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S3 Ep253: Do Sims Dream of Cyber-Taxes?
72 Plays3 years ago
Join Dave, Jake, and special guest Jennie as they talk about taxes, Cyberpunk, The Sims, the history of Monster Energy, running, beta blockers, favorite sleep positions, and the dream meta in this week's episode!
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- No More Heroes - Heat in your Hand
- No More Heroes - K-ENT
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Transcript
Introduction & Light Banter
00:00:30
Speaker
How's it going, everyone? Welcome to another episode of Soapstone. My name is Jake, and I'm joined by my co-host as always, Dave. How's it going tonight, Dave? I am... dead tired, apparently. How's it going tonight, Mango? It's going great. Did you know that a shrimp fried this roast?
00:00:50
Speaker
That is, I should thank all the shrimps because it always turns out pretty good. They don't all make it either. Some of those shrimp definitely fall into the rice while it's being fried. Well, then that's them making the rice. They're making or breaking it. Well, you're supposed to make it till you break it, right?
00:01:12
Speaker
that's fair that's fair
00:01:26
Speaker
I don't know if that joke's going to land. I'm going to assume that it didn't. No, it's all right. Straight into the Twin Towers. Jake, how are you? Hi. Hi, I'm pretty well. I'm also tired though. So we're going to need you to carry the podcast here because I think we're, I'm going to be, I can't speak for Dave. I'm going to be bringing my B game.
00:01:53
Speaker
Battletoads.
Height & Surgery Jokes
00:01:54
Speaker
Just kidding. That's Dave's B game. Yeah. What about basketball? I don't know how it works. I am 5'5". My doctor once said I was 5'5". And then he remeasured and was like, oh, my bad, you're 5'4". I'm like, stop it. I'm so close to greatness. Measures again? Wait, you're 5'3". Measure twice. Just stop measuring.
00:02:21
Speaker
I don't know if measure twice cut once is something you want to get at the doctor's office. It depends. It depends what they're cutting. If it's a leg, you know, measure thrice.
00:02:37
Speaker
It still blows my mind that for some surgeries or procedures like that, they will actually mark a body part like, hey, the left one. You know what? I'm going to put a fucking sticker here or draw on it with Sharpie. Even when I went in to do the minor eye laser thing, they put a little thing like, left. It's this side. I'm like, how do you not know? That's my question.
00:03:04
Speaker
Well, you need the clarification. It could be your left. It could be the doctor's left. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe this is the only one. It should always be mine. So from my perspective. So my left eye. Right. Okay. I would think. I think so. Yeah. I mean, that's where I was defaulting to. Yeah, let me stage left.
00:03:34
Speaker
If you're looking out to the audience, where the audience is your doctor with a laser. I think stage left and stage right are just left and right from the perspective of the person on the stage.
Stage Directions & Theater
00:03:47
Speaker
Like it really is an unnecessary qualifier, right? It's just like people in the arts trying to do things their own way. Yeah, we got a problem with it. Why make it easy when you can make it complicated?
00:04:03
Speaker
Because they really should have said, like, actor left, actor right. Maybe that's too many syllables. What if you turn around? Right. Well, the problem is I hear stage left, stage right. And I'm like, OK, from the perspective of someone on the stage, maybe if I'm looking at the stage, the stage is perceived through a mirror. And I have no idea.
00:04:27
Speaker
This is why if you ever watch like children's plays, you'll see like the kid like exit the scene and the walk and you'll like see like the adults like not this way. And they'll do like a quick turnaround and go and I'm like, you know, it's the same problem. But it's not the computer science industry. They're never going to improve that. They're stuck in their ways. It's going to take AI forever to figure out how plays and stages should work.
00:04:57
Speaker
Yeah, they see things as ones and zeros black and white. They got to get over it. Throwing a little gray, give me a two. What is this, a fellow?
00:05:23
Speaker
I'm hoping you did. If so, we can save the topic.
00:05:29
Speaker
Yeah, I did. But only like, I had a friend who did theater stuff because his parents did theater stuff. So like a part of the summer I went to
00:05:41
Speaker
like a four-week thing where we met like a couple times a week and like we did a routine or something and then we're all part of like a big show to put on for like the parents and whoever else got invited to be like, your money was worth it and we actually taught these kids to do something over the summer. Right. But I'm also usually in that camp of, I don't want to be in front of people doing stuff. That's not my ideal.
00:06:07
Speaker
Yeah, I did course in first grade, second grade, and it was like a group thing. So I'm like, this is fine. This is acceptable. And then I learned that people can be picked to be like, you're going to do this part solo. And that's when I quit.
00:06:23
Speaker
As soon as I found out, I was like, I'm done. Absolutely not. If this is a group activity where no one can pinpoint me, excellent. But then I learned, no, that could change. So I quit like the same day. I was like, actually, I'm done. I'm not going to do this anymore. I think that's fair. Yeah.
00:06:45
Speaker
I also did in like middle school-ish like a string ensemble. But again, I'm one of like 30 people. So I could have just literally been like making emotions and not actually doing it and like 29 other people. You just have like a like the puppet suspended with the wooden crosses and stuff. You're just doing this in the background. String ensemble.
00:07:18
Speaker
All right, next topic. We got to get through these. There's so much prepped content. Not at all. David, I have to talk to the script. What? There's nothing. You look at the script, all it says is sexy compliments. I remember that prompt. It was like a D&D story or something like that.
00:07:44
Speaker
It was just like, great session. Thanks for doing all of this preparation. Sexy goblins. It was a question mark too. Yeah.
Gaming Adventures & Mishaps
00:07:56
Speaker
But Dave and I spoke recently about the games that we've been playing recently. How about you? What have you been up to, Mango? Was that a guilty laugh? You're like, okay, well, let me laugh to cover the crimes, obviously.
00:08:14
Speaker
No, I'm just remembering my fallen comrade. My SSD died like a coward just like his father. Rest in peace. What's killing your SSDs? Nuts. Nuts. I walked into that one. That's next podcast. I thought that was on purpose. I was like, I won't play into it. See, now I'm in the context of I will try it.
00:08:44
Speaker
I've just been doing Overwatch 2. You're playing the original? Oh, Overwatch 2. The Sims. It's weird how no one plays the original Overwatch anyway. It's such a classic. I tried 7 days to die and then I died.
00:09:03
Speaker
in the virtual world, not as my hard drive, so I couldn't. But it's just been overwatched too. I did pick up 2077. It's been two weeks. But what was that? That's just a tune in my head for some reason. I don't know. That's weird. It's been two weeks, but I'm gonna try to pick it up again this weekend.
00:09:31
Speaker
I think I'm like 12 hours in, which is significantly less gameplay because I just kind of wander and also spend a lot of time in character creation. So. I mean, that's how it's still good. That's an entirely valid way to play an RPG as like a role playing game, right? Like that's kind of the point is play the game however you feel like playing it, even if it is just walk around and take pictures of yourself or find clothes or do whatever.
00:10:00
Speaker
That's exactly what I do. I like finding the bugs in apparently photo mode because those exist, but they're very funny. Where it's like, oh, you're going to stand here. Well, now you're horizontal standing on a wall. And I'm like, you know what? I like it. The least broken bug I found. I did not open fire on people. I couldn't, I can't punch kids though. So that's a point against it. Yeah. But from my favorite things.
00:10:32
Speaker
But one of my favorite hobbies is when people say mean things to me on the street because I walk by them.
00:10:44
Speaker
punch them in the back of the head and I run and then they open fire and I just run away. It's very good. I like it. Great game. Are these mob people? Are they from a gang or are they just people on the street who just happen to have guns? Yes, the latter. But they said they were mean to me and I'm like, I won't stand for that.
00:11:10
Speaker
So I give them like five seconds to think that they've won the conversation. Let it punch them. Sometimes it's in front of a police officer. So now the police are after me. It's like, hey, you're doing something illegal. You can't just do that. I'm like, catch me. I'm sorry, officer. I didn't realize I couldn't do that. What are you going to do? Shoot me? They do. Last words. Actually, they do shoot you.
00:11:38
Speaker
Yeah, but you can always bring mantis blades to a gunfight. It's true. Dave, did I tell you about my experience with cyberpunk and mods? No, I didn't know you were doing any modding. What happened? I told this to Jake. It's one of my favorite things. So there's mods for 2077, right? And I was like, oh, look at cool clothes. Find some neat like reskin stuff or outfits.
00:12:07
Speaker
I found one that I liked, and then it's like, hey, to use this outfit, you need to use this base, like the skin body base, like whatever, that's fine. That's literally everything the Sims has it to. But I messed up installing some stuff, like something didn't go in the proper mod folder. So when I launched into the game, I was in the middle of a very important early mission.
00:12:34
Speaker
That was very long. I'm like, oh, I started in the bathroom sick. I can go see if I look super cool. So I look in the mirror and everything's out, full frontal out, clipping through all of my clothes. And I'm like, I can't go out looking like this. But maybe it's just this outfit and I can't change my clothes. I'm like, this mission will probably be over in like five minutes, right? It can't be that long.
00:13:04
Speaker
like an hour later. And I'm like, this is a really important kind of serious part of the game. And I know what I look like right now. And I'm like, honey, you gotta put those away. I assume it keeps it in the cutscene.
00:13:23
Speaker
Yes, it does. And I'm like, oh, this isn't what I wanted. I thought my suit would just look a little cooler. And well, you know, depending on your definition of cooler, perhaps. Yeah, very serious moments. And I'm just like, I know what I look like right now. And it's very funny. It's not very serious. So it's going well.
00:13:52
Speaker
Oh yeah, I was just going to say, the game had a lot of issues like that at launch. So I'm glad that some of that has stuck around and they haven't managed to fix it. Yeah. They're like, well, there are issues where like, you know, people were clipping through their clothes, we fixed it. The mod brought it back. That's like, it's not a bug, it's a feature. Bring it back here. Okay. Gotcha. Gotcha. They can't be held fully responsible then, I guess.
00:14:18
Speaker
I recall there's a particular scene without spoiling anything. It's been a while, but I'll avoid spoilers for a romance. And there is a tryst, if you will, that occurs. And the game is just like, hey, if you were wearing clothes before, now you're not.
00:14:38
Speaker
And it really makes me wish that there was some sort of tracking, but like the NPCs, like just they react to you some different way at all. It doesn't have to be extreme, it's Night City, I get that it's a city of extremes. But like literally no one cares that you're completely naked, right? It could be like the most reserved Arasaka like person you're talking to and it's just like, eh.
00:15:02
Speaker
Californians, what am I going to do? Right. In the Sims, people react if you're new. They'll be like, whoa, stop it. Or like, continue, don't mind. They'll clap for you sometimes. Yeah, that's nice. That's great. Thank you. The good ending. Uh-huh. So I mean, I don't know if the technology is just not there yet for a small indie dev CD project, Red, but. Yeah.
00:15:31
Speaker
I feel like they just need to have bits and bobs out for every game as part of the track record now. That's fair. If you want a different rating, just censor the bits and bobs. That's how you tailor it. That's how you flag to the ESRB what you're aiming for. Don't send me a bob pic. How dare you? I'm a bits man myself. Fair. Bits over bobs, please.
00:16:01
Speaker
free the bets oh in that case I agree that I'm a bits man over a bob man those are the two options you can only have two it's nothing else the technology is there
00:16:28
Speaker
But speaking of the budget... No, that's fair. I was just going to say the hardware should be arriving tomorrow so we can get Mango back to a gameable state before the weekend, ideally. Had to replace the... This is the first time we've had an SSD die, actually. I've had, like, traditional hard disks die, but not, like, solid state. I knew it could happen.
00:16:58
Speaker
But it takes a lot longer, right? And yeah, I mean, whatever happens to me, I'm going to cry and then message one of you. It's going to be like, what do I do now? How do I count? As a PSA interrupt, right? Like reminder to everyone out there, if you have something on a computer that you do not want to lose,
00:17:25
Speaker
back it up. Because you can get a portable hard drive or something like that and just copy stuff over. You don't have to go a full network attached storage or anything like that for reliable backups or what the crap. Just having a backup somewhere is significantly better than not. I've been hit by that. I know Mango's been hit by that too. We lost some data the one time. I think almost exactly one year ago.
00:17:54
Speaker
The hard drive with all of my art on it just kicked the bucket and I was like, well, that's rough. And now a year later, my SSD is like, actually, that seems really nice. I'm going to go die now. Bye.
Taxes & Financial Humor
00:18:14
Speaker
Taking an early and long vacation. It's like I'm going to commit tax evasion by dying. Goodbye.
00:18:24
Speaker
Hey, tax season's almost over. Have you filed your taxes?
00:18:29
Speaker
I hope so. I still get emails from different places like, hey, you should file your taxes. I think I did already. So I'm going to ignore this. I think she's like, hey, you can file through us. Right. But next year, I want to try this free tax USA so I cannot not pay money because it's free. That's what we did this year. And I liked it. It was less.
00:18:59
Speaker
I want to say clunky than the other websites I used and also significantly less expensive in that it's like $15 to do state if you do it through them. That's pretty good.
00:19:13
Speaker
A lot of those tax services, they're just like, hey, it's free to file. And then they start reeling you in over the course of 15 pages of data entry. And then it's like, oh, I didn't realize that you actually have a job and that you need to submit documentation for that. In that case, it's going to be $70, right? Yeah.
00:19:37
Speaker
I think TurboTax and TaxAct both do this, I can't remember, but it's like, okay, standard like 1W2, that's cool. Oh, are you like self-employed? Do you do freelance? You're going to have to pay to file those taxes. And it's like, hmm, I don't like that because that's really expensive.
00:20:01
Speaker
And you don't do that with the free tax USA. I was like, this is a pleasant surprise. Shout out to whoever suggested that. I think it was DICE.
00:20:18
Speaker
If it wasn't, I'm not going to go back and change this in the audio. Thank you, Dice. Somebody in our friend Discord, who I think was Dice. With TurboTax, I just do the cheapest option, but every two pages are like, are you sure you don't want somebody to fact check your data entry? I was like, nah, not really. Are you sure you don't want to apply for extra credits? I'm pretty straightforward. It's like 1W2. Just get that in and call it a day.
00:20:49
Speaker
They're like, they're just like, I mean, if you don't pay a little bit extra, we're just going to use the unvalidated input fields here. Like if you put WASD as your dollar amount, we'll let that straight through. Like we're not going to correct you on that, right? You owe the IRS. It's just like a series of characters, right? Oh, God.
00:21:14
Speaker
They would just do it them fucking selves Like if you're like, oh, hey, that's not the correct number. Okay, you know the number tell me the number I will pay you the night like we'll call it a day rest of a Lot of the rest of the world where they're just like you get a bill and they're like I'll pay it and then they're good Yeah, can you imagine? Yeah crazy thought
00:21:44
Speaker
I was talking to Mango about this exact topic and there is a reason that they don't do it themselves and it's because of deductions and things like that that the US lets you do. Now, most people don't do deductions, right? So, you could say like by default, handle it yourself like Mr. Government and let me know if I owe any extra money.
00:22:07
Speaker
And then for everyone who does deductions, they can just like file an addendum or something that would reduce the paperwork like drastically. But yeah, that's that's not the way to do it. Cowards, what are they afraid of? It is not the end of tax season. Please do not provoke the IRS. I'll do it. I was told they can't actually come murder me. So guess what? They stink.
00:22:35
Speaker
Well, no survivors have claimed that the IRS have come to murder them. This is the airplane armor problem, right?
00:22:51
Speaker
Are you guys familiar with that? It's like an example. It's a statistical bias example. I can't remember the actual name of the principal, but it's like how would you determine where you should armor an aircraft in times of war, thinking like a biplane or something like that, or something a little more advanced like World War II. And what they did is they took all this data they had from planes that came back and they're like, planes are shot.
00:23:15
Speaker
on the wings and the tail and stuff like that. And here's all the spots on this B-52 where it really seems like this is where they're being shot.
00:23:25
Speaker
That was not a good approach to take necessarily and I think they realized it once they looked at the data because armoring those spots didn't help as much. That's where you can be shot and still make it back to base to report your data. But if you're shot in the cabin, it's over, right? So I was making a joke about that for the IRS. Yeah, or maybe the fuel tank. The principle still applies.
00:23:51
Speaker
It's survivorship bias. That's the – or survivor's bias. I lived. Yeah, I lived. Before I get to provide data. That is my only goal in life. Exactly. I've been filing taxes all these years. The IRS still hasn't murdered me. I lived. They can't stop me now. You got to get a t-shirt.
00:24:16
Speaker
We'll just be across the street glaring at you. You just now gotta apply that to insurance companies and then it'll be a god. They do like to kill people. As soon as you're on the plan, I'm just like, take my hand. Sorry, your insurance doesn't cover you living through this flight. I'm gonna have to ask you to step back here with me for a moment.
00:24:45
Speaker
What type of emergency care package do you have bringing it back to cyberpunk? I'm done. Oh, what? I buy a lot of burritos from the vending machines.
00:24:58
Speaker
So I hit a mission where it's like, I need 15,000 eddies. And I'm like, I have not that much. And I looked at my inventory and it's full of XL burritos. Every time I walk by a vending machine, I'm like, you should get one of those. I can really go for a burrito. She says a garbage, a garbage bag akin to Santa full of burritos over her shoulder. Yeah. And I'm like, where's my money going?
00:25:27
Speaker
You sound like the type of person who doesn't check their fridge before they grow grocery shopping and then they come back and put another bottle of ketchup next to the whole shelf of ketchup. Yeah. What's wrong with that? We need grocery shopping. You don't ask, what do I need? You ask, what do I want? What do I deserve? I deserve a line of ketchup.
00:25:52
Speaker
But, uh, it's funny. In the game 2077, it's like, what am I spending all my money on? Oh, it's XL burritos from vending machines. In the tabletop, everyone's like, I have so much money, like, how do you not have, like, thousands of eddies? And I'm like, well, let me look at my roster here, because when I spend money,
00:26:14
Speaker
you can write down what you've spent money on. I'm like, what has my character spent money on? It's drugs making them and a ton of alcohol. And I'm like, well, I guess that's where her money's on because she's poor as heck. She can only afford L burritos. No excels for her. Rationing. I feel like I was thinking it was just a tortilla.
00:26:45
Speaker
Well, that's a very small burrito sans ingredients. It's a deconstructed burrito. I think if I ordered a burrito and they just slapped a tortilla down on the table, I'd be very confused. You have to bring your own ingredients. Yeah, it's kind of funny. I noticed like,
00:27:10
Speaker
You kept referring to the game as 2077 because we have the Cyberpunk campaign, presumably. But I think everybody else basically calls the game Cyberpunk, right? Like, that would be the easiest identifier. At least before the anime, but I mean, like, who's gonna... So anyways, I spent some time in Cyberpunk, you know, the anime, right? Yeah, in my brain, Cyberpunk is Cyberpunk Red.
00:27:34
Speaker
And then it's like, oh, if I'm going to talk about the game, I'm going to say 2077. I'm like, yeah, they'll totally get what that means. They can read my mind. Hehe. And then if I'm talking about the anime, it's edge runners. Yeah, that makes sense for the anime. Every time you guys talk about the tabletop and you just say, oh, CPR, my brain auto completes that too. Oh yeah. CD project red. And I'm like, nope. Nope. That's not it. Cyberpunk. My brain.
00:28:02
Speaker
My brain, when I sometimes I say CPR, I'm like, oh, we're getting certified. OK. And I'm like, no way. I know what I'm talking about. Why? Why are we in health class? Yeah, that is. I mean, I guess they do have to perform. Oh, my God.
00:28:22
Speaker
They really did back themselves into a corner with some of those acronyms, right? There's, like, Cyberpunk, the tabletop game, owned by R. Talsorian, Cyberpunk 2077, owned by CD Projekt Red, The Game, Edge Runners, co-published by CD Projekt Red in, like, Trigger, or whatever.
00:28:42
Speaker
The tabletop game, again, owned by R. Talsorian with the acronym CPR, not CD Projekt Red, Cyberfunk Red. Like, yeah, it's absolutely miserable. And there's also 2020. Yes, in 2020, the older version of the game. It's really funny, like, reading some of the lore and stuff for the old version of the game. I'm not going to talk about tabletop games. Don't, please stay, listen. Um, but the, uh, right.
00:29:11
Speaker
But they really didn't care about using like real life brand names and things like that. Like the news station in both the game and Cyberpunk Red and all of that is N54. And I was like, I wonder like who's the CEO of N54? I'd love to like add some more about this or something like that. And I went and I looked at the information that exists for this fictional corporation.
00:29:35
Speaker
I'm like, it's got to be just spun together, some made up names, things like that. And it's like, originating as CNN. I'm like, what? And it's like, it assimilates NBC or something like in the early 2000s. I'm like, okay. They just really didn't care about outright name dropping brands and companies and stuff.
00:30:00
Speaker
I mean, for like a backstory standpoint, I feel like it's valid to not really have copyright issues. If it's not correct. If you're small enough. They'd get sued. Yeah.
Corporate and Media Parodies
00:30:12
Speaker
A good example of this actually is like, there's a corporation called Danger Girl.
00:30:20
Speaker
that got renamed like after the game came out to Danger Gal because Danger Girl is literally a comic book. Like it is literally that. So they're like okay. Legally distinct. Danger Gal. No relation to Danger Girl. It's been Gal the whole time.
00:30:44
Speaker
if you're coming up with this really cool idea or an intellectual property of your own
00:31:04
Speaker
I don't think we talked about it last time when we were talking about news, but that happened with Monster. Monster is a super litigious company. I was like, he's not saying Hunter. What is he talking about? You were talking about the energy drink. Okay. The energy drink Monster, yes.
00:31:21
Speaker
But like they, uh, uh, most critical had a video on it, but it's also just popped up in news recently and things like that. They just keep going after these small freaking games that have the word monster in the title. And yeah, it's, it kind of stinks that that Nintendo thing of like, we are going to be known of like, this is the border. This is the wall around our fortress of our IP. Um, periodically we're just going to venture out with a scouting party and kill a peasant.
00:31:50
Speaker
That way we will be fair to, right? Nintendo, Disney. I understand if you're like, hey, I want our intellectual property to be reflected in a certain way or portrayed. But same time, I feel like if you're doing a parody or something else, it's fine to allude to something.
00:32:12
Speaker
I don't know. You know it's not coming from Disney. It's when it makes their own little Mickey Mouse cartoon. Or a mouse that looks like Mickey Mouse and is maybe doing something not in the character of Mickey Mouse. But again, I'm also not in a corporate space. I'm just a guy.
00:32:29
Speaker
What? You're not the mouse. Yeah. There you go. The most psychotic voice line of Mickey Mouse. Disney didn't want it, but that's what it is now. So those comics. Good old days of Steamboat Willie. Like the very over the top hand-drawn animations were choice.
00:33:10
Speaker
I think they changed it at one point.
00:33:15
Speaker
I think within the last 15 years, the voice of Mickey died and they did some auditioning and got a new one. But Disney has the resources to basically clone a new human being that will be rapidly aged up to the point where they have a viable Mickey voice. So that's probably what they did. It's true.
00:33:39
Speaker
I feel like I've told this story either like 50 times or only like twice. But in an earlier job, Disney contracted our company. So there was a time when I flew down for a week with some other people. We were actually on site and they got to go like behind the scenes and they have so much fucking money. That company is gigantic.
00:34:09
Speaker
Yeah. I remember or not I remember something that's going on right now is there's like a legal dispute between Disney and some layer of government in Florida about certain rights to the land and things like that. And basically, the Republican-led government there was like, hey, we're gonna
00:34:32
Speaker
Kind of flex our muscle a little bit and then Disney like came back with their lawyers and we're like we've revised everything you have no power for the next like 100 years or whatever over our operations and It's turning into this this whole show Yeah, I was gonna say Cow and Pony show I don't know if that's the right expression I Think it's something info dog and pony. Yeah
00:34:58
Speaker
It's like, wow, a corporation company having that much power. That's kind of scary. But it's also like, I feel like being used for good to be like, hey, suck it, Florida. You can't tell me what to do. And I'm like, I'll allow it this once. Considering it's a bot, I'll allow it.
00:35:21
Speaker
in the cyberpunk universe, this is two mega-corps that are just like far too large, right? They have far too much power. They can basically define laws of themselves fighting each other and you're just like, yeah, show them, right? But again, these are like, you're watching the Titans fight. You're probably not going to benefit whatever the outcome is, but... No. But... But hey, I'm not Florida, so it's fine. Yay!
00:35:49
Speaker
I feel like Florida is Texas's cousin, step cousin. They're both southern and backwards in my eyes, at least from the stories I hear. Stuck in the washing machine. Step Texas, I'm stuck. I'm stuck in the 1930s. I refuse to progress for everybody to have equal rights, man.
00:36:18
Speaker
It is convenient how villains say meh after- after saying something particularly villainous just so you can like- you're like, are you? Okay, yeah. You can't hear the tweedle of the mustache so they have to have the meh. That's why you know Skeletor is evil. Yes, exactly. Was that an odd? Are you a Skeletor fan, Mango? He's a Skelly boy. What's wrong with him? That's true. Don't be racist.
00:36:48
Speaker
I don't know if it's possible to be racist against a skeleton. Whoa! All right, calm down. Okay, sorry, I take that. I would like to be uncancelled, please. Fine, listen, Frankie's back here and he can hear you. He's working right at you.
00:37:07
Speaker
Just be careful people that people can say they play necromancer, but like when you get them behind closed doors, they'll just say fucking anything. Yeah. Some of my close friends are necromancers. We talked about this the other day, but I still so much love the, the good, not necessarily goofy, but like the, the blankie, like their bones crumble and they get like hit by stuff, skeletons.
00:37:37
Speaker
like don't give me like actual like zombie reanimated that give me like the the cartoonish the dancing what is it Jason the Argonauts had skeletons like a lot of the comically they're not that strong skeletons
00:37:59
Speaker
So, this is a minor aside, but I was like, how far off am I from being able to get a Jason and the Argonauts reference? This is a 1963 film, so Dave is actually going back further and further in time with every single reference made. What? No, no, I started with Shakespeare, motherfucker. I'm working my way up to the current day. Dave, how old are you? Maybe it was the new Shakespeare. Actually, pull these references out.
00:38:25
Speaker
All I'm saying is I will not stand in front of a mirror if we're hanging out. That's it. That's all I'm saying. That's fair. I learned recently why that is, where that association comes from. Because I was like, you know, vampire lore, right? Can't see themselves in mirror. Do you guys know why vampires couldn't see themselves in mirrors?
00:38:45
Speaker
I do, but I think it's because you told me. So I will be the audience because I do not know. Okay. Um, it's because mirrors were traditionally made with silver. Actually, um, you put glass in front of silver and that's your reflective surface. Um, so it was, uh, there was the metal there, their kryptonite metal. So couldn't see themselves on it. Very interesting. Dummies.
00:39:15
Speaker
I love that a lot of monster cannon is somebody just made it up one day and other people are like, yeah, that's what we're going to go with.
00:39:27
Speaker
Like I'm sure like modifications over time. Oh, sorry. Owned by whatever company owns it probably Coca-Cola. We're gonna get sued by Disney and now Monster. Oh my god. We like this. This is my, hey, thanks for coming to my podcast. It's nice having you both here. We're now bankrupt after one guest episode. You're welcome.
00:39:54
Speaker
Okay, it is the Coca-Cola company. Thank goodness. I was like, man, they're going to come after me. What do you think that the Monster Beverage Company was founded? If you had to take a guess in years, 20 years ago. When it was founded, Monster? Yes. I'll give you a little bit of a hint here. It was renamed at one point.
00:40:20
Speaker
They've said 25 years ago. Well, listen, it's my turn. I'm gonna say the 80s. So that's like 40 years? No, I don't know how time works. That's about right. No, 88 years ago, it was 1935. It was called Hansen's was the name of it founded by Hubert Hansen. And apparently make back then.
00:40:46
Speaker
Uh, juice in California and sodas. And I guess eventually they're just like, yeah, monster. All right. Let's see when monster actually is created. Monster beverage. What did they rebrand to monster? Can I guess the seventies? Oh, okay. You think the seventies were rebranding the monster. What do you think Dave? 20 years ago.
00:41:14
Speaker
That's probably closer. In 2012, after it became their largest source of revenue, the Monster Energy Tranks. 21 years ago. Get wrecked, Dave. I am destroyed, and I do not know how I will financially recover. Well, you won't because Disney is coming to serve you. No. Disney will be your friends once.
00:41:42
Speaker
This is the most American success story though. It's like a company starts out making juice beverages in like sunny California and then later their main product becomes literally monster. They rename their company after it and it becomes the most profitable thing. Yeah.
00:42:01
Speaker
Thanks. I used to drink a lot of Monster, but then I realized it was associated with Satan, so I can't do that anymore. Yeah. Oh, man. I took a sip of, I think it was Jake's Monster once. It tasted like gummy worms, but I got a headache immediately. I was like, well, I guess I'm never doing that again. Yeah. It is way too much camping.
00:42:25
Speaker
Yeah, it's a lot. I remember I was talking to Mel and she would drink some of the moochies like G Fuel. She's like, this just tastes like colors. Why do you drink this? But she's also not a caffeine addict in the same way that we are. So I think that early on I probably thought the same thing but now I'm just so...
00:42:47
Speaker
Like right now I have a Celsius here. It's a peach mango green tea. It's non-carbonated, which is throwing me for a loop. This one isn't like crazy. This is a brown probably like a hundred milligrams. But so many of them were like two to three hundred. It's like a little bit more than a cup of coffee. That's too much. That's too much. Do you see the under my eyes?
00:43:16
Speaker
Yeah, it's called genetics, Dave. Oh, thank you. That's too much caffeine. I got water. There's no caffeine in it. I did have a diet coke that, you know, is probably half ice, half actual soda. That's my alarm. So sorry about that. This is the first time we've added music to the podcast. Listen, I'm here to bring it.
00:43:46
Speaker
But there's like 50 milligrams. And I'm like, that's fine. Because now I'm very tired. But I am sitting relatively still compared to what I would normally be sitting. So like, that's great for me. Look at me go. Caution.
00:44:06
Speaker
Speaking of crushing it, once this can is done, I will show it who's boss.
Fitness & Personal Challenges
00:44:12
Speaker
But I did want to shout out myself. Yesterday, I went to the gym, and the first time in like four or five years, I'm kind of back to where I was for lifting. And that for me is a huge success because Hellstuffs a motherfucker, and you really got to work in that shit to push past it.
00:44:35
Speaker
Thank you. Congratulations. Some more things going forward.
00:44:40
Speaker
Next time I see you both, I will just pick you up. Bench each of you separately. Or dumbbells, one in each hand. I have been following my own personal goal to be incapable of being lifted by Dave, regardless of how much strength you build. What an unstoppable force meets in a moveable object. Uh-huh. No, that's big stuff.
00:45:10
Speaker
We were looking at getting a treadmill. I was passed a link by Mango not too long ago, so I have to click that link. Dave knows this. We've talked about it on the podcast before, but when you send me a message on Discord, it's akin to dropping a letter through the mail slot directly into my house. Maybe I see it.
00:45:34
Speaker
Maybe I walk on it and I didn't see it. Maybe I'm on vacation for weeks. No one knows, right? Jake has an itch that was in the ears. Me either. There are other reasons the IRS are after us if I'm being completely honest. But yeah, at some point we had to get a treadmill here because that'd be nice.
00:45:57
Speaker
Yeah, I miss running and it's, I don't know if anyone's noticed the temperature on this fine Thursday, but it was like almost 90 degrees outside. And just walking around the house, which was a little toasty, I was like, my vision is going black.
00:46:15
Speaker
Because it's hot. And I started walking. And I need a moment. So like I can't run outside. I will say not a doctor. But if I was given the the attributes, it's like it's hot. I'm walking. I wouldn't expect the output would be my vision is going black, right? Like that does seem severe. Yeah.
00:46:42
Speaker
Good luck with it. Apparently it runs in the family because my mom's like, yeah, that happens to me too. And we all thought it was normal. It's not. So, you know, it's an extreme reaction of your body to be like, he fucked this. Your mom like runs marathons. Yeah, she got she's on that beta blocker life as am I. So it's not as bad.
00:47:12
Speaker
but I should probably be like, hey doc, we bump up the dose. Soft goal, you should outpace your mom.
00:47:22
Speaker
She runs marathons, Dave. She runs marathons, too. This is like the goal. You just, you outrun her one day and you're like, I've beaten my parents. I could do it. If I started running again and got back to where my 5K was, I could absolutely do it. My mom trains for like distance and not speed. Not for speed. No, because like a marathon, you're not, unless you're like,
00:47:51
Speaker
competing for money and it's literally your career, then it's like, you don't have to. You're not going to be uber duper fast. So my mom's like, I'm just going to get it done and like, you know, train for it. But like I trained for like speed. How fast can I get this 5k done? And I got it to 20 minutes before I could do it again. Yeah.
00:48:17
Speaker
I also have a mandatory joke here. Since Mango has started taking beta blockers, I haven't even been able to hug her.
Sleeping Habits & Myths
00:48:25
Speaker
They sleep on the couch. It's impossible. My alarm for my beta blocker? Just say, Alpha's only. That's how I know it's time to take it.
00:48:44
Speaker
I have to refer to all those Sigma grind set videos on YouTube. That's my end. I'm sure that's good life advice. If you're not wagging up before the sun, you're already losing. Listen. Running's cool. I'd like a treadmill. Yeah. I think it'd be neat. Pretty neat.
00:49:07
Speaker
You got a space for it. It's actually behind me. So if we start recording episodes and you just hear like a whirring sound, it's either the laptop, statistically the laptop, or completely disregarding my specific request. Mango is just starting to start running on the treadmill mid-recording. Seems less likely. That's what marriage is for, just disrespect.
00:49:38
Speaker
I mean, I'm not married so I can't comment, but it sounds, that sounds right. Yeah. Mm-hmm. I've watched sitcoms. Yeah. Yeah. Pretty much any man. Those weren't very good, were they? Right? Like none of those were good pictures of relationships. I feel like they're had to have been some fun. Yeah.
00:50:09
Speaker
people remember the adorable interactions that occasionally happen in those older sitcoms but like there was so much just like emotional abuse and neglect and all this other crap going on and then it's just like well no they hugged at the end of good they're fine like
00:50:28
Speaker
I mean, I threatened to beat my wife into outer space. Oh no, we hugged at the end, we're good. Yes, there was a laughter. I love Lucy. He had to be there. He was like decent. Ricky was always really nice. And Lucy was like, eh. But he would like reassure her. I think part of that was because Lucy was a producer.
00:50:52
Speaker
on that show. Like she was one of, she was the main character but also like literally running the show. So, had a little bit more pull. Maybe them sleeping in separate beds also helped them. For some people it works. They're like, I'd like you better if this is the real beta blocker.
00:51:16
Speaker
That's something like it seems so foreign to me like there are definitely like points in the middle of the night where like if I do like if I'm dating somebody like receiving the same bed great to snuggle at a point would be like it's it's Yeah, I'm not married
00:51:36
Speaker
the the the the the the the the the the the
00:51:57
Speaker
Yeah, I just turn over. I'm like, as long as my foot is touching some part of Jake, that I'm good. It's like, I'm gonna put my foot on his butt. Just to make sure he's there. Uh-huh. Be like, I'm not ignoring you. I'm just sleeping.
00:52:14
Speaker
Well, I mean, I'm also sleeping, so I'm not going to take offense with that. So last night I noticed you didn't talk to me while you were sleeping. Do you still like me? Yes or no? Right, yeah. But also when I sleep, I just start turning like clockwise. So Jake's the only reason I am not in a fully different direction because it's like, oh, I have to be considerate of the fact that there's someone else here.
00:52:44
Speaker
Do you mean like rotating in place or like you switch where your head and your feet are rotating? Headed feet have slowly but surely.
00:52:55
Speaker
Yeah, planking basically and then just continuing to rotate in place across the center axis. Yeah, I think there was one time Jake went to bed after me and I was so I started like how one might normally sleep in a bed and then I was like mostly turned 90 degrees where my head was just like on the long side of the bed. So I was just like sleeping incorrectly. I woke up and I'm like,
00:53:22
Speaker
What's wrong? Why am I being moved? Mango secretly at the hands of a clock. Yeah. That's the best explanation. I will ask a very personal question. I feel like we've developed this rapport over the last 53 minutes. What positions do you guys prefer to sleep in? A pretzel.
00:53:48
Speaker
are some of the awesome job are almost as we are through and through which side the idea of it laughs because something is fucked up in my right ear and if I let go press up against something I feel like a pressure over time and it's on some comparable so the culture and as the last time
00:54:11
Speaker
As long as I'm comfortable, I'm happy. So it's usually a pretzel and completely smothered by something soft like blankets or pillows. And then like sometimes my upper body is like, I'm on my back, lower body is twisted. A leg is kind of twisted a different way. Hands like this. I'm just like, I have never been comfortable in my life.
00:54:37
Speaker
I've not seen the movie, but I know there's a scene in The Exorcist where someone's body is twisted in the natural ways. Pretty much that. I was like, I feel like Jake's going to say The Exorcist, but let's see where this goes. That's correct.
00:54:55
Speaker
I can't sleep on my stomach though. Unless I have knee pain and it's really bad for some reason sleeping on my stomach is very comfortable. But that hasn't happened in a long time. So no tummy time for me. I am not an infant anymore.
00:55:16
Speaker
I'll do stomach if it's like a quick lay down or like a nap sometimes. It just feels good to stretch out. You kind of like put your head to the side and you can just, if you're tired enough, you can just kind of pass out that way. But I don't understand people who are like, oh, let me go into my tomb. And they kind of cross their arms and just lay flat on their back. I'm like, how do you do that? Okay, yeah. I think sleeping on stomach is actually more extreme than sleeping on your back.
00:55:46
Speaker
I don't really sleep on my back either, but yeah, that's the thing. I feel like people who sleep on there, there's this thing in South Korea where people that kill themselves, they say like, oh, they left a fan on, right? Because there's this whole sudden fan death syndrome thing.
00:56:08
Speaker
Okay. It feels like I got to provide a little bit of backstory and that's my own fault. A little bit. So there's this, it's a social, like we're going to not publicly shame anyone construct for people that kill themselves by coming up with this idea that if you leave a fan on when you sleep, it's going to actually like suck the air out of the room and that's why you died. So it's kind of saying like, oh, it's not really their fault. They made a mistake. They left a fan on or something like that. Um,
00:56:40
Speaker
a little weird by US standards. But yes, that's that's kind of where it comes from. And that's what sleeping on your stomach is like. You will die. It's just, it's harder to breathe. You're like crushing your lungs. Maybe if you weigh as much as I do, it's worse. But like, so there's a consideration. Yeah, I can sleep on my back. And I would do it more often. But
00:57:06
Speaker
For some reason, this is just like, I don't know if it was an official study or if it's just like, yeah, doing this increases that. But, um, sleeping on your back increases your risk of sleep paralysis. Um, so I'm just like, I've never had a bad experience with it. I had no sleep paralysis demon. Um, anytime it's happened to me, it's been like,
00:57:34
Speaker
sounds of like Jake typing at his computer or like putting his keys down and like going to bed and I'm like, oh, is the boy here? And I'm like, no, he's not. This isn't real. So it's always been like very like, well, that's nice. Then I eventually can move and I'm like, wobble. But it's it's obnoxious because it's like my nose itches and I cannot physically move my body to scratch my nose.
00:58:03
Speaker
But yeah, fun fact, sleeping on your back increases that risk.
00:58:09
Speaker
That sounds miserable, so I'm going to inject a joke. Recently, Dave has been giving me free gear in Diablo and helping me through all of the acts on the higher difficulties and stuff. Very nice. But as soon as my magic find gets high enough, I'm going to start farming my sleep paralysis demon. That's the punchline. There you go. It's beautiful. Dave has his head in his hands. Question everything.
00:58:36
Speaker
Was it because demon was in it? Yes, just because demon's in the name, yeah. Have any of you ever had a false awakening? It sounds like a religious experience. Doesn't it? But it's not. It's an awake ending.
00:58:53
Speaker
What is a false awakening before I answer? All right. It's the most frustrating thing ever. So your brain's not fully awake. It's like half and half. It's similar to like sleep paralysis, but a little different. It's a weird like sleep state where you wake up, turn off your alarm, blah, blah, blah.
00:59:16
Speaker
you get up, you go throughout your morning routine, you get however far you get, before you're like, I'm not awake. So then, ideally, you wake up in real life, and you're like, I have to do my whole morning routine again. But, and then like, ideally, you're actually awake. But I've had it where I've gone through that like three times.
00:59:42
Speaker
And every time it gets shorter and shorter, because I'm catching on to what my brain is doing, but I always look at the walls. If I'm ever not sure if I'm awake, I'm like, is this real? I look at the wall and if it's just like tilted a little around, I'm like, I'm asleep. Come on, let's get it together. But yeah, it's very realistic. And you can go through your whole morning routine. Anything like that.
01:00:11
Speaker
Yeah, it's annoying. Because after a point, it's like, am I going to get up again? I definitely had some dreams where it feels very much like real life, enough that like when you wake up, you're like, oh, I've woken up.
Dreams & Reality Exploration
01:00:25
Speaker
Did that thing happen? Or was that very quickly pieced together? Oh, that was a dream. It was just using enough real elements to just kind of like fuck you up. Right. My most common thing is like, I will just paralyze my arm.
01:00:39
Speaker
because like maybe I'll just under a bottle or something yeah so I wake up and I'll shift over act like you know just kind of like it has no use whatsoever yes like fling it over or kind of around to get the blood flowing
01:00:57
Speaker
Yeah. The, um, the way that you're describing mango, the, uh, like checking the walls and things like that to identify if you're in a dream, it's like, it's how I know that you're in a near romancer. Cause there's like, I have no sort of control of anything like that. When, when I'm asleep, like I'm lucky if I ever am dreaming, I realize it's a dream because then I can just be like, Oh, G codes, let's freaking go. But like that never happens. I don't really remember how to do things in my dreams. Like I.
01:01:26
Speaker
learned how to take pictures and look at them because there was one dream where there was like I was on a really pretty country road and I'm like I want to take pictures of it and I pulled out my phone and like it just it kind of worked but I couldn't see the pictures and like the phone just kind of scrambled and then when I woke up I'm like that's dumb
01:01:53
Speaker
I'm going to take a picture of my dream because I want I want it to work. So then over like the course of like a month or two before I went to bed, I'm like, Brian, do you remember our homework? This is what we're doing tonight. And now I can take pictures in my dreams and look at them and I can see myself in mirrors and in photos. So I took a selfie and I was like, that's me. That's really freaking weird, but that's me.
01:02:21
Speaker
So this is also within the context of the dream, right? It's not like you are remembering the pictures after the fact. No, I can see it. And it trips me out in my dream and I'm like, am I comfortable with this? It's too late. I've already done it. I've unlocked the Eldritch Horror. That's just like, thank you for putting in the cheat code. It was a selfie. That's what the idea of a false awakening or something like that.
01:02:51
Speaker
That's how it makes me feel. I would feel uncomfortable, right? Because you're increasing the distance between the difference between dreams or like you're shortening the distance between dreams and reality to you, right? You're like, it starts to get you questioning. Am I in a dream? Am I in reality? Am I me when I wake up or am I me when I'm asleep? Those are fun thoughts. Yeah, I've had dreams inside dreams. You ever fall asleep in a dream?
01:03:21
Speaker
it's pretty great it's really weird i don't honestly don't remember it's a lot of my dreams are like and it's gone like i'll wake up i'll have like that maybe five minute window of like vaguely remembering something that happened and then it's gone yeah my brain just compartmentalizes things like do you need this? nah and it eats it and it's just gone
01:03:46
Speaker
Yeah. I probably have like a whole closet, like repressed dream memories that like, if I ever go to therapy, would you like show up? Um, yeah, for as much of non sober activities as I have participated in, I am surprised that like, I don't have more trippy stuff going on. Hmm.
01:04:14
Speaker
The trick is you have to make the effort to remember them by like writing them down. You dream shaming right now. I'm going to need you to take a step back. I get new then. Most of the time when I wake up, I have no recollection of a dream whatsoever. I have to be, exactly. I'd have to be interrupted to actually remember your dream. You got to hit me in REM sleep.
01:04:56
Speaker
that would be the most confusing thing imaginable i appreciate that you don't do that because i've had trouble sleeping getting to like to sleep at a decent hour because of naps and things like that it's this vicious cycle you take a nap harder to sleep stay up late low sleep take a nap it's miserable gotta fix it over the weekend arson comes in at literally four in the morning meowing like hey arson's a cat for the listeners it's not like
01:05:07
Speaker
But I'm a pretty deep sleeper so there's not much of an opportunity for that.
01:05:23
Speaker
and embodiment of vice. This isn't one of the demons. This is not my sleep paralysis demon. His name is not Arson. He is a cat. But he can be a little demon sometimes because he'll come in at like four in the morning. It's like, hello. Meow, meow. And it's like, hello?
01:05:41
Speaker
And then he just stares at me and makes little cat goblin noises. And it's like, what do you want? Your father's sleeping. And then it's like, Aria, I'm going to get up and see what he wants so that he doesn't wake, wake up Jake. And then, um, he just takes me to his kibble bag and it's like, you know, I'm like, okay, you can have a little snack. Hmm.
01:06:11
Speaker
But I want to thank Mango for joining us for this episode. Always a pleasure. Thank you for coming on. Thank you for handing over this podcast to me and being my guests. It's great to have you. You weirdly say that every single time. I think that was the joke. Yeah, I think this is just a more advanced form of the previous joke. Well, do you think this is a joke? Do you think my show is a joke? Right. Well,
01:06:36
Speaker
Well, you know, if the mouse comes after me, then it will be your show because I will. Yeah, no one escapes the mouse. I will. Good luck. But if you guys have dreams that you want to send in and share with us, you can do so at soapstonepodcast.gmail.com or you can join the discussion on Facebook at facebook.com slash soapstone podcast. And as always, we'll see you in the next one. Have a good day.
01:07:08
Speaker
Goodbye!