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Episode 1 - Nostalgia and Video Games
31 Plays3 months ago
Ross and Gregg kick off Season 4 with a deep dive into nostalgia. From the forgotten joys of wall ball, pogs, and trading cards to VHS tapes, vinyl records, and vintage video games, they reminisce about the toys, collectibles, and media that shaped their childhoods. The conversation winds through quirky memories like Garfield lunchboxes, Game Boy accessories, and the evolution of collecting in the digital age. Tune in for a funny, relatable trip down memory lane as they explore what makes something truly nostalgic—and why some things should probably stay in the past.
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Transcript
Podcast Introduction
00:00:06
Speaker
You're listening to Unmotivated and Unprepared, a podcast where we take a break from the everyday hustle and bustle to muse about life, liberty, and the pursuit of randomness.
00:00:20
Speaker
Now here's Greg and Ross.
00:00:31
Speaker
What's up, everybody? Welcome to episode one, season four of Unmotivated and Unprepared. I'm Ross. And I'm Greg.
Recapping Last Season
00:00:40
Speaker
And Greg, it's been way too long, but you know last season, season three, we had six episodes, which is about right. That's what the pros do. Six to ten episodes. We want to keep people... I think they have subscribers, though, Ross. I don't know how many subscribers we have anymore.
00:00:56
Speaker
Well, that's okay. I mean, hey, look, if anybody...
Nostalgia and Childhood Games
00:00:58
Speaker
if this If this episode drops and people are like, oh my goodness, this just made my weekend, then they're goingnna be they're going to be pleased because we're going to have some nostalgia discussion.
00:01:09
Speaker
We're talk about some things of our past and nostalgia. But first off, welcome back to the madness, Greg. Like I said, it's been too long. Last time we were here, previously on Unmotivated and Unprepared, we talked about the Olympics and wall ball.
00:01:25
Speaker
And wall ball, yeah. And wall ball, which got me thinking because I was a very child. i mean and let I mean, unless you still play wall ball, I would assume that's a childhood thing. You go you go to the go to the go to your social club, be like, hey, guys, like when we finished drinking here, let's go play some wall ball.
00:01:43
Speaker
I did see a guy the other day ah playing tennis against himself against the wall of a bank. I thought that was interesting. he just Interesting. It's like seven o'clock at night on a Tuesday, and he was just hitting a tennis ball with a racket against a wall. So I guess it's a form of wall ball for adults. and he chose So he chose a bank to do it as well.
00:02:00
Speaker
It was probably the closest wall. What's the most inconspicuous wall that you could play wall ball against? I mean, I guess banks, restaurants, you know, something with graffiti on it. i don't know.
00:02:14
Speaker
I don't know how many restaurants going let you play wall ball in their parking lot, though. No, probably not. Probably not. A peggy of pedestrian gets you extra points. Yeah, Golden and golden Arches might might not appreciate that. That's true.
00:02:28
Speaker
But anyway, so that got me thinking. Let's talk a little nostalgia. You know, we had wall ball as a kid. I started thinking, like, what other what other sports or just odd things Did you play or see going on that you just don't see anymore? Or maybe you missed it.
00:02:49
Speaker
Did you play jacks as a kid? Did you hopscotch around? No, i and I was too old for pogs, I think, during the time. Oh, I loved pogs.
00:03:01
Speaker
i say I had so many pieces of cardboard. so Well, part of it was growing up in Europe that never, that never arrived there. And so I was only in the U S for one year at the end of middle school and during that time period. And pogs, I think had somewhat been popular, but I think I'd aged out of that age group for it.
00:03:22
Speaker
Did you, did you have a desire? Did did you, when you first saw pogs, not having been part of the, you know, the hype cycle of pogs, were you as confused as most people were?
00:03:34
Speaker
Like, why are people collecting milk caps? Well, the the cardboard, like, they had special sleeves. Remember that? They had, like, upper deck had special sleeves just for pogs. Because apparently... And I didn't like the idea of playing a game in which you would play the game and someone would take your pieces if they earned them. Like, so you paid money to then play a game to get somebody else's pogs. So why would you play with the good ones you have on your sleeve? Why wouldn't you just...
00:04:00
Speaker
Correct. It's not like it's trading cards where you trade someone for it and there's a level of like, oh, I want this because it's a value to me. You can have this. There's, oh, I won.
00:04:11
Speaker
i get your pog. yeah Speaking of trading cards though, it's really funny. As an older person now, because when i was a kid, I just wanted the sets, right? So, and I didn't want to sit and buy all of the packs of cards.
00:04:25
Speaker
So I would go the card show and just buy the sheets of the cards already made without opening packs, not realizing until I got older, quite bit older. Actually, this is probably something TikTok taught me because there's like people who open card packs on TikTok. Oh yeah. It's all about the pull, man. It's all about the pull. It's about getting special hologram or special.
00:04:46
Speaker
And then I realized, oh, at the trading shows, those guys were selling all the sets because they were just trying to pull holograms or special cards and they would keep getting duplicates and triplicates of the same cards they already had.
00:04:58
Speaker
Yeah. That was their, that was their side hustle of like making a little bit of extra money when they know the good stuff was trying to get, you know, first gen hollow Charizard. That was where it was at,
Media Collectibility and Evolution
00:05:08
Speaker
you know? Well, didn't have, I don't, remember I don't remember Pokemon cards growing up. I remember magic the gathering as I got older, but I didn't know Pokemon trading cards.
00:05:17
Speaker
In England, they do the soccer stickers. They do the stickers they put in the book. mean i didn't like I didn't know about those. Yeah. They're, they're made by a company called like panin Panini Panelin. Yeah. I think it's, i think well, Panini has cards too, I believe. Like, cause like some of the, some of the really unique, like one of one,
00:05:37
Speaker
soccer cards or football for those who actually know what it's called. um Those cards, they have unique ones as well, but I didn't know about the stickers. That's interesting. Yeah, they have a book and then you would get the stickers and if you got extra stickers, you would trade those stickers to try to get stickers that someone else had to put in your book. And so it was a, it was essentially it was a card, but you take the pet off the card or the face, the face, the portrait and stick it in your book. And the idea was try to collect all the stickers in your book.
00:06:08
Speaker
My brothers had those, but I was too old for that because i moved to England in high school. So I was too old for that by that point. But I'm trying to remember, ah used to get screwed on trading anything because I never knew what the value of anything was.
00:06:21
Speaker
No, you had to have like a book back then. Now you just Google it. Yeah, a Beckett guide. Now you just Google it. And it it takes kind of the fun out of like going in the Beckett guide and look and be like, ah, 22 cents. You know, I have an old wizard magazine, like up in the shelf, like wizard books.
00:06:38
Speaker
That might actually be worth something. It's very, very, very meta. Look up the value of the value guide. yeah her minds Yeah. I had an old wizard ah that would tell you the value of comic books. And I never had any comic books that were really worth a whole lot of money.
00:06:56
Speaker
And now I don't know if any comic books are worth that much money unless they're not unless they were. Yeah. Unless they're like really rare, old or limited edition. And then like really good. And like the grading quality stuff, like whoever came up with that, whatever, you know, company decided, you know, like PSA and stuff, we're going to grade these things. We're going to charge you look at it and tell you how good it is. That's, that's a good gig because there's no overhead. People just send you the cards.
00:07:23
Speaker
You look at it and be done. But I wonder if like technology is going to be at a place where one day you can take a picture of it and it'll tell you the PSA grade pretty much within, you know, like spot on is what I'm wondering.
00:07:37
Speaker
Well, I am interested by collections in general, right? So I... I have collections of things. I know we've had an episode on collections. I think we talked about collections, but, but I do think about things that people think collectors are interesting. Like VHS tapes are never going to be collectible. I don't care who anybody is. Like it doesn't seem like the fact that there's graded star Wars first edition VHS tapes. I mean, they made a lot of those.
00:08:03
Speaker
I don't know how collectible that really is. Yeah. What about laser disc? Same. I don't see how that's collectible. Also, the quality is not great. Like, isn't it about the ability to watch the item that it is to?
00:08:16
Speaker
Well, you would you would think until ah wait, I see my soapbox sliding in one second. I'm going to get a little taller records and vinyl.
00:08:27
Speaker
Because 30 years ago, I would have told you, no, the compact disc. is a far superior audio medium than the record. But now everybody collects vinyl and there's some vinyl that's worth a lot of money because it's rare and they had picture discs. So I guess, let me, let me back up, correct myself.
00:08:50
Speaker
There's some vinyl that is more unique because they'd have like picture disc pressings and more rare pressings. But The fact that people collect vinyl and like some older vinyl is important is like to me saying, oh, look at this old eight track, right? Like it doesn't, it to me, it's like, how is this going to get value? But I guess it's more in the rarity of what it is versus just the item.
00:09:15
Speaker
Well, I'm always thrown off by the vinyl argument, right? I imagine they're pretty, right? They look they look more attractive than CDs. they're They're bigger, right? The sound is warm, so I guess that's something.
00:09:27
Speaker
But back to media, I mean, it's heavy, right? ah they released They re-released Bon Jovi's Slippery When Wet, right? And that so it's a water LP.
00:09:39
Speaker
They actually put liquid inside of the pressings. So you can move it around and there's water. Although I don't know how they keep the balance. I don't think how they get the balance properly to play it because you've got to keep your record completely balanced at the waters around. That's called a remix.
00:09:55
Speaker
when it when yeah Swirls around. but But collections in general, like I, you know, because nostalgia plays into that, right? People collect things that they are nostalgic about.
00:10:09
Speaker
yeah right It's why you see a cycle now where baseball cards are coming back again. They want to show their kids what they collected when they were a kid. So it's coming back. I remember being a kid, my dad I got into Mad Magazine when I was probably 10 years old, and my dad used to have a ton of them when he was a kid. There's a picture of him with a bunch of Mad Magazines, but he got rid of all of them wow as he got older, so he didn't have them. I was bummed about it. But now, i don't I just got rid of all my Mad Magazines. Now, don't have children, but I got rid of all my Mad Magazines before I moved to Charlotte.
00:10:42
Speaker
And I got rid of them, namely because all of them are available digitally. And if I really want to read one, i can just it takes up a lot less space on a hard drive. Yes, yes, exactly. Like digital is for, for the most part, I know we could talk about movie collections all day long and Blu-rays of the superiority of quality of something versus digital. But it it was the same for me. Like when i when I realized, cause I had a bunch of old Nintendo magazines, like Nintendo power, electronic gaming monthly. And course those are probably worth a lot of money now.
00:11:17
Speaker
I gave them away in college forever. And I'm just like, eh, I don't need them anymore because they're all digital. i can all they're like I can go to the internet archive and look up any one of those. every Yeah.
00:11:28
Speaker
Find it. Exactly. I can find the cheat codes if I needed to. Well, i don't know. I mean, that's the question, right? There is a sense of the tactile
Nostalgic Toys and Games
00:11:37
Speaker
nature. So books, people who collect books are interesting, right? Because I have a few books that I really like that I've kept.
00:11:42
Speaker
And I do, if I really like a book, I do purchase it, namely because I don't like the idea of giving someone money for a digital copy of a book. Yeah, But then I think that's also our our attitudes towards loosely based piracy these days. But anyways, um the digital thing is interesting because when it comes to like, say, Blu-rays or movies or those things, yeah, 4K is a superior quality, yet there's debatable about how much you really notice.
00:12:12
Speaker
about Dolby seven versus Dolby eight versus HDR versus. Yeah, the perception of it, like you have to be attuned to that, like being an audiophile for music or being a video file or, you know, cinema file for for video. but But I do think, you know, if it's just the format at which it comes in, right? So a Blu-ray, if copied to a digital hard drive, now that hard drives are large enough that you can store a large collection, there's difference. long as you've enough of connection. Yeah, there's no distinguishable difference.
00:12:41
Speaker
Right. There's a difference between a Netflix quality movie and a movie on a Blu-ray disc, but that's because of a compressed technology, a compression that's designed to bring it to your TV. But now the collecting of the disc is interesting question because will I be nostalgic about DVDs? No. Will I be nostalgic about Blu-rays? Probably not. Will I be nostalgic about 4K UHD?
00:13:02
Speaker
Probably not. So what makes something nostalgic is an interesting question. think it's, I think it's, it's all it's, if you have, I mean, one, cause you can't really say it's the value of it because value, like when you were first using it, it didn't have the value. Shouldn't be monetary value. It's intrinsic, like fun value.
00:13:23
Speaker
Or like, I look at like toys that I had and stuff that's nostalgic. You know, I, you know, scroll through and I dig through my stuff and I find my old game boy color. I'm like, oh, cool. It's like purple translucent.
00:13:35
Speaker
I still have a couple of the cartridges, but I'm like, eh, I just play on my Switch and I have all of those games. So while the Game Boy is nostalgic, it was the intrinsic fun that I had, i can i can do that somewhere else. it's It's not like I can no longer do that, which we'll talk about in a future episode, things that won't exist.
00:13:56
Speaker
And then all of a sudden you'd think about that concept. But for me... You know, I look at like toys that I played with and nostalgia of it. Like I had the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the the van that would shoot the pizz the plastic pizza slices out or the pizzas out of it. Like the yeah that was so that was so cool. I would ah legit would probably play with that for an hour right now, which in today's day and age of, you know, very, very, very, very low attention span, an hour would be a good amount of time in today's day and age. I would totally do that right now if you drove one of those in front of me right now.
00:14:31
Speaker
Absolutely. Well, how much of that now, now in toys, it that's, mean, part of it, I think is people in their twenties that couldn't afford it when they were teens. They don't have kids yet. They spend their adult money on really weird things on whatnot.
00:14:44
Speaker
Yeah. ah But there's also a time window for those things, right? So care bears, I remember when people are in our generation started to have kids really, as we got into our late twenties, into our early thirties, you began to see troll dolls come back. You saw care bears come and troll doll came back when we were kids.
00:15:01
Speaker
right? Trolls came back when we were kids because it was nostalgic of our parents. Uh, so you do see that cycle. I don't know if that's how, how perpetual that is, but my little ponies back on, I mean, bronies aside, but my little ponies back and people buy those for their kids. So i mean, maybe I, think the I think the digitization of things and things becoming digital waters that down, right? Like you think of like, if I had a kid and like you hear people like, Oh, I had kids and they, uh,
00:15:31
Speaker
started them on old video game systems and they didn't start them on the PS five and they started them on like a old Nintendo 64 super NES. Then and the kid was like, their mind is blown every two years when they would introduce a new console to them.
00:15:44
Speaker
Yeah. Like that's, that's different. But when you grow up with the thing of the time and it's new of its kind, it's different than when it's recycled. don't know. Well, what do you think?
00:15:56
Speaker
Do you think, kids from this generation are going to give their kids when they get older an iPad 4 to remind them of what iPads were like. when No. Exactly. It's not because we have planned we have obsolescence now.
00:16:07
Speaker
Obsolescence of things just being obsolete. It's like, and maybe that's why, Greg, to take a hard left, maybe that's why I don't see as many pogo sticks around anymore.
00:16:18
Speaker
Because...
00:16:22
Speaker
or baas or Because you can't really evolve that much more without it being incredibly dangerous. I'm sure there's World Pogo Championships, which have these like hyper spring-loaded pogo sticks, but it's a toy. It's a mechanical thing. And maybe that's part of it. The mechanical things, maybe those get recycled just in a different style. The big wheel, for instance.
00:16:44
Speaker
i I could see kids riding on big wheels for the next 200 years because guess what? That is a motor function device that is an absolute blast. If I could ride one around the world. You like power big wheels? totally wheels was the trike with the big wheels. Yeah, big wheels. Or you mean power wheels. No, no, I mean like the trike with like the plastic. The big giant wheel in the front. Yeah, yeah. Like I would totally drive one of those around at work and people probably be like. have to make it bigger though, Ross. It's a little small.
00:17:17
Speaker
Have you seen clowns before? They can do some incredible stuff. Like yeah I've seen clown on a bike. So, but, but dad, so from a nostalgia perspective, what are you nostalgic about
Market and Personal Nostalgia
00:17:30
Speaker
Ross?
00:17:30
Speaker
Oh man. I, I think, you know, you, you, you hit the nail on the head with, with the card, like playing card stuff, but I was the same way. It was more about collecting the set.
00:17:42
Speaker
Um, I think for me, what's funny is for me, it was the things that I interacted with like close friends and family.
00:17:53
Speaker
right? So games that we played with friends and family, even, even games that I swear we made up like power base, which is like some weird version of tag where it's like the last person to leave their base has more power to tag the other person, but like that. And then like, um, just even TV shows commercials.
00:18:15
Speaker
Like I remember, I remember some commercials while I don't, while I hate seeing advertisements on YouTube right now, because you know, I don't buy the ad-free YouTube and all of it's just trying to sell me on some sort of healthy greens.
00:18:29
Speaker
I do kind of miss the old advertisements on TV where they tried really hard to get your attention. Like kiss a little longer, stay close little longer. Yes, stay close a little longer.
00:18:41
Speaker
See, you remember some of them. But like like, I think it's, yeah. ah Kool-Aid Man. Oh, yeah. Yeah. The Double Mint Gum. I still sing the Double Mint Gum jingle. Do you?
00:18:51
Speaker
Oh, man. Yeah. there was a my grandparents, so there was some nostalgia. My grandparents would watch the three stooges, which one could argue whether or not that ages well.
00:19:03
Speaker
Go, go look up a three stooges episode. I guess it just depends on, depends on the episode. But anyways, there was a, a law firm that would always advertise Rodney D. Young, and they probably still exist. Yeah, Rodney D. Young's still around, yeah. It was like, think young, Rodney D. Young. And I'm like, I still remember that as like a six-year-old child hearing that over and over again. And I'm like, man, that was a good jingle.
00:19:31
Speaker
Everybody knows the Stanley Steamer jingle, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, so there's, there's just those ones out there. So for me, it was very much things that were kind of intertwined. Like i remember going home and watching like afternoon TV, you know, that was very, that was very, that was very nostalgic for me.
00:19:51
Speaker
But like, you know, I think it's a matter of nostalgia for me. I bucketed into, you know, stuff, you know, the activities that you did and then just kind of everything in between.
00:20:05
Speaker
But is there something, i mean, likes let's say you go to a flea market or something. Is there something that you would see? and maybe we've aged out, right? Because maybe we're now at the point where we've got too much stuff and we're trying to lighten our loads as opposed to add to it.
00:20:18
Speaker
But if you went to a flea market, is there something you would see that you'd be like, wow, that's from my childhood. I need to get that.
00:20:25
Speaker
It's funny you say that. I think it would probably be.
00:20:32
Speaker
It's going to be music memorabilia, ironically, when I just said that, but it's going to be things that I either couldn't afford or my parents wouldn't let me have, right? Or I couldn't buy, right? Like an album from somebody that I couldn't buy that like is like ah like a rare version of that or something that didn't exist much.
00:20:52
Speaker
But I think that's that's that's some of it, you know? But I mean, like also me going to a flea market looking at stuff, I'll get way too many trinkets, you know? I got, I got trinkets for days. I've got a, I got a Koopa Troopa Hot Wheels car sitting here right in front of me. Right. Like, like I just got, so the little toys are what you, what you absolutely, right. Like a little toy, that little sticky, that little sticky finger thing, you know, that you slap up against the, you know, stuff. used to have a collection from Hardee's.
00:21:25
Speaker
I had a collection of California raisin toys that I'd gotten. Oh yeah. Yep. Yep. And I think if I saw those, those little figurines, I might pick up those.
00:21:36
Speaker
Something Garfield related for me. Old like Garfield and Friends. like Yeah. What was the gentleman? at loren Was it Lorenzo? What was his name? The guy who did the voice of Garfield in Garfield and Friends.
00:21:48
Speaker
He passed away a few years ago. Gosh, it'll come to me eventually. But like old school, like Garfield stuff. I would get that. Like lunchboxes. You know, cause I'd ever never like, you know, I was a, I was a paper sack kid. don mind you Did you ever have a lunchbox?
00:22:03
Speaker
No, no, I did. I did. Oh, shoot. should call my mom live on the podcast. Ask her what it was. It was red.
00:22:13
Speaker
Can't remember it. I know it wasn't a Garfield one. It might've been either Ninja Turtles or
00:22:21
Speaker
wasn't Transformers. My brother had, think he had like a metal.
00:22:29
Speaker
like metal lunchbox, even not even the plastic one, ones that you could really defend yourself from the bullies with, you know, not saying I advocate violence, but you know, bullying is a bad thing and we need to end it.
00:22:40
Speaker
But like Elon's metal lunchboxes are little flips on there. Yeah. So yeah, if I, if I saw an old school lunchbox, like I would take one of those as some sort of weird flex, I would take that to work and put it in the refrigerator. You have a Garfield lunchbox.
00:22:54
Speaker
Yeah, like I would totally take that to work and put it in the fridge. Anything Funko Pop related that I see that's like old school that reminds me of something, I get. that's why Don't tempt me, Ross. I will buy you a Garfield lunchbox.
00:23:08
Speaker
ah Mine was, I had Dino Riders. I had a red Dino Riders lunchbox. Riders. Dino Riders. It was like a short-term cartoon, I think, at one point.
00:23:20
Speaker
ah But yeah, I remember it very well. Yeah. yeah Yeah, I think I probably had something Land Before Time related before I was way too cool for Land Before Time. You know, there's those things that like you quickly become too cool for. Like one year later, the kid's like, know.
00:23:43
Speaker
Littlefoot, come on. I don't think so.
00:23:48
Speaker
I'm into Alice in Chains, not Littlefoot. It's like, oh, okay. Okay, sure. Yeah, you just went straight to grunge in 92. All right. But yeah, I think I think the I would do a lunchbox.
00:24:00
Speaker
I would totally do a lunchbox. And I know you're looking for one right now. You're going to. Oh, yeah. I'm looking. I'm looking for a Garfield lunchbox. I'm going to get I'm to get a shot. I will take it to work and I will absolutely take a picture of it in the in the fridge work. Somebody at work had a Wimbledon.
00:24:19
Speaker
like lunchbox. I was like, that was real. That's real fancy. I just, I just go straight like function, you know, on my lunchbox over, over something fancy at this point, just needs to keep my stuff cool.
00:24:33
Speaker
That's funny. I'm to get you a lunchbox for us.
00:24:39
Speaker
Today's episode brought to you by Garfield Lunchboxes. Yeah, sponsored by Greg buying Ross Lunchboxes.
Nostalgia and Clutter
00:24:46
Speaker
But yeah, no, I could see that. I could see being nostalgic for a lunchbox. I don't know what else.
00:24:50
Speaker
i
00:24:53
Speaker
what about What about your parents? Do your parents, if your parents were at a flea market with you, is there something they would see that they would be like, this we need to have? Because I do feel as you get older, you start to have more trinkets and knickknacks?
00:25:11
Speaker
Well, I don't know. It's weird. I think, I think there's a place where. was that a generational thing? No, my parents are getting to the point where they've decided to downsize. Like they're getting to the point of wanting to get out of their big house, go to the smaller house.
00:25:25
Speaker
yeah And they still have like my great grandmother's tea set or something else that, everybody's got some, everybody's got some two sets and some China that we're never going want that.
00:25:35
Speaker
Keep it around. Yeah. Uh, but yeah, there's always, i think, I mean, there are the hoarders out there, obviously that, that hoard a lot of stuff. Yeah. But I think as you get older, you start to get to the point of getting rid of things.
00:25:51
Speaker
One thing I can't get rid of. Yeah, what I can't get rid of is cables. Like I always have a ton of cables and I don't know why I need to go through it. like I don't even know what half of them go to anymore, but I put them in the cable box and they're just sitting there with all the other cables.
00:26:05
Speaker
It's a micro USB to mini HDMI. Wait, what? That doesn't even translate. you can't send You can't send a video signal. Who tricked me into buying that off of?
00:26:17
Speaker
Yeah. Of Alibaba, you know, I finally, I finally, I finally threw away some, and I had one that was a microphone jack to RCA cables.
00:26:28
Speaker
I'm never going to need that. But back in the day, you needed that, right? Because you need to go out of your computer into that, but you don't do that anymore. No, not at all. I found, I found my old Game Boy link cable where you would link up to Game Boys to play Tetris on.
00:26:47
Speaker
Yeah. I, I took, I kid you not, I took a picture of it and put it on Google lens to see what it was. Cause I was like, i don't recognize this port. And it was the game boy.
00:26:58
Speaker
Now that I could have probably hawked on eBay since there's once again, nostalgia of people probably linking up, you know, heaven forbid we have a social interaction. 10 bucks.
00:27:10
Speaker
You get it for 10 bucks. How, but yeah. how many looks do you think you would get if you went to like some sort of public place, like a park and both, both people busted out there, like toaster size game boy and had the link cable that was always a little bit too short to where you were uncomfortably close to the person and started playing Tetris against a full blast on the volume, you know, burn through those double A batteries real quick.
00:27:35
Speaker
Like I think that would be a fun experiment. Yeah, I was, I was thinking about the those devices the other day, right? And I was thinking about Game Boy. And if you've hooked up all the stuff to Game Boy, you know, the magnifier thing and the speakers and the whatever. Your Game Boy lasted 10 minutes.
00:27:52
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You, you had to have rechargeable double A batteries cause you couldn't even make it through a level something. you remember the rechargeable battery pack you could buy for it? It weighed like 17 pounds and you stuck it in the bag and then like, yeah, the game boy was heavy enough itself, but I mean, that was not, don't get me wrong. That was a game changer.
00:28:11
Speaker
Like that was Nintendo did it right with that. But yeah, I had the little light, little like snake light thing that hung from the top so you could see at night. Did you have the magnifying glass thing? I had that. I didn't, I didn't have the mag i knew about it i didn't have the magnifying glass.
00:28:24
Speaker
the Like a cheater, cheater for your Game Boy so you could see it better. You know, you could see it bigger, but it was, it was a big screen.
00:28:33
Speaker
And now it's crazy to watch it. Like if you hook your switch up to, to a TV or whatever, and you see a Game Boy game, it's giant. It's like, Oh wow. Yeah. Right. ah Play, play some Game Boy game. I was like, really? I sat there and squinted at that on like a,
00:28:48
Speaker
three inch by three inch screed for hours on a bus trip to go to some mathlete, you know, competition. Yeah. It's just, that's where it's at. That was where it's at though. do you remember your favorite game on Game Boy?
00:29:03
Speaker
Um, I remember Super Nintendo. I mean, Game Boy for me, I put a lot of hours into Tetris from a deep cut perspective. I would probably say solar striker, solar striker, solar striker,
00:29:18
Speaker
I remember that. And then Choplifter, which Choplifter was basically you fly along in a helicopter and you drop little bombs on the on the places that are shooting you. And then you land and you pick up people, which when you think about it, I'm like, wait a minute, I'm literally picking up civilians in a war zone right now. yeah That's, that's, that's what the game was. Like it was training me. I was like, Oh yeah, yeah. This is your, you're picking up civilians here and you had to pick up a certain number of people and you could like squash them or like accidentally drop your little pixel bomb on the person. yeah Oops.
00:29:50
Speaker
It's just bizarre stuff, but yeah. Choplifter and solar striker were two that were like deep cuts, but like for popular ones, I mean, of course, super Mario land loved super Mario land. That was good.
00:30:03
Speaker
And Tetris of course is just a classic, but what about you? Balloon kid. Balloon kid. Yeah, balloon kid. You would basically take balloons. and You had two balloons and you would take off.
00:30:14
Speaker
And your goal was to collect coins. Obviously, you're floating. Was to collect coins without the crow or the fish eating you out of the water, basically. Wow. was And I could get through like three levels. And that's about as far as I could get. Because games back then, they only had eight levels. And they were so hard. Once you got past the first two, you were...
00:30:33
Speaker
It'd be hours of gameplay trying to figure out how to get through. you think these, do you think these developers at the time were under the influence of any, uh, narcotics? Like, yeah like, like, like balloon kid. Let's go for it.
00:30:46
Speaker
Yeah. How, like the ideas they kept with, but yeah, you had two balloons. And if you pop boat balloons and you fell into the water or you fell to the ground and died, but you could actually pop your balloons on the ground and be safe.
00:30:56
Speaker
But then if you get it to, but, and and let them go. But if you did it, and you were on a place where there wasn't anything else, that you you can't make new balloons. Oh, yeah. so its like Absolutely not. that's That doesn't work. You're balloon kid, but you can't make balloons. No, you can't.
00:31:11
Speaker
No, I think you were a girl with pigtails. and Of course, I like the the Mario games, golf and baseball, like all the generic Nintendo. I still have Mario Tennis, like the Game Boy Color. I still have that one in my closet. somewhere that's what That's the one thing I'll still play on my Game Boy Color. I have one cartridge. I'm like, I'll play Mario Tennis.
00:31:28
Speaker
That's what I think. I think those kinds of games are easier for platforms. Hence the Wee's whole argument, right? They're easier for platforms because they don't take anything to figure it out. It's a game you already kind of know the rules to. And its that's it.
00:31:41
Speaker
You still can't ever beat the second person you'd come up against, but you know, you've got one round in. Yeah. They make them like incredibly difficult to where, and know you just, you just try over and over again.
00:31:52
Speaker
wonder if there's a, if there's a market for, I'm sure this exists, like somebody Twitch streaming, like really, really oddball old school retro video games like your balloon one or chop lifter know people are just streaming those but who's gonna watch it like there was a game when i was a kid it was a game called worm it was spelled w.u.r.m.
00:32:16
Speaker
and it stood for something like world under whatever something i don't know and you basically it was two different types of gameplay one was you were a Like, looked like that drill. Like, you had a car with a drill on the end of it. and you can And the first level, you could drive. The second level, you could actually fly. Because apparently, that's what happens when you have a spaceship with a screw drop, like a drill bit at attached to you.
00:32:42
Speaker
course, yeah. And then there were levels where you had to go and actually, like, walk through, like, kind of a scroller Metroid kind of thing where you shot characters or whatever. Trippy. I don't know if I want to watch someone play that game.
00:32:54
Speaker
I don't even know if I want to play the game. I mean, have you seen some of the stuff that's on Twitch? And I mean, honestly, if we make it this far, have you seen some of the people that listen to a podcast 32 minutes long?
00:33:07
Speaker
So like, if they'd listen to us, they'd watch Wyrm. That's fair. That's fair. We should, we should go investigate. If there isn't, we should start playing those weird games.
00:33:18
Speaker
And we'll let be like play like, and, and the great part is like, we wouldn't have the attention span to play very long either. Like it would be, it would be five minutes to be like, this is God awful. Like, why would you, how, like, why did I spend at the time? What were video games back then? How much would they cost? Like $25? I
Gaming Nostalgia and Modern Reflections
00:33:37
Speaker
don't remember. sometimes I remember up to 40 bucks, but yeah. like Yeah. What is the legend that the but the reason Konami made Ninja Turtle so hard so that kids would feel like,
00:33:49
Speaker
they got their money's parents would feel like they got their money's worth for their kids. Cause the kids would be playing it and so much. Right. And then they, then they learned the Konami code and they're like, well, hold up. You can't just give them 30 lives. They're going to be bored with it pretty soon. It's like, no, no, no.
00:34:01
Speaker
You need that many lives too for Contra. I promise. Yeah. You can't beat it. I've never, I've never, I'm never, I've never, I don't think I ever got past level two or three on Contra with just the three lives.
00:34:13
Speaker
You die all the time. he can Even with 30 lives, I don't think um think I got halfway through the game. um When is this? And then they come out with Super Contra. I'm like, why do you need to make it super? The first one was hard. Yeah, I know.
00:34:25
Speaker
So hard. And then it doesn't make any sense either. like so you're fighting a human-based army, and then you're fighting aliens and some weird Hydra head thing in a cave? Well, I mean, it was it's the future.
00:34:37
Speaker
So... You know, we might be fighting human-based and aliens soon, too. We also probably should have read the Skrull story. I don't ever think I've ever read the Skrull story. No, no, you just go through it.
00:34:48
Speaker
You just go through it. Just move on. and listen youre you're You're eight years old. Come on. You're like, why am I reading this in text? <unk>re They're like, you know, you sit there, you boot up Contra and you're like, hurry up, go. I'm not one of those Pokemon nerds that sits there and read stuff all the time. Come on, let's move on.
00:35:04
Speaker
I mean, I was one. so And then that's the weird part, right? I think this episode turned into video games, but like the Final Fantasy game actually had the battery in it that would store your game. That would store your same game. Which it's kind of like now and like the Pokemon ones had like a time-based thing because like at certain time you could catch something when they got further on. It's like, oh, the battery is still good.
00:35:26
Speaker
everything else. So yeah, it was, they, they started getting very complex, you know, and they kind of pushed, they pushed things forward with that. So, yeah, that was fun. I, I enjoyed, like I said, I mean, I think a lot of our, our generation was the first one to really, I'd say, I mean, Gen X, older Gen X generation would say, no, there was Atari's, there was the like video game, arcade games existed, but in the home,
00:35:54
Speaker
and readily accessible and then portable. I think a lot of our nostalgia goes around some of that because also that's also how you interacted with your friends because you didn't play online. So when you wanted to play with your friends, everybody would come over or you'd sit oh awkwardly close to them and link up on a Game Boy.
00:36:11
Speaker
So you still had that trash talking going on. So I think there's, there actually was some nostalgia there too about the memories that you made. but Well, and the quality control change, right? Because Atari was just, anybody could publish anything for it. And so parents didn't know if the games were any good. Yeah, and talk about unhinged.
00:36:27
Speaker
yeah Yeah. Like, absolutely. Like so many. They just published so many dumb games that they were just trying to put out as many titles as possible. And I mean, I mean, kind of the Netflix problem, right?
00:36:38
Speaker
Mm-hmm. Too much content. There's not, they're making too much stuff. It's making it annoying. just throw some spaghetti against the wall. Yeah, absolutely. So. Well, this is good, Greg. I know we're, ah we're already six minutes over our, what we try to self-regulate never do time of 30 minutes.
00:36:54
Speaker
So, but hopefully most people have made it through traffic on their commute into work and love, love return to office.
Episode Conclusion
00:37:03
Speaker
So, Greg, it was good talking to you.
00:37:06
Speaker
let's not Let's not make this a once or twice a year. I mean, we got to at least, you know, we'll at least have to we gotta do six episodes, six to 10 episodes per season. So we've got to commit to that before the end of the year. But we've got a couple other things we want to talk about soon. But Greg, as always, it was a pleasure chatting with you, man.
00:37:23
Speaker
Always. See you, Russ. See you, Greg.
00:37:29
Speaker
Thanks for listening Unmotivated and Unprepared. Join us again next time as we continue to meander through random topics at a pace defined by our mood, the weather, and what happened five minutes earlier.