Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
S2 Ep166: Jake
84 Plays4 years ago
Join Dave and Jake as we talk about...Jake?
Thoughts? Comments? Requests for new episodes? Feel free to email them in!
SoapstonePodcast@gmail.com
Like our podcast? Like our podcast! We'll post when new episodes are uploaded!
https://www.facebook.com/SoapstonePodcast/
Thoughts? Comments? Requests for new episodes? Feel free to email them in!
SoapstonePodcast@gmail.com
Like our podcast? Like our podcast! We'll post when new episodes are uploaded!
https://www.facebook.com/SoapstonePodcast/
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction of the Hosts and Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
What do you want the world to know about Jacob? I want everyone to know that Jacob is a special little boy. I think every mom says it.
00:00:52
Speaker
How's it going, everyone? Welcome to another episode of Soapstone. My name is Jake. I'm talking about my co-host is always Dave. How's it going tonight, Dave? We actually did that last month, but Jake, I want to know, how are you doing tonight? I'm doing all right. A little bit tired. Yeah.
00:01:09
Speaker
Did you just wake up or something?
The Art of Napping and Sleep Strategies
00:01:12
Speaker
It was a very, very brief nap. I'll have you know, I planned on taking a slightly longer nap, but I was like just browsing Reddit on my phone and then I looked and I was like, if I take a nap now, it's literally 15 minutes. So that's what I did. I don't think I could do it for 15 minutes. I like after I ate the Wawa pasta bowl, I think I got the
00:01:36
Speaker
big air quotes here, fettuccine alfredo with chicken. It's very filling. And I just kind of like laid down afterwards at like six. And I'm like, I don't have to be on until seven. I could. Like, I felt my body be like, you let us know. Let me just take the wheel. The key is, if you are going to take a short nap, it has to be either super short or like within an hour and a half, which is not a short nap.
00:02:04
Speaker
because if you do get to the point where your body's like, all right, time to hit rim sleep and you wake up from that, that's when you get hit with sleep inertia and you feel like trash. I usually do that. I've never honestly tried to time it. It's just at some point. Or maybe like when I've dated people like, oh, do you want to take a nap and like snuggle? I'm like,
00:02:32
Speaker
okay for like a little bit, but like my body goes down for like 30 minutes. I'm like, this is pleasant. And then I wake up and I'm like, I'm bored out of my skull. I want to move. I don't want to disrupt anything and I feel too warm.
00:02:46
Speaker
That's very I think I used to take more naps during the day and not taking naps has in general made things better.
Work-Life Balance and VR Gaming Breaks
00:02:54
Speaker
Like this week I played literally one session. So I'm not this doesn't count as actual exercise, but beat saber over lunch. Because I one thing that I'm not as much a fan of in this like work from home environment is
00:03:12
Speaker
Sometimes it's much easier to work over lunch. You're not physically absent. Yeah. So I literally block it out in my calendar so people could don't schedule me for meetings because we have time zones and things, right? And I'll stand up and go somewhere else, you know, if I can, to approximate stepping away from it all. And Beat Saber is great for that because you literally are disconnected from reality into a virtual reality.
00:03:42
Speaker
It's true. Can only improve. Unrelated, do you have any interest in like Space Pirate Simulator? Space Pirate Simulator. Oh, that's the shooter, right?
00:03:54
Speaker
Yeah, like you're stationary, like there's some enemy drones that kind of come in. You have, I think in each hand you can have an option of a shield, mace, mace is actually pretty fun. Different types of guns. You can even have two shields if you want to go shield bro. Right. The door meta Dark Souls video.
00:04:17
Speaker
I might. I have the only reticence I have towards it is I do have like a medieval combat style game where it's basically kind of like Skyrim and arenas but full movement so you can slash and stab and all that and I've played it like twice because
00:04:35
Speaker
you have to move with the thumbsticks on the controllers and it's very disorienting. You have to basically be completely acclimated to movement in virtual reality or do what I do and just take Dramamine and have the little wrist guards on and put a fan on your face to try to mitigate it. So it's easier to just play something that doesn't have as much movement. Okay.
00:05:05
Speaker
Cause you played Beat Hazard and did you, uh, not that long ago when you were over here, right?
Exploring VR and Gaming Culture
00:05:11
Speaker
Beat Saber. Oh, this is the second time I said Beat Hazard, probably. This is the first time I clocked it. I have played Beat Hazard as well for the record, but- That's fair. Yeah, last time I was over I played, I think, a song or two and then I stopped cause I felt self-conscious.
00:05:26
Speaker
Yeah, it is weird, right? It's kind of like standing in the Walmart store, you know, doing like using Wii controls or like itoy or whatever it was. It's weird, but it's honestly not weird to everybody else. It's like, yes, you kind of do look ridiculous, but we all have already acclimated to seeing somebody look ridiculous in VR. I mean, were you guys at least watching the song play out on different screen? OK, so we had the
00:05:58
Speaker
Unfortunately, we have the Oculus. Oculus Quest, I should say. There's different Oculus headsets. You can have it on your phone. There's just an app, basically, that connects up to the phone. You can just view the screen and whatever the person's doing on that. What I would love to do, and it might require upgrading to a different headset at some point, is get the HDMI hooked up like I have for the PlayStation 4.
00:06:26
Speaker
switch so that we can just have the projector for what's happening in front on the wall while the person's in VR in the middle of the room. That would be really cool. So you as a spectator are like, why doesn't the person just take off the headset and look at the fucking wall? Idiot.
00:06:47
Speaker
Hmm. Yeah, that wouldn't work. What's funny is I had a moment where I was like, maybe that could actually help with emotions. No, you're literally taking the virtual reality aspect out.
00:07:04
Speaker
Although if you had like the lighthouses, the remote sensors for it, it might actually work depending on how you had the headset set up. It would be pointless. Don't do that. It would be as far as like when you're in VR, like it literally, it's all encompassing. So that really helps with how it's displayed. Yeah. I don't know if that would translate to a wall so much. Yeah. At the very least, you would lose all the cool immersion, which is the point of VR.
00:07:35
Speaker
Also, isn't that a Rolling Stone song? Anyway. The point of VR, maybe. They were very ahead of that. Yeah. All right, Jake.
Personal Hobbies and Gaming Alias Origin
00:07:47
Speaker
So as you know, I'm sure you've been super excited about. Last month, we did a kind of expose on me, my Deep Dark Secrets. So I thought I would get you back this month with a Jake episode.
00:08:01
Speaker
It was a lot different than the way you usually expose yourself to others. None of that has really stuck yet. So until it's proven in court, it is hearsay. That's fair. That's fair.
00:08:16
Speaker
Yeah, sorry. Let me just interrupt your literal transition. I mean, if you had a question for yourself, by all means. No, I really don't. I don't think. I figured we could start light and then get into your deep dark secrets. Right. I didn't have as much in the way of Facebook or MySpace research.
00:08:37
Speaker
I did do a deep dive on your Facebook briefly for a single question, but we'll get to that later. That's fair. So let's start out with who is Jake? What are your hobbies?
00:08:50
Speaker
This is actually pretty easy for me because I've had to do onboarding where we do the roundtable introduce yourself thing recently. So my hobbies include. So I work for the company for six years. No, my hobbies are definitely tabletop games in a digital format now, although I still accept and love when people send me books.
00:09:12
Speaker
Um, particularly Ian, thank you for sending me a lot of books. Um, but tabletop games for sure, massive part of my life. Um, uh, playing video games, obviously in general, I think that that's pretty well established at this point, unless this is your first episode. Um,
00:09:33
Speaker
And crap, I was going to say podcasting. That's the other thing I usually include in the get to know person section. I'm like, I have more of a hobby than a business. Yeah. Right. Um, but that one's another implicit here. So I guess like the podcast actually has pretty big cross section of my life. Um, and other than that, I don't know, really.
00:10:02
Speaker
I guess that's most of it. Oh, there's one you missed, but I also have that on the list for later. I have here jacket question mark.
00:10:13
Speaker
jacket question mark. Oh, where's the name come from or just jacket question mark and fill in the rest. Well, so for anybody who's unaware, Jake has had the alias jacket online and I think it's used a couple other places as well. If you get too specific with that, I was like, and we'll leave it there. So where did this come from for you?
00:10:39
Speaker
Part of it was early days of internet. I found a lot of convenience in having one pseudonym pretty much everywhere. And I picked one that was, I literally made it when I was like 13 or something for a text-based game called A World Called Hollow. It's still around apparently.
00:11:03
Speaker
and it was a name i'm not going to say because we'd defeat the whole point of it but i used it like everywhere and i used it for all these social media sites and i used it for like signing up for all these forums and things like that i reached a point in my life where i was like
00:11:17
Speaker
Do I actually want all of that to follow me forever? No. So it was a necessary pseudonym change. Um, and I took jacket, which is the nickname of the protagonist from, um, or fan name for the protagonist of hotline Miami. And the reason I picked it is because it's got like a nice curvature to the name. It's two syllables, which is very convenient for call outs. Um, and also just looks cool.
00:11:44
Speaker
I want to ask about the curvature of the name jacket. What do you mean by that? So like the J. So if you were to like draw a line from the beginning of the font up to the top, you kind of like have a slope up the J, basically, that leads into the center of it. And A is a perfect connective letter. And it just it looks really good. Like just write it out on the keyboard. Are we fucking capped here?
00:12:11
Speaker
Caps is best, for sure. But it just, it looks complete to me. I like it.
00:12:22
Speaker
It's like packet with a J. Yes, it's very similar. But I don't know. I think that it's easy to say. Pretty much everyone knows how to say it. And the other important aspect was you can do a lot of weird things with the spelling to get a unique identifier in a game or whatever. And the other nice thing is it's not unique.
00:12:49
Speaker
So if you search for jacket online, good luck. You'll never find me because it's super common. And I wanted to move away from having a really easily unique search for this one word and you will find exactly who this person is name. And that's what it was before.
00:13:11
Speaker
Yeah, there's definitely something you don't want of being like, Hi, my name is Dave, full name and address. Find me here. Like, Oh, it's really easy to look you up from all the other users. It's also cool. Like if you find somebody else who is a jacket, you're like, Hey, yeah, yeah. I've had that happened a couple times in Overwatch and it's like, you know, what's up.
00:13:34
Speaker
Well, we, whenever we play Overwatch, if there's a somebody just named Jake playing, we're like, ah, what a loser. His name's not Czech. But now it is, it is cool.
00:13:50
Speaker
I think, obviously. I hope so. I like it. I also like that you stuck with it thematically. I think you still have the Letterman jacket from... Yes. How am I able to? This is one set of paraphernalia that I collect.
00:14:06
Speaker
I see that makes it sound like I have drug paraphernalia. It just sounds ominous in general because you said one set of paraphernalia. The other paraphernalia is like D&D stuff. But yeah, I've got several posters for it and the Letterman jacket, like you said. Could you show the audience? No. One person briefly looks at their phone like, what? What?
00:14:32
Speaker
It's just like the picture, the custom picture for the episode. Look at that, that's the leatherman jacket. I mean, we could. You let me know what you're okay with. I'll send you a link to the place where I got it. If you want to look like Jake, this is the start of the Jake collection. It'll first be jackets and then it will eventually get down to socks.
00:14:57
Speaker
then I probably shouldn't link the third party site that I'm completely unaffiliated with where you can buy it. Instead, I shouldn't post it myself. Look, we'll do a joint link. It's called Into the AM. You'll look like one of us, for sure. Actually, I'm going to send you this link. And it would be funny to just use this and pretend that it's me. I realize this is disruptive. I'm going to talk to Phil some of the dead air since this is an audio-based episode.
00:15:25
Speaker
I mean, if you think Jake looks like vanilla ice and you haven't seen any of our videos, yes. You should just crop it off. So it's just like the person's head's not there. It's just the torso with the logo. If only I knew people who knew how to use Photoshop. Yeah, you don't need Photoshop for that. Paint will do fine. Click and drag. Don't even take out like the the alpha background as well. Just like slap it on top. Different background. Absolutely perfect.
00:15:55
Speaker
Yeah. All right. I got more here for you. Sure. What is your favorite game genre? Ooh, genre. Mm. That's tough. So I'm thinking of this from the type of like, like, soul's leg could be a genre, FPS, JRPG, factory. It's not JRPG. I can honestly answer this in reverse, I think.
00:16:24
Speaker
I enjoy JRPGs, but I don't play them that often. And it's so much commitment, not JRPG. At one point, it might have been FPS for a while, but I honestly don't play FPS all that much anymore. Definitely not sports. Soulslike is a very high contender, which would surprise no one for just how sheer immersive they are.
00:16:47
Speaker
And otherwise maybe like action RPG or, you know, something like a, even then Diablo, not really, probably Soulslike. Yeah, I'd go with Soulslike. We'll go with the vanilla answer that everyone expects, because it's probably true.
Music's Role in Gaming
00:17:01
Speaker
I like how you had ARPG as a contender and you're like, I don't really play that much Path of Exile. Right. Well, I mean, definitely a Path of Exile. I did play Last Epic, though. But the deciding factor for me here is literally in the pregame for this episode. We were talking about how we don't play that many games anymore. I was like, I kind of feel like playing Dark Souls 2. That was the one that came up.
00:17:24
Speaker
I mean, I support it. I'll watch. I'll watch you play so that I don't have to play it. I can just live vicariously through you. You're just kind of like you're like the one dad from the previous generation who like kind of still has a problem with gay people that you have a gay son and you're like, I've tried to support them. It's just gay porn nonstop. Dad, I can get other things for my birthday.
00:17:53
Speaker
But you're gay. Right. I thought you people like this stuff. Anytime you have to say in a sentence, you people, you know you've made the right call. Because you're acknowledging their personhood. That's the key. All right, Jake, that's a pretty good answer. But yeah, we'll go with souls like.
00:18:18
Speaker
What is a great game or great game soundtrack that we actually haven't really mentioned on the podcast? Game or soundtrack? I think we tend to hit the soundtracks.
00:18:32
Speaker
Usually we highlight it if there's an exemplary soundtrack. That's usually in an episode though, right? Something that we have covered? Yeah, that's true. Yeah, I guess something we haven't really covered. I really like... Did we do... Do we have an episode on Risk of Rain? No.
00:18:50
Speaker
Um, I like risk of rain soundtrack and some of the eight bit stuff like that, like, um, faster than light, although we hadn't, we had an episode on faster than light. You can go back and listen to it. Um, the, a game, maybe a stalker, probably, I would probably say stalker. I don't know if I'm too familiar with stalker. It's, it sounds like a, an older FPS game. Yeah, it is.
00:19:17
Speaker
So a stalker shadow of Chernobyl was the first one. And it's really dumb because there's a period between every letter in stalker and it's capitalized making you think it could perhaps be an acronym. It's not out of the universe or in the universe. It doesn't. It's not an acronym for anything, but they just stylized it as such. I guess kind of like.
00:19:42
Speaker
I was gonna say kind of like fear, but first encounter assault recon is what fear stands for. So yeah, like that doesn't work, but super janky game. Uh, but has some of the early survival, like feel towards it that I think has made a massive surge since then, you know, it gives like daisy or whatever, uh, where you're going off and gathering stuff and trying to, trying to make it.
00:20:09
Speaker
So you actually have like some meters you have to take care of. Yeah. And then maybe you get to craft some things and explore. Yeah. A lot of everything's trying to kill you and you make a mistake and you die. It's Russia, right? So it's basically modern day Russia. And yeah, there was like three games. All of them are really buggy and the community had to fix those. And that's like.
00:20:32
Speaker
That's just like a sonar echo ping in the night to me. It's like, here's a crappy game that's borderline unplayable. And I'm like, oh, boy. So so Bethesda fan. Oh, yeah. Oof. Yeah.
00:20:51
Speaker
Oh, yeah. Oh, you know what? Bethesda games, you have good music. The Elder Scrolls has a lot of really good tracks. Yeah, you really can't knock Skyrim is the only one I can really think of as far as what I remember from soundtrack. Yeah. But also, I do want to give credit to Risk of Rain soundtrack, which you did first mention. Chris Cthulhu. Chris Cthulhu. I think it is Cthulhu, yeah. No one knows who he is.
00:21:18
Speaker
I don't know what he's done besides risk of rain, but I really do enjoy the kind of. Ambient, I don't know the genre is, yeah, ambient, spacey, but then like it builds as the game gets more crazy. Yeah, that's good for the different areas. I don't know, just fits.
00:21:35
Speaker
Yeah, I recently have had the difficulty of trying to determine because I filter out music for Cyberpunk Red, the RPG I run, and I'll have to put those in buckets. So I'm listening to a synth track and I'm like, this is kind of low BPM.
00:21:53
Speaker
ambient and it's like here's a synth track slightly higher bpm and there's like a little bit of vocals and i'm like club ambient and then there's one that's like much like more upbeat and i'm like this is definitely combat this has to be combat and then it's even more upbeat than that and it's like boss fighting and that's like what i have to do while i'm going through all these tracks but it's fun to do because you just get to sit there and listen to music on spotify but
00:22:17
Speaker
That's true. Have you ever played through a game soundtrack on Audiosurf?
00:22:25
Speaker
Ooh, probably, maybe not a full soundtrack, but definitely some stand out tracks. Um, I must've attempted through the fire in the flames. That's the, the generic answer. Right. Where you just move your mouse back and forth like crazy. Right. Um, but, uh, man, it's been a while since I played audio surf. Yeah. It's old. Like I think when we were in college, it was still a couple of years old. Yeah.
00:22:52
Speaker
But I do remember there was one time I was doing an English paper and they're like, oh, you should review something for one of your papers. And it can be like a movie, an album or something like, oh, a new album came out from a band that I like. Let me play through it. So I'm literally forced to experience it. And then I wrote stuff on my feedback.
00:23:12
Speaker
That's a good idea. I really like that. I do like taking it back to Beat Hazard, which I definitely intended to say. I like that genre of game where it's just like you have like an OST or something, drop it in here and you get like the dark side of the moon experience of listening to something while doing whatever.
00:23:36
Speaker
Like listening to Dark Side of the Moon while watching, uh, Paul Blart and Malcolm. It's really good. I'll have to check Paul Blart out. Um, recommended. I've never seen it. How do you think people view you? Hmm.
00:24:00
Speaker
Oh, that's I can tell that we've we've we've started the gradient and don't more serious questions.
Personal Reflections and Life Achievements
00:24:05
Speaker
It will bounce back. It's not all serious stuff. And also, if there's something you don't want to delve into or no, I mean, I think this is this is this is a good introspective question. That's a great question to ask people. That's why I put it here. Excellent. I think like.
00:24:25
Speaker
I want to go meta with the question and instead I'm just going to try to answer it and then we can go meta with the question. But I hope people view me as friendly and reliable to some degree in certain things that matter. Things that matter. I realize I did a lot of hedging there.
00:24:45
Speaker
I'm a little bit lazy. I don't think that's, you know, that shouldn't be news, you know, to people. But when I think someone, something really matters to someone and I make a commitment to it, I try to fulfill that commitment. But mostly I want to just, I hope that people like enjoy
00:25:09
Speaker
being around me or talking to me for the most part, as long as I like them. Everybody else. I don't really care so much. Sorry, listeners. Yeah, right. There's reasons I haven't reached out, to be honest. But no, I mean, honestly, it's maybe simplistic, but I hope friendly and encouraging.
00:25:35
Speaker
If I had those two adjectives for my life, just like, you know what? Net positive. I'd be like, nice. I've accomplished what I aim to set out for.
00:25:51
Speaker
Well, I mean, after we record this episode, I can show you the numbers as I asked everybody individually. Just come back here, put the knuckle sound exactly right here. That's fine. I'll put the numbers in the edit. I think that tracks. Yeah. Like I think you're a friendly sociable person and I say sociable, not social.
00:26:15
Speaker
Because I don't think that's your niche or where you feel the most comfortable. But when people talk to you, it's about games or other stuff. It's other stuff outside of games. As I've said, you're a great person to talk to.
00:26:33
Speaker
You have good insights on things. Like, nobody thinks of you and you're like, ah, he's kind of a cunt. That's not your vibe. There may be one person. They're like the antagonist in my backstory. They're chasing me down right now. But yeah, I'm going to steal your answer. So just cut whatever I set out and then take your answer and put it in there. I will definitely do that in the edit. Smiles a camera.
00:27:03
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Anything else, any like elaborating to any point beyond that just feels like like ego masturbation. And I'm a great freaking person. You're getting into like reasons of like, here's why I think that I'm right. Yeah. Do you have any really cool accomplishments inside or outside of gaming?
00:27:28
Speaker
Ooh, hmm. There's one time, I was playing Prey, and I did a purposeful no clip skip to grab an objective that's hidden in an out of bounds area, out of the level geometry, and then it's supposed to be warped up into someone's inventory later.
00:27:49
Speaker
that was that was it that was the peak because i grabbed the item and then i completed the i'm going to use i have like multiple sets of air quotes around this speed run strat and it felt pretty cool nice did you have to
00:28:06
Speaker
Try a lot or did you look up like a thing? Well, I looked it up before and I didn't figure it out. That would be an actual accomplice. I wasn't sure if you were just like going into this one corner repeatedly, like QA probably missed something. It is a QA missed something. You have to mantle, like there's a door frame.
00:28:23
Speaker
and the top of it juts out a little bit and you can jump up and grab the top of the doorframe and like mantle if you get the right angle just right you mantle out of bounds trying to climb over the doorframe and then drop into the abyss oh my god and if you if you pull it off properly then you don't die and if you pull it off incorrectly you do die but it's a fun little skip nice
00:28:49
Speaker
I used it to get some of the achievements. If you have me on Steam, you'll see that I have all the achievements for Prey. And that's because of that skip. That got me through running through the game like three times back to back. That's impressive. I never go for any type of achievements. I just really like Prey. Maybe I should change my answer from Soulslike to Immersive Sem. They're both really good games, but Soulslike's really good.
00:29:16
Speaker
Also, it just now clicked for me that when you said pray, you meant pray. That game we had an episode on versus what I'm thinking is like far cry instincts. That's what my brain jumped to for whatever reason. I mean, yeah, that's fair. And then like outside of games, um,
00:29:34
Speaker
It's a super sappy answer, but basically meeting my wife in real life and then committing to moving across the country is like it was the peak. I like peaked at 18 or 19. I think I was pretty sure I moved at 19, 2000 plus miles. It seems insane to me. Even now I have no idea. Yeah. I managed to get through it. I think I made a joke about that in your,
00:30:03
Speaker
in your wedding. Yeah. Cause for the listeners that don't know Dave was my best man. My wedding was, was and then the wedding. Yeah. That's still pretty nuts accomplishment that like you guys were initially so remote and then met each other online and now travel great distances to like meet in the Eastern part of the United States. Yeah. I don't recommend it.
00:30:34
Speaker
Like it turned out great for me, but you do, but you can't recommend that in general, right? Oh yeah. Find somebody online and then move 2000 miles to be with them. Like it doesn't make any, didn't make any sense. I just locked out. And yeah, but I mean, you guys never gonna go in together for what is it? Seven years. Well, sorry, married seven years. I should say. Yeah. Married. Uh, I think six, six and a half, something like that at this point, six years. Yeah. We've known each other for like forever. We were like 14, but
00:31:03
Speaker
I was dumb. I didn't realize what was going on. I was being groomed. Just saying nice things. You're like, what's, what's their angle? Right. Yeah. Um, but that'll probably be the answer forever. Like it's nice to have something in life where it's just like, huh, that worked out.
00:31:29
Speaker
Like just that, that one thing, just, I really feel that like this one particular world line and all of the branching possibilities. I like that thing in this world line. Yeah. It's a, it's a pretty strong contender because it's like I love and I'm with my wife and it's been.
00:31:54
Speaker
You've been together that long. Yeah. I know you guys are both gamers. Do you guys like to play a lot of games together or something you just kind of do together separately? Right. Usually together separately. I don't think we play many games together. We had like one session of Spiritfare. We played together and it's a decent game for couples, I think.
00:32:15
Speaker
But otherwise, I don't think we play all that many games like Overwatch, obviously, periodically. If I'm playing Overwatch, there's zero percent chance that she's not also playing Overwatch, but she has like 10,000 hours. Yeah, she's she's kind of insane at that. Yeah.
00:32:35
Speaker
You're okay. Yeah. But every time you do hop on, you steal play of the game from everybody else in the party. Yeah. It's just cause the game doesn't know how to like, how to like, where to place me against opponents. Cause he's like, he hasn't played in like three months. So bronze, I guess. Where do you feel that you fit in in the gaming community?
00:32:59
Speaker
Oh, hmm. Interesting.
In-Depth Game Analysis
00:33:02
Speaker
This this question has several assumptions, one that there is a structured gaming community, which I think is fair, but it's open enough that like.
00:33:13
Speaker
Basically, it becomes whatever you shape it to. So you're like, this is my gaming community. And then that's the nature of several of these questions. And every time my first response is just like analyze the question, instead of answer it. I hope to answer it the way I'm interpreting it. It's somewhere critical.
00:33:34
Speaker
I don't think that we're games journalists by any sense of the imagination, but it's definitely progressed past the point of playing games purely for entertainment.
00:33:50
Speaker
When I play a game now, and I know that we're going to be talking about it, I'm on the lookout for like, Oh, what's the music like? What's the genre? Like, what are some of the things I really like about what are standout moments that are good or bad? And I think part of that as well as just growing up and not having the sheer unbridled enjoyment
00:34:09
Speaker
that you can just like jump into as a child when it comes to video games lends itself to like an edge of implicit cynicism maybe that makes you more critical about the positive and negative things in games. And so I hope that's the case also because we have a gaming podcast where we talk about games and whether they're good or not. So I think it fits.
00:34:37
Speaker
I mean, I'm not going to say like no to any of your answers. Like that's wrong. Yeah. I mean, I'm, I'm curious though. I realize you're asking the questions, but where do you think we fit in the, um, in the gaming industry?
00:34:52
Speaker
Are we just like corporate EA gills? Let's not throw out anything corporate and any big company names at the moment. I was very careful of the ones I picked. I think of myself at least as like a gaming casual.
00:35:11
Speaker
I'm definitely better at games than some people. I definitely have more interest in video games than some of people because it seems to be my primary hobby. But I don't try and 100% things. I don't try and do things on hard difficulties. I'm there to have fun and have an experience. And then, like you said, for episodes.
00:35:29
Speaker
I think it's probably because of the podcast, I will look at things even if we're not recording on a given thing. What do I like about it and why? Because I want to have it shape my view on other things. Why do I appreciate this? If you ever hear a good piece of music, you're like, that's really good. Why is it good? Why do I like it? And then you try and look for patterns or something.
00:35:52
Speaker
It's the core identity of this podcast is the fact, well, it's even beyond the podcast, the fact that everything gets compared to Dark Souls. It's just like it's literally here is the Rosetta Stone of the language of good game design. And we're going to see those patterns and all these other spinoff pieces. Like I think that word means
00:36:17
Speaker
like, no save game, like, no save slots, or I think that word means souls, you know? I-frames, I'm pretty sure this one is. Engaging combat, you can dodge, like, yep, I-frames. Rolling? Oh yeah, I'm pretty familiar with that. What if rolling was just, just rolling and that's all it was? It just changed your physical animation, nothing else about it. You don't move any faster and there's no frames. Sonic still gets hit by a ton of things.
00:36:45
Speaker
Well, it would be worse. I think that would be a method that would be like an implementation for an absolutely trash game. I think it'd be funny to have a Sonic mod where instead of like spin dashes, it's just it's just Sonic standing the whole time. He just he just he just he poses but faster, you know. Okay, that's fair.
00:37:08
Speaker
Yeah. Play the the crunch sound bites of the Sonic safe. That's fine. How do you feel about social events such as like Magfest or Land Party? I know those are two pretty stark differences. Land Party for us is much more local, let's say 20 ish people for like a day, whereas Magfest is a weekend convention.
00:37:34
Speaker
I really don't like large events unless I'm there with friends. So like one example, so Magfest in particular, it was a fine experience, but the memories I had at Magfest weren't necessarily anything about
Social Preferences in Gaming Events
00:37:51
Speaker
Magfest itself. It was because I was there with friends.
00:37:54
Speaker
The story that came out of Magfest was the mix-up with RC Cola in the hotel room, which had nothing to do with Magfest. It was just because we had friends in the hotel room. And so the answer to that is I'm not so much a fan of Magfest environment because there's so much there, I guess. I do like buying some of the swag though. There's some really cool custom swag.
00:38:22
Speaker
But like land parties the exact opposite to me. It's like a concentration of mostly people that I care about and want to talk to. And I say that makes it sound negative, but I mean like
00:38:37
Speaker
that's actually quite the accomplishment. If you walk into a room and you're like, I want to have a conversation with most everyone in that room, that's a great room to be in, you know, in land parties like that. So like, I love land party. And part of that is, you know, I know the people, right?
00:38:55
Speaker
Yeah, like even the the olden days where it's like a different Smattering or like a smaller group where she's like You're playing like fucking two games, right? But you're there for the people like you're drinking you're socializing your breakouts to do other stuff and it's that Communal bonding that's nice. It's just done over the medium of video games and for me binge drinking
00:39:17
Speaker
And I think like land parties It's evolved obviously as as we get older. I find There was a lot more flux and like the games that we played earlier and now it's kind of like oh golf golf with your friends tournament We'll have you know overwatch and then it's kind of our TF2 inaugural TF2 game But like other than that, we don't really pull in Games all that often and people kind of like split off into smaller groups and there's much more of a
00:39:47
Speaker
what I as a kid would have called like adult interactions of people just talking, right? You're like, oh, two people just went over to like a counter and they're talking to each other, right? Like they literally walked into the kitchen to talk, which like as a kid was absolute absurdity. You're like, they're literally doing nothing. Like look at them, right? And as I get older, I'm like, yeah, sounds nice.
00:40:18
Speaker
Yeah, it's really just who you're with versus what you do and you don't appreciate it when you're young for sure. Yeah.
00:40:29
Speaker
Although all of that being said, they're still like just talking, not playing Super Smash Brothers, not playing, you know, a secret Hitler or some other tabletop game. Yeah. I mean, it's good. It's good. It could, it could be better. Could be better. This is why whenever I see Jake, he has a controller with him. He's like, statistically you're not wrong. Yeah.
00:40:54
Speaker
All right, I'm going to jump back to a question that your wife threw in, which I think is fair. Oh, my gosh. And this was something related to the hobbies I think you missed. How many Excel sheets do you have? That's fair. I have a lot. Now, to point of clarification, they're not all Excel. Some of them are Google Docs sheets, but they function the same way. So for the sake of the question,
00:41:24
Speaker
They contribute to a lot, I think. I don't know. It's innumerable because I use them for work as well. But usually if I want to get like a piece of data down, like about a game, a note I want to take, something like that, like Excel's a really good medium for anything that you need to sort or I was going to say tabularize, but that's wrong. Tabularasa. There we go.
00:41:48
Speaker
That's when you do a control A and delete on the Excel spreadsheet. That's good. That's my one language over the day. That's one good. What's funny is like Richard Gary, it's Tabula Rasa.
00:42:02
Speaker
as a video game, like bombed and then was canceled. So it still works, I guess. But a lot, I do find myself being, if a game has numbers or any part of SIM aspect to it, where there's some management or something like that, the Excel sheet comes out pretty quick.
00:42:25
Speaker
I think that's not an aspect of my behavior that's likely to change at this point. I'm unlikely to reform. I had like a route in Secret World where each day you could redo missions. They would reset. And I had a route that was just like, do this mission, and this mission, and this mission, and this mission, and take this route through the world to complete them for maximum rewards. I must stop playing that with Monster Hunter 2.
00:42:52
Speaker
Oh, yeah, for gathering. It's every single rock and then every single plant collection. Oh, they're responding. I'll go back. Yeah, you know, small monster farm. They can't remember the name of the location, but it's where the
00:43:08
Speaker
Crap, the roly guy with the spikes goes down. Rod-a-bon? Rod-a-bon, yes. It's Rod-a-bon for sure. I wanted to say Robon, and I'm like, that's a final fantasy in PC. There's very little chance I'm hunting. Yeah.
00:43:30
Speaker
But I find it provides a measure of enjoyment. Even like Subnautica, I had a spreadsheet that was like a base designer where it's like, I want this type of module. I want this many of that type of module. And then it just tells you all of the raw base materials you need to make it. And people would have criticized me for that. And then Subnautica below zero came out and I could use the exact same spreadsheet with minor modifications.
00:43:58
Speaker
Doubters. You're really playing it ahead, that's the thing. Exactly. There are ways that other gamers play games and then there's the correct way to do it. Right. And I'm not sure what group I'm. I think you and another friend we have, who's been on the podcast, friend of the show, Justin. Friend of the show, Justin, yes. Have some of that trait of optimize the fun out to a degree.
00:44:20
Speaker
Yes, that is that is a term that is thrown around a bit. As long as you're getting something out of it, like I'm never going to look at that and say like, well, what a dumb ass itches. I cannot personally approach it that way. No, it's fair. And sometimes it is a waste of time because there's been times I optimize something for a game and then I stop like immediately afterwards.
00:44:41
Speaker
or like in Final Fantasy's case, trying to do all these analytics for the market and things like that. And I literally got to the point where I stopped playing the game and I didn't start again once the automation was done. This was my departure. This was my off ramp from the game. I was making tools for it. So that's life. That is life. So impressive though.
00:45:07
Speaker
I probably wouldn't, I wouldn't have put, personally, I wouldn't have put, uh, Excel aficionado under my list of hobbies, but maybe that's just cause it's not common to list your vices when people ask you what you're interested in. That's true. There are a lot of things we probably could have covered that are like, well, here's the things I can't say on air, but do you want something lighthearted or heavier next? Let's go heavy. Let's go heavy, heavy, heavy.
00:45:37
Speaker
And then Dave hit me with the glove. I have two kind of related questions. I think I'm going to consolidate into just the one. What would you change about your co-host? Parentheses, me. I like that you accept it. I want to say as a co-host, I don't want to say like as a person. It's kind of a shit. It's a little short, I guess. I'm just kidding. That's a good answer. What would I change?
00:46:08
Speaker
This is, I have to go meta on this question just to buy myself time, I think. Because this is the definition of a toxic question, I think. Because it runs completely counterintuitive to accepting people as they are. Well, yeah. I mean, like, the cop-out answer is nothing. You're perfect. Then you can go like Mimi, or you could be like, this is my platform to be like, I feel like you should change this. I don't know. It's open. I hadn't considered for a second.
00:46:37
Speaker
Not even a moment that I would use the cop out answer. Well, thank you for explaining your thought process there. I don't know if I can maybe, maybe I don't know if I can
Podcast Dynamics and Humor
00:46:52
Speaker
answer that. That's a little tough. What would I change about you as a co-host within the role of this?
00:47:01
Speaker
I'm kind of content, and that makes this a difficult question to answer. I realize that this is going back to the cop-out thing, but I could evaluate different things. Maybe it was like, oh, maybe you wanted to be more entrepreneurial, and you're promoting the podcast and things like that. But no, you've literally suggested that, and I've shot it down. So you're pretty good on that front. Or maybe it could be less entrepreneurial, and I wouldn't need to shoot it down. But no, you only had me shoot it down once, and you haven't brought it up since then.
00:47:30
Speaker
So that's not it. I feel like we honestly have a really good back and forth that it's difficult for me to. Actually, no, I got one. I got one. Just like interrupt me more.
00:47:47
Speaker
So it's not just me rambling. Sorry. I don't know if you could tell from like my facial expression as soon as you said that, but I thought that was like the bit of like the next thing he says fucking in about them. I think I think if I were to pick one thing, maybe maybe that would literally be maybe just like.
00:48:05
Speaker
And I don't know if it's something that I would actually want to change but specifically within the role of co-host I think that the podcast is very much enriched by the thoughts that you bring And it could use more of that like if we go back and we look at the graph there's plenty of episodes where it's like 60 percent 65 percent
00:48:32
Speaker
70% like me through the audio spectrograph or whatever it's called. And I mean, as far as balance is concerned, I think that I sometimes need to shut up and let you talk. I mean, there have been times where I definitely agree with that sentiment. But like, not usually. I feel like we do have a good back and forth
00:49:01
Speaker
This is obviously more of a exceptional episode because the focus is for you to share your opinion and life experience versus me. So I'm more so want to make light commentary and jokes. You just criticized me for how much I talked in your episode. I get this. This is this is how I was going to get you back. So that's fair.
00:49:30
Speaker
But that's the non-answer, right? It is the actual answer, but it's also like not.
00:49:38
Speaker
It would require like a fundamental change in the way that you interacted with the podcast that could change your personality itself if you were just interrupting people, right? Yeah. So I mean, I'm not going to change that for me just because. All right. I mean, it's it's hard for me to like break out. I don't want to say character, but the way I've been my entire life is probably still the way I'll be going forward.
00:50:04
Speaker
That seems, that doesn't seem like a long odds. I'm going to die soon. Well, thank you for your input on that. I got a little bit sappy, so I will skip the, another sappy possible question. So I'm going to go something a little bit lighthearted.
00:50:24
Speaker
on Facebook back in, I want to say 2015. I didn't look at the actual date. You made a Facebook post that said, and I quote, food is like dark humor. Not everybody gets it. Yeah. Yeah. I definitely stole that from somewhere, but I stand by that. Not everyone gets food. Yeah. It's, it's a, it's a good joke. I also liked that we, we share the dark humor a little bit because
00:50:53
Speaker
It really sucks if you were just talking in general or like making light of stuff because life is a, life's a fucking mess. I don't know if you knew that, but it's nice to make fun of something, to kind of get something back from it since you ultimately can't do a lot for many situations. Can't take it with you.
00:51:14
Speaker
Well, I don't know. Fuck you. Like it's like, let's just make a joke about it and move on and try and improve the world as a whole. But like in this moment, make it a little bit lighter. Yeah. And to the opposite of that point, I think like that is literally.
00:51:36
Speaker
That's how you have to go through life. I think part of growing up is realizing that there's an incomprehensible amount of bad and good things happening at any point. And I'm not going to say that the people who are miserable are miserable just because they're focusing on the bad. That's not how misery works. That's not how mental state works. There's a lot of things it can be.
00:51:59
Speaker
at play there. But in general, like if you look for anything to be upset about, sad about something like that, you will find it. It's not hard. Like Twitter is a website and a mistake. Like that's where I think a joke like that kind of comes from is the place of
00:52:22
Speaker
Yes, there's literally starvation in the world and it's a terrible thing. We should be doing what we can to help prevent it, but there's also like cats and people are taking pictures of them and they look adorable and they put them online and it's like
00:52:38
Speaker
to any extreme. I mean, it's weird to put those both on the scales, but there are meaningful things that are also really beneficial and positive. And to the extent that you can, focusing on some of those positive things, such as humor, even if it's dark humor.
00:52:59
Speaker
I feel like it helps deal with the unmitigatable sadness that sometimes happens in life. Dude, I kind of said it was going to be a lighthearted question and then I immediately fucked that up in the past of all two. I mean, to be fair, I was the one that actually made it that serious one.
00:53:19
Speaker
All right, I'm going to try again. We have a write in here from another front of the show, Janaro. OK, excellent. How do Jake and Mike deal with the split custody of Dave? Yeah, it's tough. Mike gets most of the sexual jokes.
00:53:39
Speaker
I would say probably 80-20. Anytime there's just gay sex jokes, it's usually Mike Dave.
00:53:55
Speaker
Yeah, I don't know. I don't know how happy I am with that. You know, I'm saying it out loud. Maybe I should have argued for more. You say you want more. Pretty fair. Every time I hop on Thursday night post podcast, post playing smash, everyone's like, well, you were smashing Jake for three hours. And I'm like, nope, absolutely destroyed that. And like 40% of the time it's true every time. Um,
00:54:21
Speaker
But yeah, I think in general, it's largely because if there's the three of us in a room, it's probably the most chill room, like the temperature drops. And it's not because we're glaring at each other, it's just because the room is that chill.
00:54:39
Speaker
that I couldn't really fight Mike on anything ever. Um, we literally shared an apartment and there was zero conflict at no point. Uh, like, was there anything approaching a conflict and like
00:54:58
Speaker
Mike's freaking great. Friend of the show, Mike. So basically, I can't argue when he's like, hey, I'm going to be taking David to the room. I'll be like, I guess that's fine. I'll just play with you. So you take it. Basically, you get Mike's body. I get his soul. That's that's the key of it. Hmm. I say being someone who I know that you guys are also close.
00:55:29
Speaker
in heart and soul as well. I just cover that in my mind. I try not to see it. I mean, to be fair, you don't enjoy the sex as much if you're not emotionally connected. But sure, that's all.
00:55:42
Speaker
So going back to D&D real quick or tabletop in general, do you consider yourself to be a dungeon or a dragon? A dungeon or a dragon. Do you prefer to be a DM or a player?
Role-Playing Games Preferences
00:55:54
Speaker
Do you like to orchestrate or do you like to be along for the ride? They're both good, but it's truth be told. And I'm a player in several people's campaign that may hear this. It is harder.
00:56:07
Speaker
sometimes to stay completely engaged as a player compared to being a GM or DM. Is that out of necessity?
00:56:17
Speaker
It's just like if you've been a GM for, yeah, exactly. If you've been a GM for a while, like you can't turn your brain off in the middle of the session. Like, unless people are literally taking a break or just like, even if they're talking to each other, you have to be paying attention. Um, and usually you should be using that time to prepare something behind the scenes.
00:56:39
Speaker
depending on what kind of system you're running. So it's very engaging. Whereas being a player, it's, and I think you may share my opinion on this, sometimes being a player, it's easy to just slink into the back and be like, I could do anything else. I could be doing anything else right now. And I wouldn't accuse any of the campaigns I'm currently in of having that degree.
00:57:03
Speaker
of an activity or not being engaging. But unless you're constantly kind of pushing yourself forward to be engaged in what's going on, it's easy to slip back as a player.
00:57:19
Speaker
I mean, that all checks out as well. Even the poignant comment towards me from a campaign from five years ago. I've had you in two campaigns. Well, one of them was just one session though. It was the fate one. It's not addressed in files. But I have- I wasn't addressed in. You were for half a session. Was this online?
00:57:43
Speaker
It was online. Yeah, we were talking and we were in Discord. But it was very brief. It was very, very brief. It was a short session and you had something come up. But it was it takes very different. I don't know. I understand why some people don't like tabletop RPGs.
00:58:05
Speaker
And I think it's perfectly valid and there's plenty of times literally everyone I've played with would testify to this. They've been playing like a video game recently and they're kind of just sitting there and they're like, I could be playing the game.
00:58:19
Speaker
And then it's just like a drug addiction. Occasionally there's a high where it's like something terrible just happened and we have to like fix this problem. Everybody get your heads together. Like, let's figure out how to resolve this. Or, you know, the gunship shows up and you're like, uh, and it's, it's about that. It's about, it's about the highs more than the lows or even the average, I think.
00:58:45
Speaker
I'm going to do a short rest and trade some of my coin to get an extra quilt for the caravan. I mean, you might be playing Settlers of Catan, it sounds like, but also for the listeners, because I do remember this. This is going back probably five years or so at this point. The reason
00:59:07
Speaker
Dave hates, absolutely hates, they don't have RPGs and Dungeons and Dragons in particular. It's because he did get a critical, critical hit and he did two damage. I think I was wielding dual knives and I effectively just lightly poked the person. It was pretty bad. Yeah.
00:59:33
Speaker
But then your character, while you weren't there, your character got dragged to hell, and that was a highlight for everybody else, so... Yeah, so... You're welcome, I guess. Yeah. That's the duplicity of tabletop games. That's all I get, yeah.
00:59:46
Speaker
If I ever leave this mortal coil, that's how I want it to be done. Dragged into hell. Dragged into hell. By chains. It was also with chains. Flaming chains. Of course. It was like Knight Rider moment. I wouldn't want to go down just like in a goop or a fuzz. No, no, no. Chains.
01:00:06
Speaker
I think literally and it's been like five years, but like the line I wrote is because you were a warlock. It was your patron and it was just like it's like when you make a deal, I expect you to keep it. And then the change is wrapped around you and fold you down to hell. It's freaking great. It was a great scene. People loved it. I'm glad I left. Yeah. Also, shout out to Dave for including the only
01:00:35
Speaker
time that he will ever ask a question about dungeons and dragons. Yeah, it was very hard for me. That was massive sacrifice on your part and I appreciate it. What is your biggest gaming regret slash purchase?
Gaming Purchases Regrets
01:00:52
Speaker
I looked through your Steam library before this. I didn't find anything too egregious. Yeah.
01:00:59
Speaker
I guess, I don't know, maybe something that I haven't played that I bought like a long time ago, because that's the definition of a waste of money. But it would be hard to pick one of those that's worth actually talking about.
01:01:16
Speaker
I guess it's kind of nice that I don't have, none of the game purchases have been life or death. Well, wife's not eating food tonight because I picked up Indigo Prophecy on Steam. It's like, ah, that game wasn't too good. I'm going to stop playing it, right? So it's hard to put too much invested weight into it.
01:01:43
Speaker
um nothing i'll tell you which one it isn't while i look through the list and i i pray to find one marlo briggs still gotta go back and beat that huh oh my god absolutely not that was the only game that i ever got for dave it was literally a dollar i think for dave knowing it was going to be miserable and we would have to play through it co-op and then despite how miserable dave was
01:02:10
Speaker
I still was considering quitting. It was that bad of a game that the self-inflicted pain might not have been worth it. Nothing with like Fallout 76, Cyberpunk. Oh my gosh, actually. No Man's Sky. It can't be Cyberpunk because I actually put a hundred hours into Cyberpunk and I had a lot of fun with it. No Man's Sky not because it's actually a decent game now, but at launch, probably a mistake. Shouldn't have supported that.
01:02:39
Speaker
Fallout 76, 100%. I regret that they made the purchase price money off of me. And I've bought some games that were probably made by not very reputable companies.
01:02:56
Speaker
Man, that takes that. Yeah, that it seems kind of like the expected answer to say Fallout 76. But I just really wish that they had not made any money off of me for it. So that's a really good one. Yeah. I mean, I'm going with that. I look through the list. There's nothing nothing that even comes close by comparison.
01:03:22
Speaker
I will fall 76 for that. What are you doing, Bethesda? Jeez. Come on. It's a great series. People love it. What are you doing? Shitting the bed. And then making snow angels. I like how they become snow angels, not the medium they're being shaped in. Yeah.
01:03:47
Speaker
What is the game that you think got you into gaming?
Nostalgic Gaming Memories
01:03:50
Speaker
What was that inception point where you're like, oh, shit, this is this is a thing. Sonic CD.
01:03:57
Speaker
Yeah. Very, very easy answer because it was one of the few games I had as a kid. I think it was like on sale at Walmart, which was the way to get games. And I remember one freaking great listen to the soundtrack. There you go. There's a previous answer. But I also remember it was the first game I played where I was sitting there at the computer. I was like, my tummy hurts.
01:04:24
Speaker
And what I didn't realize was like, if you're sitting there playing a game, looking at a computer screen and like your body's not acclimated for any of these unnatural behaviors that we subject ourselves to now, it's just like, don't do that. Like stop.
01:04:39
Speaker
And it was literally like, oh, I can't play the game anymore because my stomach hurts when I'm sitting here looking at the screen. And I broke my body. It's not condensed into like some type of kidney stone. And Jake just doesn't know about it yet. But yeah, statistically, you're willing to push past all of that for Sonic CD.
01:05:05
Speaker
Yeah, I played it longer than I should have, and it probably changed my trajectory. No, I mean, I would have played a different game, honestly, and fallen into it. But for sure. And Ocarina of Time for N64 when I got it was just.
01:05:22
Speaker
My parents did not really like the idea of video games, but I must have made like just a string of lies and promises to buy my, buy my way into actually having an N64. Um, and I remember like looking at Ocarina of time, I was like, I can't do this until I'm done with my homeschool work for the day.
01:05:45
Speaker
And then I played it anyways, because I'm an absolute scumbag. But you were a homeschool kid. You knew about like manipulating the system more so than others. Yeah, you got to. Got to know when to roll, roll them, fold them. Know when to walk. I never walked. That was something I didn't do. I was only playing hold on poker and I go nowhere. Yeah.
01:06:16
Speaker
Yeah, I yeah, for sure that. Actually, I'm going to I'm going to turn that one on. I realize this one's about me, but I like leaving these open and like, should I move on to the next one or shall I go? And then you just like you find extra information. I'm like, all right, we're letting around. We're letting around. The extra information in this case is what do you have a game like that for you?
01:06:35
Speaker
Like did we cover it in our retro games episode where this was the inciting? Dave is going to lose up to 40% of his lifespan in front of a screen.
01:06:53
Speaker
So going back, a lot of my early gaming experiences, because I didn't have any consoles or anything for a long time, but when I go to see my cousins and visit them in central Pennsylvania, they had everything.
01:07:05
Speaker
Yeah. So the one then basement. Well, actually, it was an attic at this time. So I think their room was up on like the second floor and then we'd go up to the attic, which was like my aunt's craft room, some storage. And then there was a TV with like Super Nintendo, Nintendo, some other stuff. But we'd go up and play Mega Man X. But we'd play really late into the night. This is back before
01:07:35
Speaker
I could do that without caffeine or anything. Yeah. And now I dread to do it. But I remember like we'd play games really late and then when somebody is about to like black out.
01:07:48
Speaker
Like one person would go to sleep, the other person would play for like another hour, but then the rule was always, hey, if you wake up before me, wake me up so we can keep playing games in the morning. And then the aunt comes up and like, you know, whatever standard normal morning time at like nine AM, like, you guys want to come eat breakfast or something? Come down here. We're like, okay, okay. But it's just like that ongoing like, ah, so I want to say Mega Man X for me.
01:08:15
Speaker
obviously for multiple reasons, but I think that was my impetus. That's a good one to start with here. I have heard good things from you, Mega Man. Also, we played the one.
01:08:30
Speaker
Can't remember which one it was, though. It was X. It was X, yes. Because you played it at my apartment. We took turns in the levels on the CRT. Right. And by take turns, that was a very generous thing. I died. And then Dave was like, yeah, I just hit the level. I've been playing that game on and off for a bit. That's fair. That is fair. Ah.
01:08:56
Speaker
So, yeah, I can't close it out because you're the one with the list of questions. I mean, I can always come up with more questions. I have like three I didn't ask. I don't think they necessarily need to be asked unless you want something sappy. I don't know. I mean, you're piloting this. You're orchestrating the hunt train, as it were.
01:09:15
Speaker
Okay, so I will throw out this last question and you have the option to answer it honestly more. Why? Do a meme answer and be like, nope, good night. Cause it'd be funny. Um, where did it go? What is a fond memory you share of our shared past?
01:09:37
Speaker
Um, fond memory. I shared of our shared past. So there was one time back in Bloomsburg. I accidentally, um, asked Dave to be my best man. And it was next to a river. I remember exactly. Um, cause we were hanging out. Um, I can't remember everyone who was there, but it was definitely me, Jenny, you, somebody else, Rachel. Yeah. Um, and I just in the moment didn't realize the difference between the term like best man and groomsman.
01:10:07
Speaker
I was just like, Oh yeah. So you will be one of my best men. I'm establishing a cabal of associates. You're like, yes, yes. I'll, I'll put my best men on it. Right. Um, and then later I looked it up and I was like, Oh, you only get one of those. Oh, that's fine. It would be Dave anyways. So it was like a double date at the river type thing. Like we got, I think hoagies from,
01:10:37
Speaker
probably Berrigan's because it's the best place there. Depending on where you live in the world, those could be called subs. Oh, all right. Grindr. But you're gay, my son, but you're gay. But yeah, it was like this nice thing and we were chatting and Jake kind of asked amidst discussion, like, hey, do you want to be
01:11:03
Speaker
a best man at my wedding. Yeah. Which I figured like, oh, he fucked the sentence mildly. But still, it was like a nice offer to be a part of his wedding. I graciously accepted. And then we didn't talk about it for like a couple of days. And then he messaged me. He's like, so I just found out what a best man was. Like, oh, this is not being rescinded. He's like, no, we're good. Yeah, it was really funny.
01:11:31
Speaker
As it turns out, it was I mean, it was the right call. I don't think like we were friends at that point. And we're probably I mean, I hope we were friends at that point. And we're just like, hey, if I took a class with. Yeah. But I would say that like our relationship progressed past that point more. Like we there was several people who just bragging a bit here. There were several people I was friends with when I was in college. It was more than two. But
01:12:01
Speaker
As it turns out that was that was a very happy accident Coincidence steal the term from Bob Ross who also great memory as painting for my bachelor party But I I don't regret that one at all. That was a hundred percent like Huh? Okay. This is the world line thing you're coming back to like someone one of these coincidences where it's just like
01:12:27
Speaker
That kind of just worked out, although that may be less dramatic in this case, because if I would have looked up what the best man like process was later, I'd have been like, it's got to be Mike or Dave. So I beat Mike on a technicality. Awesome. Mm hmm. Yep. You got the tiebreaker by being the person I talked to first about it. Yeah.
01:12:56
Speaker
I would say that'd be the memory. That'd be the sappy memory to end on. But we grew up together also. That was the other joke answer that I didn't want to feed you, but it was there. Yeah.
01:13:11
Speaker
That would be funny if people are like trying to roughly track the chronology that we've laid out here. Like I was talking about moving across the country and stuff, and then we get to the end and it's like, and they grew up together and you're like, wait.
01:13:31
Speaker
Once Jake found the gal of his dreams, I had to fall him out here for college. David's just hanging on to the back of the car. 2000 miles. I was skitching. That was in there. That's the term. Skitchin'. We opened the truck to unpack it like air.
01:13:54
Speaker
Well, that's all I have. I don't want to drag this out for you, but thank you for being so open and intimate with us. Us being me and the listeners. Yeah. It's true. I'm trying. I'm trying to get up my 20%. Well, I'm going to get ready to smash here in a minute, but are there any final parting words you have for the audience?
01:14:23
Speaker
Yeah, thank you guys for listening to this episode. Actually, I appreciate that you stuck through this episode completely. Hopefully you've also checked out the Dave episode, like Dave was saying a month ago. I think that this is a glimpse into the alternate reality where we just talked about things a bit more instead of specifically video games, and in particular, more personal topics.
01:14:51
Speaker
It feels good. It feels good to talk about some of this stuff. So thank you guys for sticking around for it. Um, even past the commercial break, which we obviously had as we make money off us. Um, and, uh, also shout out to Dave for the insightful questions and reaching out to people. Thank you for those that submitted, uh, questions, I guess that he reached out to. I didn't expect that. Um, so Janaro and my wife, who I will just thank later, I guess. Um, and, uh,
01:15:21
Speaker
If you have any ideas for future episodes or things maybe you want to hear about us, trivia, who knows, you could send those ideas in to soapstonepodcast.com or you could join the discussion about our personal lives on Facebook at facebook.com slash soapstonepodcast. And as always, we'll see you in the next one. Have a good night.