's all the games. You guys want to do some emails?

[Mary Kish]

Sure.

[Mike Mahardy]

Okay. As always, you can write into firescapecastmail.com with questions, comments, concerns. Maybe we'll read your questions on the air like a couple we have tonight. Also, we'll give you another reminder of a few of these things. But if you are not a patron and you want to become a patron at any point in November, you can sign up at any point and then you'll be charged on that day the following month, as opposed to the first of every month. So it won't screw up your weird subscription. Or they won't do that weird subscription schedule anymore. Just for people who haven't signed up yet. Okay, we have our friend Dr. Fernando wrote in Dan. I figured you should be the one to read this since you met him.

[Dan Reichert]

Sure. Hello, Fire Escape. I was going to wait to email until after I watched Dan's recommendation, Annette, but after the last episode I realized I should probably check in. My apologies. I had a busy two weeks. Went to a big medical conference in LA full of nerds who love infections. They actually had an interesting booth by a company called Nerdcore Medical that makes a board game that they describe as a hybrid between D and D and Magic the Gathering, except it's all antibiotics and bacteria, designed as fantasy characters and creatures. I spent the following week negotiating and signing a new job contract and being on call at the hospital. So between those events and the intermittent Poop City slama jamas, I have been busy. I had a great time with Dan in Jersey, and it was refreshing to learn that Mary actually loves the soundboard and thinks that Dan is brilliant in private.

[Mary Kish]

Dan is right.

[Dan Reichert]

Wow. Anyway, I'll get back to you soon after I watch the movie. Thanks for existing. Love, Fernando. Oh, thank you so much, Dr. Fernando. Hell yeah, I would not.

[Mary Kish]

Did you reaffirm that I am not upset in person to Fernando?

[Dan Reichert]

What? No. I honestly don't remember what the hell it was like our second bar. I was pretty toasty by the time we talked to Bullshit.

[Mary Kish]

First of all, you're a lightweight. You should be able to at least go four bars before your blackout.

[Mike Mahardy]

Yeah, pussy.

[Dan Reichert]

Wow. I wouldn't blackout. I was just Pussy.

[Mike Mahardy]

You pussy.

[Mary Kish]

Pussy. Somebody take him home. This guy's out of sight.

[Dan Reichert]

I was perfectly fine.

[Mike Mahardy]

I'm the one that's with the toxic masculinity.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah, when I blackout, I just go to bars and talk to people about Annette.

[Mike Mahardy]

We just happen to be a Fire Escape fan.

[Dan Reichert]

Oh, that had a sex scene in it that was like, not ironic. He was singing into her vagina.

[Mike Mahardy]

That sounds ironic.

[Dan Reichert]

No, it's presented very straight. We love each other so much. He's singing into her vagina as he's down there doing God knows What?

[Mike Mahardy]

Oh, I know what he's doing. He's driving. Well, thank you, Dr. Fernando.

[Dan Reichert]

Dr. Fernando's great. Which, by the way, Dr. Ryan, some people were trying to narc and saying to Dr. Ryan on a giant bomb chat recently. Like, you see this fire escape? Said they got a new doctor. They got Dr. Fernando now. No one's been replaced. No one's. Look, people have numerous Doctors, all right, Dr. Ryan, my neck's all fucked up. If I got questions about that, I know you can fix it up. Tell me what's going on. I get a terrible infectious disease. Dr. Fernando's got it. Look, you need a whole suite of doctors here, and that's what we're building.

[Mary Kish]

So we got Dr. Fernando's. Sounds like you're going to an Applebee's. We got to go to Dr. Fernando's. Like, so good. Their onion rings are out of this world.

[Dan Reichert]

How dare you besmirch the good name of Dr. Fernando.

[Mary Kish]

He's a good man on the end.

[Dan Reichert]

Dr. Fernando's. You know, Dr. Fernando's ladies night on Tuesday.

[Mike Mahardy]

Dr. Fernando's does sound like a tiki bar.

[Dan Reichert]

That's a cool name.

[Mike Mahardy]

I said before, Fernando is an awesome name.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah, Dr. Fernandez is a buy one, buy one, get one on Thursday nights.

[Dan Reichert]

Oh, the wings of Dr. Fernando is just out of this world. Yeah.

[Mary Kish]

Get the honey barbecue down there, Dan.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah. Yeah. Thank you, Dr. Mary.

[Mike Mahardy]

Do you want to read this one from Wes from Baltimore? This was a response to Dan, his cooking spiel last episode. But it's a question for what did.

[Dan Reichert]

I say about cooking?

[Mike Mahardy]

You said you don't have time to do it.

[Dan Reichert]

Oh, right. Yeah.

[Mary Kish]

Hello there. I used to hate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. It wasn't until college that I revisited them and realized that they are fantastic. I have eaten them regularly. Sense. I recently learned that when my mom makes a PB and J, she makes the wrong decision at every step. This would explain my childlike dislike, my childhood dislike of the sandwich because her preparation is a travesty. This is how she makes it. White bread, grape jelly, smooth peanut butter, and a ratio of twice as much jelly as peanut butter. How do you make your PB and J? Thanks, Wes from Baltimore.

[Dan Reichert]

Okay, I have thoughts on this. Did I. First of all, did I mention uncrustables on here before?

[Mary Kish]

You have mentioned uncrustables. We've discussed this.

[Dan Reichert]

Okay, those are very good.

[Mary Kish]

Bonk bonk. Made you aware of it. Can I just clarify? Wes from Baltimore, you say white bread, grape jelly, smooth peanut butter and a ratio of twice as much jelly as peanut butter. Does this mean that it is white bread, grape jelly, smooth peanut butter, grape jelly. You know what I mean?

[Mike Mahardy]

No.

[Mary Kish]

And does that you just.

[Mike Mahardy]

You just like. Is the peanut butter flanked by jelly?

[Dan Reichert]

Oh, no, I don't think he's saying. I think he's just saying she uses a lot of jelly. I don't think it's what he said.

[Mary Kish]

It's not a tostada. There's another piece of white bread on top.

[Mike Mahardy]

Yes.

[Dan Reichert]

Oh, yeah, yeah.

[Mike Mahardy]

He's just saying. I think he's saying like. As opposed to like a whole wheat with strawberry jam with crunchy peanut butter.

[Dan Reichert]

I think he would specify if it was that. I agree with a lot of this. Yeah, white bread. No, I like wheat, whole grain stuff. But specifically you can get like the Sarah Lee 45 calorie a slice because you don't want bread that's like 120 calories a slice. That's a lot going on there. So I get the 45 calorie Sara Lee stuff. Wheat jelly. I'm new to the jelly world, so I don't have feelings about grape versus strawberry or anything. So that's the thing. I don't really know right now. I think we have a thing of sugar free strawberry in the fridge and that's what I use. But yeah, smooth peanut butter is the wrong one. You do Skippy super Chunk all day in the ratio of twice as much jelly as peanut butter. No, you put like eight knifefuls of super chunk on one slice. And I know I'm new to jelly, but I just kind of get just the slightest. Just like, just. You're turning that bread purple. Just the slightest. Like the color of jelly is on it. But like, no, no chunks.

[Mary Kish]

What's your jelly to jam situation?

[Dan Reichert]

I don't know the difference.

[Mike Mahardy]

You mean jelly to peanut butter or jelly to jam? Oh, I see what you're saying. Do you use jelly or jam?

[Mary Kish]

Jelly is clear and it's just the essence of fruit. It's like the La Croixed jelly. Whereas, like jam is like gooey goopy and you can get fruit chunks in. It's chunky. Skippy.

[Dan Reichert]

It seems like a lot. Like when I get salsa, I don't want chunks. I just want the liquid, you know? So I think I want the same thing with jelly. Just give me the liquid. Those are the liquid in the salsa.

[Mike Mahardy]

Well, no, that's a whole other conversation. Salsa chunks are going to be firmer to Mary's point.

[Dan Reichert]

I just want the wet red.

[Mike Mahardy]

Yeah, I mean There might be like, some, like, collection of fruit, but you can smooth them out.

[Mary Kish]

In my experience, damage I could do with that sound bite.

[Dan Reichert]

Try me.

[Mike Mahardy]

I so what I do into the.

[Mary Kish]

Sickest freak this side of the fucking, he already is.

[Mike Mahardy]

Yeah, I go. I go like a whole wheat with, like the oats around the crust. I like. Yeah, I think it's like a. I think there's like a lumberjack on the bag.

[Dan Reichert]

There's the one with the guy that was in jail. Dave's crazy jailbread.

[Mike Mahardy]

I don't think so. That sounds.

[Dan Reichert]

No, the whole gimmick is like, it says on the thing like, this dude was in jail and now he makes bread.

[Mike Mahardy]

That's awesome.

[Dan Reichert]

No, do you not know what I'm talking about? I'm looking up jailbread. Hang on. Jailbread brand, but I think it's just days killer bread.

[Mary Kish]

It's not be called jailbread. It's called Dave's killer bread. And I don't think it's actually about him going to jail. It's just that the bread is so good. No, it is like killer bread on.

[Dan Reichert]

Their website after products. No, this is Dave's killer bread dot com. And right next to products, there's second chance employment. And it's this whole thing about like, hey, you've been to jail. Well, get out and come make some bread. It's all.

[Mary Kish]

But it's not him making jail bread. That's not him making jail killer because he's a murderer who got out.

[Mike Mahardy]

This sounds like they do, like, they run a program where they can have rehabilitated. Rehabilitated prisoners come in.

[Dan Reichert]

That's what I'm saying. I didn't say he was a murderer.

[Mike Mahardy]

I didn't say you said he's murderer. I said that you said he made the bread in jail and it got famous.

[Dan Reichert]

Well, that's not right. So, okay, I'm. There's a whole about us page and everything.

[Mary Kish]

Murderer Dave and he killed a bunch of guys. But then he made this really good bread. So we used to call him Dave the killer. And then he got let out of.

[Mike Mahardy]

Jail because the bread was so good.

[Dan Reichert]

He went to prison for 15 years. That's not, you know, stealing a skittles bag.

[Mary Kish]

Many women, but his bread is dope.

[Dan Reichert]

I'm searching. Why did Dave Bread go to jail?

[Mike Mahardy]

Kamala Harris pardoned him because his bread was so good.

[Dan Reichert]

Okay. He served over 15 years in prison for drug distribution, burglary, armed robbery, and assault in Portland. Wow, Mary, what does this say?

[Mike Mahardy]

Quite the rap sheet.

[Dan Reichert]

There's A bunch of bread making criminals in your town.

[Mary Kish]

I'm glad he found something to do with his life.

[Dan Reichert]

No. Good for him. I like his murder brain rehabilitation system.

[Mary Kish]

I'm just dying at the ice idea that, like, you called it Dave's Jailbreak. And I do, I really will say, like. Like, when you say Dave's Killer Bread, my thought is like, oh, that sounds like delicious bread. But when you're like, this is a guy who got out of prison. His name is Dave the Killer's Bread.

[Dan Reichert]

But that's the gimmick.

[Mary Kish]

Takes such a dark turn.

[Dan Reichert]

Oh, he got arrested. Wait, he got arrested in Portland for ramming patrol cars. Oh, this is 10 years ago.

[Mike Mahardy]

This sounds like the coolest guy I've ever heard.

[Dan Reichert]

It's off. It's on the Portland subreddit.

[Mike Mahardy]

He was just ramming into police cruisers.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah.

[Mary Kish]

And I did not know this lore.

[Dan Reichert]

Oh, my God. Although he's no longer using methamphetamine, he had been smoking pot, snorting coke, and drinking heavily. I do not think the fame and success of Dave's Killer Bread had a great impact on him. He spent money on fancy cars and flashy things. Wow, this is a Reddit thread. So this is all allegedly.

[Mike Mahardy]

What is the Adam McKay biopic about this guy coming who's playing Dave? Kill Michael.

[Dan Reichert]

Steve Carell.

[Mike Mahardy]

Oh, my God. I forgot to tell you guys. Holy. Michael Shannon, the actor. Are you guys fans?

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah.

[Mike Mahardy]

He's like, one of my favorite actors. And I swear to God, Amanda and I were sitting at this dive bar. I'm not going to say exactly where. I don't want to blow it up, but it was near our wedding venue, and we were killing time because our wedding venue invited us back for an anniversary dinner. And we're sitting at the best dive bar in the world. The best bar in New York. And as we sit down, I look over. I was like, that guy looks like Michael Shannon from the side. And then he turned around like, oh, my God, Amanda, that's Michael Shannon. We didn't bother him. We never do. They've got shit to do. But I discovered that Michael Shannon, one of my favorite actors, goes to one of my favorite bars, and he used to live in, like, my favorite neighborhood in New York. It's crazy, but he would be good as. I feel like he would be a good, like, Google Michael Shannon if you haven't seen him in a while. He would be a good Killer Dave Bread maker.

[Dan Reichert]

Well, I'm still Googling Dave jail here, and it's like, I hope I'm not being too harsh on because, like, it does sound like, okay, he had a ramming police cars episode about 11 years ago.

[Mike Mahardy]

Yeah.

[Dan Reichert]

Fucking seem. It does seem like. No, he looks like a man who's trying to better himself and make some bread. And you can't. Can't fault a man for that.

[Mike Mahardy]

No.

[Dan Reichert]

He sold his bread in 2015 for $275 million.

[Mary Kish]

Jesus. So he's not involved no more.

[Dan Reichert]

I gotta learn how to make bread.

[Mike Mahardy]

You gotta go to jail and go to jail.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah.

[Mike Mahardy]

First it's like the Departed, except instead.

[Mary Kish]

Of going to jail police and try and run a couple of them over.

[Dan Reichert]

I'm gonna go punch a cop and learn how to make bread.

[Mike Mahardy]

There you go. That's the two first two steps of the three steps of success.

[Mary Kish]

Third one is profit.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah.

[Mike Mahardy]

Fucking make that money.

[Dan Reichert]

Oh.

[Mike Mahardy]

Anyway, I do the lumberjack bread and then I do crunchy peanut butter sandwiches and I crunchy peanut butter and then I do like a raspberry preserve jam that has seeds in it still. Like, that's when you get the real taste. My ratio is 2 to 1. Peanut butter to jelly. The jelly jam. The jam, in my opinion, is just there to add that little bit of sweetness and acidity because otherwise the peanut butter is going to become overpowering and fatty in your mouth. And like to me, the peanut butter is there more for texture and like mouthfeel. The jam is there to cut through that with acidity and fruity flavor and like some sweetness.

[Mary Kish]

And the peanut butter is to hold it all or. Sorry. The killer bread is so that you know you can bite it without getting your fingies all sticky.

[Mike Mahardy]

Yeah.

[Dan Reichert]

I'm still learning because I feel like I have had 5 to 10,000 peanut butter sandwiches that were just a ton of chunky peanut butter and nothing else.

[Mike Mahardy]

I've done that.

[Dan Reichert]

Like maybe. I've maybe had 15 peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

[Mike Mahardy]

I've had a lot of peanut butter only sandwiches. I will say though, like, I think as a concept of peanut butter and jelly sandwich exists because it works much better than peanut butter by itself.

[Dan Reichert]

I get it. Does anyone have just jelly sandwiches?

[Mike Mahardy]

Probably.

[Mary Kish]

Well, jelly on toast is very popular.

[Mike Mahardy]

I do that.

[Dan Reichert]

Oh yeah, that is good.

[Mike Mahardy]

Yeah, I go for that. Over. My stomach does not love butter that early in the morning. So I go with like a jam. Also raspberry, if I can get my hands on it. But strawberry is a close second. Grape jelly.

[Mary Kish]

Every time I go to like an American diner, usually your meat, hash browns and eggs, comes with toast and they serve it with some jelly. And you'd slap a little bit of jelly on a piece of toast and eat it with your breakfast. I do that every time. I consider it like the sweet dessert of my diner breakfast. Right. It's, like, the sweetest that it gets, and it's really good. So I consider that the equivalent of a peanut butter sandwich.

[Mike Mahardy]

I also don't. To Wes's point, I'm not a grape jelly fan. Like, ugh.

[Dan Reichert]

Really? I didn't know that was raspberry.

[Mary Kish]

BlackBerry is really good.

[Mike Mahardy]

I'm only having my grapes one way, and that's if they're grown in burgundy. Made in the cellars at Albert de Villein at DRC. Fucking put three years in barrel, aged 12 years in glass.

[Dan Reichert]

And Mary, can you break his fingers this time?

[Mary Kish]

You guys. Every time you guys make me laugh. My laugh is so meaty. It's.

[Dan Reichert]

I haven't heard it. It is cutting the mic out.

[Mike Mahardy]

I haven't heard any of your laughter this time. Yeah, Wes.

[Mary Kish]

Empty.

[Mike Mahardy]

Wes, get your mom. Right. Sickness.

[Mary Kish]

It's just like.

[Dan Reichert]

I don't know if it's on the recording. We can't hear her laugh at all.

[Mary Kish]

It's like, wh.

[Dan Reichert]

We can see you.

[Mike Mahardy]

Yeah, I've seen you coughing.

[Mary Kish]

Anyway, PB and J's are great.

[Mike Mahardy]

Tell your mom to write in. Wes with. That sounded weird.

[Mary Kish]

I meant, like, we want to hear from Wes's mom.

[Mike Mahardy]

Yeah. Mrs. West. Ms. West. Sorry. Okay, I'll do that. Maybe Ms. Wes. I don't know. Ms. West, write in about your PB&J stories. All right, I'll do this last one. I don't need to read this whole thing. Actually, I did cut some from this, but I do think I need to read all this. High Fire Escape. Your Goatee episodes inspired me to start a movie club that I run with about 30 friends and acquaintances called the Buzzies. We meet at the end of the year, discuss the movies that we watched that year by nominating films for ridiculous categories. There's way too many of us to come to a consensus per category, so instead we just share our personal picks and nominations by the end of the night. Trevor Film has the most nominations across all categories, wins buzziest film of the year, and everyone gets to leave with a new list of recommended movies to check out. A lot of our categories are directly inspired by your goatee categories. Film most up its own ass, for example. But we also have some of our own categories we're really proud of, like film with the best performance. That's too good for the Movie it's in.

[Mary Kish]

Ooh, that's good.

[Mike Mahardy]

Film that you think about the most or film with the most toxic relationship or film you were most surprised to love.

[Dan Reichert]

Ooh, good stuff.

[Mike Mahardy]

That last one's good. Yeah, well, I mean a bunch of those were. But I like that last one because I did not expect to love Prince of Persia. Metroidvania. Which brings me to my next question. What are some ridiculous movie award categories you were submit if you were a card carrying member of the buzzies with love from Austin, Bobby, AKA your actual biggest fan in Texas.

[Mary Kish]

Wow.

[Dan Reichert]

Best explosion.

[Mary Kish]

Actually, I want a car. A card if we do this. Card carrying member of the buzzies.

[Dan Reichert]

Oh, yeah.

[Mary Kish]

All right, let's. Let's write these down.

[Dan Reichert]

Biggest explosions, best explosion doesn't have to be biggest, Beth.

[Mary Kish]

Well, what makes it. What, what's the best explosion include exploded.

[Mike Mahardy]

That's not big, but it's awesome.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah.

[Mary Kish]

Depends on how big the dick is. You know what I mean?

[Mike Mahardy]

Yeah, I mean that's like fucking nukes. But like. Yeah. Not everybody has this.

[Dan Reichert]

Is it the Oppenheimer nuke or the.

[Mary Kish]

Dick explosions over here? You know what I mean?

[Mike Mahardy]

What if, what if, what if, what if, what if the Oppenheimer nuke had blown his dick off during that test?

[Dan Reichert]

I would. That movie would have been.

[Mike Mahardy]

But a very different turn toe in the rest of the movie.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah, they should have cut to that because there's a. Oh, there's a non ironic sex scene in Oppenheimer where he's reading I am become death while the lady's on top of him. And then like, what if they're both getting into it and then cut explosion. And it's symbolic and that's like a metaphor.

[Mary Kish]

And Einstein comes, comes out at the very end of the film and goes up to that guy and goes, did you see that guy blow his dick off?

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah, we're all gonna get laid.

[Mike Mahardy]

Yeah.

[Dan Reichert]

It'S like Patty shat. Exactly. Yeah. Any way you want. That's the way, I guess. Give me that cut of Oppenheimer.

[Mike Mahardy]

Oh, God. The Dire Straits song at the end of Oppenheimer would be really disrespectful.

[Mary Kish]

I think best sex scene should be in there talking about it all episode.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah.

[Mary Kish]

So like it makes sense to be like, which movie has like a really good like horny scene? And it can be because it's funny or it can be because it's sincere. That's irrelevant. The most important thing is that it's just in your opinion. It's like that sex scene is off awesome.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah.

[Mike Mahardy]

Best boobs.

[Dan Reichert]

Best boobs.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah, that could be connected, but maybe not. Best sex scene.

[Mike Mahardy]

No, it's separate.

[Dan Reichert]

Best bad guy death.

[Mary Kish]

Best bad guy.

[Dan Reichert]

Best Best main bad guy death and best henchman death are two separate categories.

[Mike Mahardy]

Thought of you, dude. And then I thought of H. Bender. Dead at the age of who the cares. That's probably my favorite.

[Dan Reichert]

I haven't logged into my Activision account in forever and I was trying to log in for Call of Duty. I forgot I was H. Bender.

[Mike Mahardy]

Oh my God. It's amazing.

[Mary Kish]

I assume they probably do this, but I. I think it's nice to do like best onliner or like some kind of like one off just thing that someone says that everyone thinks is memorable from that movie. And you judge it based on the line, not based off of the film. So like if you take the film out of it, is that line like goddamn good line? That's worth knowing.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah, I got one. Worst CG moment.

[Mary Kish]

Oh, that's good.

[Mike Mahardy]

Alien. What's it called?

[Dan Reichert]

Oh, Romulus. Yeah, that's a contender. That's here.

[Mary Kish]

Everybody talks about it.

[Dan Reichert]

Best late title card. Or what about latest title card?

[Mike Mahardy]

What is an example of that? Is there a recent one? I mean, I know there are a lot, but I'm trying to think of.

[Dan Reichert]

A. I can't think like a notorious one right now.

[Mary Kish]

Well.

[Mike Mahardy]

Oh, you know what movie I have queued up for like the weekend because we're not doing anything is Dread.

[Dan Reichert]

Oh, that's great. Have you seen it?

[Mike Mahardy]

No, but I've heard a lot of people, like, say it's their cult classic favorite.

[Dan Reichert]

It's a good time. You're talking about the Carl Urban one, right?

[Mary Kish]

The Orig. Yeah.

[Mike Mahardy]

No, not the original remake from 2015 or something like that.

[Dan Reichert]

Not the Stallone one? No. Oh, yeah, that one's not great.

[Mary Kish]

Oh, that's the only one I've seen.

[Dan Reichert]

Oh, the Stallone one? No, no, no. The Carl Urban one's fucking awesome. And Lena Heady from Game of Thrones is the. The bad guy in it. It's so good.

[Mike Mahardy]

I just kind of had a buzzy idea like best video game or. Sorry, best movie that is structured like a video game. Like I just thought of Running Man. I was like, that might as well be a video game.

[Dan Reichert]

Are there enough though for like a category for a year, you know?

[Mike Mahardy]

Oh, right. It has to be for a year.

[Mary Kish]

I'm thinking of all 2024.

[Dan Reichert]

It's not like an all time thing. Yeah.

[Mike Mahardy]

God, I really did not see many movies this year, you know.

[Dan Reichert]

You could do like, least accurate biopic. I feel like there was just so many biopics. And some are like, this guy was an asshole. What are we doing here?

[Mary Kish]

Oh, like, were they like whitewash him and make it seem like he was actually not so bad after all.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah. Or even it could be something like, you know, like Bohemian Rhapsody, which was well received, but it was like, this is not accurate in a lot of ways.

[Mary Kish]

I see what you're saying.

[Mike Mahardy]

It's like how Elvis fucking Baz Luhrmann's came out and then Sophia Coppola's. Why the hell am I blanking on his wife's name?

[Dan Reichert]

Priscilla.

[Mike Mahardy]

Priscilla. Thank you. The movie is named after. Clearly I took a lot away from both of those. Saltburn was last year, right? Yeah. God, I really did not see many movies this year.

[Mary Kish]

What about like a genre bender? It's really interesting when like a movie that's meant to be scary is funny. Right. And so it like kind of messes with you. Or a movie that's meant to be funny takes like a serious turn.

[Dan Reichert]

I don't know if this movie is meant to be funny or not. Do you guys know anything about this Terrifier series?

[Mike Mahardy]

A little bit.

[Dan Reichert]

So you know that's like Terrifier three was like the biggest movie like, in the country.

[Mary Kish]

The tomatoes score is off the charts.

[Dan Reichert]

I know. I had not seen any of them. I was at a Halloween party on Saturday and they put Terrifier one on the thing and it was like a nice, like, background thing. Like, okay, it seems like another, like. Oh, maybe it's like it. It's like a killer clown thing.

[Mary Kish]

Sure.

[Dan Reichert]

I swear, there's like a 10 minute scene. Spoilers for the first terrifier.

[Mary Kish]

Wait, I don't know if I want to see a spoiler. I don't know if I want to spoil for the first time.

[Dan Reichert]

I won't spoil it. But there is a long scene where everyone started like looking over the screen like, oh, my God, this is the most horrifying thing I have ever seen. It's like practical effects and it's like it keeps going and it shows a lot and it is unbelievably gruesome. Yes.

[Mike Mahardy]

I gotta do this now. I'm not gonna watch it. Keep your headphones off for like 10 seconds.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah, yeah. Mary, take it off. Watch Mike's reaction as I describe this.

[Mike Mahardy]

Okay.

[Dan Reichert]

Okay. Mike. He takes these party girls home from a bar and he ties one to a. Yeah, he ties one to a chair. He's a clown, man. He Takes the other one and straps her upside down to like a wooden thing with her legs up like this in the air. And then he takes a hacksaw and she's completely naked. Just. You're just full on, just naked lady upside down, legs spread in the air and making her friend watch as he's got a hacksaw, starts at the vagina. And it's just like it goes all the way through. He's just like, blood's all over his face. Like her intestines all fall out on the ground and everything. And he just goes all the way through, saws through her head, goes from vagina to skull, sawing her in half. And it is long and shows all of it. It's fucking insane. And it's just like at this party, it's like we're all just like a mid conversation who's who put that movie.

[Mike Mahardy]

Out at a party?

[Dan Reichert]

You used to live at their place.

[Mike Mahardy]

Really?

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah.

[Mike Mahardy]

You're good, Mary. But did they say. Were they aware that.

[Dan Reichert]

I don't know. I don't know anything about the story. I don't know. It went from Halloween to that. Halloween ran its course and then it was that. It's like, what the fuck?

[Mike Mahardy]

I thought you were gonna say like, Hanson put it on just to fuck with people.

[Dan Reichert]

No, Hanson was right next to me and we're like, what the fuck is this?

[Mike Mahardy]

Jesus Christ.

[Dan Reichert]

It was in insane. That was the first one I've heard. It gets more insane as the series goes on. So holy.

[Mike Mahardy]

So it's like, it's, you know, exploitation kind of like gore. That's why people are seeing three so much.

[Dan Reichert]

But it seems like, like, like Mary mentioned the Rotten Tomatoes.

[Mary Kish]

Like, it seems like people like a high score.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah. Like, I kind of thought like, oh, this is gonna be some hostile, scary torture porn thing.

[Mary Kish]

My perspective of this is every Halloween, I always watch a horror movie almost every day. So I watch like 31 horror movies in the month of October. I enjoy it. It's like something I always get into. And towards the end of the month, AKA right now, I struggle to find a horror movie that I haven't already seen. And so I was looking up best horror movies and Terrifier 3 is one of the highest rated horror movies. But unfortunately I googled, do you have to see terrifier 1 and 2 in order to see 3? And generally the consensus is you really should see the first two because apparently they like, like come into play in the third one. And then the. The Rotten Tomatoes scores of one and two are really low. Plus a lot of the reviews are straight up. Like one is, is just a straight up gore fest. And that's my least favorite type of horror movie.

[Dan Reichert]

Okay.

[Mary Kish]

It's not that I won't watch it. I'm not like anti anything really. But to me, just watching someone get tortured and like, just watch like gore is a little exhausting. Whereas, like, what I really like is like the fear of what's going to happen.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah, I, I never been a horror guy and that's why, like, when people ask my favorite horror movie, I always go with the Shining. And that feels like a cop out because it's like, well, this is a real ass movie. This is a Kubrick movie, you know, Jack Nicholson. Like, this is a real in psychological horror type stuff. Like, I, I appreciate like Halloween and stuff like that, but I've never seen Friday the 13th. Never seen nightmare on Elm Street. Like, I've just never really been drawn to that stuff. But I'm with you. Like, I remember seeing Saw and Hostel in the theaters when they came out and those were big things and like, I didn't like them. It was just like, I feel like we're just doing like. Like, yeah, of course it's. It's shooting fish in a barrel, making people squirm by, like showing someone's like Achilles heel getting split open and stuff like that, you know? Or like, I got strange, I got a bear trap on my head, you know?

[Mary Kish]

Yeah, 100% those are to me. Sometimes they feel. Not always. I don't want to get like too aggressive about it, but sometimes they can feel a little lazy to me where it's hostile, did this to me. The movie Hostel, which is like, at some point they were just torturing people and I was like, but the fear of it is out. I'm just watching someone be tortured. To me, it's the cat and mouse game or the whodunit of it. That is the most exciting part. Or how is this happening? Like, how do you get out of this situation is very interesting to me. So, yeah, I get it. I don't think it's. For me.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah, I cannot speak to the movie at all. I mean, it's like I couldn't even really hear most of it. I just like that scene. People noticed. So, yeah, it's not like we sat and watched it. I just saw that and I was like, that's the most fucked up thing I think I've ever seen in a horror movie. Just. Yeah.

[Mary Kish]

I think like going back to like the thing, I was well I don't know if this is connected. It's like, to me, what makes a good horror movie is when it has a really intriguing plot. And, yes, there are horror elements to it, but. But maybe even without it, it's just, like. It's so interesting. The concept of what you're gonna do next is so consuming that it's worth it, even if it's a little scary or if there's, like, some supernatural elements. A good example of that is, like, From Dusk until Dawn.

[Dan Reichert]

Oh.

[Mary Kish]

Which is, like, so fucking good. And it is a horror movie. Like, a lot of people die. It's got some gore. It's, like, pretty scary.

[Dan Reichert]

It's, like half and half. It's like half a Tarantino movie and half, like, a gory vampire movie.

[Mary Kish]

Dude, it's fucking great, right? Like, it's super engaging. You want to know what happens next. It's sexy. Whew. I also think it's genre bending. It's funny. It's got some good humor elements in it, but, yeah, it's got vampires and, like, people die and stuff. So, like, that's, like, peak for me. So I get it. I don't know if that's for me. I'm glad you brought that up. Like, I just don't. I was, like, kind of after I saw the Rotten Tomato score, I was like, I guess I'm supposed to watch this now. But, like, if it's a gore fest, that's really not my jam.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Mary Kish]

How do they get reviewed so high?

[Dan Reichert]

I don't know.

[Mike Mahardy]

I've just been reading plot points from all three of them for the past few minutes, and it's just. Yeah, it doesn't. Not much.

[Dan Reichert]

Sounds like a lot. Yeah.

[Mary Kish]

Well, Bobby, I'm gonna put best terrifier so that you have to watch all three. Which one the best is?

[Mike Mahardy]

Yeah, perfect.

[Mary Kish]

You guys tell us. Which one is the best one to watch.

[Mike Mahardy]

All right, well, thank you for writing in Bobby, Wes, and Dr. Fernando. All right, well, that's our episode. As usual, you can write into firescapecastmail.com Next episode will be Game of the Year.

[Dan Reichert]

That seems impossible. I have extra life this weekend coming up, and that's crazy to think we also. So I got all those guys flying in for extra life, and then very quickly, I have all you flying in. So we'll wash the bedding and everything, so, you know, we'll get all the grub and minati off the sheets.

[Mike Mahardy]

I appreciate. That's so noble of you. Yeah. Yeah. That'll be Saturday.

[Mary Kish]

Change the Mattresses.

[Mike Mahardy]

We'll have. We'll have the episode of.

[Dan Reichert]

He's gonna get Disney all over it. Disney magic is what he calls.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah, sure.

[Mike Mahardy]

He knows Disney adult. That's what he does. November 16th is going to be our live show. Saturday, November 16th.

[Dan Reichert]

Not live show. Live show implies stage.

[Mike Mahardy]

Okay. That's going to be our livestream.

[Dan Reichert]

Game of the year.

[Mike Mahardy]

Game of the year live stream. Happy.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah, it's all right.

[Mike Mahardy]

It's a live.

[Mary Kish]

We'll fix it in post.

[Mike Mahardy]

We're live streaming. Yeah, the show which.

[Dan Reichert]

Okay, wait, so we gotta hammer this down now. So it's gonna be on the fire escape YouTube after the fact.

[Mike Mahardy]

Yes.

[Dan Reichert]

So if you wanna watch the VOD, check out the fire escape YouTube and are we just doing my Twitch channel or are we making one between now and then for fire?

[Mike Mahardy]

We should probably make one.

[Mary Kish]

Yeah, you can.

[Dan Reichert]

Would we get. Would we get as many people watching the sausage is made, folks? I mean, if it's a brand new Twitter account or Twitch account, I think.

[Mike Mahardy]

The people are gonna watch. Are gonna watch it regardless of which channel it's on. But we can talk more about that.

[Dan Reichert]

And then we'll figure out.

[Mike Mahardy]

Keep an eye on our social. If you don't follow us on Instagram.

[Mary Kish]

Twitter, go do that Twitch TV. DaveSkillerbread.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah, Dave's Jailbread.

[Mary Kish]

That probably gives murderous bread. He used to be a murderer, but now he makes bread and he's fucking. He was richer than you. He fucking hit police with his car and now he's Batman.

[Mike Mahardy]

He does have Batman money now. But yeah, keep an eye on our socials so you could see the specifics. But yeah, It'll be Saturday, November 16, and then the breakout recording for the video will be in our YouTube channel after that on Monday. But we'll also just have the audio up on Monday as episode 94. I gotta look back and see whether we counted Game of the Year as like a numbered episode last year.

[Dan Reichert]

I know we did.

[Mike Mahardy]

I know we put it up as like at the usual time, but I gotta see if we. This is just for my edification afterwards. So we know. So we don't like do episode 100 a week early or late.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah, I think we counted it. Yeah.

[Mike Mahardy]

Okay. And then, yeah, like I said, if you are not a patron yet and you want to become a patron because you want to be ready for all of the Game of the Year stuff and all of our end of the year stuff and bonus episodes, we'll find time to make a couple of those. We really need it.

[Dan Reichert]

Yes, yes.

[Mike Mahardy]

Because we owe it to the people.

[Dan Reichert]

Or that we said Echo Point Nova. What was the other one? That would be good?

[Mike Mahardy]

Call of Duty Zombies.

[Dan Reichert]

Oh, yeah.

[Mike Mahardy]

You will not have to pay the subscription price for patreon on the 1st of every month if you sign up, let's say November 14th. You'll get charged on December 14th if you haven't been a patron before. That is new for us because it has just traditionally charged Everybody on the 1st every month, which is annoying. If you subscribed on the 31st the previous month and you get charged twice in a row, that'll give you ad free episodes or our video tier and give you access to bonus episodes. Or if you just want to treat it like a tip jar, you appreciate what we do. Every dollar helps. The Game of the Year show is possible at the end of the year largely because of patrons. So we appreciate, appreciate all the patronage there. Outside of that, you can also go to firescape merch.com if you want to get some merch and wear it and tweet at us. Or maybe we can like repost something on Instagram around Game of the Year. People wearing their stuff. Get people jacked up, get amped for the Game of the Year show. I'm going to be wearing some fire escape merch on the show for sure. Outside of that. Dan, what do you have going on apart from Fire escape?

[Dan Reichert]

Check out Giant Bomb. We have our Game of the Year stuff coming up. We've got Giant Bomb at night coming up around the Game awards. So stay tuned on all that stuff. We'll have the couch set up. Jeff Grubb interviewing a rotating cast of industry personalities. So yeah, and then we'll have our Game of the Year stuff over there as well. So yeah, check out Giant Bomb. Follow me on Twitch. Hope to do more streaming in the near future here. And that's about it.

[Mike Mahardy]

Mary, what about you?

[Mary Kish]

The usual Twitchy things still streaming on Mondays except this week because I was too sick. But I usually do try and going live on Twitch. Also just to talk about, you know, Twitch stuff on Twitch. Very Twitch stuff going on over here. What are you doing, Mike?

[Mike Mahardy]

Just Fire Escape. Getting ready for the Game of the Year. Got some travel coming up, although I'm done for like two weeks, which is awesome because this is the first two weeks we don't have to travel in several months.

[Dan Reichert]

It's a good feeling.

[Mike Mahardy]

I'm going to use it to catch up on the eight video games I need to play before just so I have ammunition or I'll just Finish metaphor. No, I'm kidding. I'll do my homework for Game of the Year as usual. Thank you everybody for joining for episode 93. We will be back in two weeks with our game of the year episode on November 16th. That's going to be the actual live stream. But again, if you happen to miss it for whatever reason, we'll be up as a normal episode on November 18th. We're excited. It's earlier in the year than we usually do just because things are getting crazy later in December. And yeah, we're looking forward to it. I can't wait for Astrobot to get number nine.

[Dan Reichert]

To each to their own.

[Mike Mahardy]

You just got really heated for a second. I could tell.

[Dan Reichert]

I'm breaking pencils in both hands right now.

[Mike Mahardy]

You're sawing yourself down the middle.

[Dan Reichert]

It's starting to hurt. Yeah. No, don't worry, Mary. We weren't referring to anything.

[Mike Mahardy]

No, no, no. Know. I just.

[Mary Kish]

I'll tell you this.

[Mike Mahardy]

I asked her about reference.

[Mary Kish]

I did not have headphones. I had my headphones off and I saw this and I saw this and I'm not a idiot. No, you're talking about.

[Mike Mahardy]

Yeah. It could be anything if I didn't realize there's a whole. There's a whole. There's a whole Wikipedia. You really?

[Dan Reichert]

I'm just a mime without meaning to be.

[Mike Mahardy]

Isn't he kind of a clown? Mime?

[Mary Kish]

Everybody knows what this.

[Dan Reichert]

What does it mean, Mary? You're so smart.

[Mary Kish]

He saw a person in half with their legs probably. Or their arms.

[Dan Reichert]

That's not all the details. It's murky. It seems like it's murky for you.

[Mike Mahardy]

You didn't hear how long it was or what. How he sounds while he was my headphones off.

[Mary Kish]

10 minutes.

[Mike Mahardy]

Oh yeah. He didn't really tell her everything.

[Dan Reichert]

There are some key details you don't know.

[Mary Kish]

Probably like her titties were flapping in the wind when it was happening.

[Dan Reichert]

Well, that does happen. Although I didn't say it. That absolutely happens.

[Mike Mahardy]

I didn't realize the whole Wikipedia.

[Dan Reichert]

A very specific thing happens.

[Mike Mahardy]

There's a whole Wikipedia entry for death by sighing from like Roman times.

[Dan Reichert]

When I was looking at the Wikipedia, it's like, wow, they people did this for. Shoot. That's fucking crazy.

[Mike Mahardy]

It's like being drawn and quartered. That's fucked up too.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah. It seems like people just did shitty things back then. I'm glad that doesn't happen as much I hope anymore.

[Mary Kish]

It happens all the time, Dan.

[Mike Mahardy]

Yes. Or pulled apart by horses. I think that might have been apocryphal. I also could be very wrong, and that might have actually happened. I don't know.

[Dan Reichert]

They should stop doing that.

[Mike Mahardy]

We just have guns now.

[Dan Reichert]

Yeah, that seems better. Or worse? I don't know.

[Mary Kish]

All right, thanks for listening, everybody.

[Mike Mahardy]

Dan, while we're on the way out, what do you think of immigration and the economy?

[Mary Kish]

NRA supporter Dan Ryker signing off.

[Dan Reichert]

Not. I am not.

[Mary Kish]

I had no idea that you were such a card kid.

[Dan Reichert]

I'm saying, between drawing and quartering and sawing people in half by their privates, guns seem like a better way to go. If I had to choose one of the three. That's all I'm saying.

[Mike Mahardy]

It seems better to be.

[Dan Reichert]

I'd rather not have any of them.

[Mary Kish]

Well, you've obviously never been shot in the dick.

[Dan Reichert]

That sounds bad, too. Well, this all sounds.

[Mary Kish]

You should have thought about that before you joined the nra.

[Dan Reichert]

Oh, dear. That's my thing.

[Mary Kish]

Thanks for listening, everyone. Bye bye, everybody.

[Mike Mahardy]

See you next episode. See you for Game of the Year.