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Episode 1: BRAIN GRINER
57 Plays1 year ago
Heeeellloooooooo. On this episode we introduce ourselves and start off with the Olympic Basketball Star Brittney Griner! We talk about her history and drama then move onto a not well known SNES video game Brain Lord!
Transcript
Introductions and Interests
00:00:17
Speaker
Hello. Hello. My name is Jace, and this is... What is it? You. Who are you? Oh.
00:00:32
Speaker
I'm Russell. Not my first name, but I've never asked for a manager in my life, so I do not go by Karen. Nice. Also not my legal first name, but there's too many ah Justins in the world, and so I'm not using it.
00:00:47
Speaker
mean I don't think legal first names are important anyway. They're not. It's just whatever you want. It's 2024. So welcome. We are making a podcast where we talk about really anything that interests us. So like for me, I like working out. I like fitness, health, anything science related. I love video games, anime, nerdy stuff, you name it. I'm probably going to talk about it. And what do you like to talk about?
00:01:14
Speaker
Well, since I'm not a burden, I'm very interested in sports, queer culture, still video games, anime about 20 years ago when it was still good. Oh, boy. A lot of nerd culture, comic books, comic book movies I'm still on the fence about. but That's fair. I know. I've covered it. All right.
Podcast Overview and Future Topics
00:01:43
Speaker
and In case we forgot to mention, you know, welcome to Ramblin randos. I came up with that. I said, I came up with that. Yeah. I think it's great because we're random. As fuck. It's it's in the words. Yeah. Well, we'll workshop it. Would you? Yep.
Video Game Discussions: Brain Lord
00:02:09
Speaker
So for today's episode,
00:02:13
Speaker
I will talk about one of my favorite video games from like 1994 called Brain Lord. Oh, what? Brain Lord. Oh, boy. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But we'll get more into that later. I feel like you should tell us more about your subject and then probably start off with you because you have a very interesting subject for today. Well, my birthday, I feel it's fairly applicable. I know we're most likely going to be in the time machine with this, but whoo, Montauk chair, who is being the last day of the Olympics. And today was the gold medal game for the U.S. women's basketball team, which they won. Hell yeah. one I wanted to talk about Brittany Greiner and all of what she went through, kind of just, you know, her
00:03:11
Speaker
Growing up, getting into basketball, her accolades that came with, you know, getting into basketball when she was younger and what all led into her arrest and the reliefs and then- Holy shit. Yeah. It's not horribly detailed because this is our first go, but a little bit. I'm just horribly interested in sports and queer culture, women's sports specifically, I think is important. Oh yeah. Yeah. That's why you're interested in it.
00:03:39
Speaker
Yeah, and I love um how a lot of women's sports were organized and started by the queer community. And that's where a lot of the big push came from. So I think it's important to pay respect to those people and those things because it hasn't always been acceptable or in the limelight. That's right. I like it.
00:04:04
Speaker
Well, do you want to actually start going or do you need a minute because you know i think we're on a on a little bit of a rhythm here a little floating we're just getting right on it yeah let me dip down into the podcast dungeon oh is that like a sex dungeon where you've got like podcast toys on the wall i went to the basement where i advantage too often oh because i'm loud or annoying or where i mostly talk to
00:04:39
Speaker
what Shannon gently refers to as my boyfriend. So that way it's a quieter ah distraction free space. Who's your boyfriend? I think she's generally referring to like you or my buddy AJ who just got back from Germany or I've got a friend here in town, Chris, we play, uh, and while I got another friend here in town Dalton, he has a computer now though, so we don't often play games together as much, but just generally the guys that I get online and play games with. Oh, so multiple. Nice. She can only hear for the most part, my sides of the conversations. And so yeah it's a little.
00:05:32
Speaker
Shocking for her when she's only hearing my responses to what's going on and she doesn't actually we're talking about so it's Like what what the fuck did you just say? You didn't hear the other side of it. if You don't know what this is in response to I promise you it's not as bad. of So Who you calling a lit liquor? Yeah, or you know, I just want to see your butthole Yeah, I had a dollar for every time Really? I think that's pretty common phrase spoken by most people. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe. I don't know. Listeners, you can let us know, you know, in the comments or, you know, we don't have an email or anything set up yet. So we'll figure that out too as we go. Yeah. The the three listeners we may have straight out the gate because I think I've got about three people already that have said, I want to take a listen. Oh, hold up there. Yeah.
Personal Health and Military Background
00:06:30
Speaker
I don't think is this is for public consumption so Yeah, that's I'm pretty much in the same boat Yeah, I don't even know if I want to hear myself talk especially since I'm still trying to get over this upper respiratory infection that turned into a Sinus infection that turned into almost ear infection You should uh, I don't know maybe get a stronger immune system. I Had a strong immune system. I don't know what happened. Honestly, I think I I've talked to a lot of people that have tried to say that the COVID shot is what ruined their immune system. And I don't know if I'd necessarily like blame it or narrow it down specifically to the vaccines. I think it was probably just having COVID in general because being asthmatic, COVID really wrecked my respiratory system because I was already in a compromised state. yeah And now, like the upper respiratory infection almost took me out, you know, just when it comes to my breathing ability.
00:07:30
Speaker
And then I was waiting to find out if I.
00:07:39
Speaker
Find out if I have no money, right? And he said, well, I hope you pass. Mm hmm. Did you? Oh, boy. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I know you did because we've talked about it, but just in case we keep this in the podcast, you know, it doesn't get edited out. My dog was here i'd be like Tanner edit this out.
00:07:59
Speaker
kindner we My post-production Yeah, perfect we don't so that's why I passed 530 out of 600 Not terrible, not great. Not terrible. And in case anybody doesn't already know, which I'm pretty sure anybody listening at right this moment in time knows we're in the military. ah so ah But yeah, and just to clarify some things, I'm sure we'll actually do a proper introduction and maybe talk about ourselves at some point in this podcast, but ah don't um we're not very good at that. No. I don't really talk about
00:08:50
Speaker
being in the military outside of what I'm at work regardless, because a lot of people in the general public like to focus in on that fact and make it your entire personality, whether you are or not. True. Not realizing that that's just a facet of who you are as a person. And I have her some feelings like me and you. We try to not make that the forefront. No, yeah, I don't walk around in my tan t shirt, green socks and army boots with, you know, some khaki shorts on.
00:09:20
Speaker
or some some uh slides and basketball shorts with your tan t-shirt and green socks because you were too lazy to take your socks off when you took your pants off even though it was just one more step that was along the way oh yeah no the first thing i do is get out of my freaking monkey suit as we call it i don't even wear one oh only i'm special yeah we get it yeah i wear uh generally just decent pants or a great pair of jeans that doesn't have any holes or tears and a collared shirt And that's about it. Unless there's something special going on and they say, hey, where are your uniforms today? And I'll put it on and everybody looks at me funny and go, I'm going to continue wearing that in a long time. Must be nice. So, yeah, you ever going to get your notes out or whatever you got in that little dungeon of yours? Yeah, I got it.
00:10:17
Speaker
Sorry, I will do my best to keep you on track, and I expect the the same whenever I'm talking about things. We are bad. Yeah, everyone knows that. We can roll in this. So format access is pretty similar to um you know a format that I like hearing stories told. So if there's any adjustments that mean need to be made, I'm open to criticism.
00:10:44
Speaker
um Compliments concerns mostly compliments though i'm a hard time accepting conlulo Exactly, that's why make it more awkward or i'm afraid Same though, I'm also about 15 times since we started
00:11:03
Speaker
and listeners are you counting yeah you yeah sorry take a sip of my coke zero ooh yeah sponsor of this podcast and if you'd like to purchase coke use rambling randos three two one go on your next check out yeah it's a whole whopping half a penny right just wait till we get later in your recording and it's Miller Lite that I'm asking to be sponsored. Oh, I mean, that's fair. I would prefer a Dragon's Milk personally, but that's only because that's the major company I can think of that for the beer that I like. I've been on a Miller Lite cake for a while. I do prefer PBR, but Miller Lite's just been a cake that I'm on recently.
00:11:52
Speaker
Yeah, my my cousins drink Miller Lite and they kind of got me like anytime I go up there, that's all we drink. and I'm like, OK, I'm going to gain like 40 fucking pounds, but it's I'm doing it for the experience. It's cool. Bunch of farm bred country bumpkins, you know, I'm just drinking Miller Lite, having a good time. Oh, Miller Lite is 95 ish calories, so it's better. Oh, it's still like and carbs.
00:12:17
Speaker
many carbs, but I bet if I pulled a can out of it, excuse me, that was terrible. Well, Marco, edit that out. cant go so Yeah, but it you know, advertise it's It's 96 calories and it's advertised as being more taste for a light beer. Oh, I got to tell you about the time I went to in Berlin. We went to God. I say we me. I know Berlin, Belgium. Fuck.
00:12:49
Speaker
Brussels Belgium is the city and country that I went to and there was a frickin like beer factory was a ah World beer factory. It literally was like it was made in the concept of like for kids But it's for adults, you know, it's a beer factory So it was like it just touched your inner child and like you just went through and you learned about the brew making pride you could interact with everything and then you got free beer, of course and As a beer factory should be. Yeah, yeah. it's like george still great Yeah, exactly. It was like a wheelie walk as beer factories. That's actually that's exactly how it was. 10 out of 10 recommend. But maybe ah I think that's what we should do. We should do like a collab episode one day on beer. I love beer. I could talk about beer all day. I'm telling you, same.
00:13:36
Speaker
as we can tell by the fact that we've already been distracted from the requirement sorry We're not doing about rolling up 14 minutes it's almost 15 No, no I podcast I know they'll start their intros will take upwards of 20 30 minutes depending. Yeah All right Oh let's ah Let's dive into talking about Brittany Griner. A couple of sources I used for this, which wasn't a lot because this is our first time, is a Wikipedia and USA Today. I have a couple of things off of there. Okay. I did the same thing. of it yeah because I was like,
00:14:17
Speaker
I'm not going to go much further than the first little bit of information I'm going to find because I did this while I was sitting on the couch watching, I think, the Olympics again. Yeah. And just preparing. Yeah, on your phone
Vaping Challenges
00:14:30
Speaker
nonetheless. I'm telling you, get a freaking computer, man. It'll make this job or not job. This is for fun. ah It'll make this more entertaining and pleasant experience for you.
00:14:40
Speaker
Too bad I've got the new s24 ultra, so I mean it's Android I'm just kidding. I'm an iPhone guy. So It's not my fault that you are one person. Oh, there it is. Yep. Let's find at least I can take crystal clear pictures and send them to everybody My pictures are HDR, thank you. You could get them funny because you're an Android. Oh, sending where you text message no, I do. Yeah, we don't. I don't ever since I left for Europe, like I just, I can't go back to text messaging. It's just messenger and WhatsApp and signal. I can't wait to get rid of the signal, by the way. signal lets try That's the first thing I'm deleting as soon as I get out.
00:15:28
Speaker
Yeah, I, Shannon and I actually, um, exclusively message through messenger, just so like when we send videos and pictures back and forth, there's no no breakdown of clarification. Yeah. Oh yeah. There's the third time I've heard my throat. Yeah. I'm on like 47. It's okay. I'm trying to catch up. We'll get there. It doesn't help.
00:15:51
Speaker
that I'm also vaping in the background. Oh, you too. Me too. I'm also trying to quit. I went three days and then I was like, I can't fucking do this. So I had to go get yeah it. so go ahead I was just saying, so I had to go buy another one and then I got a 0% Nick one. and I was like, this is awful. Like it literally tastes like fricking Vicks vapor rub. So no, thank you. And I went and got like a regular, I don't know if it's three or five. I think it's five, but I don't fricking know. And here we are doing a great job putting. I just buy them. I don't know. I used to not vape because I quit all nicotine before my surgery.
00:16:33
Speaker
almost two and a half years ago now so I could recover better. And I was dipping a can of coke and hanging a day. Whoa. Yeah, I quit everything cold turkey. Nice. Oh, and then probably.
00:16:51
Speaker
About a year ago, because I had two surgeries. How do you work? So then about a year ago, I started getting the no nicotine babes, but they would only last for two days.
00:17:02
Speaker
and when you're drinking all weekend that doesn't really work yeah no ah finally just started getting nicotine dates and shanon didn't really care my wife didn't care so now only vape on the fifth ah taste had really burned like the coils were super burned i went't picked one up really while gra lunch Yeah. That is the hate when that happens. Yeah. I mean, I've had it for probably two months, maybe longer. I don't know. I only do the, I don't know. Are those it a disposable cause that's all I use is the disposables. Yeah. Yeah. I just get the disposable ones. Like I've got a deep bar right now. um to but Yeah. Yeah. I've got a lost Mary. Oh, they're not bad. I just, I don't know. It's okay.
00:17:59
Speaker
It'll have to be raised our best. I like elp bars, elp bars are very good. Look, we're not endorsing nicotine or substance abuse by any means. Don't go out and start something. It's not good. It's bad. And nobody understands popcorn lung or the effects of it. So don't do it. Don't start. Yeah, don't do it. I would love to look at alternatives, but just being without nicotine is rough.
00:18:24
Speaker
Oh, yeah, especially in the industry we're in. And then, of course, I'm currently cutting all of like my calories and like I'm constantly hungry. So I can't do both right now. I think I think that's what I like about vaping is it is like a like a sweet craving killer to me. Yeah. Also hungry. I don't like to eat fruit. I'm not a fruit eater. Yeah, I think that's same part of one of my mental health disability things. Narrow, spicy. But yeah, but I do like the taste of fruit flavored things, especially fruit flavored candy. And so having a vape that's fruit flavor keeps me from eating just an ass load of candy because otherwise I would have nuts on things like that. I can relate. Same. Oh, terrible.
00:19:17
Speaker
um So, uh, what was her name again? the thirteenth Yeah. Uh, who are we talking about? Brice, Brian, Bryn, Britt, Brittany, not actually, it's not brittonny brittanney griiner
Brittany Griner's Career and Legal Issues
00:19:32
Speaker
Brittany. Brittany Griner. Got it. So laid on us, um, back in February of 2022 on the 17th, uh, she was actually detained.
00:19:46
Speaker
Well, boy, I'm gonna try to say this, but I didn't check the pronunciation. Sharon met Yevo International Airport um after the Federal Customs Service found that she had vape cartridges. And this is important with less than a gram of hash oil in them. She had previously been granted a green card holyia in Arizona to use the hash oil.
00:20:11
Speaker
But cannabis is illegal in Russia, and with her flying into Russia, into that international airport, therein lies the problem. Yeah, I mean, well, Russia doesn't do like that doesn't make any sense. Like I understand Russia being very controlling of everything, but you would think I would imagine Russia is very stressed in general. I feel like we would have been like the first thing, but like, yes, or here you go. And it would also help to, you know, support the communism anyway. I don't know. I just think that's wild that it's not legal in Russia.
00:20:42
Speaker
Yeah, I you would think that something like that would be concerning the fact that Russia and North Korea have a lot of similarities in the way that their dictators run both countries, right? Because they're both. Well, North Korea, they don't do they don't vote.
00:21:00
Speaker
for whatever reason Russia holds a vote but obviously Russia wins every five minutes and kills anybody that possibly is outvoted for that outvote camera so he can continue his reign of the country but North Korea because their general public is so poor they just feed them meth to keep them going because they're malnourished and but they need them to continue to work so they just eat what man betta means hmm love that I need to go there yeah so But yeah, Russia, it is illegal to Russia currently. OK, hang on. Before you continue, just a heads up, but ah it is thundering like crazy right now. So if I all of a sudden disappear, just know my power. We may have to pick up wherever you left off on another whenever I get power again. Are you at risk of losing power? It has happened a few times.
00:21:56
Speaker
um I wouldn't say I'm at risk, but ah it is just a potential. So I just wanted to give you that friendly little, Hey, by the way, you just start talking and then all of a sudden, you know, you keep talking. I don't know. I don't know if you have a way to like check to see if I disconnect the call or whatever, but I can't run to actually, you know, I can drop the call into my window as a smaller window. I think it'll make a noise if I disconnect for the record.
00:22:28
Speaker
I'm old and dumb and don't not use technology anymore. So just in case I don't edit this part out, that's why we don't understand how this works. We'll get there. We'll get there. Well, I think the little symbol at the top will disappear if we disconnect, because it shows a little symbol at the top of my screen showing that we're in a voice call. OK. All right. OK. All right. You can continue. Sorry about that. So you're good.
00:22:53
Speaker
so living Get back to it. So cannabis is illegal Russia. I got so, uh, Brittany plays basketball professionally for the WNBA here in the United States with the Phoenix mercury. And from what I could tell, she's played her entire career with the Phoenix mercury. Um, and but she had been traveling overseas to play professionally for China.
00:23:19
Speaker
And in the later years, the Russian premier league in the off season. And I think majority of it was to make some extra income because, uh, there's a huge wage gap discrepancy between male professional sports players and female professional sports players. Um, regardless of, you know, for their gender, their skill level being what could be comparable to a lot of those star male.
00:23:45
Speaker
sports athletes. So but ru some others like I said, she played in the offseason was for the extra income. But I think a little bit of it was also like continue building, you know, all those skills, because if you don't practice, you're going to lose it. Yeah, no. um Yeah, that happens all the time. So that's that's where our subject starts. But we'll rewind a little bit and we'll do it.
00:24:14
Speaker
that the that do A little bit of how Brittany got her start and who she is and the like so She Was born and raised in Houston, Texas. She was born on October 18th in 1990 a little younger She was pretty stand-out a stand-out athlete in high school She let her in volleyball and basketball as well as training with the boys basketball team to improve her leg strength So she could eventually dunk a basketball because she was fairly tall for a kid a Teenager, especially wait, you said she lettered. Sorry. Mm-hmm. I'm gonna ask a lot of questions because I'm retarded uh You said she lettered into high selection lettered volleyball. I didn't I
00:25:01
Speaker
Yeah. So like, what does that mean? Letterman's jacket in high school sports, you get a letterman's jacket when you let her in the sport. And I think that what that means. OK. Since I was not a sport or myself. Yeah, I was going to say the varsity theme. I'm fairly certain. OK. Yeah, I didn't. I was. That was not me. I was banned. So yeah, it's right. Mm hmm. Shocker. Right. Well, we can clear that up real quick because we have this fancy thing called Google. Oh, what's it mean?
00:25:31
Speaker
When you Google sponsor us, when you let her in a Google spot, yeah that would be hilarious. Uh, yeah, it says, uh, it's when you receive an award for excellence, such as a varsity letter that recognizes a student athlete, a student athletes achievement on the field and in the classroom.
00:25:54
Speaker
The requirements for earning a varsity letter vary by sport, but may include participating in a certain percentage of games or contributing significantly to the team. Okay. Cool. Thanks for the clarification. And if, you know, any of the, I didn't know that either. so i we're clariifying it Fair enough. Let listeners, fall like these guys are stupid. What I read on Wikipedia was that she lettered in volleyball and basketball, but I may be wrong. It may just be basketball, but regardless, she Seems to be in high school a very decent basketball player. Okay. Um, I don't know her exact height when she was in high school, but I mean dunking a basketball like training the dunk of basketball is pretty wild because the net is 10 feet high. Yeah. How tall was she? friend She is 6'9 currently. Holy crap.
00:26:52
Speaker
in High school she had to have been like huge. Yeah, okay. Yeah um So in her junior year there was a video of her dunking that went viral with over 6 million views on YouTube and in 2009 she was named the nation's number one high school women's basketball player by rival calm and was selected for the 2009 all-american basketball team Nice. But it doesn't specify if that's the all American high school basketball team or, or really what that is, but sounds neat. Yeah. Good for her. So after high school, she played college ball for, uh, the lady Baylor bears in Waco, Texas.
00:27:37
Speaker
with a breakout junior year in 2012 when she was named the AP Player of the Year, which I assume was the Associated Press Player of the Year, and most outstanding player of the final four when she led Baylor to winning the national championship and was awarded the best female athlete ESPY award. so I think the ESPY is like the yeah ESPN let me not say that off the top of my head
00:28:07
Speaker
We'll get a bunch of hate comments. And thankfully, we don't have an email yet, so we can't get any hate mail. But I'm sure we we'll we'll get there. Yeah, it looks like SP is Excellence in Sports Performance Yearly Awards put on by yeah ESPN. Oh, wow. Yeah, so you're right. Look at that. See? No hate mail. There we go. I do know a bit about sports. I'm not going to get by. Yeah, you know way more than me. I'm learning a lot. So please continue. but Yeah, I watch a lot of of every sport. Generally, you know, the main four, like I love football. Um, I follow basketball. I don't watch it a lot, but I follow it a lot. Unless the Celtics are in the championship and then I will watch it. Is it Celtics or Celtics? Celtics. Okay. just Should be, should be Celtics. I believe, but because we're America.
00:29:02
Speaker
And we don't know how to, um, anything other than. Masternizing English. We call them the Celtics. Okay. Just checking. Football, baseball, basketball, soccer, hockey, you know, sports. Love them. Okay. Coo coo coo coo coo coo. So fall in college, uh, she was selected as the first overall pick in the draft by the Phoenix mercury in 2013, which.
00:29:32
Speaker
kind of put her in the spotlight and that was great because she publicly came out as a lesbian that same year. So I think that was a really good cultural time to do like for all that to align and happen. um You know, being able to be in the spotlight for being the first overall draft pick for the WNBA, which wasn't getting as much popularity back then as it recently has been.
00:30:00
Speaker
It's been a slow roll for the WNBA. It's been around for a long time. I didn't look at exactly how long, but most recently is when you're starting when they've been starting to see an uptick in attendance, the WNBA games, because Caitlin Clark, even though we've had all these great players like Sue Bird, Brittany Griner, Lisa Leslie, Caitlin Clark becoming super popular the last couple of years playing for, I believe she played for Iowa.
00:30:28
Speaker
um If you go back and look at side by side comparisons of attendance, she's been driving the numbers up just overall at all WNBA games. Nice. And Kayla Cork is very, very talented. um You don't say.
00:30:45
Speaker
Yeah. Oh, wait. Sorry. No, I got so fun fact. I am terrible with names. And I forgot we're talking about Brittany Greiner. And you said Caitlin, somebody or other. So my bad. I was thinking. Yeah. OK. So Caitlin's also really talented. Got it. Yeah. Yeah. Not gay. I'm going to talk about her. Yeah. She's on board right now. Yeah. Yeah. She is helping drive the popularity of the sport to help It just helps overall, right? Women's sports aren't as popular because people don't focus on women. So we're just, that's just a little side ramble on why women's sports are so important. Um, so back to it, she came out 2013, uh, in 2014, she went on to meet her team to win the WNBA national championship, the Phoenix Mercury.
00:31:39
Speaker
And then the years following, won two gold medals with the US women's olyic Olympic team in 2016 and 2020. And actually we can now amend that to say she has helped lead the US women's national team to win three gold medals, 2016, 2020, and now in 2024. And aside from all of her sports awesomeness, she's also been a huge advocate for anti-bullying, especially for
00:32:10
Speaker
LBGTQIA plus. How do you? I think overall, um, due to being picked on as a kid for being different, which we can read the lines gay. I'm sure she's similar. Like I was very, very, you know, Tom Boyish and masculine as a kid and therefore. Six foot nine. God. Yeah. Yeah. And that's, and that was the other part, you know, for being different and also being All the shit. Yeah. She's now six foot nine and you'll never guess her size because it is fucking insane. No way. Yeah. Oh, I don't know if you wanted me to guess. Do you want me to guess? I'll try. Yeah, I guess before I tell you. All right. I'm going to go with. Eleven.
00:33:01
Speaker
no homie we're talking in men's you need to go up many time she yeah that's what i said 11 i said 11 men's do i yeah yeah no no no that was that was men's it was 11 and men's and it's higher than that holy shit 20 less than 20 less than 20 15 No, that's your last guess. I was gonna say yeah. Size 17 in men's shoes. Holy crap. I wear a size like nine and a half and I'm 5'10". Yeah. So if you want to buy me shoes, listeners, feel free. Yeah, right. Can you imagine size? I've seen size 17 in LA Rosses here in town because we have a college where I live. So they've got a lot of like
00:33:45
Speaker
large men's size shoes that Ross's or TJ Maxx, I've seen a size 17. I can put my entire foot with my shoe on inside. but It's massive. That's ridiculous. Yeah. Yeah. That's like bigger than my head. No, it's, it's insanely large. Um, part of, part of her other, you know, drive and do her advocacy for anti-bullying and stuff is, you know, um,
00:34:13
Speaker
When she was a teenager, very obviously gay, her dad was not about it. And he kicked her out of the house for six weeks when she came out to him. And I believe what I read was that she lived with an assistant coach during that time. Um, but later on, she became the first openly gay athlete to sign a deal with Nike. So i'm to say her dad can suck it because Nike was very big into advocating for her to, um, commercialize or advertise their more masculine style athletic wear I think what I actually read was she wore like a lot of their menswear but they were able to kind of tailor it to be like oh look women can wear menswear too I don't know how I feel about that yeah I mean it's Nike that's pretty big I didn't realize she was the first openly gay athlete to sign the deal in Nike though I thought that was pretty interesting I would have figured it would have been somebody else but
00:35:11
Speaker
Yeah. too no No, I mean, that's great. I'm just saying like the the whole potentially advertising, like, look, women can wear men's shoes, too. Like, um which side of the fence are we playing here? Like, is that is that like a like that's more trying to be like, oh, not I'm not a feminist by any means. And if you are, that's cool. Like not you, but listeners are. Yeah. But it's just and it seems sexist, that kind of play. But I don't know. That's just my two cents on it.
00:35:39
Speaker
Not that's necessarily anything that they specifically like put out Purposefully in the advertisement. I think it was just they were able to use her as a model for menswear um Just to kind of show like Their clothes are essentially genderless Okay Because I only wear men's clothing. I like the fit. I like the cut. I like, you know, just the way it looks better. But yeah, and I only wear women. and I'm just kidding. but but only one i Yeah, you don't like my hairy belly just hanging out underneath, you know, my, my nice little pink crop top. No, you don't. No way. you But it's very, very light.
00:36:33
Speaker
So you can't really tell. It's like Dusty Pink. And I got it from Target for Pride one year. And Target sponsors. Yeah, Target. Are you listening? It's got a like a cartoon panel of a woman. And I can't remember remember what it says on it. But it's something like, all I do is dream about girls or something. Very gay. Got it. Yeah. But it it's large enough that even though it's a crop top, it still goes to like just my belt line.
00:37:02
Speaker
um I think I bought it before I got my stomach tattoo. So after I finished my stomach tattoo, I was like, man, I should just wear crop tops all summer. And then I never did because I still have to get. Yeah, no, that's ah I will not be wearing crop tops unless I get actual chiseled abs like I'm working on right now. But ta to your stomach nobody care to be got as you have the stomach no, see, I can't. I can't. I don't want to tattoo it either yet until I get, I don't know, less flabby because I feel like if I do it now, she's going to look weird. And you can't even tell I promise.
00:37:33
Speaker
Yeah, sure. Just because you make it look good doesn't mean I will make it look good. I'm still flabby and all anybody ever sees is holy shit you have a stomach tattoo and I'm like yeah, I'm stupid. No, because like I have like a cliff of a belly like it's literally just okay, here's the tattoo and then it just it would fall off and go underneath my freaking gut and no one, everyone would be paying attention to that. I'd be like, where's the, like, all right, so I want to get daggers. You know, you have guns. I'm going to get daggers. We're both cliche listeners deal with it. But ah it would literally be like, OK, here's the blade. And then where's the edge? Where's it? Oh, you got to hang on. Let me lift up my folds of fat for you so you can look at it. but So no, that's why when you show people, when you lift your shirt up, you just arch your back. So right now yeah. flash
00:38:23
Speaker
you Remember that picture? Remember that picture I took when we when I posed with the frickin Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders? Yeah, when we did the Spartan race we trying any the Yeah, but I did not to do it so I just looked yeah, it'll be like that I'll just do that and looks like you're puffing out your chest hard Yeah, God embarrassing but i was actually just laughing about that picture a couple No way see the universe wants us to make this podcast universe sponsor us alright
00:38:55
Speaker
Let's circle it back around. A little break from talking about her career since we were talking about her being openly out and all
Brittany Griner's Personal Life
00:39:07
Speaker
of that. and usually call As far as her relationship history goes, it's not very pretty. I mean, it's pretty in most people's, but when I was engaged to her first wife and fellow WNBA player,
00:39:19
Speaker
Lori Johnson in 2014, things are a little heated and on April 22nd of 2015, they both were arrested for domestic violence because it would just be driven. Oh my God. How would you, first of all, hold on. She's six foot nine. How tall was her first wife? Did you happen to look that up by any chance? No, but I can easily do it right now. I also don't know who Lori Johnson played for.
00:39:47
Speaker
um
00:39:52
Speaker
63 Good. so So so pretty much we've got Godzilla and Mechagodzilla attacking each other. I would not. Yeah, no, thank you I would have just been like I'm out. I'm out you win. We'll figure this out later. Keep the car. Keep the keep the house. I'm out. Oh Well, it gets weirder. Oh great. She played for them, but apparently now she plays for the dream What team the dream is
00:40:23
Speaker
Dream. Oh, so it's like a basketball team. Yeah. She, she plays for, yeah, they, she was a WNBA or she's still a WNBA player. They both rooms that are in the WNBA. Oh, well that was the first one though. Actually that's pretty common. He actually played for Tennessee. She was a ball Tennessee ball in college. Okay. He started out with the Tulsa shock.
00:40:50
Speaker
So she plays for Oklahoma, then she played for Dallas, and now plays for Atlanta. Yeah, so two tall bitches be tripping, fighting each other. yeah And despite the fact that they beat the shit out of each other, they got married the following month. Oh, so this happened before they got married. Yeah, they were disengaged.
00:41:14
Speaker
oh I, I don't, women are anymore ah good desperately but they are the So oh my goodness they've ended, they both ended up getting suspended by the WNBA for seven games each oh after Brittany pled guilty, guilty to the charges. And she also had to complete 26 weeks of domestic violence counseling. Whoa. Fair.
00:41:41
Speaker
Yeah, but that's that's a lot. You're in a relationship with a woman, you know, ah whether or not you're in the same sex relationship or you're in a, you know, heterosexual relationship, nobody should be hitting anybody. No, no. Yeah. So the fact that they beat up each other is just it's it's mind boggling. Like, yeah, take a breather and go outside. Yeah. Or go to the gym or go go play basketball with like separately.
00:42:09
Speaker
yeah not when they do Yeah, no oh June of that year Were in 2015 they announced that they were pregnant with twins. Oh not only They beat the shit out of each other both got arrested got suspended then got married the next month a month after they got married they said by the way, we're pregnant with twins during vitro and And the day this is even better the day after they announced that they were pregnant with twins Brittany filed for an annulment so Wait, ah which one was pregnant? I feel like that's a very important detail glory johnson yeah okay i did not okay lauren johnson I am almost positive was the carrier. Okay
00:43:01
Speaker
Just curious. Let me double, let me fact check that, but I do not remember Frankie Greiner ever being pregnant. Well, while you're fact checking that, either way, like six foot three, I'm surprised she only had twins, because I feel like she could probably carry a lot more. And I don't know if that's sexist to say, but like, if you're that tall, good Lord, like, well, I mean, you could go both ways. I'm learning a lot about it. Also, do I just confirmed Glory Johnson wasn't that carried. I'm learning a lot about it in So when you go in for in vitro fertilization, in vitro is a process where they remove your eggs, fertilize them outside of the womb, and then put them back in the uterus. Right? Yeah. Yeah. How do you not know? your own i know i' oma howard so they reinfllan them And I don't know how many they do each time.
00:43:57
Speaker
But they're not going for multiples. Yeah, no, it's just it's a common thing that happens with in vitro because just the way that like the yeah all that process works. It can because of the drugs that you're taking, yeah especially with IVF to ramp up your aid production. yep You do have the possibility of multiples happening, but it's They don't want you to have a litter, baby. They're trying to go for the lowest odds possible. Yeah. No, no. Yeah. And it's not just in same-sex couples either. That also happens a lot with heterosexual couples.
00:44:32
Speaker
Yeah. john john take pose eight Yeah, exactly. Like it's it's it's more common than most people realize when you're trying to like have a baby and getting in all those extra helping drugs or you can be like how I met your mother and have a lemon and keep a what is it a rolling pin by your bed and or just grab a freaking blow dryer and blow dryer. junk You know, yeah, we we've been told with Shannon and I um going through our process of trying to get pregnant. We've been told that we do have a possibility of twins. It's not a huge possibility, but it's still a possibility. Oh boy. We want twins by any means. We are a one child household.
00:45:17
Speaker
yeah So we'll see how that goes. But there's other factors I go into it too, because there's biological factors to where you could be predispositioned to how twins depending on if it runs in your family or not. So there's a chance that that's fair for Johnson, twins ran in her family. That could be why why they ended up pregnant with twins. Yeah, that's also fair.
00:45:44
Speaker
So ah yeah, after the day after they announced they were pregnant, Brittany Grider called for an annulment and it was denied. So after the twins were born, she was ordered to pay child support and the divorce was finalized in June 2016. So it took them a little while to fully smash that marriage. Oh yeah, not not that long at all. No. Two years. um Not in a year because I got married in 2015. May of 2015. Not a year later. Shows how much I was paying attention. That's what I'm hearing. Exactly. Yeah. No, I have to recap. like You'll probably find this happens a lot throughout the ah episode and for future episodes. You should do with another one of our favorite podcasters does and get little 3D printed figurines so you can
00:46:40
Speaker
keep track of what's what. I don't know how that works, but OK, I am playing with a fidget spinner or well, it's not a fidget spinner. It's a it's a cube um and it has like you can push like little buttons on it or you can use a little rolly ball or you can flick stuff or turn a switch on and off or it's even a joystick on it. So that makes you feel any better. Yeah, you sponsor me or sponsor us. Excuse me. we pick up oh So after all that, we're done with 2016.
00:47:09
Speaker
Uh, I think she probably took a little bit of time to figure her shit out because you should. And in August of 2018, uh, she again gets engaged to her now wife, Cheryl Greiner. And I hope I'm saying that right. Who, um, she has a son with, so now she has three kids. Oh, so second marriage. Yep. Got it. I'm following.
00:47:39
Speaker
And I've seen the photos. Great, you know. Maternity? Maternity photos? I don't know. What do you call the famous photos? They're definitely not maternity photos. That was a slip on my part. Yeah, I was thinking, whoops. Yeah. I don't. I'm just family photos, I guess. But wait, I have a question that I think is also super important. How tall is the new wife? <unk> So I just saw her when we were watching the Olympic game this morning in bed.
00:48:09
Speaker
After they won, she went over and loved your wife. She's not super tall, or at least she didn't appear to be, but she could have been sitting down, to be honest with you. and She's also not a basketball player. She is a attorney. Oh, moving up in the world. I feel like that's a fake ah a safe thing to do as a basketball player, marry an attorney.
00:48:36
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I don't know. Ernie is good, especially since you've been arrested. Yeah, that's how I was hoping you'd pick up on that. Good, good, good. Yeah, not just this time, but a couple of times ago, we'll learn about Brittany Greiner Greiner. I just want to see how far away. So I can't find it specifically. And I'm sure if I do more Google searching, I could. But it looks like in this picture, I'm looking at her current wife comes up to her shoulder. So she's most likely five, I would say at least Five, six. Damn. All right. I mean, that would be a good guess. OK. Cool. So we went from tall to short. Five, seven. She's five, seven. OK. Had another kid. And we had a, we're an attorney. I can't just, that and that pillow talk. Can you imagine like, hey, babe, I really want to smoke some weed, but I've got a game coming up. What's the legality of this?
00:49:35
Speaker
Well, I'm sure like during the season, she's not using her like using these substances because I mean, ah that's fair. Yeah, you can't use performance enhancing drugs, which would we be a performance? I mean, I guess it could be considered that. I don't know if a lot of like the professional. I guess it would be an association. WNBA is Women's National Basketball Association.
00:50:05
Speaker
So I don't know if the sports associations have lifted their bans on weed, considering it's now becoming more and more just normal. And although it's not fairly legal, there's a lot of states that have statewide legalized it. Tennessee,
00:50:31
Speaker
Actual THC isn't legal, but like Delta 8 Delta 9 Delta 10 so synthetic THC is legal Which the you know at that players like what? Why are we yeah? putting hairs on this yeah um Yeah, I don't I don't know if they banned her not to be honest with you. I don't say why they would because It's definitely useful Yeah. Definitely. I agree. Yeah. Just random thought. Sorry. Rambling again. Oh, you're fine. But it sounds like it's only banned or prohibited in competition. So most likely when the season is going, so you probably just have to pass a drug testing during the season and then off season they're allowed to use it. Okay. Which wouldn't make sense. Cause then off season is when you're trying to like rest or recuperate.
00:51:30
Speaker
and heal and rehab yeah ta going on. And from what I understand, she was only using THC to help her deal with the pain. Gotcha. OK. So we're going to fast forward back to February 17, 2022, when Brittany was detained and arrested on smuggling charges by the Russian customs officials. And honestly, it was kind of a shock to most.
00:51:56
Speaker
um Her trial began on July 1st, and she pled guilty on August 4th, stating that although she was pleading guilty, she had no intent to break the law. um But realistically, who thought anyone would have a chance as an American beating charges in Russia? Like, we know they hate us. You don't stand equals. So she was sentenced to nine years in prison, which, again, ridiculous because the average term for possession in Russia of no more than two grams of hash oil is 15 days. And she had less than a gram. So obviously there's some fuck shit going on here because if you're you taking the average Russian civilian or not civilian, but you know, an average Russian person.
00:52:50
Speaker
Yeah, they have less than two grams. They're only looking at 15 days in jail I mean granted the group the new log over there is probably terrible, but yeah yeah You're obviously making an example out of this America So in November of 2022 she was transferred to the Russian penal colony called ik-2 where Honestly, the conditions were fucking rough And a lot of people were just up in arms when they saw that her dreads were cut off because that's one of the things that happened was she had long dreads. I want to say they were shown in length or longer when she was arrested. And out of nowhere, when we got a couple of pictures of her in prison, her dreads were gone. And everybody was under the assumption that part of her punishment for being in prison was shaving her head. And a lot of uproar was caused by that because a lot of people were saying she's being stripped
00:53:50
Speaker
culture and her identity. And I mean, they had a good argument for that. But what it actually was, was that the conditions of that prison were so rough, she herself cut her dreads off because they were freezing into ice due to the cold water in the showers, being in the outside ambient air of Russia in November. It's fucking cold. Yeah. Oh, damn.
00:54:15
Speaker
So the easiest thing for her to do was just, all right, Dred's got to go, because otherwise she had this clump of ice stuck to her head, and that's got to be miserable. Yeah, that's a headache from hell. So um in the meanwhile, back here in the US, officials stated that she was wrongfully detained, but not a ton of people really totally agreed with that. i mean you took hash oil into a country where it's illegal. You didn't fully check your bags. I mean, anytime I travel, I don't know about you. I'm so freaked out about having really anything possible in my bags that I go through absolutely everything before I even get to the airport. yeah So, you know, a lot of people that I know that I talked to about it have the opinion that she knew what she was doing and she kind of deserved what happened because you should know better when you're traveling to a place like Russia.
00:55:08
Speaker
hundred percent. And I'd be like, trying to board a plane with a gun in your bag that you just happen to forget about. You don't forget about those things. No. Yeah. She probably was just trying to be like, well, let's see if I can do it because, you know, you can do anything once. And she did it and had to learn the hard way like most of us do. you ah So officials were under the opinion that Russia was using her as leverage in response to the sanctions place against them.
00:55:38
Speaker
by the US s for its invasion of Ukraine, fair to assume. ah And that it could be used as a high profile or she could be used as a high profile hostage. Also fair. In May of 2022, the US Department of State stated that she was being wrongfully detained and started talking a prisoner swap. Her family also enlisted the help of Bring Our Families Home, which is an organization to help appeal for the release and the plane was to trade grinder for victor bout an arms dealer who had been in custody for 10 years of a 25 federal firm for conspiracy to kill american officials delivery of anti-aircraft missiles and to aid a terrorist organization what the fuck that's not even the that's not a fair trade at all no and that's what we're pretty upset about was we're gonna trade this
00:56:36
Speaker
like severely back criminal or a basketball player. And I believe there's a Marine that was recently released by Russia? Yeah, there was. no Was he released her or is he still detained? I thought he was released because there was a big old trade between Russia and up the US. There was like a bunch of people that would be swapped and then they're like, well, America was like, we're not going to send you these people. but Uh, don't quote me. I just watched the news in the morning and go about my day so I could be remembering incorrectly. And I think he was arrested because he was actually like doing some fuck shit, but I don't remember. This is what happens. There's a lot of people that had a lot of opinions about this trade. and yeah I mean mean, honestly, at the end of the day, I'm part of the surprise that the government agreed to the trade. yeah But to be real with you, I'm fairly certain that dude was probably killed by Russia after the trade was completed. i mean
00:57:30
Speaker
that's That's fair. and would They seem like they' had their government would have the stance of, you fucking idiot, you got caught. You wanted the opportunity to kill your brother. But I could be wrong. Yeah, and yeah that's fair. yeah So on December 8th of 2022, Russia released her in a one-for-one swap and she was able to return home.
00:57:53
Speaker
um But it wasn't strictly a one-for-one swap from what I heard or what I read. We were able to actually get ah another citizen back. But I didn't grab her name or include it in here because it wasn't a highlight of what we were talking about. Yeah, not relevant. Get it. You're right. So she obviously missed the entire 2022 WNBA season. But when she did return in 2023, it was to a standing ovation during her first game.
00:58:21
Speaker
And although her team placed last in the league for the season, she actually herself performed really well and was chosen as a starter for the w WNBA All-Star game and was selected for the US women's team at the current Olympic games. And in my notes, it says as of Monday, the third, they are three games away from their eighth straight gold medal, but as of this morning, they have won their eighth straight gold medal. Nice.
00:58:51
Speaker
And that is my discussion of Brittany Greiner and her massive fuck up taking weed into Russia. But how phenomenal of a ball player she is because as much as most people hate to admit, she's an an outstanding basketball player. Um, I do have a friend that was still upset that during the Olympics that she was still kneeling for the flag after, you know, we saved her ass. Yeah.
00:59:21
Speaker
And while it may be a soft spot for somebody, that's well within her rights to do. And I'm not really that upset about it because she still has an agenda that she wants to push and be brought to light and is important to her and far be it from us to, you know, flap her in the face to try to bring to light some of the issues that are ongoing in this country itself. Yeah, no, I'm 100 percent. I can get down with that. That's What we defend is people's rights to you know freedom of speech and do as they please to get the attention of you know things that are messed up in our country that we want to get fixed. So yeah I respect it. However you want to highlight the issues you see as issues, as long as you're going about it in a legal and anti-violent way. Yeah, anti-violent way. You're wrong. I was going to say, yeah, don't be blowing things up or murdering people or you know punching your wife. Don't do that. Yeah. Or your fiancee, excuse me.
01:00:18
Speaker
or wife. They weren't married yet, compared to the month after. yet Yeah. Or maybe you should punch your fiance because then you get married.
01:00:28
Speaker
Rough one. But it was really interesting. I knew a little bit about her, but now I know more. And I actually, you know, respect the talent. Yeah. No, that was, that was a wild ride. I wasn't expecting all that from a basketball player. Like, that was pretty good. I liked it.
01:00:46
Speaker
They have some interesting actual personal you know touches to their lives that not everybody knows about because anything that's ever highlighted is always the bad stuff because that's what we do with famous people is you're not a perfect person. Let's focus in on that.
01:01:05
Speaker
yeah oh yeah yeah we got a critique and demean you and if you You're not perfect. You're not, you're not fit for the job. Cause you know, God forbid anybody's human on this planet where you'll have to be aliens and robots and lizard people. Yeah. And if, if you're somebody like it's paid a bunch of money and you're in the spotlight, you have to be perfect. Even though but we're far from perfect. Yeah. That's my favorite thing.
01:01:29
Speaker
Uh, okay. Well, um, we're at one hour, so I'm going to hit the little pause button to give <unk>s yourself a chance to get whatever you need and go to the bathroom. And I'm going to go get some water before I start my part. All right. And, uh, yep. Oh, okay. I didn't know we were going to, we're doing the hello thing. Oh, no, I just jumped the gun and was excited to say nice. Okay.
01:01:55
Speaker
Maybe I'll look up. Oh, no. Oh, please. God, I just clicked oh, so there might be. Yep.
01:02:04
Speaker
That's embarrassing. I'm going to edit that out. ah I've got so I play oh, soo, which is like a click the circles rhythm game. And it's it's like ah on my taskbar.
01:02:16
Speaker
And I was trying to click on my word to bring up my notes. And instead I i accidentally clicked OSU, which it it happens a lot. I really need to take it off the taskbar because when I'm trying to do something, I always click that by accident. So it opened up and I'm pretty sure it recorded. And OSU starts up and it goes, welcome to us. And then it goes into
Nostalgia for Brain Lord
01:02:34
Speaker
its little like upbeat, like click the circle. It's going to now it's going to be in there. And that's that's just awkward.
01:02:43
Speaker
OK, take the three. Anyway, um welcome back. We just had a little break because we talked too much and Russell's Russell's story was actually really, ah you know, very thorough. I don't know if we're going to go as long into mine, but we'll we'll give it a shot. So a friendly reminder, if you're still listening, for that matter, is we're going to talk about my one of my favorite games of all time. It was played on the Super Nintendo.
01:03:13
Speaker
And it's called, yep. It's called brain Lord. Like brain is in the brain in your head. Lord is in like a Lord of manner. Brain Lord. Two several words. I think it might actually be one. I don't know. ah love i origin Yeah. So I'm also going to clear my throat a lot. So it's all good. I don't take a quick drink of water. amount throat clearing we do asmer Yeah. It's okay though. or It happens when you get older and vape and don't vape like we talked about earlier.
01:03:42
Speaker
So my biggest complaint is the amount I clear my throat. She says I do it violently. I think it's enough for exaggeration. Oh, well. All right. So no shit. There I was. ah Probably I would say I was like eight or nine. And back when Blockbuster was a thing, you know, if anyone remembers Blockbuster and a you remember Blockbuster. Oh, my God. Yes, the absolute best. Yeah. I I'm pretty sure I rented this game or memories fuzzy and hard.
01:04:11
Speaker
ah I might have. all Yeah, or I might have like borrowed it from somebody. I don't remember. But either way, I just know I was like eight or nine when I first started this game and it's I got on I got my hands on it. This game, I should you not, was one of the hardest games ever played in my life. Like I'm almost 37 years old and Brain Lord.
01:04:32
Speaker
I still have not beaten to this day. Interesting. It was very challenging. Like the puzzles in it were like you had to think about you to pay attention. And probably with my undiagnosed ADHD and autism and all that, there might have something to do with that when playing trying to play this game. But ah the graphics, like for the Super Nintendo, it was it was like pretty up there. Like it was vibrant. It was different from all the other games.
01:04:58
Speaker
um The music, I'm looking at some screen grabs and looks pretty ahead of its time for 94. Yeah. Oh, yeah. So the music was also really good. Like I was listening to the soundtrack while I was taking all my notes and doing my research. um It's very like, you know, of course, it's that 16, 18 bit music style and like that, you know, but it's ah it's upbeat. It keeps you focused, does all the things.
01:05:26
Speaker
um tickles that brain. Yeah, that little ah whatever chemical oxytocin there it is. ah ah Anyway, so looking through my notes here. I'm gonna make weird noises because I do too. So this game also like back then so we didn't have Google in 94 Google I didn't think it became a thing until like 98 or 96. We had encyclopedias. Yes we did have encyclopedias. We still had the internet too though. um I would use Yahoo and a search engine called Excite. E-X-C-I-T-E dot com. I use Ask Jeeves. Yeah see a lot of people use Ask Jeeves. I would only sometimes but I just I never got on the Ask Jeeves bandwagon. Just wasn't
01:06:19
Speaker
wasn't a thing for me. um But like I said, I sucked at this game, so I had to look up a lot of stuff. I was also like I said nine and dumb. So yeah, yeah, I I would search like for walkthroughs or guides or anything on this game. And like one of the main websites back then, I don't know if you used it, but it was called Gamefax.
01:06:44
Speaker
I don't think I did. Okay, I don't remember what I used actually, I think I would just like go in and try to look up in like whatever search bar just like walkthroughs like the game name and walkthroughs and then just pull up whatever if if I didn't buy the actual yeah, like book guide. Yeah.
01:07:09
Speaker
Bye bye. I mean, like, totally my parents didn't buy you for me. Yeah, no, no, absolutely. I will get to that that in a minute. But so the first thing I did was like, of course, went online, ah googled, which is now a verb, which wasn't a verb back then, um how to like beat the thing I was trying to beat. And the only thing that would ever really come up is like some people's like built websites that were all really crappy looking because, you know, we didn't have the technology we do now and all the experience and know how to do that.
01:07:36
Speaker
um They would have like little tips and tricks, but it only ended at like a certain part in this game. So I would only be able to get to that part of them after that. I was just stuck all the time.
01:07:47
Speaker
And then game facts, which is like a very heavily credited, like people, I think still use that to say I still go in there sometimes. Um, they would like build these elaborate like guides on texts and they would like use all like the forward slashes and like apostrophes and like build these cool little logos out of like, just like text. Um, yeah, yeah. And I know a lot of them would have, I don't know if game facts is built in the same way, but some of the ones I would find later in life had hyperlinks. Oh yeah.
01:08:16
Speaker
to click on it and it would take you to that section depending on whether it was a game that wasn't linear to where you could kind of open world go wherever. Yeah. Well, that's actually thanks for this because you just unlocked a memory. um This is where I first learned how to use the the find feature on the Internet browser because you could you could copy like the a little like they break it down and like they would number each like section for you. So you could just copy that and then find the next section and go to that as well. Yeah.
01:08:45
Speaker
so um but Anyway, so I use that a lot too. But again, that also would only end after like the second dungeon and then you were just kind of that was it you were you had to figure the rest out as far as a walkthrough guide like back then video games.
01:09:01
Speaker
were heavily pushed with the game and the strategy guide that you had to buy separately. Now it's just DLC or like cosmetics. um I never, never found the strategy guide for it. Like I never got it. It wasn't, I don't think it was sold in the States personally. I don't know. I just never could find it. So yeah, this game is, was quite challenging, but nonetheless, I absolutely loved it. I still love it. um It's really cool. So I'm going to dive into a little about the history first and then I'll actually talk about the game.
01:09:29
Speaker
like question about game facts is the reason why you were only finding up to dungeon one because it was all user fed information so it was only just oh yeah fed by information people as they were playing it and all they had was just this is as far as I got and this is all I got from here on out you're on your own yeah I mean that yeah thank you for that that's it literally so game facts is built by the community of course and it was either yeah a someone took the time to build the ah the actual walkthrough or uh for this game in particular i personally think people did beat the game they were just lazy and didn't want to complete the strategy guide i mean i i would understand why it's rough trying to
01:10:10
Speaker
and Like contribute to something like that was such a big game. Yeah that difficult. Oh, yeah So yeah, we're gonna move on into Okay, my first question for you actually I think I might have any question anyway um So what do you think the game is based on or what do you think the game is about based on its name? So it's called Brain Lord like Describe it to me based on that My assumption, well, you already looked at pictures. Since you're using the description of the word Lord as, you know, uh, an owner of a district, essentially is that it's some overlord that's trying to gain control of all the brain slash minds within his, I don't, I don't know. District is the right word, but what all falls under his rule.
01:11:04
Speaker
Yeah. OK, but that's fair. But no, completely way off. Like oh for those of you that are actually like listening and like didn't Google the pictures to see what the game was about or how it played. Right. Like you would think it's like a puzzle game or like maybe a first person shooter. No, it's actually classified as like an action role playing single player game, um which I thought was interesting. I originally thought it was just a a Japanese RPG, but no, it's an action role playing game.
01:11:30
Speaker
um The game also, I'm going to precursor everyone listening. You already know because you've listened to me before. I talk really fast, especially when I'm excited. And even when I'm teaching stuff, I just I talk fast. So I will work, do better. But, you know, same thing. Give me constructive feedback, criticism, things like that. Whenever we get that in the box.
01:11:54
Speaker
That's fine. No big deal. No big deal. um So yeah, the game was published by Enix. So I will talk more like that name should sound familiar because a lot of you are at least people are listening and I know you Russell play a lot of Square Enix games. So um I actually have ah a topic I will talk talk about in a later podcast about the merger of Squaresoft and Enix, but Enix was Yeah,
01:12:27
Speaker
yeah same um they both did amazing and when they merged I was poop poop out about it originally but then like they they actually took it and did well so but I'll talk about the merger both companies separately at another time um but for this point Brain Lord was published by Enix. So when you first, ah you know, take your cartridge, blow on it, you know, put it in the Super Nintendo, um you would get the Enix logo, which is just like it's a black screen and then a green E just kind of like traces its way around. And then it's little Enix fades into the and a position there. um Pretty neat, kind of like nostalgic for me.
01:13:04
Speaker
um the game itself. So like I said, it's published by Enix, but it was ah developed by a company called Produce with an exclamation point at the end. um Or, yeah, I think I said that right. Produce. Product? Yeah, produce. Sorry. Autistic moment.
01:13:20
Speaker
um Yeah, ah because I was like, to me, it produce sounds like fruit. But yeah, that's what i was like it's not. That's pure. Oh, do you see e exclamation point? I didn't look up the the The pronunciation of it either podcasters, I guess are terrible about that, but who cares you know to be produced Yeah, maybe it is produced that's the thing else okay, maybe it's produce produce. I don't know. Here we go. God bless Alright anyway, so um The art style is absolutely stunning. Like I said earlier. They've got vibrant colors on the 16 whole whopping bit console You know now we've gotten 4k HD
01:14:02
Speaker
Crystal LED whatever so but uh, that was pretty big for the time since we were used to eight big games with the ns Oh, yeah 16 bit was a huge upgrade Yeah, so you definitely got more like vibrant colors a little bit more detail in your surroundings as you played Like I said, the music was stunning um The music was produced by a group named Opa Opus oh you Opus and they also did the sound effects for the game um
01:14:33
Speaker
The graphics for the game was done by Jun Kusaka, who also did a lot of Hudson games. Now, if you know anything about Hudson, they're most notably far for like the Bomberman series. They did a lot of those. okay So big Bomberman fan here too. Hudson, sponsors. Anyway, um this respects from so ah skipping around a little bit here. So for produce or However you said the other way, of saying it produce um it's a Japanese video game company founded in 1990 and developed a number of games for Enix and Hudson. ah So they're pretty well known within the industry. um Enix originally was founded in September 22nd, 1975. So that's a fun fact for you, like back when games weren't really
01:15:24
Speaker
I don't, you know what, more about that in the Square Enix merger episode, but yeah. Just know Enix is old. um Yeah, old AF. Yeah. um So the artists that um actually like designed the game cover art, which the cover art for the Japanese game, which, you know, originally was released in Japan um is like, you know, that manga anime-esque style. And then for America, it's just like this creepy looking floating ah
01:15:54
Speaker
island castle thing. But Sichiko basically did the Japanese one, which um she was noted for ah also City Hunter, which I've never played. I thought it was a video game at first. Fun to come to find out. It's a Japanese manga that came to an anime and then they made a live action film for it. So there's a little fun fact about the graphic artist. heard of city hunt I haven't either. um It's old, though. Like when I googled it, it's like that classic 80s. And like back when you said it, when it was good, it might be something you like. Yeah. Like old Akira or what was it? Like Phantom 2044 or whatever that show was. All right. I don't know that one. I know Akira. But yeah, I like those that kind of ah golden age of anime. Some people might call it. Yeah.
01:16:43
Speaker
um couldn't find much about Opus, so but they're they're pretty, like the the music and the the sound effects in the game, like awesome, love it. So Brain Lord, like I said, was originally released in 1994, so I was about seven.
01:17:01
Speaker
um And apparently its anniversary is on October 1st, so happy 30th, or almost 30th birthday, Brain Lord.
01:17:13
Speaker
Is that for the American edition or the Japanese edition? Yes, I'm glad you brought that up because I was about to say it's that's for the American release ah the Japanese release was Math is hard ah nine months earlier. if I did my math right in January of 29 or excuse me 29 January 1994 Okay, so about almost 10 months in between the two. Yeah
01:17:41
Speaker
And yeah, that's a little bit about like some of the history and publishers and who all went into making this game. So now we can get into the good stuff about the game itself. So ah what I'm going to do is I actually found so back when we actually got physical copy of games and the physical copies of the games came with booklets that Told you about the game and how to play it. They don't do really do that anymore. I kind of missed that part um I found a No, not at all it sucks. I hate it. I want a booklet yeah i know i liked looking at those i thought they were you yeah i come free Also that and like they also have the button layouts and like little tips and tricks in the books instead of me having to read on the screen and go through the tutorial and You know, like that's nice and all, but I still want to have that booklet. So when I stop playing the game for like three months, because I hyper fixated on something else, I can at least come back, and pull out my book and be like, OK, yeah, I know what I'm doing. Yeah, because when you're a kid, especially when you're playing something like a. Moral combat, you could study all the moves when somebody else is playing, so it's time for you to jump in. You need which buttons to push. Also that and then you can also like write down your combos in the little notes area of the book. Yeah, good times.
01:19:01
Speaker
um So anyway, yeah, I found the booklet for Brain Lord and I actually have the heroes and history of the game. So without further ado, I'm going to read this to everybody. This is basically the the background of the game.
01:19:17
Speaker
so eons ago when the great demon threw his dark shadow across our land the king met with or excuse me the king met and defeated him in a fierce battle but the demon was not destroyed shocker he was only wounded in the form of a heavy mist he disappeared to heal before long he once again set forth his legions of monsters to terrorize the people and to shatter towns honestly i you I would have never guessed any of this when playing this game but anyway ah Three mighty dragons rose up to oppose the demon. The dragon of wisdom taught humans how to find safety, and he had the fairies record his deep knowledge. The great demon, once again in physical form, was attacked by the dragon of war and forced to return to mist. The dragon of good luck also transformed to mist and trapped the demon in an underground cavern.
01:20:06
Speaker
From that day, the great demon has been closely guarded by the dragon of war. An age has passed since the demon was last defeated. People remember him now only as legend. The race of dragons and their human brothers, the dragon warriors, have also faded into history. One dragon warrior remained in a far village. He set forth in search of the last dragons.
01:20:28
Speaker
He warned his son, Reamer, that he might not return and asked the young man to promise to continue to hunt for dragons. He told him, dragons and dragon warriors must not be lost to our world. OK, first of all, how long is an age? Second of all, Reamer. Reamer are. Yeah. Well, I'm so glad you brought that up because there's ah the trends, like the Japanese name is lemele lemele.
01:20:57
Speaker
It's L. E. M. E. L. E. L. E. M. A. No. M. E. L. E. M. E. L. E. Lamele. Lamele. Lemon. Lemon. I don't know. Yeah. well life women yeah um Yeah. So we're just going to stick with Reamer for now. Yeah. Or Ramir. It might be Ramir now that I'm looking at it because it's two E's.
01:21:26
Speaker
r-a-nope r-e-a-m nope r-e-e-e-e-r yep well for all intents and purposes we're gonna go with reamer for now three yeah c two s r two e green or yeah it's probably re yeah interesting yeah no you're good oh and all good so yeah so reamer um Yeah, they're our main character and of course, you know in any typical game that you play as a main character back then you can rename him um I think I named my guy like atomic or something or a whiz kid because that was my call sign back then like every other millennial um But apparently if you don't name anything he just defaults to rumor now it's interesting to know because
01:22:22
Speaker
ah I thought you were hunting dragons in this game like it even says you know ah the hunt for dragons but I don't think you're going to hunt the dragons to kill them I think you're trying to find them to restore the balance in this game I guess I don't know the story is I think it the translation did not go well with this story at all
01:22:45
Speaker
Yeah, so there was a couple other games that were like that. Yeah. But there's a really popular one in the name of like, yeah, can well, none of the like so I use Wikipedia and a couple other their websites. Like surprisingly, there was actually quite a bit of info I can find on like different sources for this game. But all of them like didn't really delve too much into the story. um Just kind of talked about the gameplay and like what you went through and Honestly, like at the end of the day, like the story was there, but it wasn't like something I really played the game for of the story. It was more just like the fantasy about it, the imaginative part of it. um But anyway, so. ah So
Brain Lord Story and Characters
01:23:29
Speaker
you start out the game, um you're like in a dream and kind of like what I just read to you, the the um the dads there and he's talking to you. He's like, hey, son, I'm about to leave. I got to go find this dragon. um He's our last dragon. I'm a dragon warrior.
01:23:44
Speaker
And I'll be back, but I might not be back. And shocker, spoiler alert, he didn't make it back. Just like, yeah, just like everyone else's dad, you know, he went for a glass of milk or ah a bottle of milk and never came back. So the mom, don't ask me where the mom is in the story, because mom doesn't exist. ah She's not even. Yeah. Yeah. Apparently, Dragon Warriors are just, you know, produced from eggs, I guess. I don't yeah i don't know. Yeah.
01:24:11
Speaker
yeah it's all it matter So ah you wake up and you're in like a tavern. This is where you meet the four ah wait is it Yeah, four other ah Important characters in the game that kind of follow you throughout the game They're like NPCs but not in the sense that like if you've never played a stupid Nintendo game or any of the old games like they don't really like um Talk to you a whole lot. There's not a lot of dialogue. There's a little bit um But anyway, so you've got um
01:24:42
Speaker
cashian Cassian K A S H I A N. If I mispronounce that, that's just what I'm going because that's even in my little baby seven year old brain from remembering, you know, it was Cassian. She so before I get into all of their backgrounds and stuff, I when I researched this, I learned so much about this game, I did not know because most of these characters, like I kind of knew what they were and who they were based on the game when I played it.
01:25:11
Speaker
But I was shocked with like who they actually were from like the booklet that describes them and also like the other ah sources that I used for this. So anyway, you got cash in who's the daughter of a witch and a warrior labeled as a bounty hunter and a fearless adventurer. um much you be But she yes, she has a witch and a warrior parent. Yes, she does. You never meet them, but she's got parents.
01:25:39
Speaker
um One thing that I thought was interesting was that they called her a bounty hunter, but they also, the for a bounty hunter, she's more of a treasure hunter. And I feel like those two things are completely different. so Yeah, but I can see where the translation happened because bounty, like bountiful amount of things.
01:26:01
Speaker
OK. All right. Yeah, that's that's probably it. But yeah, she she likes trinkets and and things. um Yeah, ah bias trinkets anyway. oh So she the way she appears in the game, she almost looks like your stereotypical like fairy kid, like she's ah dressed in green and in what pixels that you can tell, like a little sprite. But again, she's not a fairy. She's just the daughter of a witch and a warrior. And she's a bounty hunter slash treasure hunter. So um She basically, throughout the game, like when you talk to her and see her in different dungeons that you go through, she'll give you um um items and information about your gear throughout the game, like how to use it, what's good for what, like little tips and tricks. so Oh, like a fairy in Zelda. Yeah, but again, she's not a fairy. She's a bounty right ballie hunter. hunter.
01:26:55
Speaker
So that's that's cash. Then we've got Barnas. B-A-R-N-E-S-S. Yeah. um some He looks like a wizard. Like, I swear to God, the whole time I'm playing this game, I think he's like a wizard or something, because ah he's got like ah this like over cloak. It's like a very dark, dark, dark, like almost like a black blue and then like a lighter gray underneath it um type of robe thing. But apparently,
01:27:24
Speaker
He was born a noble man, and he chose to enter a shrine when he was 20. And I'll talk about the shrines in the game in a little bit. and a little bit um And he's a deeply spiritual man. So it kind of makes sense with his robes and stuff and why they look the way they do. um Apparently, there was an omen in the stars that inspired him to become so to begin seeking the legendary dragons. ah So I guess that's kind of where he you know found his way into the first town and you meet up with him because he's like, oh, the stars. They spoke to me. I must seek them. So there's almost like a monk because the stars told him to be a monk. Yeah, but he was a nobleman. So like I feel like if this game were rich monk. Yeah, that doesn't make sense because monks give up the worldly things. They don't care about all that. It's very important that you know that he's a rich monk. Yes. Yes. Barnas, the rich monk. But
01:28:22
Speaker
um I feel like if they remade this game and went more in-depth into the lore Like they've got a lot to like expand on and it could it could do well And if they do that make sure to give me some world cheese because I said you should do it and you know all that um but Yeah sponsors, um Square Enix you listening um He's got white hair right because again he when he was 20 is When he decided to enter the shrine or whatever I don't really know what that meant. That's just what it said um and his people. Right. So like I guess his race because he he looks human and he is a human is a nobleman, I guess. um So his clan, if you will, I guess, for lack of a better word, built the ancient statues, the shrines um that in the game you interact with quite a lot. And they basically are how you save the game or how you save your game because, you know, we don't have auto save back then. Right.
01:29:21
Speaker
um And these shrines, they are weird looking. Like how do I describe them? um If you want to Google Brain Lord Shrine and see if it comes up while I try to describe it to you. um So if you picture like an alien looking a statue that's like, I don't know, 20 feet tall and has maybe like one eye and it's like got tentacles on its hips,
01:29:48
Speaker
and it's red. That's it. That's the thing. but like I don't know where the concept or design for the shrines came from, but they're pretty wild. They're pretty out there. Yeah, I'm trying to pull up a screen grab, but I'm being thrown into like a lot of different pictures.
01:30:11
Speaker
Oh, oh, boy. All right. So we'll continue when I try to sort this. So that's Varnas Varnas. Have you say his name? And then you got rain, which is R E I N. Not the purple singer. ah Purple rain prints. There it is. Words are hard. ah But it's funny because I don't know if this had anything to do with this character concept because he does dress in purple. He's very purpled out.
01:30:42
Speaker
Interesting. So rain is described as a successful bounty hunter, which then there it is again, I'm like, huh, weird. Okay. um He's the descendant of generations of honorable warriors. And that's where I think the translation kind of got weird again. Cause like warriors, bounty hunter, I don't know. Yeah, weird.
01:31:06
Speaker
he ah He does not hesitate to follow his inborn sense of justice, which is strong and never leads him astray, which again, a bounty hunter, they're not really built for justice. They're just out for themselves. So again, I think there's a translation error. um Unless you're the man of order. Okay, fair. Fair. Good point. um This guy's not. Nope.
01:31:30
Speaker
I remember playing the game and thinking that he was like the cocky, annoying dude. So um I don't know where like honorable warriors came from, but all right, sure. He's got like blonde hair. He's got fancy armor and a cape. um Like I said, again, it's all purple. um The main reason he's traveling with you, I read this on one of the websites. I didn't know this. But the main reason he's traveling with you is to stop by his hometown where he can finally get married to his fiance.
01:31:58
Speaker
So he doesn't care about you know the demon, the mist, the trying to find the dragons. It's just, um I'm trying to get to my fiance, bro. Help me out. So you have convenience. So you have a party. Kind of, but not really. It's not a party like in Final Fantasy where like you can fight and use them. right like This is all a single player, top down action role playing game. But they do follow you in the sense that like they just they're they're in the dungeon. And when you see them, you can go talk to them. Normally, they're just like,
01:32:27
Speaker
Pacing somewhere and they pace like sometimes it's like they move a little bit and they stop and then they like a few Eons later. They move a little bit again And they're never together except for like in maybe like the tavern or towns that you go to most of the time They're all spread out throughout the dungeon interesting interesting um Then you've got Ferris f er is um I kind of liked Ferris because she was neat. She had like she looks like Leela almost from Futurama, except she has two eyes, not one. um She does have like shoulder pads, um like a dress skirt thing. um But she's very withdrawn. She doesn't really talk about herself like us. Yeah. Which is probably why I liked her. um bro Both her parents were fortune tellers, and she is a powerful witch, which again,
01:33:24
Speaker
uh-huh, witch, witch. I would not... um Yeah, yeah, sponsors. I would have never guessed she was a witch. Some of the things I read like on the other side said she was a sorceress, which I was like, okay, that that makes more sense. Cause you know, when you hear witch, you think like crone, crooked, green nose, like ugly, saggy, whatever. Yeah. No, she, she's just, she looked like a sorceress or like a battle mage almost, but uh,
01:33:53
Speaker
She's also listed as a valuable companion, which I don't know what the fuck that was supposed to mean, because all she really does is she'll you'll find like a new magic ability in a chest and she'll kind of like give you some tips on it. But by then, you probably already know how to use it. So, again, not really sure how that was valuable, but she's neat, I guess. And then, of course, she's terrified of mice, which you learn on very early in the game.
01:34:21
Speaker
Because in the first town, I think the town's called Arx, which is a weird name for a town. But you go downstairs in one of these places and... Oh no, it's actually in the dungeon, not in a remember. Yeah, so one of the dungeons you see, like she's stuck in a room.
01:34:39
Speaker
and Like she literally the you enter the room and a little text dialog pops up You can't even do anything and which she's just like eek and it just goes a mice a mice or a mouse a mouse a mouse or mice mice mice I can't remember specifically what but it just like keeps going for like seven lines and you have to click through each line and then finally she's like I hate mice at the end of it and then it lets you move and then the mice and in this game are like erratic and they just kinda like move all over the place and of course if they touch you you you lose health so you gotta like go kill all the mice and then once you kill the mice it plays like a little tada like happy sound like saying hey you did it and then you can go and you talk to her and she's like oh thank you so much I hate mice andm like okay I got it you don't like mice so that's her that's her shining highlight apparently most important information you can believe from her she hates mice
01:35:30
Speaker
yeah And sometimes she'll tell you about magical abilities. Occasionally.
Brain Lord Gameplay and Challenges
01:35:36
Speaker
Occasionally. So those are your four companions, if you will, um that I said, like I said, travel throughout the game with you and are all located in different areas in the dungeon and you meet them in the towns. And they kind of, like I said, help move the story along. But again, there wasn't a whole lot in Wikipedia, the couple of websites that talked about the game that really boiled down the storyline.
01:35:57
Speaker
um
01:36:00
Speaker
So moving on, there's five main dungeons. So, like, if you think back to where I said this game was really hard and I never beat it, it's not a very long game, though. Like, that's the thing. You you travel to like different towns. Of course, there's like one or two towns or areas in between each dungeon. Like you hit a town and then you got like an area. You got to like go through and defeat monsters to get to the dungeon. Then you get to the dungeon and you do the dungeon. But the first dungeon is called the Tower of Light.
01:36:29
Speaker
second one you got ancient ruins uh... the third ones the ice castle fourth one is the drug volcano and then fit this platinum uh... i've only ever made it i think i'd beat the ice castle once and then started getting a drug volcano and then like i stop playing and i forgot where i was and i just could not continue for it anymore so uh... is not bring no no not at all also just
01:37:00
Speaker
ah last one flat them yeah miss opportunity there but Yeah, no, it's just platinum that's it platinum dragon platinum forr nope just platinum yeah all these neat fucking names and then flattin um yep um So ah The Tower of Light is where you first kind of get your first dragon scale, right? And you you basically sell it. So this is kind of why like I thought like our point was to kill dragons because we we're trying to find a dragon and then like someone had already beat us to the dragon and there was a drag. Like I thought somebody killed it. So that's why I was like, OK, I guess we're killing dragons. That's a dragon warrior. That kind of checks. But no per the game story, like the dragons are the good guys. So that's a fun fact. You're just collecting and selling dragon parts. Why not make some money out of them? Yeah. Yeah.
01:37:55
Speaker
And you get like a lot of money to like it it really helps you out and it helps you to buy a couple like good arm pieces of armor and like weapons and stuff, which I'll talk about here in a little bit. um Then you've got. Yeah. Because they're so rare and like people apparently make armored weapons out of the dragon scales. So maybe and like I remember actually not think about it.
01:38:16
Speaker
in the game they even talked about people hunted the dragons so there's very there's a lot of conflicting. um Pieces of information here with the booklet the translation and the gameplay like I don't know what's truth or are not but go play and find out for yourself I guess.
01:38:32
Speaker
yeah and that happens a lot too whenever you do like a like we talked about earlier, there's one specific game where one of the last like lines of dialogue in the game are so fucked up because of the, they tried to do the exact literal translate translation that it always makes sense in the origin language, but when you transfer it over to another one, you just lose so much in there and it's just nobody ever questioned them, especially back in 94. We had no way to question it. We were just going with it. Like, yep. Yep. Makes sense. Yep. Here we go.
01:39:06
Speaker
Yeah. So the Tower of Light, it's literally like it sounds like. um Well, maybe not exactly. But it's just a giant tower you go in. It's where you get introduced to a lot of the monster. Well, you've fought monsters along the way. um But you go through, you kind of learn the dungeon mechanics. um Each dungeon has its own puzzles that are pretty unique. um You move big boulders onto switches.
01:39:28
Speaker
um there's literally like giant balls like yeah it sounds funny but it's if I can't describe it any other way it's a giant metal ball that you have to move in it like you have to move a rock behind one to hit that floor switch and then you push the ball onto the rock because then that hits that floor switch and then it opens the door finally That's like one of like kind of the puzzle mechanism. Then they get more complicated where like then you've got like bouncing balls where like you got to push the balls in the correct sequence so that when they bounce off the wall and they come back and roll over the switch, all three or five balls end up hitting the switches correctly to open the door. And then you got to stand right by the door for when that happens because that ball is going to keep moving. So as soon as that door opens, you got to go through it. And so if you fuck up the timing or whatever, you got to like leave the room, come back, do it all over.
01:40:16
Speaker
um Then you've got awesome. Yeah, it it takes some getting used to in time a lot of timing. Then you've got disappearing floors, like the classic kind of style from back then, you know, you. um You see the floor and it's all there and then all of a sudden pieces of floor just kind of disappear. So you got to time that you've got spikes like when you step on a certain floor the spikes will come up so you got to pay attention and really look at the floor design like I'm saying it's not obvious whatsoever. There's like a little tiny square that's just slightly different than the rest of them that if you miss it's easy to miss you step on your like our crap and you're losing life.
01:40:55
Speaker
um So it was impossible to see in 94 when your parents had only bought you a 20-inch TV Yeah 400 fucking pounds. Yeah, and I don't even think I had one that big I think it was like maybe a 12-incher like It yeah, so and also CRT. So we won't even get the topic of that. It was It was damn near impossible. Yeah, so um, I You got introduced to a lot of that in the Tower of Light. You climb the tower, you learn how you got to get keys just like in any good classic you know action-adventure game to unlock doors, um killed enemies, all that. um And then the ancient ruins, when you fast forward and get through the Tower of Light. Oh, I'm sorry. The Tower of Light, the dungeon boss, is a giant cockroach, by the way. So if you're... Oh. Yeah. Yeah, it's it's huge. And then like it poops out little baby cockroaches that just like go everywhere and like bounce off the walls. And like it's it's a great time.
01:41:52
Speaker
And then when you you start getting it closer to death it starts changing colors So it starts out The green the cockroach so it starts off like a brown cockroach and then I think it goes to like some Baby, puke green and then like some fluorescent. It's it's a while. It's almost like an acid trip trying to kill this thing. I Don't remember if you stated her already But what do you use for health in the game? Is it like you gotta find?
01:42:20
Speaker
Potions or by potions or is it like you find food drop places? So I am that is a great point I did not think to talk about that. So yeah, so for health right um to increase health You get like a little health container. That's not like a heart like Legend of Zelda, but it's kind of similar um for ah ah Replenishing your health. Yeah, it's like food. So you get a block of cheese, which literally looks like your sterile typical little yellow with You know little grooves in it and holes um And other food items out for some reason I can only remember the cheese right now though, but I think there was other ones Yeah,
01:43:00
Speaker
charcuterie board <unk>s fucking yeah um Yeah, good question um moving on to the ancient ruins now after the horrible cockroach fight, which you get a dragon scale from, like I said, which was interesting. um Oh, yeah. look Yeah, the cockroach also blows up. So I don't know why that makes sense. But, you know, eight years old, who cares? It it was cool. Cockroach gets everywhere. Yeah. Yeah.
01:43:30
Speaker
so you got to afraid of mine not cochran just my Yeah, well she's not in the room with you when you're killing the cockroach to be fair Like I don't I swear some of these these people they don't even make it all the way up there Like there was one point. I forget which dungeon it was in where she let it was like I'm stuck I don't know how to get out help and I'm like I just unlocked the door leave like I found the key the doors a lot you can you can go but you know 16-bit not enough like these games were made with like what 250 kilobytes of max memory So it makes they didn't have enough time or enough space to put that in there Yeah, that'll all be covered in the You know attached or related manga that'll come out shortly after the game and that's where you get all the finer details and Yeah, yeah um so
01:44:23
Speaker
Moving on to the ancient ruins, finally, after you know really explaining the Tower of Light and being ADHD. The ancient ruins, this is where the game just, it looks like a futuristic,
01:44:39
Speaker
so so in the name it says ancient ruins, right? like You're thinking, okay, cool, like it's gonna be a cave. you know There's gonna be skulls and like you know dead, creepy like a ruins, like macabre setting. and all that Yeah, no, it's all like lit up by like actual lights and there's like machines in there. Like the the enemies in there are literal. Like they look like Roombas if they were square but that move up and down and shoot little laser beams out there, their butt and their face.
01:45:12
Speaker
So um yeah. And then like even the doors, the doors look like, you know, doors from like the freaking twenty fifth century. um Not like the the doors you are used to in the tower of light where they're like, OK, cool. Yeah, it looks like a tower door, like an old school like door.
01:45:29
Speaker
So they're like Star Trek doors where they just slide open. Yeah. Yep. Kind of what they, well, they still kind of, cause, you know, again, graphics, you know, city of Nintendo style, yeah they still like crack open for before you go in, but they look like they could 1000% just actually be sliding doors. Interesting. It sounds like during the age of dragons, everything was more technologically advanced and then, you know, the age of the demon and the dragons, but then once all that went away, everybody lost.
01:46:00
Speaker
you resources of the technological advancement Yeah, maybe I can I like that I could go with that because yeah, maybe you like Yeah, or like any other RPG that you know their ancient civilization was more advanced Atlantis So I don't remember the boss of the ancient ruins I Angel Ruins started is where like the puzzle started ramping up and like there was more rooms and it was a lot easier to get lost in there, plus the enemies were a little harder. um And again, I'll promise I'm going to talk about the magic, the weapons, and some of the other things here in a little bit. I just wanted to stay on topic and not jump around too much and just kind of go over my personal experiences with the dungeons. um So yeah, then the next dungeon after the ancient ruins is the Ice Castle.
01:46:53
Speaker
And if you haven't figured this out, like I talked a lot about the Tower of Light because I spent a lot of time in the Tower of Light. And the Ancient Ruins, I don't remember a lot because I know I spent a lot of time being in there, but I've replayed the game so much. the By the time I got to Ancient Ruins, I think is when I would stop.
01:47:08
Speaker
but um And then eventually yeah and the Ice Castle, I've only gotten to I think twice, and I've only actually beaten once. The ice castle is literally an entire thing. Like it's it's ice. It's a nice castle. um It's really pretty, though. Like the ambiance is really nice. Like it's all like blues and like like it's gorgeous. Like for lack of a better term, like it was a nice um change of pace from like the ancient ruins that you were just in. But to get to it, I think you had to go through a desert. So why there's a nice castle in the desert? I don't know. I didn't make the game.
01:47:45
Speaker
forms in the desert deserts holy yeah They also get hottest shit during the day, which is you travel during the day, so I don't know but um The ice castle is where a lot more challenge like you you mess up one piece and you you can't beat it and that's why I kept getting stuck so much because I Would fall through one crack of ice and then just mess everything up and then it was there's game over is done like I had to restart um And of course, if you think like... part from the beginning in the castle or restart from the beginning of the whole last game No, like restart from like the whole beginning of the game because like you didn't have different save files. You can't like save multiple instances. It's just one file, one save. Yeah. yeah um But if you've taken into account all the things I said about the puzzles, like I said, the Tower of Light had and then the Ancient Ruins also had a lot of the same ones, but they got harder and more pain in the assy.
01:48:43
Speaker
ice castle add all of that more challenging puzzles and now you're on ice so if you know anything about playing ice games or being on ice you slip and slide and it just made it for a very frustrating like I got I would get so mad at this fucking game because of this fucking dungeon like I said it was pretty and I obviously was great and they probably did that to like try to calm you down so you wouldn't break the game but it still was very frustrating Yeah, and that was back in the day when your controller was on a cord so you couldn't just toss it across the room. Yeah, no, I mean, you could just rip the cord out. and
01:49:18
Speaker
Yeah, the yeah was way more damn. I mean you had to pretend for ripping your whole ass Also, yeah also that um And then after the ice castle, like I said, you got the drew volcano which again I had never gotten to I just I do remember seeing it like at least like the the cutscene afford or whatever where it was just a volcano and the it was black and red like your typical volcano we atmosphere and I have no idea what platinum is because I never got there so if you want to get wonder what platinum is either Google it or go play the game couldn't tell you I bet it's fine color i would imagine I think that is a fair assessment ah no surprise it probably like a jule hu he honestly it might be with this game's logic like I don't I don't know yeah alright so finally I'm gonna talk about the weapons and spells that I keep mentioning so much so
01:50:11
Speaker
This game, like you said, it's top down. You use you start out with a sword and the sword, the way that the mechanic works, it like swings out in an arc in front of you, which makes sense for games like that. But it made like a whapping like, oh, I don't know how to describe it like it's a it's like a whap sound like it was it was a weird sound effect for the sword. And I don't know.
01:50:34
Speaker
why they chose that one, but that was the one you got. It was like a little whack. I was like, OK, cool. um Then you get like an axe. The axe only hit one square in front of you. And the axes had like a really short hit marker for a hit. Yeah. Hitbox.
01:50:54
Speaker
Yep. Yep. You had a very short distance. So like it was very challenging because you could just start losing life because if an enemy touches you in this game, like you just start losing life. And once you lose life, you're dead. Right. So um but here's the kicker. They decided to make the axe one of the most powerful or the power most powerful weapon in the game. Oh, sure. Yeah. So you you had to. eat long You know, they're directly in front of you. Yep. So that was frustrating. um Then you get a morning star.
01:51:23
Speaker
which the Morningstar is pretty cool because this mechanic, like we didn't have joysticks back then for those of us, for those of you that are listening and like never played Super Nintendo or are not born but before 2000 or are before. Anyway, you know, the right?
01:51:44
Speaker
you could use it as an attack and it shoots out in front of you, right? Like I'm more like you flick it out and it's like a couple of spaces ahead of you. So like almost a longer reach than the sword, way longer reach than the axe. And then if you held the attack button and you took your thumb and you kind of like ah rolled your thumb across the D pad, you know, in a circular motion that he would stand still and he would swing the morning star around him. Okay. So like helicoptering it around him. Yeah. which for back then was like, I love that. mccan I thought that was the coolest thing because, again, I didn't have a joystick to twist around and like you could, I guess, if you did it right, kind of twist the deep. I don't know. But you had to roll your thumb across the D pad and then like any enemy that came out, you would get hit. You could just sit there and just swing your morning star until they kept running into you enough to die. It was it was great. um You got boomerangs. They were probably the weakest and stupidest one because it was like a little
01:52:41
Speaker
ah It looked like a little piece of paper like folded in the shape of boomerang that would just flick out and come back And you can throw a bunch of them, but they didn't do hardly any damage Yeah ah rain You had a bow of course which you know endless range you could hit enemies across the map But they were also kind of meh um I generally just stuck to the sword in the morning star sometimes. I'd use the axe if I got you know froggy and um And yeah, so that's mostly what I remember for the weapons. um The book didn't really talk about all the weapons you could use. It just talked about some of them. um But the the designs on like in your inventory, they looked really cool. Like they're really well thought out done. It's just like when you use it in the game, it didn't show like it didn't really change a whole lot. It's kind of the same um appearance ah for the magic now.
01:53:39
Speaker
You got you started out with ah your magic shot, which, you know, magic missile for any of the D and&D nerds listening. um It was literally just you held a button down to charge it and then you released it and it was just like a little little blue beam of well, not even a beam of light. It was like a traveling crescent of blue that would hit enemies.
01:54:01
Speaker
um know what you werere talking about well i mean i get like the style that you're talking about yeah Yeah, and then you'd get like ah like there was a laser beam there was like a stop time I Don't remember a whole lot about the magic either You would get magic into different dungeons. So there's also limited types of magic you could buy magic as well um but that was stupid expensive and you'd have to grind forever and
01:54:26
Speaker
This game actually had some pretty good grinding mechanics, which I'll talk about in the monster section here in a little bit. So yeah, that was weapons and spells. Now, arguably, outside of the Morningstar mechanic, the other really cool mechanic that I loved about this game, and why I love this game so much, even though the puzzles pissed me the fuck off, was jades.
01:54:48
Speaker
so You think about a little tiny crystal called a jade, but it's not in the color or shape of a jade. It's just, that's the name they went with. It's like little crystals that you can collect throughout the game. There's only about eight of them. Excuse me, nine. There's nine jades in all. um Some of them you have to buy. Again, really expensive. Some of them you can only get in dungeons. So each one of these jades housed a fairy.
01:55:13
Speaker
And it's not the fairy in the sense like Legend of Zelda fairy or like the fairy you immediately pops in your head that looks all cute and pretty or whatever. No, these things. Yeah. Thanks. So these the way these things appeared, they look like gremlins and they're like all different types, like in shapes and sizes. And they just basically you can only have up to two out at a time and they just hang out right next to you in a little floaty fly areas.
01:55:42
Speaker
um The first one that you get is a fire jade and like he literally looks like a actual gremlin, but he's orange and he just shoots fireballs like fire jade fireballs. Makes sense. um As you level him up and he gets better, his fireballs get bigger. He gets multiple fireballs like pretty simple. um The way you level these guys up,
01:56:09
Speaker
you When you kill monsters, sometimes they'll drop these little blue ball like blue orbs almost that have like a little piece of electricity that'll sometimes circle around it. um Very rare. Very pain in the butt because you could be sitting there fighting monsters for hours to try to level your people up. um But the monster would drop it, your little fairy would go over, collect it, and then come back. And then the X amount of those orbs means X amount of experience, and then they would level up. So, could take a while.
01:56:38
Speaker
um And of course they don't share XP so you have to level up each jade individually and like I said, there's nine of them So if you're trying to keep everybody the same level forget about it. You're gonna spend way too much time in this game Yeah,
01:56:55
Speaker
yeah like old-school Pokemon not not new age but where it's easy to level them up
01:57:01
Speaker
um so So yeah, it shows Now they Pokemon Oz has like this shared XP where you're giving it like at the very beginning of the game and Whatever your lead Pokemon gets the rest of them get a little portion of that Yeah, they made it they made it easy ah Anyway, so like I said, there's nine. um The nine different fairies that you can have are, so I'm sorry, I said fire fairy earlier, it's Crimson Jade. um like Yep, that's the first one you get. And then I'm looking through,
01:57:43
Speaker
yeah, the next one's called the Foundation Jade. um She's described as her presence increases your defensive power so you can survive more injuries. I don't think I've ever found that J. So I don't know when you get that one. It looks like a um looks like some like it's in like a a karate suit, like a gi suit, like a white one. And it just has like a flat white head. Like there's no when I say white, I mean, like the color white, not like the skin tone white.
01:58:15
Speaker
um It looks like almost like a UFO head. So maybe that you get that in platinum or the I don't I don't know I've never seen that Jade Just going down the list from the book um then you have the deceased Jade ah Which that one will sacrifice one of her levels to save your life Also, I want to talk about each one is referred to as a girl with she pronouns I guess but none of them look female whatsoever. So I'm back Yeah. So the deceased Jade looks like a little hunchback like me, um except it it looks like a butler almost. This is the way I always looked at it. And then it's got like a skull face. But the skull face is not your typical skull face. It looks like a ant skull or something. I don't know.
01:59:01
Speaker
So like it has antenna? No, it's more like the bottom. It has mandibles. Oh, OK. Yeah, kind of weird. Then you've got the power jade. um Exactly what it sounds like. It increases your attack so you can you can do more damage. um This one looks like a little ah bunny head and then weird, oddly shaped body that's pink and has wings. I don't know. It's weird looking. um You have the lightning jade, which lightning jade zaps your enemies.
01:59:34
Speaker
um The way that the lightning jade works, I've seen is it just kind of goes over to the enemy and it has like lightning, a little lightning field around it. So it just zap some constantly until they die. This one looks like a big fat ball of blue with like a metal helmet on top.
01:59:53
Speaker
Then you very interesting sounding fairies. Yeah, I know. i I would never think any of these are fairies, but that's what the game calls it. So we're going to call it. Then you've got the water jade. ah The water jade ah basically shoots out pellets of waters.
02:00:07
Speaker
um It's yeah, it's a giant thing of green Like it looks like a little green Hulk fairy except it's got like a mushroom head That's also green. Yep Then you have the anger Jade I loved this one and this was like a fan favorite too, I'm sure um Exactly. It's that's a little angry ball of hate that will go when an enemy shows up or gets close enough to you it B lines it like it just like go straight at it and then just kind of like swarms through it like an actual bee until it dies. And then like when it's floating next to you or just chilling while you're walking, it looks like it's on crack. Like it's just like constantly vibrating and like moving. It's like. man Sounds like my brain. Yeah. Then you've got the light jade, which the light jade was very helpful in um the ancient ruins because the lights would go out because again, ruins, you know, there was power in there and then there was some rooms that didn't have power, you know.
02:01:04
Speaker
um yeah because all ruins have Yeah. Yeah. um She looks like a spider. Except um and when I say like a spider, not like a very detailed spider, like the old school, like you just drew a circle with legs on it. It's kind of spider. Except her circle is all like ah reddish orange and then her legs are blue. But she uses her legs, I guess, to fly around, I guess. I don't know. And like I said, she does exactly what she sounds. She just illuminates the area for you so you can see.
02:01:35
Speaker
god forbid carry you lantern Yeah, we don't have those in here, but we have power and electricity nothing um And then lastly the ninth and final Jade is the life Jade um As her level increases she can replenish your life meter more often which she just restores your HP So you've got one that'll when you die bring you back to life. The other one kind of keeps you healed up Sounds like the one I would use the most If you're good, you don't really, like, you're better off, like, well, at least my playstyle, I usually would have the Anger Jade out all the time. And I would swap between, like, the Crimson Water or Lightning Jade, or sometimes I'd use the Power Jade when I got it. But each one of these, like, some of them, like I said, are in the dungeons that you find, others you can purchase. um So it just depends on where you're at in the game or, um yeah, what, how much money you made.
02:02:30
Speaker
sell it on those dragon scales Yeah, you don't get that many fun fact like I said, there's only like I think killing it too cuz ancient ruins didn't have no dragon scales, but it did have Gold bullions that you could sell for a little bit of money move Yeah um So moving on to monsters everyone's favorite topic. So the monsters in this game were interesting um You like I said, you you do a little bit of mice in the first town ah to get some money, which they just kind of scurry around. They're annoying. They only give you like a hundred dollars gold, whatever. I i don't remember what the currency was in this game. um And then you go out and you get your purse filled in the beginning. Yeah. Yep. And then when you leave the town, you have like
02:03:19
Speaker
these psychopses that attack you with like this crooked dagger. Now, these psychopses, they're not very big. They're human-sized. They're very wide. ah They're hunched over. And they almost look like like thieves or mercenaries. But their ball didn't have one eye.
02:03:39
Speaker
thus cycle Yep, um so you deal with them and then you find some skeletons which the skeletons are very annoying because once you hit them once of course they crumble to the floor and then they did more Yep, reassemble and attack you again and you hit him again and these these things take at least 12 to 15 hits Before they finally die and then like you only got like 200 something out of it So it was like not even worth your time to try to kill these things for money It was just like get out of my way, drop them to the floor, keep going. Unless you had a really... If they don't make it there, then it's not really a dungeon. Yeah. um Then you've got in your Tower of Light, it's where you get first introduced to these little eyeballs in the walls. Literally, the ah you're just walking along through the dungeon, trying to get to your neck, like just doing your thing, living your best life. And a little eye just kind of opens up and looks at you. And you're like, what the hell is that?
02:04:38
Speaker
And if you try to go back to it, it's going to close and be like, oh, i didn't you didn't see me. I'm not here. But eventually, if you get good enough, or if you time it right, you can attack the eye. And then the eye pops out of the wall and bounces on the ground. And of course, if it hits you, and you take damage. But it's not like actively attacking you. So what's the perk of trying to find it out of the wall as opposed to just money? You exist where you're just like, oh, OK. Money. Like, it's just something you can do while you're there.
02:05:07
Speaker
um I talked about the giant cockroach. Then you've got like, um, I already talked about the little Roombas. I'm trying to remember some of the other like the, fire he um,
02:05:22
Speaker
Yeah, I don't remember all the monsters in the game, but each each area had its own unique. Like sometimes, you know, they would take and just redo the color scheme on the Cyclops or the skeletons or make the skeletons bigger. Sometimes the Cyclops would have bows to hit you with. Sometimes the eyes would have lasers that shoot at you in the walls. Like it would just kind of take the ah first area um idea and expand on it. But then they also introduced like more unique monsters that I when looking through, I couldn't find it and I couldn't remember.
02:05:53
Speaker
Um, but yeah, each each monster, you know, drop money. And of course, if you like ah went into a room and came back, the monsters reset. So um
Podcast Wrap-up and Future Plans
02:06:01
Speaker
you could absolutely grind this game for money.
02:06:06
Speaker
Age old curse of the first gen games where you clear an area and you're like, oh, fuck, I forgot to do this thing. I got to go back and there's all the monsters again. Yep. Yep. So it gets very grinding and can be quite annoying.
02:06:23
Speaker
um And so yeah, I mean that's brain Lord in a nutshell That's Surprisingly a lot for an NES game I know like and that's why I wanted to talk about it because there's not many people have ever Heard or seen the game and honestly if you were to see the game on the shelf You probably wouldn't even think twice about picking it up because the
02:06:51
Speaker
the cover art is just like it's just like a floating thing in the sky and it's called brain lord like it's not appealing it doesn't catch your eye if the name is not like i want to play that and it wasn't well advertised is that is brain lord what the literal translation was for just like japanese or was it um so let's see i'm gonna try to do this as quietly as possible so i was like pick up on my mic because i have a very annoying keyboard i did look at like that and i think that was what the game was called like even in japanese um so here's that let's search but it's about a demon in dragons uh yeah that you literally would not have had any clue about unless a i'm sure it talks about it maybe way later in the game um but yeah so yeah uh just looked at the uh japanese name from wikipedia and translated it
02:07:50
Speaker
And the Japanese for it is Bureno, which I guess the literal trends like that an aspect would be brain road. But of course, in Japanese, if you're an anime we've like me, they they pronounce their R's as L's. So really would be Bureno. So Brain Lord. So, yeah, that is what the game was called. The other question I had is when and Know you haven't beaten the game, but do you know like at the end of the game you find the dragons and read? banish the demon or Is it just spoiler alert scar Yeah, no, this is these are all great questions again the websites I looked at did not talk about the end of the story or it Really ain't much about it
02:08:45
Speaker
So and I wouldn't want to beat it. Yep. that's That's the thing. Like, you just got to play it and beat it. And there's plenty of like emulators out there. Not that I'm supporting, you know, that, but I also am supporting at the same time because it's an out of print game. So I encourage anybody to give a shot. I wonder if it's on the SNES library that's available on the switch. It's not not yet. No, no, it hasn't been ported. Otherwise, trust me, I would have played it before I talked about it.
02:09:15
Speaker
Doubt it's on that preloaded SNES lab Doubtful cuz again, it was not a very popular or well-known game Like I've only think I've met one or two people in my lifetime that even have heard of it let alone played it Yeah, I Mean it makes sense because I have never heard of it
02:09:40
Speaker
Yeah, so like I said, that's ah that's Brain Lord, one of my favorite games. Go check it out, download it, play it. Let me know what you think whenever we get our you know inbox set up for emails and stuff. Inbox. Don't review. Yeah, you're going to be in charge of managing that, by the way. Oh, yeah, that about wraps things up. ah Not the emails that work. Let me let me read some other emails. Yeah, yeah, yeah same.
02:10:10
Speaker
So thanks everybody for listening to us rambling for the last, uh, right now we're at two hours and 11 minutes. Hopefully I'll edit out some of that. Yeah. 35 minutes of that is us clearing our throats. Yeah. Or saying a lot of, uh, and, um, Oh, I'm sure.
02:10:33
Speaker
But, uh, we will, uh, We will try to do this weekly or biweekly, depending on our schedules and try to keep up to a strict time. Well, not a strict timeline, because we're doing this for fun. If we make money or once you start putting expectations on timelines, you just leave out all the good stuff. And that takes away from the whole point of random, random rambling. um yeah no we were able a lot Oh, yeah. No, a thousand percent.
02:11:05
Speaker
um But I hope you guys enjoyed it. If there's a topic you would like me or Russell to discuss, please, by all means, again, when we get that email set up, send us some info. But we've already got a list, a long laundry list. you know We already talked about a couple in the episode.
02:11:19
Speaker
so um yeah i don't know how long where i'm working on some working on some things oh okay working got it got it i have a long list because i was just like one day just jotting them down i was like oh i can talk about this this this oh and i like this this and this well i started i started with about five or six different things and then randomly on shoot I want to say maybe it was during like oh opening ceremonies Olympics or shortly thereafter I was like oh got a topic wasn't even on my list I'll go with it that super heavy pretty easy introductory little topic there and I started thinking about it after I typed it all up and I was like oh no I gotta come up with another one ah ah it'll come with time it's fine
02:12:09
Speaker
Oh, yeah. it Honestly, our great news for our audiences, our interests in topics are so vast that there's just an endless supply of things that we could probably talk about. Oh, yeah. And I'm sure our listeners, if we ever get any, would be more than happy to contribute. That'll probably find some little peeker interest. And who knows, maybe there'll be something like, hey, you should check out this specific thing that you don't know anything about. And we could probably learn something.
02:12:37
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I'm sure the three listeners I know would have some input, hopefully. So, but you fine for anybody in my family to give me some input. Yep. So, all right. Well, again, thanks for listening. And I have no doubt to close this out. So, Russell, I'll let you close it out. Oh, boy. Well, um appreciate everybody taking the time to sit down and learn about something you never otherwise would have learned about, or maybe we just expanded on something that you had a slight knowledge of. Uh, without further ado, later, lizards. Bye.